S.Sudan president in first call for independence

South Sudan's president on Saturday urged southerners to choose independence in a referendum if they wanted to be free, the closest he has come to calling publicly for the separation of the oil-producing region.

The south will vote in a referendum slated for January 2011 as part of the 2005 peace deal that ended Sudan's 22-year civil war—the African continent's longest armed conflict.

"You want to vote for unity so that you will become a second class in your own country, that is your choice," said Salva Kiir, speaking at Saint Teresa’s Catholic Cathedral in the southern capital Juba at the end of a service.

"If you would want to vote for independence so that you are a free person in your independent state, that will be your own choice," said Kiir, a former guerrilla fighter who battled the government in Khartoum for over two decades.

"We will respect the choice of the people," he added.

You want to vote for unity so that you will become a second class in your own country, that is your choice

Salva Kiir

Tension with the north

The comments will add pressure to the already troubled relationship between Kiir's Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the north's dominant National Congress Party (NCP).

Both sides promised to build up a campaign to make the unity of Sudan attractive to voters when they signed the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that settled the civil war.

Most southerners, embittered by the long war and the lack of development in the south since it ended, are widely thought to support independence. But their leaders had so far not gone as far as openly saying they want to split.

Southern independence is a highly sensitive subject, particularly in the north. The bulk of Sudan's proven oil reserves are in the south, while refineries and Sudan's only port are in the north.

No one from the NCP was immediately available to comment.

Two million people were killed and 4 million fled their homes between 1983 and 2005 as Sudan's north and south battled over differences of ideology, ethnicity and religion. North Sudan is mostly Muslim while southerners are largely Christian and followers of traditional beliefs.