By Peter Lokale Nakimangole
TORIT, 16 November 2010 (Gurtong) – The news came in the wake of widespread allegations that the Khartoum government plans to manipulate the referendum vote by issuing false identities to non-South Sudanese who will in turn be influenced not to turn up for the exercise on January 9,2011.
“With this historic vote, we can’t afford to sit on the sidelines and watch the Northern regime ruin this for us. And yes, as one among the seven colleagues assigned at our referendum center as Referendum Observers, we are not going to sleep in keeping out infiltrators. We are going to keep our eyes open from tomorrow till the end of the registration”, said Albert Loremo, a South Sudanese residing in Omaha, Canada in the Budimedia Forum.
He added: “At our referendum center we have three Equatorian Identifiers, one from each state and unlike some African countries, we don't necessarily rely on documents but rather investigative techniques whenever a suspicious individual comes along. In fact, we have pretty much people from every tribe who will be utilised to strike conversation in case the Identifier won't able to make a definitive decision on the status of the prospective registrants”.
A South Sudanese in Uganda, where the registration manipulation reports emanated said discoveries that some non-South Sudanese were given Sudanese documentation and money by the Khartoum group was in bad taste and termed it ‘evil’.