|
Kwendo Opanga
The biggest diplomatic and security challenge facing the Eastern Africa region and Africa is not Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s indictment of President Omar el-Bashir or his second warrant of arrest against the Sudanese leader.
What should concern this region and continent more are the on-going talks in Khartoum on the road map to and from Sudan’s January 2011 referendum on South Sudan.
While I agree dictators must neither sleep nor rest easy, my view is that the on-going discussions on this referendum deserve a lot more attention in leadership caucuses and media than el-Bashir. Here’s why.
If all goes according to the terms of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005 that ended Sudan’s two-decade long civil war, the January plebiscite should result in either one Sudan as we know it or South Sudan will emerge as Africa’s newest independent state.
Alternatively, there may be a confederacy instead of the current union. But, good people, all indications are that come this referendum, the people of South Sudan will vote to a man to secede and form their own independent state.
Again, it is perfectly in order that the people of South Sudan decide their destiny and because a majority of them desire independence from the mainly Arab and Islamic north, this will come to be. So why am I writing this commentary if things are that simple?
There is the problem. In fact, the road ahead is pretty rough and tough! This is a vote and decision that could lead to renewed instability and hostilities in the Sudan if not an outright return to war in Africa’s largest country. Again, here’s why.
First is the common border. The north (National Congress Party) and south (Sudan People’s Liberation Movement) must agree on the common border and, as the whole of Africa knows, this has never been an easy matter.
It has always been a contentious and explosive, problematic and divisive issue. Discussions, or better still haggling, over boundaries, have been long drawn-out affairs often leading to, if not interspersed with, military confrontation.
Five years after the signing of the CPA and with six months to go to the referendum, the North and South have not agreed on a common border.
The poll
If the situation remains that way, the poll could be held before this matter is resolved. That way the border will remain a source of instability and conflict.
Next, and related to the foregoing, is the matter of sharing of natural resources, and especially oil and oil revenues. It must be remembered that Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait because he alleged Kuwait was stealing Iraqi oil!
Remember in the Sudan the South accuses the North of gerrymandering the border with a view to including oil wells in its borders and not the South’s.
According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, 78 per cent of Sudan’s oil is in the South, but it must be exported through the North’s pipelines to Port Sudan. Right now the South believes it is not getting its rightful revenue share of the oil, which is a polite way of accusing the North of thievery.
And this before both begin to tackle the matter of sharing state assets as well as its huge debts. Suffice to say it is much easier to want to share revenue than debt.
Third, the North and South must agree how to share another equally important liquid – water. This is a source of life, but not when you are fighting over, or drowning, in it.
The River Nile is life to the North as it is to the South, but most of its tributaries and, therefore, water are to be found in the South. Already the waters of the Nile are a source of tension among the countries that share them and, if South Sudan votes to secede, it must first tackle this as a local problem before it can deal with the other Nile-sharing nations.
Armed forces
Fourth is the matter of security and this is a complicated affair. The Sudan has three different groupings of armed forces! They comprise those of the North, the South (Sudan People’s Liberation Army) and the Joint Integrated Units (JIU), which are made up of equal elements from the North and South armies.
Now, according to the CPA, the JIU would form the core of a post-referendum military if the Sudan voted to remain a single entity, but would be disbanded if the South chose separation. Demobilising JIU presents a security challenge.
Fifth, both parties have to deal with the nationalities of some of their peoples such as the nomads who may want to look at borders in terms of their livestock, pasture and weather.
Then there are the more than 2 million southerners living in the north as refugees and migrants. A wrong move could render them stateless There are a lot more issues that could cause serious conflict in the Sudan, but these will do for purposes of illustrating my argument that the region and Africa need to pay more attention to the January referendum than they are doing now.
Why? Because neither North nor South should come out of the referendum feeling it has lost out for that portends more trouble for the region and Africa than do Ocampo and el-Bashir.
********
Australians will be faced with very clear choices when they go to the polls on August 21. They have on one hand the combative Conservative Tony Abbot who is anti-abortion, opposes sex before marriage and previously trained to be a preacher.
On the other, there is Labour’s ruthless Julia Gillard, who has never married but has had partners along the way. She does not believe in God though she was brought up as a Baptist and has never had children. What might trouble Australians is the fact that both Abbot and Gillard are acid-tongued and adept at rapid fire putdowns. They are political street fighters primed for combat.
This may be the tie-breaker. Bob Hawke, a non-believer son of a preacher, was PM.
Kwendo Opanga is a media consultant.
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
|
