webmaster
© Copyright DEHAI-Eritrea OnLine, 1993-2011
All rights reserved
From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Wed Mar 30 2011 - 08:41:47 EST
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2061927,00.html South Sudan:
Will Freedom Just Lead to Civil War?
By Alan Boswell / Khartoum Monday, Mar. 28, 2011
Fears of a bloody birth for the world's newest country, South Sudan, are
becoming ever more real after weeks of battles between its autonomous
government and their opponents. Hundreds have died in fighting between South
Sudan authorities and rebel militias. Now five rebel groups in four of the
country's ten states appear to have united under one name, the Southern
Sudan Democratic Movement, and one commander, George Athor. "There is a need
for the world to know who we are," Athor told TIME via satellite phone from
an undisclosed location. "Our manifesto will come out very soon."
Even without such a document, the aims and motivations of Athor and his men
are clear. Athor is a former deputy chief of staff for the Sudan People's
Liberation Army (SPLA), the armed wing of the Sudan People's Liberation
Movement (SPLM), which led the fight for independence and now runs the
government. Athor took his men to the bush last year after an unsuccessful
bid in the election for a state governorship. In February, his forces killed
more than 200 people, mostly civilians, in an attack on the village of
Fangak in the northeast of South Sudan. Among his recruits are warlords who
in the past have hired out their services to the northern Sudanese
government to repress the southern population and clear villagers away from
oil fields. Their alliance is likely as loose as all their previous fleeting
allegiances, but the rebels clearly feel emboldened.
When they voted overwhelmingly in a January referendum to secede from
Sudan's northern, Arab government in Khartoum, most southern Sudanese hoped
they were turning a new page after decades of war. South Sudan's
independence, scheduled for July, is the endgame of a 2005 U.S.-backed peace
deal to stop a half century of north-south bloodshed in which more than 2
million people died. But the jubilee of January was short-lived. The
referendum instead signaled a new round of intra-south killings, as old
warlords awoke from hibernation and new dissidents gathered strength.
The rebels are not just driven by opportunism. If the new southern
government wants peace, it will have to solve some fundamental divisions.
First among them: the government's domination by the south's largest tribe,
the Dinka. Bapiny Monituel, a beefy, boyish-faced general who joined Athor
earlier this month, says that after the 2005 peace deal, he joined the
northern army rather than the SPLA because he is Nuer. "Everything [in the
south] is controlled by the Dinka. They don't want us to come to power.
Dinka leaders counter that Nuer hold deputy positions in both the SPLA and
the southern government. Nevertheless, when the Dinka South Sudan President
Salva Kiir named a constitutional review committee in February, 15 of the 24
members came from his tribe. Widespread official corruption and land
grabbing only exacerbates the animosity. Noting the lack of development in
the south since 2005, despite hundreds of millions of dollars in aid and
billions more the government has received in oil revenues, Monituel
grumbles: "The oil [money] is going to the Arabs in the north and the Dinka
in the south, but it is in our land." Says Jon Temin, Sudan program director
at the U.S. Institute of Peace: "With the referendum complete, the old
grievances and armed groups have resurfaced."
The SPLA claims the rebels are proxies for the north. On March 12, SPLM
secretary-general Pagan Amum suspended talks with the north on how to handle
July's separation, accusing Khartoum of seeking to overthrow the southern
government. But when he produced documents allegedly proving that the north
is backing Athor, independent experts dismissed them as unsophisticated
forgeries. For its part, the north does not deny that in the past it worked
to undermine the southern leadership. But Al-Dirdiri Mohammed Ahmed, a
member of the ruling National Congress Party's negotiation team, says that
was no worse than the support offered by the south to Darfur's rebels in the
west. "[We told SPLM:] 'We have to stop everything where it is, and let us
now start a new page,'" he tells TIME.
Whatever the sincerity of that statement, the key issue does appear to be
intra-south divisions rather than northern support for any dissident
faction. Carol Berger, an anthropologist who studies the SPLA and
militarization, says the number joining Athor and Co. is rising: "The
violence spreading throughout many parts of the south is largely the result
of unfinished business within the SPLA itself."
Only a few months ago, the splitting of Sudan looked set to be a rare
diplomatic triumph in Africa. Now, as July 9, the day of secession, draws
closer, it seems more likely that any celebrations will be muted. Sitting in
his comfortable self-imposed exile in the northern capital Khartoum, rebel
leader Monituel declares war: "Now that the referendum has gone we are
dealing with our problems."
See a Q&A with Mia Farrow about South
Sudan.<http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2060435,00.html>
See more on Sudan's
split.<http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2045274,00.html>
Read more:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2061927,00.html#ixzz1I5dwfEUe
----[This List to be used for Eritrea Related News Only]----