Sudan's census, a vital step in the deal that ended decades of civil war in Africa's largest country, will begin on Tuesday but many Sudanese are sceptical results will be accurate and fear they may spark new disputes.
No one underestimates the significance of the census. It is the first in Sudan since 1993 and is seen as a prerequisite for the country's first democratic elections in 23 years in 2009. It will also be used to determine power and wealth sharing, including proceeds from Sudan's half a million barrels per day of oil.
The former north-south foes signed a 2005 landmark accord creating a national coalition government and paving the way for democratic transformation. But progress has been slow, creating bad blood between the partners in peace.
The census has been delayed at least three times and months of debate on whether to include questions on ethnicity and religion or how millions of war-displaced Sudanese will be counted, ended without agreement.
The danger remains that anyone disagreeing with the results will simply deny them, causing further room for dispute. Last week Southern leaders reluctantly agreed to a start date of April 22 with the count concluding on May 6 but said they would not be bound by the outcome.
"(The results) should not be used to determine the borders, the referendum or to determine the wealth or power sharing, or to determine the cultural identity of the country," South Sudan Information Minister Gabriel Changson Chang said, effectively dismissing the aim of the count. And outside of the south, in western Sudan, the census has created a rare united platform for Darfur's fractious rebels who have all agreed to reject it.
That in turn has prompted a similar reaction from hundreds of thousands of Darfuris who fled their homes during the fighting to squat in miserable camps. Protests in the camps against the census have ended violently with one Darfuri killed and another injured for advocating for the count.
"The government is of course going to cheat so this census is valueless," said Suleiman Sandal, a senior official from Darfur's most militarily powerful Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel group. "We will attack to stop this census wherever we find them," he warned.
CONSIDERABLE IMPLICATION:
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged no further delays, which analysts say could affect the timing of the 2009 election. "The Secretary-General expresses the hope that the census will not be further delayed, as it could have considerable political and financial implication," he said in a statement.
The most recent UN estimate for Sudan's population is 37.8 million but the numbers are difficult to verify because of Sudan's huge internal displacement and also tens of thousands of Sudanese who have fled fighting over the years to neighbouring countries.
Southerners say they were undercounted in the last census in 1993 at the height of the civil war with millions displaced and vast swathes of the south inaccessible, and there are concerns that despite peace in the south numbers in the upcoming census may not show a big increase. The 2005 agreement gave the south just under one third of representation in central government but only a few hundred thousand southerners have returned home since then.
"If an accurate census were to reduce the figure for southerners, this would automatically reduce their representation in a post-2009 National Assembly and central government," Justice Africa said in a paper this month on Sudan. The United Nations has said insecurity in Darfur meant 19 percent of administrative areas and 34 percent of the displaced camps may not be counted, a large part of the region's population.
Seasonal rains could also present a problem. They have come early to some parts of the south, rendering them inaccessible and the disputed Halaib triangle on the border with Egypt will also not be counted. But the head of the census monitoring and observation committee, Abdel Bagi Gailani, said technicians can extrapolate numbers from missing areas.
"It's not a concern," he told Reuters, adding those who have expressed reservations have done so for "political" reasons. "I cannot see anything that hinders the undertaking of the census." Some 60,000 census staff will be involved in the count from April 22, which will be a national holiday. Results are expected in September.
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