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Catholic World News News Feature

Sudanese prelate wants independence for south January 26, 2006

Archbishop Paolino Lukudu of Juba, the president of the Sudanese Catholic bishops's conference has spoken in favor of splitting the country's southern section, where Christians and animists predominate, from the Islamic north.

As part of a peace settlement that ended a long and bloody civil war between the Khartoum government and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army, which was based in the south, the subject of autonomy for Sudan's southern region will be the topic of a national referendum within the next five years.

According to Archbishop Lukudu it was the Christian leaders of Sudan who pushed for a referendum, believing that without a clear electoral mandate, the subject of southern secession would not have been addressed. The archbishop added that Church leaders, who are now struggling to ensure that the peace agreement is implemented, want a secure and lasting peace.

Archbishop Lukudu told the Khartoum Monitor that a referendum should provide a clear answer to a leading question: "either we are attracted to unity or we are attracted to separation." He made his own preference for separation clear, adding that the history of Sudan is marred by the legacy of slavery, imposed on black Africans of the south by Arab rulers in the north, "which is still a stigma today."