from the north and create a new country in a January 9-15 referendum,
according to the first complete preliminary results announced on
Sunday.
Earlier partial results had already put the outcome of the vote beyond
doubt but official figures were announced publicly for the first time
during a ceremony attended by president Salva Kiir in the southern
capital Juba.
The discreet leader, who is to steer southern Sudan to statehood in
July after overseeing a six-year transition period, said the more than
two million victims of the 22-year civil war with the north had not
died in vain.
Chan Reec, chairman of the Southern Sudan Referendum Bureau in charge
of polling in the south, said a whopping 99.57 percent of those who
voted there chose secession.
Turnout in the south stood at 99 percent, with only 16,129 people
voting for Africa's largest country to remain united, said Reec, whose
announcement was met by cheers from the crowd.
Mohamed Khalil Ibrahim, who chairs the overall referendum commission,
said 58 percent of southerners residing in the north and 99 percent of
overseas voters chose to break away.
"The results just announced are decisive," he said.
Updated figures published on the Southern Sudan Referendum
Commission's website and accounting for 100 percent of ballots cast in
both the north and the south gave secession an overwhelming 98.83
percent of the vote.
Kiir paid homage to the victims of the war.
"I want to assure them and their families that these people did not
die in vain," he said in front of diplomats and officials at former
rebel leader John Garang's mausoleum.
The revered Garang died in a plane crash shortly after signing the
January 2005 peace agreement that ended more than two decades of
conflict between the black Christian-dominated south and the mainly
Arab Muslim north.
The emotional week-long referendum, which saw huge lines of dancing
and praying voters form outside polling stations long before dawn on
the first day of voting, was the centrepiece of the peace deal.
The ceremony in Juba on Sunday ended in wild dancing to songs
celebrating "the promised land."
"We have shown them in the north that we want to be free. We stand a
whisker away from independence, so today we dance for our better
futures," said James Mut, a student and one of the revellers.
In Khartoum, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who spearheaded the
north's efforts to quash the rebellion during much of the 1983-2005
civil war, has already recognised the prospect of partition.
Earlier this month, he described the south's decision to become the
world's 193rd state as "a new beginning" and expressed hope the two
countries would enjoy "brotherly" relations, in comments that drew
rare praise from Washington.
Kiir reciprocated his "brother" Bashir's declaration of goodwill and
said in his speech: "We must stand with him."
Khartoum on Sunday faced demonstrations inspired by the popular revolt
that has rattled the 30-year-old regime in neighbouring Egypt and the
uprising earlier this month in Tunisia.
The opposition Umma party condemned police repression of the protests
and charged it was Bashir's policies that had driven the youth to the
streets and caused the partition of the country.
As southerners in contrast basked in a moment of national unanimity,
Kiir again cautioned against premature celebrations.
"What did you think I would do here? Declare the independence of
southern Sudan? We cannot do that. Let us respect the agreement," Kiir
said.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague, whose country is a member of
a Sudan peace troika, welcomed the announcement of the preliminary
results but warned of the bumpy road ahead.
"There remains a huge amount for the Sudanese parties to do before the
conclusion of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, and independence of
Southern Sudan, on 9 July 2011," he said in a statement.
Khartoum and Juba have only six months to agree on the demarcation of
their border, oil revenue sharing, citizenship and the future of the
disputed region of Abyei, among other issues unresolved issues.
Britain, Norway and the United States are the three main Western
brokers of the Sudanese peace process.
