From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Tue Jul 20 2010 - 07:53:10 EDT
Analysis: Post-referendum fears for Southern Sudan
JUBA, 20 July 2010 (IRIN) - The January 2011 referendum in Southern Sudan
will mark a turning point for the region and could see the formation of
Africa's newest state, but how will the south fare after the vote?
A <http://www.pactworld.org/cs/africa/sudan> report commissioned by the
non-profit organization Pact Sudan and conducted by the London School of
Economics in several of Southern Sudan's states (Eastern Equatoria, Greater
Bahr el-Ghazal and Upper Nile), highlights issues that pose a threat to
peace and security in Southern Sudan.
These include the successes and failures of peacebuilding efforts following
the signing in 2005 of the Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA), which ended two
decades of civil war; the challenges of decentralization; "tribal conflict";
changing motivations for cattle-raiding and the role of marginalized youth
in this phenomenon.
Entitled
<http://www2.lse.ac.uk/businessAndConsultancy/LSEConsulting/pdf/southernSuda
n.pdf> Southern Sudan at Odds With Itself: Dynamics of Conflict and
Predicaments of Peace, it found that increasing intra-South violence killed
more than 2,500 people and displaced 350,000 more in 2009, while various
peacebuilding, humanitarian and development approaches had "created some of
the current predicaments of peace, and contributed to the dynamics of
ongoing conflict".
The unclear role of chiefs and traditional leaders had also increased rule
of law and governance problems. Such uneven modes of local control, it said,
could "shift readily towards the establishment of ethnic fiefdoms by
equating ethnicity with government structures and access to resources".
"The run-up to, and outcome of, the vote must be managed with extreme care,"
warned 26 NGOs and civil society groups in a 14 July statement. "The
guarantors to the CPA have both a responsibility and an ability to help
Sudan implement the CPA and prevent further conflict. It is imperative that
the guarantors urgently redouble their efforts to ensure adequate
preparations for the referenda [one in
<http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=89832> Abyei and one in
Southern Sudan], and help secure agreements on sensitive issues such as
border demarcation and oil sharing," they said.
Flashpoints
Several flashpoints emerged after April elections, and tensions have
escalated, the US-based <http://www.enoughproject.org/> Enough Project
said. "The perception in some areas of the South that polls were rigged,
combined with continued abuses by security forces and growing concerns that
proxy militias are becoming more active, are making for a volatile stew in
the countdown to the southern independence referendum," it said in a 14 July
statement.
Religious leaders, who have formed the Sudanese Religious Leaders Referendum
Initiative, say local people need to be made aware of the referendum
process. "The people [of Southern Sudan] need to know the consequences of
the vote and the challenges that come along with this historic transition,"
Bishop Arkanjelo Wani Lemi told a news conference in Juba on 13 July.
Already, said Refugees International, displaced communities of southerners
in Khartoum State had expressed serious concern about what their lives would
be like if Southern Sudan separated. "In the worst case scenario, the
January 2011 referendum could spark the forced expulsion of southerners from
the north and northerners from the south," it added, noting that this could
affect an estimated 1.5 to 2 million people.
But President Thabo Mbeki, chair of the African Union panel on Sudan,
expressed cautious optimism. "The outcome of the Southern Sudan referendum,
whether for unity or secession, will offer the first real opportunity since
Sudan's independence in 1956 for the people of South and North Sudan to
restructure their relationship to define an equitable and mutually
beneficial mode of peaceful coexistence," he told a meeting in Khartoum on
10 July.
"If the Southern Sudanese choose secession, the tasks arising from this will
not be less demanding," he said. "Should they vote to establish a separate
sovereign state in Southern Sudan, the Southern Sudanese will not be voting
to change the facts of geography, nor the direction of the flow of the Nile
river."
Uprisings
According to the Enough Project, the clearest indication of the escalating
tensions in the post-election period are three separate uprisings in Jonglei
and Unity States by dissident former members of the Sudan Peoples'
Liberation Army (SPLA) and the SPLM.
"The leaders of these rebellions - Lt-Gen George Athor, the defeated
opposition party candidate David Yauyau in Jonglei, and Galwak Gai in Unity
- have expressed their discontent with the Juba-based government and with
the political leadership in their own states in particular through
militancy," it said. "Aside from the threat of violence these rebellions
pose, what is perhaps most alarming is that the southern government... and
the SPLA itself, have proved incapable of resolving them, either politically
or militarily."
Similar fears were raised by Human Rights Watch in a recent report
documenting rights violations during the April elections. Those elections,
it said, "raised the spectre of growing instability in such states as
Central Equatoria, Jonglei, Unity, and Western Bahr el Ghazal, and they have
set a worrying precedent for Southern Sudan's forthcoming referendum on
self-determination."
Many observers believe most southerners will vote for secession.
"Regardless of the outcome of the vote, Sudan will be fundamentally changed
once the interim arrangements set by the CPA lapse six months later, in July
2011, and the Interim National Constitution of 2005 is renegotiated," the
NGOs warned. "Managing the final year of the CPA and the ensuing transition
is a daunting task."
"I think there will be a lot of problems," Alfred Lokuji of Juba University
told IRIN, adding that the southern leaders could turn out to be
"dictatorial, autocratic, and ruthless, to show that the SPLM [Sudan
People's Liberation Movement - a former rebel group now in power in the
south] has the power to deal with internal threats."
Assuming the region votes to form a separate state, the need for the
SPLM-dominated government of Southern Sudan to consolidate its authority
could also lead to abuses by the security sector that would increase popular
discontent at the local level, he said.
mf/eo/cb
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