Sudan Splits

Last month Southern Sudan voted to split from North Sudan. According to their reporting services, this has been a peaceful split.

The chairman of the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission, which organized the vote, said 98.83% voted for separation, while 1.17% voted for unity.



In processing this split, Sudan has been trying to play by the rules, inviting UN officials and other world leaders to witness this process, to show that no laws have been broken.


"It was a peaceful process," said chairman Muhammad Ibrahim Khali at a ceremony in Khartoum attended by Sudanese politicians, international diplomats, U.N. staff, academics and others. "It was a transparent process."




It is important to note however, that while this individual vote has been peaceful, Sudan has been involved in a civil war for the past two decades over this issue. It is estimated that over 2 million people have died during this conflict.



This war has remained in conflict because the North, where the government was located was dominated by black Christians, while the south where the Oil Reserves are located is dominated by Arab Muslims. These two groups disagree on many issues, as is evidenced by their lack of shared commonalities.


The question I post is: When two parts of a country are so obviously different, what is the global responsibility to step in and help them peacefully split? I believe that we SHOULD step in and help countries management their splitting- once they've shown that they can't manage it on their own (and as long as nothing evil- like slavery- is going on). Obviously, the US has gone through its own civil war, but quite frankly with recent technology this is NOT the same situation.


Articles on this can be found on CNN or on NPR.