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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Fri Oct 01 2010 - 09:29:59 EDT
Jotting out of Juba
Southern Sudan daydreams its way to independence, writes Gamal
<mailto:gnkrumah@ahram.org.eg?subject=Region%20::%20Jotting%20out%20of%20Jub
a> Nkrumah
0 September - 6 October 2010
_____
Sudanese First Vice-President Salva Kiir has been playing to two different
audiences. First, the international and regional actors who will determine
the course of action in southern Sudanese foreign policy priorities if and
when it attains independence after next year's referendum on secession. And,
then the constituencies and tribal cliques in the Sudan People's Liberation
Movement (SPLM), the ruling party in southern Sudan that he must hold
together if he is to keep his political agenda on track.
Vice-President Kiir was not entirely unmindful of his political fortunes.
Domestically, his cultivation of special friendships at home and abroad is
aimed at shoring up his authority ahead of the expected decision by the
southern Sudanese population to secede from Sudan following next year's
referendum. Kiir is determined to pacify militant secessionists but at the
same time he has signalled his readiness to cooperate fully with the
government of President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir and his National Congress
Party with its Islamist ideological orientation.
Kiir is under no illusions about the magnitude of his task. He adroitly
apportioned a poisoned chalice to one of his most vocal critics -- Onyoti
Adigo Nyikwec -- who was named leader of the official opposition in the
Southern Sudanese Legislative Assembly. Nyikwec is a leading member of the
Sudan People's Liberation Movement-Democratic Change (SPLM- DC), a breakaway
party of Kiir's SPLM.
"It is the first time in the history of southern Sudan to have a leader of
the opposition in parliament," Nyikwac declared in an exhilarated mood. His
remarks confirm the single-mindedness with which southern Sudanese concur on
the question of secession. SPLM-DC leader Lam Akol, a former Sudanese
foreign minister and the only challenger to Salva Kiir in last April's
presidential elections in southern Sudan, declared that he is in favour of
independence in spite of political differences with the SPLM.
In July, bloody clashes between the mainstream SPLM and the breakaway
SPLM-DC in the contested Upper Nile province resulted in the death of nine
people. "The referendum needs us to unite all our ranks together, so that we
go to the referendum united as the people of southern Sudan for the
independence of southern Sudan," Nyikwac concluded amid thunderous applause
from his fellow parliamentarians. This week, southern Sudanese MPs once
again reaffirmed their conviction that secession was the only way forward
for southern Sudan. The first democratically elected president of the
semi-autonomous southern Sudan, Kiir fully backed the decision of the
southern Sudanese MPs in the southern Sudanese capital, Juba.
President Al-Bashir and other members of the northern Sudanese clique were
incensed. The Sudanese president put forward five prerequisites for the
acceptance of the results of the forthcoming referendum.
The Sudanese president rejected what he termed "outside interference" from
the United States and other Western powers. He claimed that Washington is
inciting the southern Sudanese people to vote for independence in the
referendum scheduled to take place early next year. That is not to criticise
Al-Bashir unduly for calling for unity.
But there are the beginnings of what, in the absence of official paranoia,
ought to be viewed as a healthy pride in regional cultural differences among
the Sudanese people. Al-Bashir is making further efforts to recognise
regional cultural differences, even though he is most reluctant to concede
that there should be a marked separation of religion and politics in Sudan.
He and his ruling NCP are convinced that Islam must remain the official
state religion of Sudan and a source of its jurisdiction. The southern
Sudanese people are adamantly opposed to such a viewpoint. Sudan, they are
determined, must become a secular and democratic state.
"For most people in southern Sudan, the last election was the first time for
them in their lives to elect anybody of their choice and they decided to
elect the SPLM candidate. So they are celebrating and our people are very
excited and they really want to see that the referendum takes place very
smoothly," General Oyay Deng Ajak, southern Sudan's minister for regional
cooperation told the parliamentarians in Juba.
"President Salva Kiir is first committed to the full implementation of the
Comprehensive Peace Agreement [CPA] and, second to see not only the
implementation of the CPA, but the timely implementation of the CPA. The
referendum, which is the final conclusion of the CPA, must take place on
time just in six months from now," Ajak stressed.
These statements of support for secession and the commitment to the
referendum mask political tensions in southern Sudan that are heightened by
feelings of uncertainty among the population of the south.
Southern Sudanese journalists, for instance, have voiced concern about the
lack of clarity by the southern Sudanese government and SPLM officials
concerning laws that govern the media. There are fears about the curtailment
of freedom of speech and association after independence of southern Sudan.
There are also growing anxieties with regards to the stalled media laws.
Southern Sudanese Minister of Legal and Constitutional Affairs John Luke
conceded in the elected southern Sudanese assembly that "controversial"
legislation hinders freedoms and that there is a "backlog" of laws pending
in the southern parliament.
Diversity in southern Sudan is something to celebrate. The problem is that,
internally logical as all this may be, it means that any arguments used by
proponents and opponents of southern Sudanese independence must advance the
cause of human rights and democracy in southern Sudan. These predicaments
need to be ironed out if southern Sudan is to enjoy the freedom it has long
been denied under northern Sudanese domination.
Token recognition of regional cultural differences in Sudan has become
unacceptable, especially if there is little indication that it goes beyond
superfluous superficiality. Funnelling more funds to the least developed and
outlying peripheral regions of the far-flung country is one way to eliminate
regional stirrings in southern Sudan, Darfur and other parts of western
Sudan. Economic development and the official acknowledgement of real
cultural differences can play an important bridging role and give all the
disparate Sudanese ethnic groups room to use regional languages and not to
impose Islam and the Arabic language throughout Sudan.
It would be foolish to forget that Sudan is a multicultural land and that
Islam cannot be forced on non- Muslims as the country races towards
referendum on whether or not southern Sudan should secede.
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