Light Turnout for Vote in Darfur on Region’s Future

EL FASHER, Sudan — After years of crisis, displacement, turmoil and bloodshed, the people of Sudan^[1]’s Darfur region had a chance on Monday to participate in a referendum on their future.

Most were not interested.

Empty polling places, bored poll workers and a skeptical public characterized the voting on Monday that will determine the administrative status of Darfur, a region of Sudan that exploded into a devastating conflict in 2003.

The Sudanese government says the referendum will help bring peace. Opposition parties have condemned it as a ploy to fool the people of Darfur and part of a campaign to further Arabize the region.

“No sane person believes that the Darfur referendum run under the prevailing security conditions will reflect the free will of the Darfuris,” said Gebreil Ibrahim, chairman of the Justice and Equality Movement, an opposition group. “The referendum aims to eliminate the strong historical entity named Darfur so that they can easily devour the crumbs, and people should boycott this malicious plot.”

The issue on the ballot is a simple one: Should Darfur be one semiautonomous state or remain broken up as five?

The ballot presents this pictorially, as a choice between five little traditional houses or one. The voting began on Monday and will continue over the next several days; many villages in Darfur are deep in the desert and it takes people a while to reach the towns via donkey cart or camel. Nearly 3.5 million people are registered to vote, with results expected later this month.

Many Darfuris said there were far more pressing needs — such as food, clean water and safety — than this administrative exercise.

“This referendum is meaningless because the government in Khartoum can easily change the administration of Darfur by making it one or 10, as they want to,” said Mustafa Adam, a 28-year-old activist. “I really cannot understand what this drama is for.”

“There is only one reason in my opinion,” he added. “The government wants to change the demography of the area by displacing the indigenous people by Arabs of Chad, Niger and Mali.”

This has been a complaint for years, that Sudan’s Arab-led government has sided with Arab nomads against non-Arab farmers. Some of the most gruesome episodes of the Darfur conflict over the past years were committed by Arab militias terrorizing non-Arab communities. Estimates vary on the war’s ultimate toll. The United Nations says 300,000 died; the Sudanese government has said the number is less than a tenth of that.

Many people fear that the government will use this referendum to entrench the current status of Darfur as five separate states, which, opposition members say, will weaken Darfur’s political power and its distinct identity, making it easier for the government to bring in Arabs from other countries.

The referendum is part of a peace deal^[2] finalized in 2011 between the Sudanese government and one alliance of Darfuri rebels. But peace remains elusive in Darfur, and in recent months, more than 100,000 people have been displaced by new fighting in the Jebel Marra area. The American State Department expressed reservations over the referendum.

“If held under current rules and conditions, a referendum on the status of Darfur cannot be considered a credible expression of the will of the people of Darfur,” said Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman.

Political parties in Darfur said state security agents prevented them from holding rallies against the referendum. On Monday, several university students who were protesting were arrested.

This year marks 100 years since Darfur, a vast region the size of France, became part of Sudan. Darfur had been a powerful, independent sultanate from 1650 until 1916, when the British Army killed the sultan and vanquished his army, and Darfur was absorbed into colonial Sudan.

References

1. ^{^} More news and information about Sudan. (topics.nytimes.com)
2. ^{^} peace deal (www.nytimes.com)
3. ^{^} Continue reading the main story (www.bing.com)