By Martin Garang Aher
The two
nations of South Sudan and Sudan seemed to have bypassed the
habitual melanoma that had in history, plagued the countries that have
once been united from independence - reverting to war soon after separation.
Rather unusual! But strange as it was, the international community witnessed
the Sudanese bizarre and peaceful separation that many analysts, in forecast,
believed would be preceded by upsurge of violence. Though these forecasters of
war were wrong in speed with which war was prophesied to come, they were right
in ‘time’ that it would surely take to come. Up until July 9th 2011 when
the Africa’s massive country came crashing down into two states: Sudan and
South Sudan, there was little hope that all would go well and peacefully
without a farewell fire flare – well before independence of South Sudan or just
as the two countries regularize their national borders and set up independent
institutions.
To the Arab
North citizens, particularly those who possess the will-power to attribute
Arabness to themselves, and who by virtue of well positioning in the country’s
power, they thought that disciplining South Sudan before it seceded was
conceivably a matter of psychological settlement and a retribution for the
damage done to national integrity. It also serves, as a ploy to blindfold the
Sudanese masses that separation of South Sudan was not the making of the
leadership in power – indicative of their constant flexing of muscles to
prevent it from happening. Although the trick never played out, it was certainly
tried.
Indeed,
occupation of Abyei by Sudanese forces prior to independence of South Sudan was
meant to correct the presumed wrong signatures appended to CPA peace documents;
action that was literally driving South Sudan away into independence - which
eventually occurred. Sudan claimed that occupation of Abyei was a result of
retaliatory action of an attack on their retreating column of soldiers by South
Sudanese army. So, it seemed beating South Sudanese army in the retaliation was
not enough but to occupy its territory! The rationale is unfathomable in this
case. No question at that point, the stage for war was, in effect, set.
What
prevented a full-scale war at that point might have been a careful
self-education of the people of South Sudan on the visionary Islamism nature of
the old republic of Sudan. And so the trick was neither heeded nor allowed to
tamper with the freedom that would have, in a single day of indecisiveness,
shattered what was fought for in many decades. One wonders now, why the
SPLM/A that had mastered the tricks of the Sudanese army is falling fast into
the trap. It was perplexing to hear president Kir announced in Juba that the
South Sudanese army had taken Heglig. Though his position was based on the
authenticity that Sudan started the war at the borders, he should have been
aware that his position would solidify Jihadists peace distractors in Khartoum
who see no reason to have smooth relations with South Sudan. Khartoum's
agression must be treated in a similar way to that of Abyei before the
referendum; only that this time, the nation must be mindful of the border line.
When Abyei
fell to the Sudanese army prior to independence, South Sudanese were
consciously obsessed with independence, not war. The current twist in the
tails between Sudan and South Sudan in which negotiations, the borders,
citizenship status and oil become intertwined, points to the direction of other
countries that historically never beat the temperaments and a sense of loss of
each other in a civilized split-up. In such countries, war accompanied what was
once a peaceful divorce in bloody exchanges that led to restrained relations.
And this is one of the problems with peaceful resolution of conflicts through
negotiations – the vanquished (including the one on the verge of it) never
acknowledge the defeat; and wavering over remaining contentious issues of the
conflict farther sow seeds for future confrontations.
As we saw
in the breakup of Pakistan and India in 1947; where there was lack of clean
division of the country in apropos to religious lines upon which the whole idea
of division rested; and the actual lines of the borders were actually skewed in
the areas of Kashmir and Hyderabad; that there was no doubt the wounds of
partition would remain maligned for some time. South Sudan and the Sudan almost
have a similar situation akin to what happened to the Himalayan nations.
With one
third of the Muslims remaining in India and Indian Hindu population in
bitterness over the partition – something that drove them rowdy and killing
Mahatma Gandhi, their erstwhile religiously venerated figure – the seeds of war
had been sown.
India and
Pakistan had since clashed over their borders numerous times.
Those were
India and Pakistan. Today, they still fight declared and undeclared wars, with
caution knowing very well they have their nuclear warheads pointing at each
other and madness from either side to use one nuke-headed missile would lead to
a Mutually Assured Destruction of the two nations. No one can lecture them on
the true value of peace today for they know more than be told.
With a
reasonable fraction of South Sudanese population still languishing in North
Sudan and North Sudanese businesses and government eyeing South Sudan for
business and economic (and oil is the economic stimulant the Sudanese
government needs to counter economic spiral) gains respectively, there is a
cause for concern that what started in Abyei and now in Heglig, will transcend
further into the future – long after the National Congress Party (NCP) and
Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) left the political scenes in both
countries.
Perhaps the
Ethio-Eritrean circumstance provides a similar situation of uneasiness over the
break-up between two countries. I consider this appropriate because the two
countries fought over borders in the 1990s after Eritrea gained independence
from Ethiopia. The world media that witnessed the fighting told of the horrific
nature of the war. So nasty and meaningless was the war. It was in contrast
with the fact that the bit of land in the contention was not economically
useful or geopolitically de rigueur to either of them. The principle for war
was only to maintain national integrity in terms of firm borders. The
International Commission in The Hague established that Eritrea was to blame for
starting the war by invading Ethiopia. As of 2012, the town of Badme, which was
at the epicenter of war, is still under Ethiopian occupation even though The
Hague based court ruled it in favour of Eritrea.
If South
Sudan and Sudan inch in a full-scale war over the borders, I believe it is
national integrity, which plays a critical role. With oil and national
integrity complicating the scenario between South Sudan and Sudan, it is
apparent that intermittent border skirmishes would not go away sooner than they
suppose. Negotiations will only be deployed as vanguards for national
integrity.
Who really
wants to safeguard its national integrity more, South Sudan or the Sudan?
It is in
answering this question, that the issue of national integrity becomes a little
more complex. I suppose South Sudanese see the recent four freedoms agreement
as simply another invitation of Arabs into the country. This is historically
evident in the Sudanese common knowledge that the Arabs came to Sudan, spread
their religion and never left. South Sudanese hardliners too, view Addis Ababa
agreement on the four freedoms as a strategy schemed by the Sudan to encroach
on South Sudan. To prove this fear, here is a comment made by an anonymous North
Sudanese national on Sudan Tribune online newspaper on hearing that the two
nations would sign agreement on the four freedoms:
‘What
a great victory! that’s exactly what we were looking for, now on, we can own
land, houses, move freely in the south, now the separation is meaningless, it’s
just on the paper! Now the road has become widely open to our great mission of
arabizing the South, we need to follow the same technique and method that our
Arab great grandfathers had done when they came to Sudan, yes, we need to marry
southerners ladies, that’s the shortcut solution in arabizing the south, our
new generations will become full southerners but arabized! I personally prefer
to marry from Western Equatoria, yes, Azande, what beautiful ladies! WOW!
(Sudan
Tribune, 14 March 2012)
Northern
Sudanese too, must have grown weary of the African resistance in South Sudan to
the point that they panic over such agreements as antecedents for the possible
loss of what they have already achieved. As such, whatever may reconnect South
Sudan with Sudan must be nipped in the bud even if it means via the barrel of a
gun.
The recent
border clashes in Panthou (Heglig) echo what Islamists in Khartoum had
reiterated about keeping the north Arabised and purely Islamic. In the words of
Al-Tayyib Mustafa, a close relative of President Bashir, and leader of Just
Peace Forum (JPF) of Sudan, agreement with South Sudan that involved the four
freedoms: freedom of residence, freedom of movement, freedom to undertake
economic activity and freedom to acquire and dispose property, poses threat to
national, social and political security. His further calling on the president
Bashir to scrap the deal as he did with the Addis Ababa framework agreement
signed in July 2011 between the government and rebels of the Sudan People’s
Liberation Movement - North (SPLM-N), referred to national embarrassment hence,
national integrity.
To
juxtapose Sudanese vox populi position on normalization of relations with South
Sudan, it is clearly that of resentment and hate. The editor in chief, Al-Sadiq
al-Rizigi of Al-Intibaha newspaper had denounced the
negotiations on four freedoms and fumed that he sensed an American hand in it.
His last words were that the deal would not succeed because it compromised
their rights - Islamic rights. Khartoum newspapers report that other Islamic
hardliners in Khartoum have threatened to ruthlessly deal with South Sudanese
in the Sudan when April dateline passes. These religious theocrats and fanatics
explained the reason for their anticipation of a genocide night to
be that an I slamic country cannot have non-Islamic citizens.
Of course,
keen followers of the Sudanese politics would note that recent attacks on the
South Sudanese forces which led to clashes over Heglig, were obviously
designed to scrap the ongoing negotiations between the two countries and to
keep the border wars continuing in order to uphold national integrity. No
doubts negotiations will still be used in the near future, again and again.
