Do we sit by this time and watch the vulture eat?

"Kevin Carter’s Pulitzer Prize winning photo taken in 1993 during the Sudanese famine.  The picture depicts a famine stricken child being stalked by a vulture.  The child is crawling towards a United Nations food camp, located a kilometer away.   No one knows what happened to the child, including the photographer who left the scene as soon as the photo was taken.  He later confided to friends that he wished he had intervened.  Journalists at the time were warned never to touch famine victims for fear of disease.  Three months later, and only weeks after being bestowed with the Pulitzer Prize, Kevin Carter committed suicide."   http://csgraphi.wordpress.com/2010/11/07/kevin-carter-vulture/

Once again a small town in Southern Sudan will be on the world stage.  

A small town called Ayod that was once an epicentre of a famine that struck the region in 1993 could now be in the epicenter of a secessionist vote that will directly effect Chinese, American relations as well as potentially the stability of the Horn of Africa.

After  the wholesale rape and war of Christians on Muslims, tribes on tribes, PDF on Janjaweed, blacks on Arabs,  and of course the civilian population always being the worst off in any war..... 

Sudan is on the verge of peace... 

Sudan also teeters on genocide.

Evil has been done on both sides.

This is now the time for reconciliation and moving forward....

Canadian-funded helicopters were used in 2007 to evacuate Nigerian AMIS peacekeepers, wounded when their camp was attacked by rebels.(Photo: Stuart Price / Albany Associates)

On January 9th the people of the south Sudan will have an opportunity to vote on succession from the north, effectively splitting Africa's largest country in two.

 Are we in the west prepared for the outcome?

Of course nothing as simple as pure hatred, there is in fact many reasons and one is the location of oil reserves in the area that could be the southern Sudan.  The south has the oil and the transportation and the refinery equipment is located in the north. This has funded a genocide in Darfur and wholesale slaughter of villages, towns and provinces.  Not surprisingly the oil minister is a supporter of Sudanese unity.  Most of the oil is recovered by Chinese companies and they have a direct influence and desire for a unity outcome. We are entering an era of a true oil cold war between Beijing and the West.

This time its actually about the oil, $1.3 trillion in oil reserves

"Beijing has "a vested interest in the continuation of a low level of insecurity. It keeps the other major investors out," charged the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) in a 2002 report. The report argued that China welcomes the absence of real peace in Sudan as enhancing its business opportunities, whatever the cost to southern Sudanese civilians: "There is [on the part of the Chinese] an almost total disregard for the human rights implications of their investments."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0626/p01s08-woaf.html

 Omar Hassan al-Bahsir,  Sudan president with the charges being  "genocide by killing, genocide by causing serious bodily or mental harm and genocide by deliberately inflicting on each target group conditions of life calculated to bring about the group's physical destruction", as well as seven counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes. ICC 2010. 

There are currently 26 000 UN/ African union troops in the region and all with the mandate  of ensuring the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (Naivasha Agreement) between the government of the Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement on January 9, 2005 in Nairobi, Kenya.

The Government of Southern Sudan was created by the rebels to develop a constitution and if the referendum on succession is successful to create a new country in Africa.

So what can we do in the west?  Support any Sudanese missions in your country.  Read and study web sites and information about the referendum.  Read the history and support companies that will do business with the South.

Ensure that African issues and especially this African issue does not fall into the history books as another mistake... like Rwanda, like Uganda, like the Congo....

Help Africans help themselves.

"The Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) shall establish, develop and maintain good relations and cooperation with foreign governments, Foreign Non-governmental organizations and associations for mutual advantage in trade, investment, culture, sports, education, credit, loans, grants, technical assistance and other fields of development Cooperation.”

Constitutional mandate of the Government of Southern Sudan

www.gossmission.org

Government of Southern Sudan

www.goss.org

United Nations Mission in Sudan

(Currently Canada is only supporting 30 positions for both missions in a police capacity and DFAIT capacity)

http://unmis.unmissions.org

United Nations Mission in Darfur

http://unamid.unmissions.org

Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army
www.splmtoday.com

There are feel good pictures about Sudan.....

RCMP Constable James Splinter meets a girl in the Lakes state, Southern Sudan

Canadian-funded Gila mine-resistant armoured personnel carriers leave South Africa in this 2009 photo.(Photo: IVEMA)

Canada has loaned over 100 armoured vehicles to the troop-contributing countries of the joint United Nations-African Union mission in Sudan. Here, two Canadian Forces "Grizzly" armoured vehicles in theatre of operations.(Photo: DND)