The Recent Developments in the Two Sudans

“Has the International Community failed the People of the two Sudans?”

This last week, I attended an event at George Washington and American University co-sponsored by Voices for Sudan and STAND (college based student group engaged in activism on Sudan), and Fair Trade group where I sat at a panel discussing some of the critical issues facing the two Sudans. At these events, the topic of our discussion brought to light many of the hot button issues as well as calling students to take action putting more pressure on the international community to keep its end of the bargain in helping stabilize these two very volatile and strategic states.

Although the format of the discussion differed a little, the core theme of it centered pretty much on the same issues. Many of the issues brought forth to the table by the panelists consisted of whether the International Community has lived up to its obligations vis-a-vis the pending border territories of Abyei, Blue Nile, South Kordofan, both resulting from last year’s independence of Southern Sudan and the Darfur Region. In this piece, I will discuss these issues in greater detail and at the end of it offer my opinion of what I believe the international community must do to refocus on these two countries. The panelists all agreed that the International Community has not fully lived up to its responsibility as the main broker in the South-North Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005. Neither has it done enough to protect the victims of the aerial bombardment in both the Blue Nile and the Nuba Mountains border regions where fresh conflict has erupted beginning in the early June 2011.

The crisis which has displaced thousands of Nuba and Blue Nile people, has begun before the official announcement of Southern Sudan’s independence. The CPA was the blueprint upon which last year’s referendum was held and eventually paved the way for S. Sudan independence from its northern part in July 2009. Despite this positive outcome of the vote, the CPA was not comprehensive enough as most might have hoped it to be. It did little to address and provide a clear solution for the people of the Nuba Mountains or Blue Nile regions, which were both given “Popular People Consultation” status under the agreement. Darfur on the other hand was not included in CPA.

Has the Internationally Community Lived up to its responsibility vise-a-vise the people of Sudan & S. Sudan?

Since the signing of the agreement in the Kenyan city of Nifasha in 2005 and leading up to the referendum in January of 2011, the world community focused its attention on insuring that Sudan does not jeopardize or renege the agreement and the voting process of S. Sudanese in the referendum. Fortunately, with enough pressure, and with promises from the United States to provide carrot to the Khartoum regime by lifting them up from terrorist sponsored list, al-Bashir and his cabinet awaited the promise of normalization, but since they did not get it, they went on the offense in Darfur, and now in the Blue Nile and Kordofan regions. On the positive side, the U.S. and other states in the international community along with faith based groups, NGOs, regional organizations such as the African Union, and the UN managed to shepherd the parties to signing the historic agreement, which eventually led to the secession of Southern Sudan without the two countries resorting to full-scale war. After the independence, the international community was quick to let their eyes off the ball, and instead of making sure that some of the critical issues such as oil sharing, nationality, assets, and border demarcations all of which are typical hurdles whenever a new nation secedes from another under the international law to form its own country. The world community left the two states to their own to figure out by these critical outstanding issues, and the result so far has been that they have come to a brink-ship of full scale war between Juba and Khartoum. Instead of focusing on staying the course and pushing the two parties to come together and resolve their outstanding issues such as holding a referendum in the Abyei region, which remains a disputed area between the South and North Sudan, the International Community celebrated the independence and abandoned the Nuba and Blue Nile people to face their own bleak destiny. Unfortunately, the U.S. does not have a clear policy of how to deal with the Khartoum authoritarian regime when it comes to resolving the border regions’ issues of Abyei, Darfur, Blue Nile, and South Kordofan where people are bombarded, displaced, tortured, and killed on daily basis.

What has triggered the Conflict between the National Congress Party (NCP) the ruling regime in Khartoum, Sudan and Sudanese People Liberation Movement(SPLM-N) in Southern Kordofan (Nuba Mountains) state and Blue Nile?

An election was held in the Kordofan state to elect a governor, and the outcome was that al-Bashir hand-picked Ahmed Haroun representing the National Congress Party who is wanted by the ICC was elected in an election deemed rigged by the account of many Sudanese and Nubans in particular who went to the polls in that state. Abdel-aziz al Hilu who lost the election represented the Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM-N) against Ahmed Haroun. First to set the record straight, Southern Sudan and SPLM-North had fought along side each other against the North for over three decades. Now that the South has become its own country, al-Bashir regime no longer sees any reason for the SPLM-N to exist in its territory in Northern Sudan, so it decided to unilaterally disarm them. It began by giving them an ultimatum shortly after the vote for the referendum of S. Sudan that they disarm and become part of the Sudanese Armed forces or be disarmed by force, which is contrary to what the CPA entailed. According to the CPA, the issue should have been dealt within the security arrangement protocol through which the SPLM-N forces in a six month period following the S. Sudan secession will have to gradually become part of Northern Sudan Armed Forces. Knowing that the SPLM-N was not going to accept, the NCP unilaterally went on the offense to disarm the SPLM-N forces in the Nuba Mountains area, and later the Blue Nile region, where the governor was democratically elected according to the Popular People Consultation, a right given to them by the CPA. Consequently an opening of the door for an ongoing conflict in which thousands of civilians have been killed and others hundreds displaced to camps inside Southern Sudan and others fleeing to neighboring Ethiopia or becoming internally displaced has began. After outpouring of from the Advocacy community and human rights activists, the world and the UN began to condemn the regime in Khartoum to halt the aerial bombardment of the innocent civilians, but so far a strong stance from the world community have lagged in terms of reigning in the aerial bombardment in the two states or convincing the government of al-Bashir to all humanitarian aid to the victims.

Regional analysis and the way forward for the Two Sudans:

As Northern Sudan and Southern Sudan try to build their current nations with murky borders they are faced with many hurdles. One of these fundamental challenges is how to be more inclusive politically. No one should be under any illusion that this task is going to be easy. It will take months and months if not years to heal the wounds of almost half a century grievances of S. Sudanese, who have suffered injustices and deprivation of many human rights. What should be expected though is a good start as a foundation for real change to come and turning the page on the bleak history. Judging by the UN Human Development Index indications S. Sudan is classified to be the poorest nation where many do not have basic needs. The Sudanese People Liberation Army/M (SPLA/M), which has fought in the bush for more than three decades against the North, does not have a clear concept of what stability, democracy, development, and the rule of law mean for the average people. This is despite the fact that the SPLM has transformed itself into a political party, but it remains the party that is dominating the government and politics in the newly formed state. Therefore there is a reason to be concerned that such monopoly in ruling the state be unchallenged. This has raised tensions among various ethnic groups and is leading to further isolation of other political parties and civil society, which could trigger discontent among other political parties and dissenters who might feel that they are not included in the decision-making affecting the lives of the Southerners as a whole.

Will the oil curse affect Southern Sudan and ‘Cause War between the two nations?

The two countries have been waging economic war. Southern Sudan which produces enjoys 75% of the oil revenue since its independence has been in oil shipment dispute with its Northern counterpart over the royalty resource for both Sudan and South Sudan is a sticking point and is one of which the two countries are not able to agree on how to resolve it. This led Southern Sudan to shut down the oil pipeline that run into the North Eastern Port Sudan refinery in Sudan over complaint that, Northern Sudan is cheating them out of the oil prices. An ongoing negating to find a compromise is still going in Addis Ababa under the auspices of the African Union headed by Thabo Mbeki, the former President of South Africa.

I was pleased to hear President Silver Kiir Announce that the Republic of Southern Sudan will join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). Now whether it lives up to this obligation or not is to be seen in the future, but for not that is a good start.

Additionally, oil as the main source of income of the newly formed state of which it relies “98%” will further tests the scope of leadership in Juba. Since, I wrote my senior thesis topic in college about the concept of “Rentier-estate” or the so called “Oil Curse”, I do believe that Southern Sudan will need more than oil to diversify its economy and secure its economy from the downfalls during the oil crisis which is inevitable to happen need issue equally tops the thorny issues that, the South has to deal with ---if it does not diversify its economy, then we might have a situation in which Southern Sudan become another corrupt country in which the elite few siphon revenues of the oil, where the majority of ordinary S. Sudanese live in abject poverty. Furthermore, the rule of law is very important to guarantee that business sector and robust civil society emerges to act as check and balance on the power of the ruling government branches.