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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Sat Aug 28 2010 - 18:06:50 EDT
Sudanese powder keg
Tensions between southerners and northerners over next year's Sudanese
referendum are worryingly high, writes Gamal
<mailto:gnkrumah@ahram.org.eg?subject=Region%20::%20Sudanese%20powder%20keg>
Nkrumah
26 August - 1 September 2010
_____
Identity politics are invariably the cause of angry words between
northerners and southerners in Sudan. Uncertainty has bedeviled policymaking
since Sudan's independence from Britain in 1956. Today's uncertainty is no
less scary, but it is even more confusing than at the onset of the National
Islamic Front (NIF) during the 1990s. Surprises and conflicting signals
abound. Notionally at peace since 2005, Sudan remains on high alert.
The ruling National Congress Party (NCP) of Sudanese President Omar Hassan
Al-Bashir and its reluctant, albeit major, coalition partner the Sudan
People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) are testing each other's resolve. The
focus is now on the upcoming referendum that will determine the political
destiny of southern Sudan and the country as a whole. The referendum will
determine whether southern Sudan will become an independent nation or remain
part of Sudan.
The SPLM has succeeded in turning the referendum into a contest. Several
points remain in the party's favour, including its appeal to secular forces
throughout the country.
Al-Bashir's NCP is threatening to match the SPLM gaffe- for-gaffe. The risk
of a major confrontation between the NCP- led Islamists who dominate the
Sudanese political establishment in Khartoum and its protagonists in the
far-flung peripheries of the country cannot be discounted.
Moreover, much of the criticism of the SPLM by the NCP and other northern
political parties has been specious. For instance, reports this week
resurfaced of the SPLM's alleged harbour of Darfur armed opposition groups
and giving shelter and support to the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM),
perhaps the most powerful Darfur armed opposition group. What many in the
north fail to understand is that the SPLM has never seen itself as an
exclusively southern political party, but rather a national party with a
devoted following in every corner of Sudan.
Against this backdrop, the SPLM does have a strong southern constituency,
but also with an influential retinue in the rest of the country, including
the national capital Khartoum and fringe parts of sprawling Sudan, Africa's
largest nation. The SPLM has traditionally seen itself as the champion of
the underdog with a strong following in peripheral non-Arab areas of
northern Sudan such as the Nuba Mountains of Kordofan, the disputed oil-rich
enclave of Abyei and the southern Blue Nile region.
Much of Sudan's pain is self-inflicted. A botched attempt to rectify the
shortcomings of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed by the SPLM
and the government of Al-Bashir in January 2005 has put off the bulk of
southern Sudanese. More damagingly, the failure of the CPA to resolve the
fundamental problem of the feeling of alienation prevalent among southern
Sudanese and non-Arab peoples of Sudan in general exacerbated political
tensions. This in turn has damaged the image of the signatories of the CPA
and cast a long shadow of doubt on the credibility of the CPA.
Dissatisfaction at the Byzantine intriguing that led to the widely perceived
failure of the CPA remains strong. This is understandable because the
expectations of the southerners in the aftermath of the signing of the CPA
were exceptionally high.
The powder keg in Sudan exists precisely because the reasons behind the
Sudanese civil war -- that lasted over two decades, Africa's longest running
conflict -- have not been properly dealt with. The concerns of the southern
Sudanese and other politically marginalised non-Arab peoples of Sudan have,
if anything, sharpened since the signing of the CPA.
The NCP-supported Arab militias are systematically raising defences and
acquiring increasingly sophisticated weapons. In Darfur and Kordofan, in
western Sudan, they constitute a threat to peace and security as far as the
indigenous non-Arab population is concerned. The outlook in these areas does
not look bright.
The protagonists in these remote backwaters of Sudan have pledged to
escalate violence sharply if long-lasting peace does not prevail. That this
would be a disaster for Sudan is quite evident. The SPLM, it must be
acknowledged by all and sundry, has a key role to play in Darfur as its
political clout and influence is not restricted to southern Sudan. The NCP,
too, claims that the aggressive talk it adopts is itself just a form of
deterrence. It would be comforting to believe that cool heads on either side
would establish law and order. The worry is that in the current tinder-box
environment in Sudan a small flare-up in Darfur could escalate and have dire
consequences for the peace process in Sudan and negatively impact the result
of the referendum scheduled for January 2009. A comprehensive answer to the
political impasse in Darfur and Sudan as a whole will only be found through
a comprehensive negotiated settlement.
A number of key outstanding issues are widely seen as a bone of contention
between the SPLM and the NCP. The conflict of interest between the SPLM and
the NCP is depicted as a clash of wills between southerners and northerners
in Sudan. Among the outstanding key issues is the drawing of the precise
territorial boundaries between northern and southern Sudan. The frontier
regions between north and south happen to be among the areas of the country
richest in oil reserves, including the disputed oil-rich enclave of Abyei.
Recently, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands,
ruled that Abyei belongs to southern Sudan. Abyei is peopled predominantly
by the Dinka Ngok ethnic group but the north claims the disputed territory
as its own because it has a sizeable minority of nomadic Messeiriya Arab
tribesmen and their cattle.
The SPLM has warned the NCP is resettling large numbers of ethnic Arab
permanently in Abyei to change the ethnic composition of Abyei in favour of
the Arabs, a claim the NCP disputes. Peace in Abyei has been kept through a
cobbled- together system of mutual deterrence between Dinka Ngok and
Messeiriya.
If the southern Sudanese people decide to secede, the people of Abyei, the
Nuba Mountains, southern Blue Nile and Darfur might be tempted to follow
suit. With so many trigger-happy combatants in the far-flung regions of
Sudan, a permanent conflict resolution formula in the entire country should
be found.
But until a deal is clinched, the best course is to sit quite still and hope
for the best. Or better still, just jaw-jaw.
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