The Bishop of Khartoum in northern Sudan says that outbreaks of
violence will not prevent the country's south from seceding and forming
an independent country in July 2011.
“These violent incidents will impede progress, but it will not wash
away from them their wish to acquire independence,” Auxiliary Bishop
Daniel Adwok of Khartoum recently told the Catholic charity Aid to the
Church in Need.
“The wish to be independent from the north is not
somehow grafted onto them – it is in their heart that they want to be
independent.”
Bishop Adwok said the violence was mostly confined to specific
locations, and he did not expect it to expand into a revival of the
civil wars that killed millions of Sudanese during the 20th century.
But
he said it was important for the government in southern Sudan, which is
already semi-autonomous, to investigate the violence and work to
resolve its basic causes for the good of the future nation.
“It would be best to sit down and discuss the issues,” he said. “We
have to ask the people: ‘What is the root of the tension?' If we do not
address that, after some months or years it will cause the disturbance
to widen.”
The U.N. reports that around 80,000 people have fled their homes
since the beginning of 2011 due to fighting in southern Sudan.
Although a
January referendum on independence from the north was mostly peaceful,
and resulted in a nearly unanimous vote for secession, tribal clashes
over territory and natural resources broke out in February and
intensified during March.
Violence has also erupted between south Sudan's military forces and
rebel militias, in oil-producing regions that will belong to South Sudan
once it formally secedes on July 9.
Government officials in the south
accuse the Khartoum government of arming these militias, a charge
authorities in the north deny.
Hundreds of people, including many
civilians, have reportedly died in these clashes.
Between April 1 and 7, the Bishops' Conference of Sudan held meetings
in the southern capital Juba.
The assembly allowed bishops from both
the north and south to discuss measures to ease the transition to
independence, conferring among themselves and with government officials.
The Catholic Church is one of the most important social institutions
in southern Sudan, which suffers from underdevelopment and problems in
governance.
Bishop Adwok said that the Sudanese bishops were currently
looking to strengthen both their people's faith and the institutions of
civil society, often through the same means.
“The Church has always recognized that human formation and education
is at the heart of forming a healthy society,” he observed, “and
developing schools with a clear Christian identity is very important in
the south as well as the north.”