Southern Sudan Referendum Delay Might Reignite War, Kiir Says
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Delaying the referendum on independence in Southern Sudan would risk resumption of civil war, the head of the region’s government said, even as the U.S. suggested it will be hard to organize a credible vote on Jan. 9.
“We see this timing as sacred,” Salva Kiir, the president of Southern Sudan and first vice president of Sudan, said yesterday at the International Peace Institute in New York. “There is a risk of a return to war in case of delay or denial of this exercise, and it would be on a very massive scale.”