By Angela Hill

Sudan referendum holds attention in Saskatchewan

Jan 9, 2011 | 7:25 AM

While people in the South of Sudan go to vote on becoming an independent nation, in Saskatchewan members of a team that traveled there last August are watching closely.

John Fryters, a resident of Prince Albert and part of the development project, said the time he spent in Sudan gave him an understanding of what has been happening in the south of the country.

“I really listened, mainly to the ordinary people, the ordinary citizens, the women and the children and the men and they really touched my heart,” he said.

He is trying to take a proactive approach to raising awareness of the referendum, including writing letters to parliament and reaching out to churches.

“I’ve asked all the churches … to pray and we’ve done that not just in Prince Albert, but in Saskatoon and I’ve done it on a more open mailing list,” he said.

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“I believe that people in the Sudan have suffered enough and I believe god will hear their hearts cry.”
Sudan is a country that was locked in civil war for nearly two decades until a peace agreement was signed in 2005.

This week’s referendum fulfils the final part of the agreement, allowing the people of Southern Sudan to make their desire for independence heard. Voting begins today and is to last all week.

Members from Saskatoon’s Sudanese community are gathering to watch the referendum unfold on Southern Sudan television, which they can get in Saskatchewan.

“It’s time to actually determine who we are and be free from all that we’ve been through from the government in Khartoum, in the north,” said Senos Timon, executive director of Southern Sudan Humanitarian Action Development Agency, the Saskatchewan-based organization that sent the team to Sudan in August.

He has family living in what would become the capital of a new nation.

“They have more confidence in the outcome of the referendum, although the concerns are still there,” he said.

Most of those concerns are around oil sharing from the region where the border is to fall.

“It just concerns that the Khartoum government might not be willing to work co-operatively with the government in the south to resolve those issues, which also might escalate to … violence.”

Timon’s family said they are not seeing signs of war.

“I think the people of the south being ordinary citizens (see) that there is no evidence of war at this time. The people of Southern Sudan have suffered a lot during the last 20 years, (so they would know if there was evidence of war). They are going to do everything possible to make sure the referendum is safe and fair without any violence,” he said.

Timon and Fryters are continuing with the project and plan to return in the summer, to introduce green technologies to the existing college.

“Hopefully everything will continue the way it is and the way we’ve planned it,” Fryters said.
There will be some delay while the referendum goes on and how things settle out afterwards, said Timon.

“Our eyes are on the referendum to see how things unfold by the end of January, then possibly we can get the program started in March,” he said.

For more background on the topic, click here.

ahill@panow.com