‘April referendum will complicate and aggravate Darfur situation’: PCP

Engineer Ali Shamar of the Popular Congress Party (PCP) leadership says that any attempt to hold a Darfur referendum early next April will complicate and aggravate the situation in the province more than ever before.

Speaking at a workshop held by the Darfur civil society platform in Khartoum, he asked “why the government has chosen to implement the Darfur referendum at a time when there are other items in the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD) more important than the Referendum? For example, rebuilding what the war has destroyed; Darfuri participation in the regular forces, security services, the Foreign Ministry, the Judiciary, the civil service; as well as the security arrangements.”

Shamar also questioned how the referendum could take place while half of all Darfuris are either displaced or refugees in the camps. He said that any attempt to hold the referendum serves as a pre-emptive act “spanning the cart before the horse”.

US Enough

Omar Gamaruldin, policy coordinator of the US Enough organisation, said in an interview with Radio Dabanga that “the Khartoum regime has not understood the lessons of the last elections, which were boycotted by the Sudanese people. The regime will face the same isolation and boycotts if it tries to run the Darfur referendum in April next year.”

Gamaruldin said that the Khartoum regime is “using the referendum as a pressure card to tell the people of Darfur that we do whatever we want to”. He explained that everyone is asking for the creation of a conducive environment and other measures for establishment of dialogue. “Then only comes the stage of a referendum for the people of Darfur. “We have to await the outcome of the meeting in Addis Ababa in April of next year to see what will happen,” he concluded.