southern sudan Archives - Page 2 of 2

December 15, 2010December 17, 2010

Will Sudan lead the way to the next big carve-up?

Charles Onyango-Obbo

Finally, the January referendum wheels seem to be turning irreversibly in Southern Sudan. There was a lot of excitement even with the registration that ended last Tuesday, by which time three million had registered.

Now it looks like the January 9, 2011, when the region is highly likely to vote to secede, will be on schedule. If not, the delay will only be by a few weeks.

So far a lot of attention has been focused on whether Khartoum will sabotage the referendum, and plunge the country back into war.

However, there is another organisation that is quite uneasy with the prospect of South Sudan independence — the African Union.

At one point the AU was categorical that it did not think secession was the best option for South Sudan. Lately, as the inevitable draws close, it has softened its position.

However, it remains mealy-mouthed.

The AU is concerned about South Sudan, because African leaders fear what effect secession will have on their own mostly poorly managed and poor nations.

Some African countries are too big for their leaders to run effectively.

For that reason, one can argue that it makes sense for Sudan, Africa’s largest country, to be split in two, even if it hadn’t endured decades of a bitter civil war.

If South Sudan’s secession creates a domino effect, it is not difficult to see which ones will fall first.

Most immediately, next door, it will help complete Somaliland’s consolidation into an independent or, at least, autonomous state.

There are, indeed, Somali academics who claim that the UK, for one, wants Somaliland, which was once a British protectorate, to break away.

In the long run, depending on how the February 2011 elections and next five years turn out, northern Uganda — where there have already been secessionist rumblings — could look to form a loose federation with Southern Sudan and the Lendu of the DR Congo in a bigger “Lendu Republic” as hardline Sudanic/Luo chauvinists in East Africa sometimes refer to that political project.

Sooner than that, DR Congo could follow Somaliland.

The DRC is likely to split into four; the western part will be one block, then the eastern “Kiswahili region” will break up into three.

One, further south, will be a Rwanda sphere of influence. The middle portion could be a Uganda-allied state. And the northern bit would walk off to be part of the Lendu Republic.

The one that would really shake Africa would be Nigeria. Indeed, the eccentric Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (the man with the “voluptuous blonde” Ukrainian nurse), has suggested that Nigeria be split into north and south, as one way of stopping the periodical orgies of Christian-Muslim slaughter.

The Nigerian government was outraged, but that is a popular view in the oil-rich south, which thinks the north are a bunch of freeloading gun-toting Muslim extremists.

Back in the East African Community, the Zanzibar Isles, which have never been quite happy in their marriage to mainland Tanzania, could swim off to relish the pleasures of their spices without the overlordship of condescending Dar es Salaam.

*Charles Onyango-Obbo is Nation Media Group’s executive editor for Africa & Digital Media. E-mail: cobbo@ke.nationmedia.com

December 7, 2010December 12, 2010

Endgame in Sudan

George Clooney and John Prendergast

Africa’s next deadly war does not have to happen. In little over a month, the people of Southern Sudan will vote for independence, taking with them up to three-quarters of the country’s known oil reserves and placing millions of civilians in the potential path of war.

They’ve done it before. The north and the south fought a 20-year civil war that ended in 2005 only after 2 million people were dead.

We recently spent time in Sudan along the border between the north and south and saw what a return to war could look like. Not On Our Watch and the Enough Project team made this video from our trip to highlight the challenges Sudan faces as it works toward holding a peaceful referendum and avoiding a return to civil war.

Nicholas Kristof premiered this video on his New York Times blog. He wrote, "Let’s hope that the alarms, and the latest burst of diplomacy and spotlight on South Sudan, are enough to avert a new war."

There’s only one month left. It’s frighteningly late, but not too late, to stop the next round of bloodshed before it starts. Renewed war in Sudan is not inevitable. A complex but workable peace can be brokered if all interested parties become more deeply involved, and the US maintains its recent focus on contributing to a solution.

Your voice in support of US diplomacy is key. There is no time to wait. This is happening now. Visit Sudan Now to get involved.

We were late to Rwanda. We were late to Congo. We were late to Darfur. We can’t afford to be late again. This is our chance to actually stop a war before it starts.

George Clooney is an actor and co-founder of the NGO Not On Our Watch. John Prendergast is co-founder of the Enough Project and co-author of The Enough Moment: The Fight to End Human Rights Crimes in Africa.

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November 21, 2010November 21, 2010

Journey to Canada, a Refugee’s Story

Twenty-three years ago, Madut Majok arrived in a refugee camp in Ethiopia, where his life consisted of guarded compounds and food rations. Today, he is a Canadian citizen, university graduate and civil servant.

He relishes the opportunities he has earned in his adopted country and feels that he has integrated into Canadian society. However, one minor detail still puzzles him. With a smile, he says “I still do not understand the level of politeness here—if I am at the mall and I step on someone’s toes, they say sorry instead of me saying that…and that always takes me off guard.” Social intricacies aside, the future is wide open for Madut—a future that seemed impossible only a few years ago.

Born in 1978 in rural South Sudan, Madut had a childhood plagued by violence and war. By 1983, the second Sudanese civil war had broken out and many villages were burned down, crops destroyed and cattle killed. Thousands of villagers from Madut’s town were forced to flee when the attacks intensified in 1987.

His family chose to seek protection within Sudan in the garrison town of Wau. In the ensuing chaos, eight‑year‑old Madut became separated from them and had to join a small group of villagers on the dangerous two month trek to Ethiopia.

He arrived at a United Nations refugee camp, located near the border, very ill from infected wounds sustained along the way. After a three-month recovery, Madut was transferred to another camp specifically for children and unaccompanied minors, where he stayed until 1991.

When war broke out in Ethiopia, those in the refugee camps were told that they were no longer safe. Madut had to flee again—a journey that took him to Pochalla, a town near the Sudan-Ethiopia border. He spent nine months there before embarking on another journey that finally brought him to Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya in 1992, where he spent his next 10 years.

“Conditions at the camps were difficult at times,” says Madhut. Food was distributed every two weeks but lasted only eight days; many would go for days without getting enough water to cater for essential needs.

School, set up in the camp, saved him. “Had I not gone to school in the camp,” says Madut, “I never would have competed in the Student Refugee Program.”

Madut focused on his studies, knowing that education could be a way out of the refugee camp. He applied to the Student Refugee Program run by World University Service of Canada in 2001 and was selected to attend Dalhousie University.

In 2006, after four years in Canada, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in International Development Studies and Political Science. That same year, he became a Canadian citizen. Today, Madut is studying for his Master’s degree while working for the Foreign Credential Referral Office at Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

“After living on handouts, the ability to provide for yourself and the freedom to determine your own future is the first goal,” he says. As for his future, Madut says he has many goals. “Now that I have a job, I want to raise a family…and progress in my career. I would say that I am very lucky.”

“You need strong mentorship—people who believe in your ability and, at the same time, who realize that you are learning how your potential can be developed. Canada has given me this.”

November 21, 2010January 24, 2011

Late, but not too late, for Sudan

George Clooney and John Prendergast

Well, we’re in it now. What we do best. Diplomacy. The White House has dispatched Senator John Kerry to Sudan with a proposal for peace between the North and South. It’s a giant step toward avoiding the kind of bloodshed that killed more than two million people in Sudan’s previous 20-year North-South civil war, which ended only in 2005 — and is threatening to erupt once again.

In recent months, President Barack Obama has stepped up his own involvement and that of senior figures in his administration in support of a peace strategy for Sudan. On his behalf, Kerry has delivered a package of proposals designed to break the logjam that has brought the North and South to a dangerous crossroads.

We have written a memo that spells out some of the essential elements of what a grand bargain for peace in Sudan could look like. If you’re interested in the specifics of a possible peace deal — and in actions that you can take to support it — go to SudanActionNow.org.

There is little time to waste. On January 9, 2011, the people of Southern Sudan will vote for independence from the North, taking with them up to three-quarters of the country’s known oil reserves and placing millions of civilians in the direct path of war.

The government in Khartoum (the capital in the North) is led by Omar al-Bashir, whose accomplishments, which include overseeing war crimes during the previous North-South war and engineering the atrocities in Darfur, have brought him arrest warrants for war crimes and genocide from the International Criminal Court.

And yet renewed war in Sudan is not inevitable. A complex but workable peace can be brokered if all interested parties become more deeply involved. The current moment requires robust diplomacy — the kind that can leave a bad taste in your mouth, but that gets the job done. We believe that Kerry is a skilled emissary and can help the parties find the compromises necessary for peace.

Any agreement preventing a return to war would necessarily involve the National Congress Party, representing the North, and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, representing the South. But it would also involve the United States, whose post-referendum relationship with the two parties will have enormous influence over whether a deal gets done.

We believe that a grand bargain to lay the foundation for lasting peace between the North and South would oblige the parties to:

Hold the Southern Sudan referendum on time and fully respect and implement the results;
Reach a mutually satisfactory agreement concerning the territory of Abyei, a key disputed border area;
Craft a multi-year revenue-sharing arrangement in which the oil wealth of Abyei and key border areas could be divided equitably between the North and South, with a small percentage going to the Arab Misseriya border populations for development purposes;
Demarcate the uncontested 80% of the border and refer the remaining 20% to binding international arbitration;
Create serious protections for minority groups, with consideration of joint citizenship for certain populations, backed by significant international consequences for attacks on southerners in the North or northerners in the South.

The US role as the invisible third party to the agreement involves a series of incentives offered to the regime in Khartoum to ensure agreement and implementation of a peace deal. In exchange for action on the North-South and Darfur peace efforts, the US would implement a clear, sequenced, and binding path to normalization of relations.

This would involve — in order — removal of Sudan from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list, exchange of ambassadors, lifting of unilateral sanctions, and support for bilateral and multilateral debt relief, together with other economic measures by international financial institutions. Conversely, the US must be prepared to lead international efforts to impose severe consequences on any party that plunges the country back into war.

Peace and security in Darfur should be an essential benchmark for normalized relations between the US and Sudan. The Obama administration should hold firm on this through the coming rounds of negotiation, and should appoint a senior official to help coordinate US policy on Darfur in order to ensure that peace efforts there receive the same level of attention as the North-South efforts.

What is needed now is political will — and not only in the US — to sustain this diplomacy. The European Union and Sudan’s neighbors — in particular Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda — will also need to play a robust role. And China’s diplomacy in Sudan, where it has invested massively in developing the country’s oil resources, will be a test of whether or not it intends to be a responsible stakeholder in Africa and the wider world.

Ensuring that governments work toward peace is where you come in. Keep the pressure on them. Support the peace process. Your voice can prevent a war. Not guns. Not money. Just our voices.

The way to peace in Sudan is not simple, but it is achievable. There are hard choices to be made. We can make those choices now, or we can persuade ourselves that peace is too hard or too complex, and then look on resignedly from the sidelines as hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children needlessly die. It’s up to us.

November 9, 2010November 9, 2010

Encouraging Leaders to Do the Right Thing, by Nicholas van Praag

"Spare the stick, spoil the child." That was the advice from proponents of the tough love approach to parenting that prevailed in Victorian times.

Plus ça change. Looking around the world today, encouraging leaders in fragile states to do the right thing, whatever that might be, is more about punishing them for erring in the performance of their governance duties than rewarding them for doing good.

There is a panoply of international sanctions to punish leaders who abuse human rights, undermine constitutionality or indulge in corruption. Some are regional, others global. Some are formal, others informal. Whatever their provenance or legal standing, the stick remains the instrument of choice.

Mechanisms to recognize or reward good leadership are few and far between. Yet leaders are human and, unless they are beyond redemption, they are more likely to respond to recognition and rewards than sanctions and reprimands.

The Nobel Peace Prize and the Ibrahim Prize are both strong incentives and could be emulated to acknowledge the contribution of leaders who consistently do well. Why not find ways, for example, to reward ministers who make a lasting impact on corruption or top brass in the military who reform the security sector peacefully?

Initiatives such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and the Board of the Natural Resource Charter might want to find ways to boost the standing of leaders in government, civil society, and the private sector who improve the transparency of resource revenues and expenditures.

International and regional organizations could use top jobs as incentives for national reformers. The United Nation's Department of Peacekeeping Operations vets senior appointments for past human rights abuses. Other multilateral organizations could follow suit and use recruitment to reward successful reformers while barring those who have violated international law.

Rewards are often carefully calibrated diplomatic gestures rather than signals of fulsome support. For example, we learned this week that President Obama has told Sudan that if it allows the referendum on the status of Southern Sudan to go ahead in January 2011, and then abides by the results, the United States will take Sudan off its list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Realpolitik aside, if the carrot is to become mightier than the stick, we need to agree on what we can reasonably expect of leaders in countries scarred by violence and accept that it will take them a long time to show progress.

Without agreement on what is worthy of reward, we are unlikely to see much shift in the balance between recognition and sanctions. But then it took decades for British parents to stop beating their children.

Nicholas van Praag, World Development Report