A Quest for God and Identity...

We can begin to understand the bigger story we are a part of when we engage with the unique Christian sense of time, process, and journey. This perception is presented beautifully in the Grail quest; it’s the story of a young man searching for God and himself. Through ongoing trials and temptations, the young man pushes toward God, almost without knowing it. God leads him forward through family, failure, violence, visitors, betrayal, sexuality, nature, shadow, and vision. God comes to him “disguised as his life” [as Paula D’Arcy likes to say].

Everything on this journey is necessary and grace-filled. For the man on the quest, the universe becomes enchanting—an effect that good religion accomplishes. There are no dead ends, no wasted time, no useless characters or meaningless happenings. All has meaning, and God is in all things waiting to speak and to bless. Everything belongs once we are on our real quest and asking the right questions.

(Adapted from Richard Rohr's On the Threshold of Transformation, p. 9, day 7)

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

Dhikr for the 3rd Sunday of Lent (A): The Samaritan Woman

Text: "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (John 4: 13-14)

Meditation: We have drunk of the well of Jesus… We shall never be thirsty again and that water in us will become a spring welling up to eternal life!

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD

1st step: Write the text or Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.
2nd step: Let the text remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the text silently as often as possible...
3rd step: Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the text in your life.

Grace is Everywhere

According to a certain theology, when we sin we are punished, and when we are good we are rewarded. This makes sense. But it isn’t what the sages, saints, or Scriptures tell us about God. This “theology” is designed to urge us to save ourselves, and unfortunately this is the theology that many people live by: we get back as good as we give to God. This means that our salvation depends totally on us and on our ability to become perfect, or at least good. Thank God, it’s not true.

This is not what Jesus teaches us. It’s much truer to say that our weakness and brokenness bring us to God—exactly the opposite of what most of us believe. It can take a lifetime, even with grace, to accept such a paradox. Grace creates the very emptiness that grace alone can fill.

St. Paul stated this with elegant concision: “’For power is made perfect in weakness.’. . . For whenever I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).

Adapted from Richard Rohr, OFM's On the Threshold of Transformation, p. 235, day 226

2nd Sunday of Lent (A)

Dhikr for the 2nd Sunday of Lent (A): Jesus is transfigured!

Text: “And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with him.’ (Matthew 17: 2-3)

Meditation: In the following of Jesus, we, too, are called to be transfigured… NOT as dramatic as Jesus… but equally true – lives transformed unto the image and likeness of God!


DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD

1st step: Write the text or Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.
2nd step: Let the text remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the text silently as often as possible...
3rd step: Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the text in your life.

9th Sunday inOrdinary Time (A)

Dhikr for the 9th Sunday in the Ordinary Time (A)

Text: Jesus said to his disciples: ‘not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my father in heaven’. (Mt. 7: 21)

Meditation: Our deeds proclaim our values! We build life on rock meaning to base life and hope on things that are solid, and enduring. We build our house on values and things that will not be carried away with the winds of the times.

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD

1st step: Write the text or Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.
2nd step: Let the text remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the text silently as often as possible...
3rd step: Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the text in your life.

An Invitation to a further journey...

No one goes into their spiritual maturity completely of their own accord, or by a totally free choice. We are led by Mystery, which religious people rightly call grace. Most of us have to be cajoled, seduced, or fall into it by some kind of “transgression,” believe it or not, like Jacob finding his birthright through cunning, and Esau losing his by failure (Genesis 27).

If one walks the full and entire journey, such people are considered “called” or “chosen” in the Bible, perhaps “fated” or “destined” in world mythology and literature. But always they are the ones who have heard some deep invitation to “something more,” and who have set out to find it by both grace and daring. Most get little reassurance from others, or even have full confidence that they are totally right. Setting out is always a leap of faith, a risk in the deepest sense of the term, and yet an adventure, too.

(From Richard Rohr, OFM. Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, pp. xvii, xviii, xix)

8th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

Dhikr for the 8th Sunday in the Ordinary Time (A)

Text: "Consider the sparrow, they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds. Consider the lilies how they grow, they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these" (Mt. 6: 27-28).

Meditation: If God takes such care of the birds in the air, and ensures their feeding, and sees to it that the lilies of the field are magnificently adorned, how much more then will our heavenly Father take pains to see that the disciples shall not go wanting, since they are more precious in the divine sight than the birds of air and the flowers of the field?


DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD

1st step: Write the text or Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.
2nd step: Let the text remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the text silently as often as possible...
3rd step: Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the text in your life.

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

Dhikr for the 6th Sunday in the Ordinary Time (A)

Text: "You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, 'You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.' But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment" (Matthew 5:21-22).


Meditation: The Christian disciple consists in the victory over anger, resentment and ill will. The challenge is to go beyond the prescription of the letters of the law, among which is that of not killing.


DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD

1st step: Write the text or Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.
2nd step: Let the text remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the text silently as often as possible...
3rd step: Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the text in your life.

Exodus of Southern Sudanese affects the Catholic Church in the north

By Elario Zambakari

1st February 2011, on the eve of the just concluded Southern Sudan Referendum, thousands and thousands of the internal displaced southern Sudanese who were here in Khartoum and the other big cities in the north started going back to the south.
North Sudan has only two Catholic Dioceses: Khartoum archdiocese and El Obeid. Most of the Christians in these dioceses are southerners and now with the exodus to the south one can tell from the attendance during Sunday masses how Khartoum archdiocese will be without these Christians.

Some of the parishes have been closed due to the fact that the Christians are no longer there. According to Fr. George Gangara, the education secretary of the archdiocese of Khartoum some of the Catholic schools are already closed due to the fact that the students have gone back to the south.

The archdiocese had opened many primary and secondary schools for the internally displaced persons who came from the south with the war had intensified in that region in the early 1990s.

Nearly all the diocesan priests of Khartoum are southerners. Khartoum being the place where Daniel Comboni died, there are more less 30 different Missionary congregations of Priests, Sisters and brothers.

The results from the referendum held from 9-15 January were published on 30 January. The announcement was made from Juba, capital of the future State and based on examination of 100% of votes, 98.83% of the nearly 4,000,000 voters wanted independence.

4th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

Dhikr for the 4th Sunday in the ordinary time (A)

Text: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)

Meditation: The Beatitudes, strangely enough, remind us of the real keys to happiness… Yes, BLESSED are the poor; those who mourn; the meek; they who thirst for righteousness; the merciful; the clean of heart; the peacemakers; and they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness… they have the kingdom of God!

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD

1st step: Write the text or Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.
2nd step: Let the text remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the text silently as often as possible...
3rd step: Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the text in your life.

Results of the South Sudan Independence Referendum

Sudan 1/22/11
South Sudan people vote for independence

Sudan, - With most votes counted in Southern Sudan's referendum, 99% of people have opted for independence from the north, officials say.

Official results are due next month but correspondents say the outcome of the week-long poll is not in doubt.

However, the former rebels now running oil-rich Southern Sudan have urged people not to celebrate yet.
President Omar al-Bashir has said he will accept the result of the vote, which was held after years of war.
A journalist in Juba says this is the news many in the south have been waiting to hear - that the number of votes cast in favour of independence has passed the required 50%.

The results were published on a website published by the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission, and officials have confirmed they are genuine.

It says that 83% of votes in the south have been counted, along with 100% of those in the north and the eight foreign countries where polling was held.

Just 1.4% of people have voted for continued unity with the north.

More than 3m ballots have been counted so far, with several hundred thousands still to come.
Southern Sudan Referendum Bureau spokesman Aleu Garang Aleu said counting should be finished on 31 January and final results announced on 14 February, after any appeals had been dealt with.

Our correspondent says southern leaders are waiting for these results to be declared and accepted by the north before the giant party being planned begins.

If the result is confirmed, the new country is set to formally declare its independence on 9 July.
The mainly Arabic-speaking, Muslim north has fought the south, where most are Christian or follow traditional religions, for most of Sudan's post-independence history.

In order for the referendum to be valid, more than 50% of voters must back secession and at least 60% of registered voters must take part.

Election officials have previously said that the 60% threshold had been passed.

The great divide across Sudan is visible even from space, as this Nasa satellite image shows. The northern states are a blanket of desert, broken only by the fertile Nile corridor. Southern Sudan is covered by green swathes of grassland, swamps and tropical forest.

Sudan's arid northern regions are home mainly to Arabic-speaking Muslims. But in Southern Sudan there is no dominant culture. The Dinkas and the Nuers are the largest of more than 200 ethnic groups, each with its own traditional beliefs and languages.

The health inequalities in Sudan are illustrated by infant mortality rates. In Southern Sudan, one in 10 children die before their first birthday. Whereas in the more developed northern states, such as Gezira and White Nile, half of those children would be expected to survive.

The gulf in water resources between north and south is stark. In Khartoum, River Nile, and Gezira states, two-thirds of people have access to piped drinking water and pit latrines. In the south, boreholes and unprotected wells are the main drinking sources. More than 80% of southerners have no toilet facilities whatsoever.

Throughout Sudan, access to primary school education is strongly linked to household earnings. In the poorest parts of the south, less than 1% of children finish primary school.

Whereas in the wealthier north, up to 50% of children complete primary level education.

Conflict and poverty are the main causes of food insecurity in Sudan. The residents of war-affected Darfur and Southern Sudan are still greatly dependent on food aid. Far more than in northern states, which tend to be wealthier, more urbanised and less reliant on agriculture.

Sudan exports billions of dollars of oil per year. Southern states produce more than 80% of it, but receive only 50% of the revenue, exacerbating tensions with the north. The oil-rich border region of Abyei is to hold a separate vote on whether to join the north or the south.

(Source: ANGOP INTERNATIONAL Angola International News Service)

South Sudan Independence Vote: Facts and Figures

South Sudan independence vote: Facts and Figures
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS | LAST UPDATED: JAN 10, 2011 - 9:53:51 PM

THE VOTE: Southern Sudan is voting whether to become independent from the north as part of a 2005 peace deal that ended a war stretching more than two decades. The south is widely expected to vote for secession.

THE LAND: Sudan is Africa's largest country geographically, about one-quarter the size of the United States. Southern Sudan alone is roughly the size of Texas. Many of Sudan's neighbors are volatile countries: Libya, Eritrea, Chad, Central African Republic, Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda. Sudan's long, porous borders are easily crossed by rebel groups.

THE PEOPLE: Sudan has a population of about 44 million. The north is mostly Muslim, while the south is populated by those who are mostly Christian and animist. Dozens of languages and dialects are spoken, but northerners mostly speak Arabic while the southerners tend to speak English.

THE ECONOMY: Sudan is one of Africa's largest oil exporters and the sale of crude is its chief foreign exchange earner. The oil fields are located mostly in the south but the pipelines to take them to the Red Sea run through northern territory. Agriculture employs 80 percent of the work force; Sudan exports products like cotton, grains, livestock and fruit.

HISTORY: A rebellion first began in the south in 1955, the year before Sudan gained independence after joint British-Egyptian control. Fighting lasted until a 1972 peace agreement, which failed to resolve the fundamental issues.
Fighting resumed in the early 1980s and about 2-million died over the next two decades. The 2005 peace agreement granted the south autonomy for six years, at the end of which a referendum on independence was to be held.

Rebels in the western region of Darfur and in the northeast also have rebelled against the Khartoum-based government, accusing it of concentrating wealth in the hands of a politically privileged Islamist elite and ignoring development in outlying regions. U.N. officials say up to 300,000 people have died in Darfur since 2003 and 2.7 million have been forced from their homes because of the conflict.

What to Expect after the South Sudan Referendum...?

SULIMAN BALDO JANUARY 5, 2011

It is a foregone conclusion that southerners will opt for independence from the North in the January 9 referendum on self-determination. How the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) will react to the secession of the resource-rich south and whether the internal cohesion of the southern Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement(SPLM) will survive beyond the referendum, on the other hand, are fuelling deep anxieties locally, among Sudan’s Arab and African neighbors, and within the international community. It was difficult enough getting to this juncture; intense regional and international pressure on and cajoling of the parties into signing the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement(CPA) were required to ensure a peaceful process.

Preparations for the referendum started late and negotiations on critical issues proceeded slowly. Mediated by the African Union (AU), the talks on the status of the disputed Abyei region and the inter-related issues of north-south border demarcation, citizenship, and the sharing of oil revenue inched forward haltingly, with both parties showing little disposition to compromise. Initially, Khartoum hardliners appeared to be spoiling for a fight over the predictable outcome. Particularly distressing were statements made by several NCP government and party officials calling for the expulsion of the estimated two million southerners living in the north in retaliation for a vote for secession. While the NCP later reined in statements from officials overtly hostile to southerners, it did continue to use citizenship as a political tool in the final status negotiations; the north will deny southerners living there the freedoms of residency, work, movement, and property extended, for example, to Egyptian residents in Sudan.

The hardening of positions on citizenship would hurt populations on both sides of the border, as many southerners are economically integrated in the rural economies of adjacent northern communities, mainly as agricultural and manual laborers. A likely response from the SPLM to the threatened massive denaturalization and expulsion of southerners living in the north would be to attempt to block the seasonal migration of northern pastoralist groups whose livelihoods depend on spending part of the year in the south with their animals, a sure recipe for disaster. In order to ensure the wellbeing of their populations, the NCP and the SPLM will need to agree on a soft border, allowing free movement and economic exchanges, as recommended by AU mediators.

Divisive public statements and hostile official propaganda notwithstanding, pragmatic considerations pushed the SPLM and NCP to agree, however reluctantly, on outstanding issues. Southern Sudan remains entirely dependent on oil revenues, which must be split equally with Khartoum under CPA provisions, while Khartoum too had come to rely on revenues from the southern oil fields, which represent three quarters of national oil production. Khartoum’s interest in an agreement was obvious, but the SPLM needed the agreement because the south is landlocked and must depend on refineries and pipelines in the north to get the oil to market.

By year’s end, the NCP appeared resigned to the prospect of an independent south Sudan. Fearing a predictable weakening of its grip on power in the rest of Sudan following the separation of the south, however, it pulled out of the Darfur peace talks jointly mediated by the AU and the UN and facilitated by Qatar. The security situation has deteriorated in Darfur as government forces seek to crush and punish the supporters of the Justice and Equality Movement and the two factions of the Darfur Sudan Liberation Movement. Such groups are biding their time, hoping that an independent southern Sudan will back their demands for genuine power- and wealth-sharing arrangements for Darfur as well as meaningful reparations for victims of the war, which the government has been reluctant to concede so far.

Moreover, other large minority groups in the Nuba Mountains and the South Blue Nile, states where the SPLM was a governing partner with the NCP during the six-year transition but where it has not demobilized tens of thousands of its fighters, have strong ethnic and political ties to the south. Top SPLM leaders recently made a thinly disguised threat to return to war if hard-won gains for minority interests in the north were abandoned after the referendum. Converging insurgencies in the Darfur, Nuba Mountains, and South Blue Nile regions would spell doom for northern Sudan, the other new state emerging from the January referendum.

In the south, two major concerns are whether the current unity of purpose created by the referendum will survive beyond it and how the independent south will achieve economic prosperity. Ethnic and political tensions that continue to stoke localized intercommunal violence in the region are likely to be further exacerbated in the emerging new state. SPLM leaders will need to cease high-handed dealings with opponents and independent voices and become more inclusive and accommodating of the multiple constituencies of the south to ensure peace and stability within the new state. Furthermore, the southern Sudanese have waited in vain for economic peace dividends during the interim period, as SPLM leaders wasted valuable resources on vanity projects and perks for the ruling elite. The new state will need to adopt transparent and democratic governance standards, as well as zero tolerance for official corruption, if it hopes to avoid the prospect of state failure.

Suliman Baldo is director for Africa at the International Center for Transitional Justice. Arab Reform Bulletin

D Day for South Sudan on the 9th of January 2011!

An official of Sudan’s referendum commission has reassured southern Sudanese that the 9th January referendum will proceed as originally scheduled despite attempts by opponents seeking dissolution of his organization ahead of the self determination vote.

George Benjamin, spokesman for the referendum commission, told VOA the program of preparations to organize a credible vote is in on course.

“As things stand now, we believe that the basis and the grounds were so flimsy for the claims made by those individuals and, therefore, it represents a weak case,” said Benjamin.
This comes as Sudan’s Constitutional Court decides next week whether to dissolve the referendum commission.

Several southern Sudanese groups recently petitioned the court seeking the dissolution of the commission after citing fraud and intimidation during the voter registration process.

But, Benjamin said the petition against the referendum commission is, in his view, ridiculous.

He also expressed confidence in the ability of the referendum commission to organize a credible vote next month.

“The commission is more than confident that it is proceeding with the process that is credible and that would be accepted to all parties. After all the registration process has recorded very high success. We had few complaints, and we also had few appeals before the court,” said Benjamin.

“The (voter) registry is being prepared and the ballot papers are on the way to all the stations and to all centers in all the states of the country and also abroad. And the stage is completely and confidently set for the polling to start on the 9th of January,” said Benjamin.

“I just would want to assure everybody that the process will continue and will proceed uninterrupted. So far, we have very few days to hit the 9th of January and almost all the critical stages have been covered; the registration has been covered and the appeals and courts have been covered,” said Benjamin.

“The ballot boxes have arrived on time and the final registry is being compiled, the polling officers are already under training and therefore. I think there is no need for southern Sudanese to feel worried that the process may feel interrupted. It won’t be interrupted.” (Source: VOA/ Dec. 30, 2010)

South Sudan January 9th Referendum

January 2, 2011 (JUBA) – The final registration result for referendum on independence published by the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission has put the region’s oil rich Unity state in the lead with over half a million voters registered.

Officials from the South Sudan Referendum Commission (SSRC) wait to register voters in Juba, south Sudan, December 8, 2010. (Reuters)

A total of 3.9 million southerners have been registered in southern Sudan, northern states and the Diaspora. 3.7 million people have been registered in the South alone while over 116,000 and 60,000 people were registered in northern Sudan and the Diaspora, respectively.

According to the final figures released Unity state has the highest registered voters of 500, 975, followed by Warrap and Central Equatoria states with 469,605 and 469,202, respectively. The two states with lowest registered voters are Western Bahr Ghazal and Western Equatoria with only 164,497 and 214,605 people, respectively.

In the public document released on Sunday by the Deputy Head of the Southern Sudan 2011 Referendum Taskforce Secretariat and Director of Policy and Monitoring in the Office of the President of the Government of Southern Sudan, Joseph Madak Both, the registration result has also revealed that out of the total voters registered 52% are female while 48% are male.

Madak called on the registered voters to turn out in the next six days and vote during the seven days exercise from 9th to 15th January.

Clarifying concerns about the folding of the voting paper that the ink for thumbing on secession choice may also print on unity choice after folding the paper, he said there was assurance from the referendum commission that the ink would quickly dry soon after the thumbing and would not print on the corresponding unity choice when folded.

Madak also said the Taskforce was assured by the Deputy Chairman of the Khartoum-based Southern Sudan Referendum Commission, Chan Reec Madut, who also heads the Juba-based Southern Sudan Referendum Bureau that there is no provision in the referendum act that guides or restricts how the paper will be folded. He said the referendum official explained that a voter can fold the paper the way he or she wants without using the folding that can correspond to the either symbol of the two options.

The Director of Policy Monitoring in the President’s office also called on the voters to be vigilant and keep their registration cards in order to determine their future on January 9. Madak further warned that there are some in the northern authorities that want to buy up to a million voter registration cards from southerners and destroy them in order to fail the required 60% turnout contrary to their public statements reiterating to let South vote freely and fairly in the referendum.
(Source: Sudan Tribune/ 02/January/2011)

The Feast of Christmas

Feast of the Incarnation

On this Christmas Day, let me begin with a quote from the twentieth-century writer G. K. Chesterton: “When a person has found something which he prefers to life itself, he [sic] for the first time has begun to live.”

Jesus in his proclamation of the kingdom told us what we could prefer to life itself. The Bible ends by telling us we are called to be a people who could say, “Come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20), who could welcome something more than business as usual and live in God’s Big Picture.

We all have to ask for the grace to prefer something to our small life because we have been offered the Shared Life, the One Life, the Eternal Life, God’s Life that became visible for us in this world as Jesus.

What we are all searching for is Someone to surrender to, something we can prefer to life itself. Well here is the wonderful surprise: God is the only one we can surrender to without losing ourselves. The irony is that we actually and finally find ourselves, but now in a whole new and much larger field of meaning.

(Adapted from Preparing for Christmas with Richard Rohr, pp. 45, 71-73)

South Sudan unlikely to vote for unity -SPLM official

South Sudan unlikely to vote for unity -SPLM official
Mon 30 Jul 2007, 13:47 GMT

By Simon Apiku

KHARTOUM, July 30 (Reuters) - The reluctance of Sudan's dominant
northern party to implement key aspects of a north-south peace deal is
pushing southerners toward backing independence in a 2011 vote, a
southern leader said on Monday.

"Chances of unity are nil practically given the non-implementation and
the lack of confidence," Pagan Amum, secretary-general of the former
southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), told
Reuters.

The SPLM signed a deal in January 2005 with the National Congress
Party (NCP) ending Africa's longest civil war -- a bitter 20-year
conflict that claimed 2 million lives and drove more than 4 million
people from their homes.

The deal mandated power and wealth sharing, and granted south Sudan
the right to decide in a referendum in 2011 if it wanted to remain
united with the north.

But the SPLM accuses the NCP of stalling on the implementation of
important elements in the agreement such as the protocol on the
oil-rich Abyei region, border demarcation, security arrangements and
disarming of militias.

"What we are seeing is unity being made very unattractive because that
unity is being presented as unity to pursue narrow egoistic interests
by the elite in the north," Amum said.

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir says implementation of the 2005
agreement is going well, and denies any foot-dragging over the deal.

CONTROL OF OIL REGION

One of the agreement's key tasks was to demarcate borders of the Abyei
region, establishing control of its lucrative oil fields.

The NCP has rejected the findings of the independent Abyei Border
Commission, formed by the 2005 deal, saying it exceeded its mandate.
The SPLM accepted the commission's report.

"Definitely the entire peace process is in danger by Abyei not being
implemented, by SAF (Sudanese Armed Forces) maintaining forces which
is an act of war in the south, claiming that they want to protect the
oil," Amum said.

The United Nations earlier this month said the SAF had missed a July 9
deadline to move its troops to the north under the peace deal and a
senior U.N. official in the south said SAF was still paying illegal
militias based in the south.

Under the agreement, only joint units should police the oil areas, but
these north-south units are not yet functioning.

For this reason the SPLM says it has also not withdrawn its troops
from the central Southern Blue Nile and South Kordofan, where joint
units are supposed to take over.

"If they maintain militia groups against the south when we have signed
peace, then we are in for war," said Amum.

A border committee formed in 2005 to agree on the frontier has yet to
complete its work.

Demarcation of the north-south border is crucial for a census due to
be held in November, elections expected to be convened in 2009 and the
referendum in 2011.

"I see things unfolding in the direction of intense struggle to ensure
the (north-south deal) being implemented," said Amum.

The SPLM on Monday marked the second anniversary of the death in a
helicopter crash of charismatic leader, John Garang.

Amum said Garang's death had left a void, but Garang's successor,
Salva Kiir, was strong enough to lead the movement.

Sudan’s Elections and Birth Pangs of the South

Sudan’s Elections and Birth Pangs of the South
Philippe de Pontet
March 31, 2010

Sudan stands at a political crossroads on the eve of presidential, parliamentary, and local elections to be held in April 2010. Yet with the election date fast approaching, opposition parties and the southern-based Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) are threatening to boycott over allegations of vote rigging. A last-minute boycott would throw both the election and the south’s referendum on independence (planned for next January) into a dangerous state of uncertainty.

It is more likely than not, however, that the SPLM will back off the boycott threat, as this move could undermine its core interest in holding the independence referendum on time next January. If so, the citizens of Africa’s largest nation will head to the polls on April 11-13 for the first time in decades. While President Omar al-Bashir will likely retain power in the end, it may well take a second-round run-off vote to win the outright majority required. For all of Sudan’s democratic shortcomings, this is not likely to be an Equatorial Guinea-style election where 98.5 percent of the electorate goes with the incumbent and everyone knows the results months in advance.

The stakes are high and there might well be surprises. Yet in Juba, the southern capital, the national election is practically a non-event, seen as merely a formality on the road to the January 2011 referendum on southern independence. That is the vote that counts, as far as the southern-based Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and its constituents are concerned. The national election is simply a box to be checked in the U.S.-brokered Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), the last big-ticket item en route to the referendum.

The SPLM’s presidential nominee reflects its apathy. Instead of nominating a true party leader with deep support, it has put forth an energetic but little-known northern Muslim politician named Yasir Arman—an inclusive gesture, perhaps, but not a remotely viable candidate. Nevertheless it will be interesting to see whether Arman and a stable of established northern-based opposition candidates attract enough votes to deny President Bashir an outright majority in the first round, despite the apathy in the south and likely voter intimidation elsewhere.

The southern political elites from the SPLM and smaller parties will not boycott the national elections, but they will focus all of their resources, and political jockeying on those seats that they hope will form the government of an independent southern nation in less than a year. The elections for the southern presidency, governorships, and the Juba-based parliament all matter greatly in this context.

Since independence is already an article of faith in Juba, the political logic is clear: Why bother with an election whose operational life-span is less than 10 months when your own, long-cherished nation is about to be born? That is why Salva Kiir, president of the semi-autonomous Government of Southern Sudan, has set his sights on retaining that post while Yasir Arman has been dispatched to represent the SPLM’s nominal presidential ambitions in Khartoum.

If independence is seen as inevitable in Juba, how is it viewed in Khartoum? Is Bashir’s ruling National Congress Party prepared to live with an independent south, where more than two-thirds of the country’s oil reserves are found? What about the even more nationalistic or Islamist-oriented northern parties that could gain influence post-secession? Many Sudan experts, who have been sounding alarms about this from the moment the CPA was signed back in 2005, believe the answer is a resounding no, setting north and south on a collision course that could unleash a return to war.

Under this school of thought, the National Congress Party will throw up procedural obstacles and other subterfuges to postpone the referendum indefinitely, prompting the SPLM to declare independence unilaterally. A new nation would be born, but under the imminent risk of attack from the north.

Such a scenario, however, is by no means inevitable. There is evidence that Khartoum, and for that matter other key countries in the region such as Egypt, are not only prepared to live (albeit warily) with an independent south, but have come to expect it.

The Bashir government has scaled back its rhetoric against independence and senior Egyptian officials have quietly shuttled back and forth to Juba in recent months. The relevant question is no longer whether a new state will be born next year but whether it will live in peace with its neighbor and be a viable independent nation, not a ward of the international community.

While peace is a precondition for the viability of the new nation, it is no guarantee. Landlocked, poorly governed (to date), resource-rich and prone to conflict, the world’s 193rd nation (by UN count) would be born with all of the characteristics of the world’s most vulnerable states outlined by Oxford economist Paul Collier. With a government dependent on oil for 98 percent of its revenues and almost no infrastructure outside of Juba, it is already clear that donors will have to foot most of the bills, probably to the tune of billions of dollars annually to help the government stay above water.

That said, a relapse of the civil war in the next year is unlikely despite the exceptionally low level of trust between Khartoum and Juba. The CPA has been bent many times since 2005 but has not broken, showing resilience under pressure. Despite the zero-sum mentality and brinksmanship that has characterized CPA implementation for years, at critical moments both sides have made tough compromises to keep the agreement alive.

Both sides have calculated that the benefits of sticking to the agreement, while often painful, outweigh the costs of relapse. The Bashir administration wants to keep its grip on power and to normalize relations with the West if possible; for Juba the prize is and has always been independence. These outcomes are well in sight now and need not be mutually exclusive.

Success will require another round of compromise, however, particularly on oil revenues. Some form of revenue-sharing on oil will need to be maintained to soften the economic blow of southern succession for Khartoum. As it turns out, the geography of oil in Sudan does not lend itself to zero-sum thinking by either side, as the main reserves are south but the pipelines and refineries are in the north. Juba and Khartoum will have to cooperate if either side is to benefit.

This reality, along with diplomatic pressures on a southern government that desires international recognition, will facilitate a compromise that keeps some oil revenues flowing to Khartoum (though probably less than the 50 percent cut it currently gets).
These negotiations need to begin in earnest now. They cannot wait until January 2011, the day after the referendum vote. By then, the six month transition to statehood should already be underway, with everything from border demarcation to securing diplomatic recognition on the to-do list, little of which will be easy. Khartoum will need assurance that southern independence will not come at its expense, whether economically or diplomatically.

Here the U.S. administration has a critical, albeit politically difficult, role to play by taking concrete measures towards sanctions removal and normalization if the elections are relatively credible and the referendum takes place on schedule. This diplomatic carrot, which has been dangled for years, would give Khartoum further incentive to accept southern independence.

Even if this relatively peaceful scenario transpires over the next 10 months, it is not at all clear that the newly independent south will be a self-sufficient, viable state. Juba’s natural allies (including the United States, European Union and neighbors in the region such as Kenya and Ethiopia) are all worried that southern Sudan could become Africa’s next basket-case, not to mention an inspiration for separatist movements across the continent, beginning with other regions in Sudan such as Darfur.

Competition for scarce resources already pits communities and ethnic groups against one another, leading to casualty figures in the south that outnumbered those in Darfur last year. It may be that by January 2012, the newspaper headlines on Sudan will not be warning of a return to war between north and south, but rather of growing disappointment, ethnic rivalry, and unrest within the south itself.

Philippe de Pontet is a sub-Saharan Africa analyst at Eurasia Group.

Feast of Christ the King (C)

Dhikr for the Feast of Christ the King (C)

Text: “The people stood by and watched; the rulers, meanwhile, sneered at him and said, "He saved others, let him save himself if he is the chosen one, the Messiah of God.” (Luke 23: 35)

Meditation: Christ the King is crucified for us as our RANSON that we may have life to the full… We do NOT simply stand and watch… We believe in this life-giving SACRIFICE and WITNESS and we are invited to do likewise...

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...

1st step: Write the text or Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.
2nd step: Let the text remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the text silently as often as possible...
3rd step: Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the text in your life.

The 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Dhikr for the 26th Sunday in ordinary time (C)

Text: "There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man's table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores" (Luke 16: 19-21)

Meditation: The parable is a strong reminder to us that we cannot continue to dress in purple garments and dine sumptuously without the poor partaking at our table... Cuidate!

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...

1st step: Write the text or Dhikr (the Arabic word for REMEMBRANCE) in your heart.

2nd step: Let the text remain always in on your lips and mind - RECITING the text silently as often as possible...

3rd step: Be attentive to the disclosure of the meaning/s of the text in your life.