One of the things coming out, which we heard very strongly, is to keep the eye on the ball in the north. During the national elections, the southern Sudanese government said there were some 1.5 million people in the north; the National Congress Party said, no, there were only half a million; and now the National Congress Party in the north is saying, oh, no, there are maybe three million people, or more.
The hijinks there is simply that if they can get enough people to register by making it easy for them and somehow make it at least incrementally more difficult to actually vote, then it will not satisfy the 60% of registered voters going past the mark of 50% plus one. That's a real fear, and we're hearing this all over the place. The key voter education issue is that if you're not going to vote as a southerner, whether you're in the north or the south, don't register.
Because of the history of the National Congress Party, the government is a bit more opaque, I would say, about how these things play out. It's important that referendum monitors, for both the registration and the voting, are in the north.
We recently heard that the International Organization for Migration was requested to monitor in the north but turned it down, probably knowing how complicated it was going to be. Perhaps the Europeans will take over, but there should be considerable concerted pressure in the international community on ensuring there is adequate monitoring in the north.
Of course in the Abyei area, there may be some possibilities of increasing the capacity, through Canadian resources, of UNMIS, the United Nations Mission in Sudan, in that contested area.
Beyond that there is this issue of preparing for massive migration. As I said in my presentation, the churches have two international groups that they work through--Action of Churches Together, and Caritas--and they develop plans, along with civil society on the ground, to ensure there are adequate contingencies in place.
Lastly, I would say, as John mentioned, giving more than lip service and real traction to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, there might be areas for Canada to explore increasing its use of women military police in the UN forces. That's not only for the more obvious places, such as the Congo, but also in Sudan.
I'll leave it at that for now.