Outrage Over Census

Source: The Nation

Badru Mulumba, Southern Sudan

Before officials in Southern Sudan announced that they had rejected the country's census - a decision they later rescinded - Juba residents had exuded enthusiasm for the count. But now that the census has started, their enthusiasm has turned to anger.

Ministers returned home to villages to organise people for the census which they were told would determine how much money each village would receive from the government.

Some people transported their families from schools in neighbouring countries just to be counted. Refugees sneaked back into the country briefly, targeting the first night of the count on April 15. There were no signs of trouble then.

Weeks later, the census is the topic of discussion in small gatherings, with many saying it was a sham.

"We should not have accepted it," says Mayen Nirew, a 23-year-old journalist, who brought his brothers back from school in Uganda for the count.

"I am not keen on the census," says Mayom Bul Atem, 28, who returned from Canada three months before the census, just to be sure he was in the country for the event. "I think it's a sham because there are many issues that have not been addressed," he said. "I have no faith in it."

The census was meant to help determine wealth and power sharing between the north and South, but nobody seems know where the 2,000,000 internally displaced Southern Sudanese in Khartoum will fall.

"This is about sharing the cake," Igga says. "If you are undercounted, you will get a very small slice of the cake."

Meanwhile, the row over the omission of ethnicity and religion in the census forms remains unresolved.

In a decree postponing the census from April 15 to April 22, President Omar El-Bashir said there would be a survey to determine ethnicity and religion in the future. However, few believed him.

Right time

"This is the right time to do it, said Igga. So far there have been no explanations as to how the promised survey will be conducted.

"The details could be worked out," says Isaiah Chol, chairperson of the Southern Sudan Commission for Census, Statistics and Evaluation, "but I don't know how."

Pointing out that the border between the north and South - and even those between villages - has not been demarcated, Chol says the demarcation of these borders should have preceded the census.

Meanwhile, an inter-clan cattle raiding attack has killed 95 people in southern Sudan and wounded 42 others in violence that disrupted the start of a national census, a southern official said.