Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2014 16:00:31 +0200
Stopgap stopovers in Sudan
Courted by both Qatar and South Sudan, Khartoum is still playing the wheel
of fortune amid regional isolation, writes Gamal Nkrumah
Friday,11 April, 2014
Pedalling poverty is not necessarily clever politics. And Sudan desires to
prove that its economy is not as precarious as it seems. The Emir of Qatar
Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani paid a three-hour - originally scheduled for
six - visit to Khartoum and granted Sudan $1 billion. The state of Sudanese
politics is deplorable to say the least. Both Sudan and South Sudan are in
turmoil and the violence in much of South Sudan and in Darfur is escalating
at an alarming rate.
Yet Sudanese financial strains, the government maintains, will not result in
the sort of severe suffering experienced by other African countries. For
sure, the Sudanese opposition parties dispute this reasoning. Last month,
Sudanese students and political activists took to the streets in
demonstrations against the oppressive policies of the Sudanese government
and the wretched state of the economy.
Out of the blue, Qatar comes to the rescue. Strangely enough, Sudanese
officials last month proudly proclaimed that Qatar provided $135 million in
support for Sudan's impressively rich but underdeveloped archaeological
heritage, a remarkable feat in an Islamist-run state.
Sudan has emerged as one of the most critical regional allies of Qatar, a
tiny oil-rich country that hosted talks that led to the 2011 Doha Document
for Peace in Darfur between Khartoum and armed opposition groups in the
western region of Sudan.
Let's be frank, both Qatar and Sudan were furious for different reasons
about the unceremonious ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood government from
Egypt. The two regionally isolated regimes have been inching closer
politically in recent years even as they have been ostracised by Egypt, the
United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. The Emir of Qatar proclaimed that the
two countries need "continuous joint consultations". The two countries were
pushed willy-nilly into a curious alliance.
A fateful call, so to speak, drew South Sudan into the game. Over to you,
and hurry, is the stated policy of South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, and
Khartoum is pleased with the turn of events. Racism and the Islamist
ideology of Khartoum forced South Sudan to secede. Breaking up was very hard
for Khartoum, and now it seems that South Sudan is willing to pay the
alimony for the divorce.
The entire security apparatus in Sudan and South Sudan needs overhauling.
Oil might be the panacea, but so far the governments of both states have
been unfortunately ham-fisted, primarily because of civil wars.
So can Sudan regain its shine? The root of the problem in Sudanese politics
is militant Islamist fundamentalism. That was precisely why South Sudan
seceded. And yet, South Sudan today is trying to mend fences with Khartoum.
US President Barack Obama this week signed an unprecedented executive order
authorising sanctions against those fomenting trouble in South Sudan. In
December, fighting broke out between troops loyal to Kiir and his sacked
deputy, Riek Machar. It is against this backdrop that Kiir made an
unprecedented visit to Khartoum on Saturday, albeit it was a brief stopover.
Still, he met with his Sudanese counterpart, Omar Hassan Al-Bashir.
The ruling party in South Sudan, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement
(SPLM), is in dire straits. Much economic activity in what was designated by
the World Bank as the fastest growing economy in the globe was strangled as
a result of the civil war and internal wrangling that broke out between
different factions of the SPLM. So South Sudan is now looking north.
Policymakers and pundits try to work out a plan to bring the two twins
together again. Kiir and Al-Bashir concurred on the urgent need to develop
joint mechanisms to reactivate the implementation of cooperation agreements
signed between the two countries in 2012.
Sure the sound of <http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/UI/Front/>
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crunching can be heard next door in Khartoum. Machar escaped from Juba with
former Unity State governor Taban Deng Gai and 11 senior SPLM members were
promptly arrested. Next civil war erupted in South Sudan. However, Sudan and
South Sudan still have much in common. This means that if South Sudan is
serious about getting closer to its northern twin certain issues that might
be sensitive to religious belief in the two countries need revisiting.
Yes, Kiir released seven of the detainees but kept four - including the
SPLM's former secretary general, the charismatic Pagan Amum - in custody.
However, the political situation in South Sudan is not stable for the
moment. There are several political issues between protagonists that need to
be ironed out.
The government of Al-Bashir usurped power 25 years ago in an Islamist-backed
coup and has a stranglehold on the country's politics in spite of the
splitting of the country and the secularist Sudanese opposition that has not
managed to gain the upper hand.
Al-Bashir, nevertless, made peace overtures to opposition parties. Yet, On
Sunday many opposition figures rejected Al-Bashir's offer and pointed out
that it was conditional. "We've heard it all before", opposition leader
Farouk Abu-Eissa told Al-Ahram Weekly.
This sorry state of affairs may not be coming to an end soon. Indeed, the
two concurrent visits to Khartoum, by Qatar's emir and South Sudan's Kiir,
this week indicate that Sudan's head is still above water, if only just.
Stopgap stopovers in Sudan
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