Free Republic

On Sunday, the southern Sudanese began voting on a referendum to secede from the Republic of Sudan and establish their own sovereign nation. By all accounts, they will soon secede from the Arab, Islamic country and form an independent African, Christian and animist state. The consequences of their actions will reverberate around the world. This week’s referendum takes place in accordance with the US-brokered Comprehensive Peace Treaty between the Khartoum government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement signed on January 9, 2005. The CPT officially ended the second Sudanese Civil War that began in 1983. The South Sudanese referendum will...

...The argument for postponement, of course, is that the insurgency in Iraq will make holding elections difficult.... But Iraq's anti-democratic forces already seem to be operating at maximum capacity, and recent coalition operations are reducing their ranks as they've lost safe havens. The last thing these terrorists should see now is that their resort to violence can force postponement of the vote. That could lead to even more violence and another delay, and then another.... The danger is that any significant postponement will shift Shiite sentiment in the direction of more radical voices -- Moqtada al-Sadr's or others'. Moreover, if...

Feb. 26, 2003 Editorial: For a new Arab agenda The 15th annual heads-of-state meeting of the 22-member Arab League is scheduled to take place on Saturday, March 1, in Sharm e-Sheikh, Egypt. When Bahrain, which chairs the meeting, strikes the gavel the agenda will focus on Iraq and "Palestine." On Iraq, the members agree that war is a bad thing, but they disagree on what to do about it. On Palestine, they agree that Israel is a bad thing, but they can't agree on what to do about it either. What they won't be talking about is democracy, or how...