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SUDAN: Slow start to census

24 Apr 2008 15:09:19 GMT
Source: IRIN

Background

• South Sudan fragile peace

MALAKAL, 24 April 2008 (IRIN) - After living in Ethiopia for 14 years, Reak Chuol recently returned to his native Southern Sudan, keen to take part in a population census whose findings will influence the status of the region.

"I am not sure why, for two days now, my family have waited for the enumerators to count us but we have not seen them," he said in Malakal, Upper Nile State. "If they were short of people to employ, they should have recruited more." Despite assurances by organisers that all was going well, many people in Upper Nile experienced delays before taking part in Sudan's fifth census, which began on 22 April.

While the first day of the census was declared a public holiday, enumerators were largely hampered in their work by logistical problems. "We have covered only a fraction of the targeted population in my area, but it is going well," a census supervisor, who requested anonymity, said in Malakal. Some 60,000 enumerators have been recruited, at a cost of just over US$100 million. Diplomats monitoring the exercise, due to run until 6 May, said heavy rains, making roads difficult to navigate; insecurity in the western areas of the state; incomplete preparations in some areas; and mixed messages from politicians days before the count were responsible for the slow start. "The process has been very protracted, but we should expect preliminary data in four to six months' time," said Dragudi Buwa, head of the UN Population Fund in Southern Sudan, told IRIN in Juba, capital of Southern Sudan. The fund, with other UN agencies, has provided most of the technical assistance, including personnel training and mapping. "I am satisfied that everything is in place," Postponements

However, problems have dogged the exercise from the beginning, leading to several postponements and wrangling over the questionnaires. And even when it all appeared set, Southern leaders raised an objection with barely a week to go. The questions, they said, had missed out key issues such as ethnicity and religion, which would be important determinants of whether one was Southern or Northern Sudanese. In addition, as repatriation of Southerners from the North was still far from complete, funds for the census had yet to be disbursed, and preparedness was generally incomplete. The government in Khartoum, however, stuck to its guns, issuing a presidential decree that the count would go ahead. Southern President Salva Kiir Mayardit, it said, had agreed. However, sources in Juba said this put Kiir in a spot, forcing him to disregard some of his own ministers.

"There are an estimated two million Southerners in the North," one said. "The South fears that they could be included among the northern population - and that is a large voting population come elections in 2009." Determined that the count go ahead, the Southern census commission issued a statement: "Even if internally displaced people who are still in the North do not come back for the census, their numbers will be reflected in the final Southern Sudan population figure." "Census politicised" Aid workers say after initial misgivings, the Southern Sudan government came under pressure to accept the census plan. "The whole exercise was politicised," one aid worker said in Juba. "For example, ethnicity and religion are not core questions - rather they are political questions, if the purpose is to establish demographic trends. Yet this became an area of controversy." Apart from the election issue, Southern leaders are particularly sensitive about the numbers of returnees before a planned referendum in 2011 on whether the South remains part of the greater Sudan or breaks away to become a separate country.

Sources said the leaders were keen to sustain public confidence in their government, so they could influence the outcome. At the moment, that confidence is waning largely because of slow service delivery and inadequate help for returnees. "They need to start delivering - quickly," said a source, noting that the lifestyles of some Southern leaders had raised eyebrows. On census day, for example, a top official paid thousands of dollars to charter a plane from Juba to be counted at home. Some locals say their government has started delivering, pointing to road construction and ongoing rehabilitation of key institutions. The census, they argue, will help the government identify gaps in service delivery that are critical to ensuring rapid development.

However, after waiting for the second day, Chuol decided to go to his workplace in Malakal town. "As you can see the town is back to its usual business with most people yet to be counted. The good news is that there is still a whole two weeks," he told IRIN on 23 April. "I hope they will be able to cover everybody."

But sceptics remain - encouraged by Southern leaders, who, in a 16 April press statement, emphasised that the government would reserve the right to have an opinion on the outcome of the results and their application to determine the ethnic, religious, cultural, social and economic diversity of Sudan. They said the same would apply to the use of the results to confirm or adjust the power and wealth-sharing arrangements of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in 2005. "Census night in much of the South was a rainy, miserable night," said Gabriel Mabior, a casual worker at Juba airport. "I am not superstitious, but that was an ominous beginning to this otherwise important process."

eo/am/mw

Darfur Conducting the census in Darfur, where 300,000 people are estimated to have died and 2.7 million been displaced since 2003, poses its own set of challenges, even if Sudanese officials play them down.

"We are ready," said Ibrahim Abbas, head of the Central Bureau of Statistics in North Darfur capital El Fasher, told IRIN by telephone.

As far as the government is concerned, access in Darfur is not a problem. Elections due in 2009 "can be held in 99 percent" of the region, presidential assistant Nafi Ali Nafi recently told the official news agency SUNA.

But according to UN sources, census enumerators will be able to access barely a fifth of Darfur. Even in camps for the internally displaced (IDPs), with huge concentrations of people, there are expected be problems.

The issue is so sensitive that some NGOs working in IDP camps have halted any humanitarian assessment and monitoring activity that could be construed as population counting during the census.

Both the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudanese Liberation Movement - Abdel Wahid, the main rebel groups in Darfur, have opposed the census. JEM has accused the Northern government of "planning to use the census and [2009 general] election to create a new demographic reality ... Results will be illegitimate without peace."

According to Human Rights Watch, the suspicions of many Darfuris over the census relate to land issues. "Some have reported … the presence of 'new' occupants on their land, and are concerned these new occupants will gain rights to the land if they are counted in the census."

vm/mw

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