Sudan is scheduled to start voting on Jan. 9 in a referendum on whether to grant independence to the oil-producing south of the country. The referendum is a central plank of an accord known as the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended two decades of civil war in Sudan, a north-south conflict in which two million people died.

Qaddafi, speaking at a summit of African and Arab leaders in the Libyan city of Sirte, said the world had to respect the outcome of the referendum, but a vote in favor of independence would create a dangerous precedent.

“What will happen in southern Sudan (if it becomes independent) will be a disease and will spread to all of Africa,” Qaddafi said. “Africa needs foreign investment and stability. With this precedent, investors will be frightened to invest in Africa.”

In a summit draft declaration, the Arab and African leaders stress the need to “respect Sudanese sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence.”

The draft “Sirte Declaration” also affirms the leaders’ “complete rejection of any attempt to undermine its (Sudan’s) sovereignty, unity, security or stability.”

“The importance of completing negotiations on questions pertaining to issues in post-referendum south Sudan” is also underlined in the draft.

Sudanese state media quoted President Omar Bashir accusing southern leaders of a failure to respect the terms of their peace deal and warning of renewed conflict if differences are not settled before the referendum.

According to the document, the leaders also “reject resolutions by the International Criminal Court against the Sudanese president.”

Bashir, the first sitting head of state to face arrest warrants issued by the ICC, denies masterminding war crimes and genocide in Sudan’s war-wracked western region of Darfur.

In power since he led a coup in 1969, Qaddafi is Africa’s longest-serving leader. His country’s oil wealth and the millions of dollars it hands out to African countries in aid and investment give him diplomatic weight on the continent.

Qaddafi chaired a session of the Arab-African summit, which is designed to bridge differences between the two regions and encourage Arab investors to put money into African projects.

Qaddafi issued in his speech an apology for what he said was the Arab world’s shameful history of trading African slaves. Historians say Arab traders seized millions of sub-Saharan Africans and sold them into slavery in the Middle East and North Africa, a practice that went on for hundreds of years and continued in some forms into the 20th century.