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SUDAN / CPA BLUE NILE STATE
STORY: SUDAN / CPA BLUE NILE STATE
TRT: 1:58
SOURCE: UNMIS
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH /ARABIC / NATS
DATELINE: 25 JANUARY 2011, ED DAMAZIN, SUDAN
1. Wide shot, people arriving in a tractor
2. Med shot, people getting down from the tractor
3. Wide shot, people in line registering
4. Med shot, women in line
5. Med shot, men signing up
6. Close up, man’s face as he waits
7. Med shot, man holding card with numbers
8. Wide shot, map of Sudan
9. Med shot, map of Sudan show Southern Kordofan and Blue
Nile
10. Wide shot, till down, people inside a tent
11. Med shot, sign reading “Blue Nile State Popular
Consultations”
12. Med shot, women hold the number cards
13. Wide shot, men holding their cards at the consultations
14. Med shot, man talking at the hearings
15. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Al Sadig Musa, Resident, Khor Adar village:
"The government has made our lives easy by ending the war, but there is still no development in the area. We want development in our village the same there is development in the towns and cities."
16. Wide shot, man speaking at the hearings
17. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Abdel Nasser, Resident, Dindoro village:
“The source of electricity is from our state yet it goes about our heads and we have to use candles and lanterns. We have water running underneath our feet but we do not have piped water, we have to walk for long distances to get water with buckets.”
18. Close up, women at hearing
19. SOUNDBITE (English) Martha Pocho, Member of Parliament in Damazin:
“Up till now we didn’t get anything from 2005 when they made a signature we didn’t get anything that is why popular consultation should give us out rights.”
20. Wide shot, popular consultation hearings
As the dust settles on the just concluded south Sudan self-determination referendum, with preliminary results already showing over 98 percent voted for cessation, another process is also underway in Sudan’s central region.
Thousands of Blue Nile State residents are coming out in numbers to have their voices heard in public hearings known as “popular consultations.”
The daily public forums which began on 14 January 2011 are provided for by the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).
According to the CPA, south Sudan was to hold a referendum on the 9 January this year, while the transitional areas of Abyei, Southern Kordafan and Blue Nile were accorded special status. Abyei was meant to hold a parallel referendum at the same time as southern Sudan but disagreement on the eligibility criteria led to its postponement.
The special status for South Kordofan and Blue Nile states was due to their geographical placement in the north of the country, and their role as frontlines during the Sudan conflict. During the war, many residents of these two states supported the south and joined the rebellion against the north, also citing marginalization and discrimination by the Khartoum government.
With the signing of the CPA, both Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile were not given the option of self-determination like south Sudan as they both lay north of the acknowledged 1956 border line.
Instead, as in Blue Nile, they are now undertaking a process of “popular consultation” to decide on whether the CPA met their needs and is a satisfactory “final settlement” in ending Sudan’s two-decade long civil war.
If not, then they would negotiate with the government of Sudan to come up with a solution to fix any shortcomings in the constitutional, political and administrative arrangements of the Agreement.
Residents have been turning out in large numbers filling tents to shield them from the heat during the public forums. In Musfa village in Baw locality, most residents acknowledged security as a positive outcome of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, but claimed an urgent need for development.
SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Al Sadig Musa, Resident, Khor Adar village:
"The government has made our lives easy by ending the war, but there is still no development in the area. We want development in our village the same there is development in the towns and cities."
Like Musa, many of the people here talk of a lack of basic services and having to walk for miles to get water even though the state is known for its minerals and a hydro dam that powers much of the north.
SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Abdel Nasser, Resident, Dindoro village:
“The source of electricity is from our state yet it goes about our heads and we have to use candles and lanterns. We have water running underneath our feet but we do not have piped water, we have to walk for long distances to get water with buckets.”
Many participants welcomed the process to freely express their needs, while acknowledging that they lacked such freedoms before peace came. Besides advocating for better services, some people said they wanted a federation for Blue Nile, while others pushed for autonomy which is the Sudan People Liberation Movement's preferred form of governance.
Martha Pocho, a member of parliament in the state capital Damzine, said she, like most of the people here, have not seen the dividends of peace and popular consultation should give them their right to something better.
SOUNDBITE (English) Martha Pocho, Member of Parliament in Damazin:
“Up till now we didn’t get anything from 2005 when they made a signature we didn’t get anything that is why popular consultation should give us out rights.”
Public hearings for popular consultations are expected to continue until 2 February at some 100 hearing centres across the state's localities.
Once consultations are concluded, the Popular Consultation Parliamentary Commission will consider speakers’ opinions and submit a report to the state assembly. If the assembly decides the CPA has failed to satisfy Blue Nile people, it will negotiate with the national government to rectify shortcomings in the constitutional, political, administrative and economical arrangements of the CPA to ensure faithful implementation of the agreement.
The popular consultation was meant to have taken place by the fourth year of the CPA implementation in 2009, but it was delayed due to delay in the elections.
In south Kordofan, the process has still not kicked off because elections were not held in the State due to disagreements between the SPLM and the National Congress Party (NCP) over results of the population census and delimitation of geographical constituencies.
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