If you were
tuned to the world media in the recent weeks, Sudan came up top on
international criticisms over attacks on South Sudan, not certainly verbally
but apparently militarily. In this same week, the bloodletting of the Arab
Spring neither abated but increased in Syria and Yemen nor did
the everlasting Palestinian-Israeli hostility stop the Palestinians Freedom Riders from boarding
the Jewish settlers’ bus in demands of their freedom. Unlike Sudan and South
Sudan, several chords bond the residents of the Holy Land together. They are intertwined in the land, leading to the hostilities that run deep that only the Divine can unravel
But for Sudan
and President Bashir, brutality is the chord that holds the country together. In this situation, the demands of the
Sudanese in Darfur, Kordufan and the Blue Nile seem nothing but a teleological
Sudanese syndrome of war in which togetherness could only be redeemed through more brutality. And this
means holding on to people that the chord of unity does not support.
Recent threats
against South Sudan and possible cross-border attack are indications that the
chord binding South Sudan and Sudan is still held at heart by Khartoum besides
the fact that the physical chord may be nonexistent or in the process of
breaking. As usual, in the words of Abel Alier, all mess begins with
dishonoring of agreements. The abrogation of the CPA in the case of Abyei and trashing of
Popular Consultations hope for the people of South Kordufan and the Blue Nile
regions have commenced Khartoum’s blasphemous killing spree. Memories of the past
war chanting were in the air again.
And as
usual, the Western World wasn’t moved. It appears people come in when somebody
mentions the possibility of genocide. And this usually gives Antonov pilots and tank
drivers of a bloodthirsty regime an upper hand to sonorously chant Jihadists’
hymns as they march on to their famous killing fields in the South.
It always
begins with scornful language as an antecedent followed by ruthlessness and
cruelty. As evidently witnessed even by the United Nations, the language
employed by President Al Bashir and his military commanders was full of
militaristic sarcasm. They were the preceding pretexts followed by displacement
of civilians in Kurmuk and aerial bombardment of refugees deep inside South
Sudan territory. Sudan-backed rebel attacks on South Sudan heralded this
planned disruption of life in South Sudan.
Khartoum,
in such actions, was invitingly luring South Sudan into a confrontation and
waylaying her for a military showdown. And as Susan Rice from United Nations
warned ‘South Sudan not to take the bait and respond in kind,’ it was already
evident Sudan has offered South Sudan the war bait. Sudanese military fighter
jets’ bombing of refugee camps and South Sudan rebels armed to the teeth by
Khartoum wreaking havoc on civilians were undoubtedly many types of baits too luscious to ignore. But as one would wonder, what is the underlying
reason for this show of aggression by Sudan and what will she achieve in a
military confrontation with South Sudan?
It is all
bitterness and one chord that still lingers between the two: the oil pipeline.
Recent
events in Sudan are categorically and presumably the consequences of the
failure of the New Sudan agenda and clear signs of the eventual implosion of
the Sudanese republic in the swirling heat of dissatisfaction under the
imposition of one fragment of a country’s civilization identity on the rest. However, evasive authorities in Khartoum are playing the game differently,
the truth will always haunt them. The reality is that no matter how the juggernaut
Khartoum’s military power and prowess might be, suppressing the will of the
neglected masses through violence and vanquish will never ever bring peace. There is no way a government can be victorious over citizens that keep it
in power. If at all there ought to be victory between the people and their
government, it is always the people that emerge victorious, not the government.
The government, as seen across many of the world’s nations, is a creation of
the people.
Sudan is
yet to come to terms with the reality that South Sudan is an independent
country and a member of the United Nations, just like Sudan, operating on equal
terms and privileges that a sovereign nation would do. The name South Sudan
chose during independence must not dupe Khartoum for a possible
forceful reunification of the two countries at any time in the future, not even
militarily. The chord that bound them together had been broken for eternity.
So, why
threatened and attacked South Sudan?
This may
not be a threat per se but a clear sign of the start of what Khartoum had
always threatened the South: disruption of oil supply and blockading the
region for eventual suffering. Surreptitious support of the rebels against
South Sudan is something already palpable and widely confirmed by studies.
Small Arms Survey group had confirmed that a copy of AK-47, Type 56-1 used by
the rebels against South Sudan is a Chinese cloned and supplied by Khartoum.
The attack on the town of Kuek that killed 13 South Sudanese was a clear whistle of war
though not answered on equal terms by Juba. International media in the region
witnessed it. Lambasting and vilification of South Sudanese by Bashir himself
as ‘'not conquerors of the country they live in now’' was also a well-intended
provocation to lure the new nation into a violent confrontation in order to
achieve the ultimate objective. The disparagement seems to suggest, ‘if you
think you were conquerors then come out now and try it with us.’
Pipeline is
off! Will such an announcement appease Khartoum? Yes, certainly. The truth is that
all operations will come to a standstill in South Sudan.
And with
the unsubstantiated reports in the media that South Sudanese leaders have amassed and stashed the sum of approximately 400
million dollars in foreign accounts, there is little concern that a threat of
stoppage of cash and oil flow as a result of foreign aggression means anything.
The kids and their many mothers are assured, at least financially whether there
is going to be an economic blackout in the country or not.
South Sudan
needs to be aware that bitterness in Sudan will never subside as long as there
is an oil pipeline chord still tying Sudan and South Sudan together? And above
all, the realization by many Sudanese socio-political vanquished groups that
the fruits of struggle can be reaped whenever you hold a long and vicious war
as epitomized in South Sudan has added a new interplay into the game.
South Sudan must
willingly dissociate with the old republic of Sudan but the chord, in the form of
a pipeline, will continue to be an instrument of harassment to the South Sudanese
economy, and this may lead to the frivolity of consumerism in the near future.
Before Khartoum shuts down this chord of neocolonialism, let an alternative
route for the oil be found. Relations with Sudan will never be good and if we
don’t believe it, we are living in fantasy.
