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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Mon Sep 13 2010 - 12:05:31 EDT
South Sudan independence vote at risk
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By Rebecca Hamilton
Sunday, September 12, 2010; 11:17 PM
KHARTOUM, Sudan - A referendum on whether oil-rich southern Sudan breaks
away to become Africa's newest nation is scheduled to take place in less
than four months. But with negotiations between north and south stalled over
border demarcation, and preparations for the vote lagging perilously behind,
the likelihood of the referendum proceeding as planned appears slim.
Analysts fear that any delay could trigger a return to the decades-long
civil war that resulted in the deaths of an estimated 2 million people,
primarily southerners.
Sudan's Islamist government, headed by President Omar al-Bashir, appears
reluctant to let go of oil fields that have helped it survive U.S. economic
sanctions first imposed in the 1990s after Sudan was designated a state
sponsor of terrorism. The loss of territory in resource-rich southern Sudan
would have grave economic consequences for the north, analysts say.
According to Fouad Hikmat, the International Crisis Group's special adviser
on Sudan, the government says the referendum cannot take place until
agreements are reached on issues related to its economic future.
"If these negotiations fail for whatever reasons, the referendum will be in
jeopardy," Hikmat said.
Earlier this month, the Obama administration boosted its efforts to mitigate
the looming crisis, dispatching veteran diplomat Princeton Lyman to join
U.S. special envoy Scott Gration in Sudan.
The U.S. government has long been committed to the right of
self-determination for the predominantly animist and Christian population of
southern Sudan.
In 2001, pushed by an advocacy coalition led by U.S. evangelical and
African-American churches, former President George W. Bush made bringing
peace to the region a foreign policy priority. His administration helped
secure a 2005 peace agreement, which established a power-sharing government
that was supposed to lead Sudan from dictatorship to democracy. After a
six-year interim period of semi-autonomous-rule, the south was to vote in
2011 on whether to remain part of Sudan or secede.
But with international attention on a separate crisis in the Darfur region
of Sudan, and relations between north and south marked by mistrust, the
benchmarks set out in the agreement fell behind schedule. In April, a
national election that had been delayed twice, and that most opposition
parties boycotted, handed Bashir -- who had been indicted by the
International Criminal Court - an electoral victory.
The ruling National Congress Party now says the referendum cannot take place
until the border has been demarcated. But members of an 18-person Technical
Border Committee representing both sides have been unable to reach a final
agreement on the boundary.
Battle over resources
Stretching from the Central African Republic in the west to Ethiopia in the
east, the 1,200-mile border region between north and south is among the most
resource-rich and ethnically diverse areas of Sudan. Predominantly Arab
pastoralists from north of the border who journey southward each year to
graze their livestock fear that demarcation will prevent their seasonal
movement.
The border committee has agreed on about 80 percent of the border, the
Sudanese minister of cabinet affairs, Luka Biong, said in an interview in
Khartoum. But the parties have reached an impasse regarding five areas where
the majority of Sudan's oil wealth lies, he said.
One of the contested areas encompasses the Heglig oil fields outside the
border town of Abyei, where tensions between resident southern Ngok Dinka
farmers and northern Misserya pastoralists are particularly high.
"Heglig belongs to the south. It is in Unity State," said Edward Lino, a
Ngok Dinka and former administrator of the Abyei area.
Gen. Babo Nimer, brother of the paramount chief of the Misserya people, was
equally adamant: "Heglig belongs to Kordofan, to the north. Full stop."
Oil exploration in Sudan began in the 1970s. According to a 2010 survey by
BP, Sudan is the third-largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa, currently
producing 490,000 barrels per day. The Sudanese minister of petroleum, Lual
Deng, said that more than 80 percent of Sudan's current oil reserves lie in
the south.
Under the peace accord, the parties agreed to split the proceeds from the
oil fields until the 2011 referendum. According to figures published by the
Sudanese government, oil revenue accounted for about $2.8 billion of its
budget last year and an estimated 60 percent of this year's budget.
Deng, one of the few southerners with a ministerial position in the
post-election government, said he fears that an immediate budget cut for the
north would ignite a war. "In order to avoid conflict, we could look to a
phase-out arrangement whereby you provide the north some [oil] until they
get an alternative," he said.
The pipeline to export southern oil currently cuts through the north, and
the south has not begun construction on a pipeline that would avoid that
route. But an interim agreement could help both north and south, Deng said.
"We can have a win-win," he said.
Delay in vote preparations
On the logistical front, officials say that planning for the referendum is
far behind schedule.
"We have not started," the referendum commission's head, Mohamed Ibrahim
Khalil, 85, said in his dilapidated law office in downtown Khartoum.
Khalil was appointed only in July because the north and south had been
unable to agree on the composition of the commission. The secretary general
of the commission, responsible for its budget, was appointed this month.
In the short time left before the referendum, the commission must organize
voter registration across southern Sudan, a vast area desperately lacking in
basic infrastructure. Khalil said that in addition to overseeing voter
registration in south Sudan, his commission must ensure that voting centers
are established in all areas where more than 20,000 southern Sudanese
reside.
During the war years, those who could flee the fighting did. Many headed to
the relative safety of northern Sudan. Others relocated to countries around
the world, including more than 150,000 in the United States. The commission
must ensure all of these people get the chance to vote.
Khalil said preparation for the vote does not fit in the remaining time
frame. But rather than push for a delay, he said that for now at least, his
role is to make it work.
Hamilton is a special correspondent in Sudan on a grant from the Pulitzer
Center on Crisis Reporting.
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