JUBA (AP) - No embassy, no skyscrapers and little tar ... In just over five months, Juba, the main town in southern Sudan, however, will become the capital starts a new country that will emerge in the wake of "yes" to independence.
According to final official results of the referendum on self-determination, released Monday evening, 98.8% of voters said "yes" to secession. Results immediately recognized by the Sudanese president, head of the military-Islamist regime in Khartoum, Omar al-Bashir.
There is barely a year, Juba town in a war zone, with houses of mud and dirt lanes, only had barely a kilometer or two of paved roads and municipal records were stored in a tent.
Everything is done. By its official birth in July 2011, the country must find a coin, choose a name and diplomatic missions have come and settle in Juba.
Emerging from decades of war between Muslim north and Christian and animist south, southern Sudan, despite his basement-rich oil that provides 98% of its revenues, is one of the least developed regions of the planet. Here, a 15 year old girl is more likely to die in childbirth than likely to finish his schooling, says UN. And some 85% of the 8.7 million southern Sudanese are illiterate.
Estimates Melody Atil, founder and director of Peace Dividend, a nongovernmental organization of micro-credit in South Sudan, only 10% of the workforce has a job.
Compounding the situation in recent weeks, the prices of some essential commodities-sugar, oil, soap ...- increased by more than 50%.
Everything is built. What unleash the ambitions of people like him Chaplain Soloman, 42, entrepreneur who oversees the construction of 160 apartments and hotel rooms on a rock overlooking emergence Juba. This is where lies the country's largest pool, whose water is very cloudy, however. He looks toward the desert areas where he hopes to one day build a mall, a golf course ... "Lots of people flock here while I speak," he said. "This is a new country being born."
We do not even know the exact number of people in Juba. After the 2005 peace accords that ended 20 years of civil war, people began pouring into town, settling in new areas of odds and ends that have sprung up like mushrooms. These new settlements came clumping to each other have no roads, no electricity, no sewage.
Jemma Nunu Kumba, South Sudanese Minister of Housing and Planning, acknowledged that his government is just trying to run to catch up with the reality on the ground. "We are facing a huge challenge," she says. "Our priorities are in conflict with the resources we have. We'll have to ask for help to the international community."
For a few years, however, that Juba attracts international investors, the housing boom expected precursors. In 2007, a group of businessmen from Britain, South Africa and Kenya had invested 1.5 million dollars to renovate a family home, now a hotel of 16 rooms, lawfully House, where the overnight stay costs unreal the amount of $ 275 ... A five stars for Juba.
Laurie Meiring, CEO of lawfully House, said that this was an investment "brave" at the time the referendum was far from the threat of war remained very close to it.
Everything is done. Today, the crucial negotiations with Khartoum are still open questions on citizenship, the status of Southerners in the North, the sharing of oil revenues, the demarcation of final borders and the status of the border region of Abyei.
Of issues that need solving, says Zach Vertin, a specialist in South Sudan thinktank International Crisis Group: "Not only for a peaceful transition between now and July, but to lay the foundations of a relationship post-referendum constructive "between North and South. The discussion process must absolutely be continued and supported, "or we will meet in July with a range of issues still outstanding, and therefore the risk of conflict"
No comments:
Post a Comment