Time is rapidly running out to organize the many steps for the southern referendum, with registration already far behind time.

A secretary-general for the southern referendum commission has at last been appointed - a northerner. The much needed progress on the commission may now at last start to move forward. 

But the logistical challenges are huge: international experts overseeing the referendum process have pared down the timetable needed to prepare registration materials, do the registration, prepare the ballots, and all the other accompanying steps.

They warn that if considerable movement is not seen in the next two weeks, it will become impossible in the time left to provide a vote that is even half credible. 

Southern officials have a real fear that even the smallest complaint of failure in the the referendum process will provide the fuel for the northern National Congress Party to reject the expected result of secession. 

We should be talking about 'referenda'  too: Abyei's referendum has dropped off the agenda, although it is due to hold its own vote on the same day as the south. The area remains volatile, and tensions are high there.

Without settlement in Abyei, the whole process may stumble. (And too the popular consultation processes in Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan, also key parts of the CPA peace deal, which are largely forgotten outside the respective areas, subsumed by the enormous referendum focus).

The International Crisis Group have issued the latest of several to warn on the high military build up and tensions along the north south border. The referendum is the  pinnacle of the CPA, and one of the most important dates for Sudan as a state for the past century.

Southern officials are adamant the date cannot be shifted from 9th January: they do not want it to be, but they say they also fear the reaction from the people if it has to be moved for logistical reasons. They will not be able to control the people on the street, they warn.


Those on the streets say everyone has known the vote has been coming for six years, and will take no excuse for delay. 


They quote "too many agreements dishonoured", the title of the book by veteran southern politician Abdel Alier. This, the southerners say, is their one chance, and they will not let it slip away. 

Much to do, little time to do it in, and absurdly high stakes. 

Captions please...

Back to the LRA bad lands, on a UN backed trip to talk to those displaced by recent raids along the border with the DR Congo.

With a report out from Human Rights Watch on attacks in the Central African Republic, including hundreds of abductions and killings in recent months, on the heels of a report by the Enough project on comparably high abductions and deaths in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, the story has become grimly familiar.

I've not seen the LRA proper since late 2006, which is when this photograph is from.

 I don't think many reporters have seen them since, beyond glimpses in the bush or interviews with those who have surrendered, or in the case of children, rescued. 

 I wonder if this crew are still around: they were sad individuals.  I don't think many of us knew how to handle ex-child soldiers, who were only "ex" because they had grown up, and were acting out the same atrocities they suffered on a new generation of soon to be fighters.
 
 Men who parade with weapons taken off the Guatemalan special forces mown down when they attacked LRA positions, suggest they have shrugged off the innocent child and embraced the movement to sustain it. 

Many of the foot soldiers are once children from the communities they now attack: providing another often little mentioned reason why fighting back against those who attack poses extra moral dilemmas. 

Who the ' LRA' are now is never clear: after abducting so many for so long outside of Uganda, the 'Ugandan rebel' tag has morphed somewhat awkwardly for an international audience into "Ugandan-led". 

How far they are led however is also open to question, but 750 words is not the easiest place to debate that.

Many operate autonomously with the merest of occasional sat-phone calls to the head, an Al-Qaeda jungle model of doom.

Still, those attacked said they believed they were real deal - and yes, there were eyewitnesses -- if the long dreads and odd weapon attachment of an AK-47  bayonet are still to be taken as their calling card.

(That said the dress code of rebel fashion must still  be worth mimicking, in that it still strikes terror into those they destroy.)

So the trip becomes  head scratching time, the deeply bleak task of trying to write a story that warrants publication by dint of being worst than the last. Please note I'm happy if I fail.

In a centre run by admirable nuns, a soft spoken man in a  neat trilby approaches, one of the many hundreds here displaced by an LRA attack.

During the interview, he states his names as "Charles Edward." 

"A very English name," I reply.

"You said that the last time you interviewed me," he shoots back, to my startled surprise.

Too long chasing the same story:  next time I go back,  let it be because it is the LRA's end...

So the world wakes up to South Sudan ... and it’s animal shaped city plans.

Those 'wacky Africans', eh?

The world giggles at those ‘crazy Sudanese’, as though criticizing them for believing a better future is possible.

I’ve written stories here since 2006 on development plans that have yet to emerge – a sprawling hotel to replace the crumbling Juba Hotel, an ultra-modern river port to redevelop the smashed old docks, a railway from Juba to Nairobi. The hotel is still crumbling, the old docks are still old, the railway plans are still plans.

In the end, I find the story treatment deeply sad, because while it seems unlikely to ever really happen, the action of a wildly over-enthusiastic but small part of the government, trying to honestly rebuild their nation, has completely knocked the efforts of the fairly decent chunk of hard working (if sometimes misguided to an outsider, and ponderous) civil servants into laughing stocks.

Is it ever really going to happen?  Unlikely.

Will it have an impact on future funding, be that donor or private investment?  Perhaps.

The key point, that southerners dare to dream of planning their own nation, of providing decent services and housing for the people to replace the towns left in ruins by decades of war against a regime that brutalized this land, is lost behind the patronising international sniggers of the safari shapes.

For South Sudan, independence is not a joke.

Try telling it is it to those on the streets wearing the T-shirts with the slogan: “2.5 million died so we can be free.”

 To popular demand, I’m starting a series of posts about things that are said about South Sudan from outside that just don’t seem quite right for those living here.

All suggestions welcome…

Post number one: the collapse on independence argument.

The drums of doom are beating, the warnings of war are out. Common myth: that separation of the south will lead to imminent collapse.

It’s a popular view: a quick search finds first a Foreign Policy magazine warning (with, true, a more cheery shot of mine than last  time) that “many Sudan watchers are already labeling it  (the south) a "pre-failed state.”... If I were sitting in Foggy Bottom right now, I'd want to start thinking about how to put the pieces back together after everything breaks.” 

Likewise, a gloomy op-ed by John Prendergast and Dave Eggers calls for US intervention and puts war “around the corner”.

The problem is the assumption that there has been governance from the north since the end of the war. There hasn't, so what will change if the independence occurs that so many appear to want?

While the wire’s may call it “semi-autonomous”, the south has been operating as an independent state for five years already.  It hasn’t always gone well, but nothing in terms of governance is going to drastically change after a yes-for-independence vote.

A colleague here in Juba neatly points out the problems in such views.
 
“There is clearly this perception that upon independence, the South is going to collapse because it can’t run itself and because it will stop being run by the North, which is obviously a properly functioning liberal democracy and in no way at all a failed state. People need to understand that things have got massively better over the last five years while the south has been able to run itself (even if the improvement was below expectations). “

So add to that a recent paper by long term Sudan scholar Douglas Johnson, who  asks people to understand that “if the independence of the South will inevitably lead to renewed war with the North, how is it that on current trends unity will avert war?”
 
Likewise, Marc Gustafson  points out in an excellent opinion piece for the CSM, ("Imminent war in Sudan? Not exactly") which does provide a counterbalance to the cries of conflict.

He writes more soberly: “The governments of the North and South can allow the secession to occur, but temporarily continue wealth and power-sharing arrangements similar to those delineated in the interim constitution. This would allow them to slowly adjust the arrangements for as many years as is necessary to satisfy both parties and build new constitutions.”

And for a reporter in Sudan, a warning signoff from Gustafson: "If anything has been learned from the past decade of foreign policy, it is that doomsday predictions of inevitable destruction can easily grab headlines and persuade policymakers to make decisions based on fear rather than knowledge."
 
I'm not saying that there isn't a risk of war, just that I'm not putting money on it.

South Sudan has called for the creation of its own national anthem: jumping the gun a little, given that the referendum is still to come.


Still, officials say that they have to be prepared, and that it is not an endorsement of separation. 


Lyrics, according to a list of guiding principles issued by the committee, must include the south's  history, land, people, struggle, sacrifices, destiny, flag and history.


You can read the BBC website story here. 

The committee have been coy as to their ties to government, but the mood on the streets seemed in support.

It should also include a mention of the Old Testament  book of Isaiah, verse 18 ( "Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled!").
It's not the most cheerful basis for a tune, but hopefully the musicians can give the message a funky beat. 

The clock is ticking towards the referendum, and things will, for reporters, soon get very busy indeed.

So I'd really appreciate all input: what stories should be covered?

What is being overlooked?  What would like to hear more about? 

Please let me know: there is nothing more frustrating than being told after events that one, in their opinion, should perhaps have been focusing more on different angles...

So suggest you ideas now!