By Patrick Goodenough, International Editor   Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, third from left, pr

04/27/10 | Bloomberg

By Maram Mazen

April 27 (Bloomberg) -- Sudanese authorities began marking the border between the north and south today in preparation for the referendum Southern Sudan is scheduled to hold in January to decide whether to become an independent nation.

The boundary technical committee has started “demarcating the border line on the ground,” Abdallah al-Sadig, the body’s chairman, told reporters today in the capital, Khartoum.

The referendum is part of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement peace agreement that ended a 21-year war between Sudan’s mostly Muslim north and the south, where Christianity and traditional religions dominate. As many as 2 million people died in the conflict.

The government of President Umar al-Bashir, who retained his post in this month’s first multiparty vote in 24 years, and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, which governs Southern Sudan, must agree on the border close to oil-rich areas. Officials from both sides serve on the boundary committee.

Sudan is sub-Saharan Africa’s third-largest producer of crude oil, pumping about 480,000 barrels a day, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy. Most of the fields are in the south.

Bashir’s government and the Southern Sudan administration, led by its president, Salva Kiir, must also negotiate issues such as responsibilities for paying Sudan’s foreign debt and how to share oil revenue if Southern Sudan secedes.

Under the peace agreement, the two sides share equally the proceeds from oil produced in Southern Sudan.