Obama and aides monitor vote in Sudan

In addition to monitoring the investigation of the attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., President Obama and aides will also be keeping an eye today on a potentially violent vote in Sudan.

Citizens in southern Sudan are voting on whether to form a new nation, a decision that threatens to break a 2005 peace agreement and renew a half-century of civil war in the African nation.

In an op-ed in The New York Times, Obama said the United States and the world are united "to make sure that all parties in Sudan live up to their obligations:"

As the referendum proceeds, voters must be allowed access to polling stations; they must be able to cast their ballots free from intimidation and coercion. All sides should refrain from inflammatory rhetoric or provocative actions that could raise tensions or prevent voters from expressing their will.

As the ballots are counted, all sides must resist prejudging the outcome.

If south Sudan does agree to secede, Obama said the United States and its allies stand ready to help both nations move on peacefully. He writes that the world has "an interest in ensuring that the two nations that emerge succeed as stable and economically viable neighbors, because their fortunes are linked."

And that includes preventing more genocide in the western region of Darfur, Obama writes:

The deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Darfuris -- and the plight of refugees like those I met in a camp in neighboring Chad five years ago -- must never be forgotten. Here, too, the world is watching.

(Posted by David Jackson)