The president of the autonomous government of Southern Sudan, Salva Kiir Mayardit, has ruled out the possibility of a unilateral declaration of independence by the region.
Speaking to Radio Netherlands Worldwide in his first interview since being re-elected in April this year, Mr Kiir said he was committed to conducting a referendum, as agreed on in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).
"I don't think that there is any point where southerners will declare a unilateral independence. It is not up to us ... up to the South to declare an independent Southern Sudan without the process that we have agreed upon."
Southern Sudan is expected to vote for full independence in the referendum scheduled for January 2011. Mr Kiir will then almost certainly become the new country's first president.
He has promised democracy, equality and justice for all in Southern Sudan. Homosexuals, however, would not be accepted in the new country.
"It is not in our character [...] it is not there and if anybody wants to import it to Sudan [...] it will always be condemned by everybody."
© Radio Netherlands Worldwide
© ANP/AFP
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Salva Kiir Mayardit is just another anti-gay African leader. He and his People's Liberation Movement are left-wing in name only. The new Southern Sudan will be a capitalist republic were foreign imperialists are welcome. The wealth of Sudan remains in the hands of a tiny elite. Gay people remain persecuted, because Islam and Christianity don't tolerant gay's and lesbians.
Oh good, that's all the world needs, is another literate stone age country...with some despot leader.
please tell this man to research very well about the traditional practices of his south sudanese people, particularly that of the Azande people in the southwest of southern sudan, before he starts spreading an unnecessary culture of hate, discrimination and oppression in an emerging independent country that everyone is praying for in other for its people to escape centuries of same treatment by the islamic northern sudanese establishment.