From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Tue Jun 01 2010 - 07:40:11 EDT
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/g8-g20/africa/africa-poised-to-give-birth-to-new-nation-south-sudan/article1586194/
May 31, 2010
Africa poised to give birth to new nation, South Sudan
By Geoffrey York
>From Monday's Globe and Mail
Imminent arrival of newest sovereign country is first real challenge to
Africa's artificial colonial borders half a century after the era's demise
All day, the tanker trucks rumble up to the White Nile. Young men pump
filthy water into the tanks, add a dash of chlorine, and then the trucks
rumble off to deliver the tainted water to the mud huts of southern Sudan's
biggest city. As soon as they leave, more trucks take their place.
With water sloshing out of their tanks, the trucks roar past a pipe that was
installed years ago to fill the tankers with treated water from the
municipal system. The pipe is broken and abandoned.
An estimated 80 to 90 per cent of Juba's household water is taken from the
polluted waters of the White Nile, not far from places where foul waste is
dumped into the river. As a result, this fast-growing city of a million
people is left vulnerable to cholera and other diseases. Cholera outbreaks
have erupted almost every year since 2006.
Southern Sudan is one of the poorest and hungriest places in the world,
racked by tribal violence, with rates of child malnutrition and maternal
mortality that rank among the worst on the planet. Yet a year from now, this
desperate region is likely to become the world's newest sovereign country.
Half a century after the colonial era ended, the imminent birth of a new
nation in South Sudan is the first real challenge to Africa's artificial
colonial borders. Those borders, drawn up in the 19th century by European
officials with no knowledge of Africa's realities, are still fuelling the
wars and conflicts of today. They shape Africa's future, too, by hampering
trade and economic growth.
But by acting as midwife to the birth of a new nation, is the world
repeating the same mistakes that it made 50 years ago? Will this "baby
nation" be able to swim in the seas of independence?
New borders will not fix Africa's problems. The splitting of Sudan, promoted
for strategic reasons by Washington, will fuel a fresh set of conflicts
along the new border. It will create a fragile new country, landlocked and
impoverished, with a heavy dependence on foreign aid - just like many of the
fledgling countries of half a century ago.
Much of modern Africa is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
Seventeen nations, a third of the continent, became independent in 1960. But
there is an equally significant anniversary this year: the 125th anniversary
of the Berlin Conference, which carved up Africa among the European powers.
The decisions of that meeting - the climax of the notorious "Scramble for
Africa" - continue to distort Africa to this day.
As the historian Martin Meredith has documented, the colonial boundaries cut
randomly through 190 cultural or ethnic groups that had existed for
centuries. Nearly half of these borders were geometric lines that were easy
to draw, yet had no connection to reality on the ground. Hundreds of diverse
ethnic groups were lumped together or torn apart. Some 250 ethnic groups
were thrown together in Nigeria alone. Around 10,000 polities - including
monarchies, chiefdoms, empires and other societies - were suddenly
amalgamated into 40 European colonies or protectorates.
"We have been giving away mountains and rivers and lakes to each other, only
hindered by the small impediment that we never knew exactly where they
were," British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury admitted as the colonial powers
grabbed as much as they could.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, these colonial inventions were abruptly
given their independence. Ethnic groups, often hand-picked by European
powers to administer their colonies, were soon battling for dominance.
"Those arbitrary boundaries carried the seeds of much subsequent
destruction, notably the terrible national/ethnic wars that have plagued
Africa," said Gerald Caplan, the Canadian activist and author of *The
Betrayal of Africa*. "Sudan is a perfect example, Nigeria another."
The colonial legacy also paralyzed the economic development of these
nations. Because of the colonial borders, 15 of the new nations were
landlocked - a heavy barrier to their growth. Most of the new African
nations were still oriented to their former colonial masters in Europe,
which continued to extract their resources. Even today, only 8 per cent of
their trade is within Africa.
The borders have ensured that Africans are still too disconnected from each
other. "We have 53 little countries and we are intentionally determined not
to communicate and trade and move goods between each other," said Mo
Ibrahim, the billionaire mobile-phone entrepreneur who has become one of
Africa's most influential business leaders.
Sudan was a classic example of the illogical colonial borders. Its two
halves had been administered separately, yet they were joined together at
independence in 1956. The north was largely Arabic-speaking and Islamic,
while the southerners were black tribes of diverse languages who followed
traditional religions and Christianity. The northerners, who had often
raided the south for slaves, dominated the government of the new country and
aggressively promoted Islam in the south. The resentments soon erupted into
rebellions and wars that killed millions of people until a peace agreement
was finally reached in 2005.
The new nation of South Sudan, almost certain to be born after a referendum
on independence in January, would be only the second created in Africa since
the end of colonialism (the first was Eritrea). It will become yet another
landlocked aid-dependent African nation.
In some of its villages, nearly half of all children are malnourished - the
highest rate in the world. An estimated 85 per cent of all health and
education services are provided by foreign aid agencies, not by the
government. Clashes between tribes and clans killed about 2,500 people last
year, and hundreds more have been killed this year. Nearly 400,000 people
were forced to flee their homes because of violence last year - twice as
many as the year before.
"Simply declaring southern Sudan an independent state will not bring peace
and stability," Mr. Caplan said. "This will be a frail new state indeed. The
south is left with deep ethnic divisions and divisive borders that are a
recipe for big future trouble."
Southern Sudan has received $7-billion in oil revenue since the 2005 peace
agreement. But corruption has siphoned off much of this money, and the
government has given the largest part of its budget to its military and
security forces. "The armed forces are way bigger than they should be, and
way bigger than anticipated," said Peter Crowley, director of Unicef's
program in southern Sudan.
In the capital, Juba, there is no electricity grid, no industry, and
scarcely any water treatment. Most people live in mud huts, shacks, tents or
other temporary dwellings. When the contaminated water from the White Nile
is pumped into the tanker trucks, the workers add a bit of chlorine from a
jug, but they admit they're not sure how much to add. Families must pay up
to $4 for a barrel of this tainted water. International agencies such as
Unicef have been obliged to provide emergency water supplies to prevent more
cholera outbreaks.
The independence of southern Sudan will create a new military ally for the
United States, but it won't end the illiteracy, malnutrition, maternal
deaths, or disease outbreaks. If the impoverished people of southern Sudan
don't see improvement in their lives, the peace pledges could be jeopardized
and the tribal violence could escalate.
"Unless people are able to feel the benefits of peace ... the potential of a
return to conflict is going to be greater," Mr. Crowley said. "Why fight to
preserve a peace that's not bringing you any benefit?"
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