Southern Sudan

These are heady days. Across the Middle East and North Africa, hundreds of thousands of angry citizens have taken to the streets, calling for freedom, insisting that dictators step aside and demanding a voice in their own destinies. But even as extraordinary change roils the region, it is important to remember that deposing a dictator and shucking off the ancien regime does not lead inexorably or immediately to democracy. Think of France in 1789 or Russia in 1917 or Iran in 1979.

His nation on the verge of shrinking, and trouble unfolding in every direction, Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir is playing warrior and diplomat in efforts to keep his supporters loyal and his economy from collapsing under huge debt. Bashir's northern troops unleashed weeks of bloodshed and remain massed in the Abyei oil region near the soon-to-be independent southern Sudan. His soldiers further stunned the international community when they swept into nearby South Kordofan state and the Nuba Mountains to attack tribesmen accused of fomenting insurrection.

On Jan. 9, after a half-century of violence and strife, the people of southern Sudan voted overwhelmingly to secede from the north. In the joyous aftermath of the historic referendum, formal independence was set for July 9, when, for the first time in nearly 20 years, a new, sovereign, self-governing African nation is scheduled to come into being. Secession makes sense. The two regions, north and south, had been shoehorned into one nation by the British in 1956 despite their glaring linguistic, cultural, racial and historical contradictions — a colonial mismatch that led to one of the longest civil wars in Africa.

Sudan's President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir showed up 24 hours late Tuesday for a meeting with his most important ally, an embarrassing example of what might happen when you host a head of state who is also an alleged war criminal. Bashir missed a summit meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao scheduled for Monday, and offered as a belated explanation that his plane had to turn around because it did not have permission to fly over Turkmenistan. He was en route from Iran, where he attended an anti-terrorism conference.

They walked in their best clothes past villages and down dirt roads until they came to the church to fold away the pain of war and redraw the map of Africa in a referendum that began Sunday on independence for southern Sudan. They carried walking sticks and memories of those lost in decades of bloodshed to a polling station to mark a moment in history and begin a chance for reinvention in one of the poorest corners of the continent. They cast their ballots as a children's choir sang from a radio and a goat- skin drum thumped in the distance.

Government troops killed 33 rebels in a battle in southern Sudan last week, the National Sudan News Agency reported.

Southern Sudanese leader Salva Kiir spent most of his life as a guerrilla soldier battling the northern-dominated government of President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir. Long before the Darfur conflict in western Sudan captured international attention, southern rebels led by Kiir's Sudan People's Liberation Movement, or SPLM, fought a devastating civil war that claimed more than 2 million lives.

A C-130 cargo plane carrying 15 1/2 tons of corn landed in the southern Sudanese city of Torit as the United Nations started up relief operations after a bloody ambush caused a three-day delay. Paul Mitchell, a spokesman for the United Nations' Operation Lifeline Sudan, said the plane arrived in the beleaguered city Friday from Kampala, Uganda. He also said the C-130, leased from and operated by the Miami-based Southern Air Transport, will make three flights daily to Torit until it has delivered 1,100 tons.

Names always have meaning. My family name, Ajjugo, means pillar or overcomer in my native language. Looking back at my father's life, I see how well this fits him, and also the brave, resilient people of the southern Sudan. I was born in the south's equatorial region in 1964. In 1965, my father moved us southward into northern Uganda. The reason was simple: Others wished to tear us from our roots and tell us how to think, what to believe, how to live.

He watched the girl as she passed by each day, an enigma. It never occurred to him that she might be going to school, a rarity in southern Sudan. He decided he had to have her. So John Benykor paid 20 cows to her family to wed her. Thus began Martha Yar's lonely struggle for the right to be educated, get a job and live her own life. Here in war-torn southern Sudan, women are the property of their fathers, brothers or husbands.

Fears of another civil war are playing out in Sudan as troops led by President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir have overrun towns and attacked tribesmen loyal to the south around a contested border region of oil reserves and well-armed militias. Bloodshed and streams of refugees are a dangerous prelude to July 9, when southern Sudan, after decades of conflict that left more than 2 million dead, gains independence. The south will inherit the bulk of the nation's oil supplies and the incursions by northern forces appear to be part of Bashir's strategy to press the south for last-minute concessions.

On Jan. 9, after a half-century of violence and strife, the people of southern Sudan voted overwhelmingly to secede from the north. In the joyous aftermath of the historic referendum, formal independence was set for July 9, when, for the first time in nearly 20 years, a new, sovereign, self-governing African nation is scheduled to come into being. Secession makes sense. The two regions, north and south, had been shoehorned into one nation by the British in 1956 despite their glaring linguistic, cultural, racial and historical contradictions — a colonial mismatch that led to one of the longest civil wars in Africa.

These are heady days. Across the Middle East and North Africa, hundreds of thousands of angry citizens have taken to the streets, calling for freedom, insisting that dictators step aside and demanding a voice in their own destinies. But even as extraordinary change roils the region, it is important to remember that deposing a dictator and shucking off the ancien regime does not lead inexorably or immediately to democracy. Think of France in 1789 or Russia in 1917 or Iran in 1979.

Clashes in recent days between Arab nomads and tribesmen have left at least 30 people dead and raised fears that the independence referendum in southern Sudan could lead to widespread violence in the disputed, oil-rich region of Abyei. Straddling the volatile area where northern and southern Sudan meet, Abyei has a dangerous mix of heavily armed Arab cattle herders loyal to the northern-based government of President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir and Dinka Ngok tribesmen aligned with the southern leadership.

They walked in their best clothes past villages and down dirt roads until they came to the church to fold away the pain of war and redraw the map of Africa in a referendum that began Sunday on independence for southern Sudan. They carried walking sticks and memories of those lost in decades of bloodshed to a polling station to mark a moment in history and begin a chance for reinvention in one of the poorest corners of the continent. They cast their ballots as a children's choir sang from a radio and a goat- skin drum thumped in the distance.

Anyone who has traveled to both the desert-like north of Sudan ? where the capital city of Khartoum is located ? and the flood-prone south cannot help but notice the extraordinary differences between them. The people of the north are mostly lighter-skinned, Muslim Arabs. Those in the south tend to be darker-skinned, Christian and animist rather than Muslim, more recognizably African. The north borders the Arab nations of Egypt and Libya; the south leads to Kenya, Uganda and Congo. These disparate regions were melded into one country as part of the same blunt imperial exercise that deformed so much of the world: The British, that is, decided it should be so, creating a nearly 1-million-square-mile nation whose linguistic, cultural, racial and historical contradictions were readily apparent long before the country became independent in 1956.

This time it's the booty, not the pirates, that everyone's talking about. And what they're wondering is: Just where were those Russian tanks going? As additional U.S. warships gathered around a hijacked Ukrainian ship off Somalia, questions persisted Monday about where the vessel's military cargo was destined. The governments of Kenya and Ukraine say the shipment of 33 Russian-built T-72 tanks, ammunition and spare parts was part of a legal sale contracted last year to supply the Kenyan army.

A phalanx of international relief organizations suspended operations in southern Sudan on Wednesday in frustration over the groups' failure to reach an agreement with guerrillas in the war-torn region over security concerns and the distribution of aid. The abrupt departure of the dozen or so aid organizations could seriously jeopardize ongoing humanitarian relief programs in southern Sudan and put at risk the lives of tens of thousands of people.

Victor Ladu drops his crutches in the dirt and sits with his one leg folded beneath him. He looks like a dark bird perched for flight. He brushes dust from the right cuff folded high at the knee. It's a hot afternoon. Women balance water buckets on their heads and soldiers, so young, almost like boys, wander through the grass in lazy patrols. They may have to fight one day, but for now they stroll with their guns, lighting trash fires along the road near the new schoolhouse and clinic.