An imposed unity is what is dangerous, not separation

By Maker Costa

September 9, 2009 — On August 31, 2009, Major General Omer Suleiman, Egypt’s Chief of Intelligence, alleged that secession of Southern Sudan will be dangerous to Southern Sudan itself, Sudan, Egypt, and the whole of Africa (–see the Arabic version of Sudaneseonline.com at: http://www.sudaneseonline.com/ar2/publish/_1/Sudan_News_A4034.shtml.) These remarks came at his meeting with Dr. Nafie Ali Nafie who was on a visit to Egypt and was briefing General Suleiman about the situation in Sudan.

General Suleiman’s remarks were consistent with what Egypt’s FM Mr. Ahmed Aboul-Gheith had uttered earlier on July 27, 2009 in which he asserted that secession of Southern Sudan will lead to extreme poverty and instability in the region –(see Sudan Tribune at: http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article31955.) Mr. Aboul-Gheith was talking to a visiting Chinese FM to Egypt.

Of course, this was a propagandistic attempt to hoodwink the unsuspecting continent of Africa that a state of South Sudan will be unfriendly to its neighbors. Equally, it was an attempt to woo the world towards supporting this untenable position of imposing unity on Southern Sudan. Why would a country in South Sudan be a danger to anyone? Why isn’t Uganda dangerous to Egypt now if being on the Nile is such a threat? Since when did Egypt start to care about poverty in Africa? What will prevent such poverty if Sudan remains united? And many other questions that come to mind?

The first charge of poverty is bogus. To the contrary, a South Sudan country in this region won’t be poor at all given the huge resources this piece of land possesses. South Sudan as of now has six billions barrels of proven and recoverable oil, next only to Libya and Nigeria. South Sudan has many rivers including the White Nile; in fact, every corner in Southern Sudan has a flowing river. Southern Sudan is the most fertile and unexploited land in the region. It has minerals in abundance including gold, silver, copper, and most of the commercial minerals. South Sudan has huge and unrivaled animal resources in the region. It also has a humungous forest which is itself a potential national resource. All these resources are in abundance in Southern Sudan, a blessing that shall make it the number one state in Africa in terms of richness –rivaled only by Libya which has oil only. If states are allowed to exist based on what they posses, then it’s Egypt –not South Sudan that shall not exist because Egypt has no resources to speak of and simply depends on foreign aid to subsist.

The second charge of being dangerous is not supported by facts. South Sudan state, if it materialized, won’t pose a threat to any country in the region; you can read the current constitution of Southern Sudan to see for yourself how restrained this potential state will become. South Sudan won’t be a threat to itself as many observers are led to believe; people of southern Sudan are peace-loving and even the Egyptian can attest to this fact. It is a known fact that the current militia killings, which are usually portrayed as uncouth tribalism, are mainly fueled by the NIF/NCP policies of pitting southern Sudanese against one another in order to weaken them. Southern Sudan will be peaceful to itself and to its neighbors, rich as it is, it will lend a hand to its neighbors and help improve the chronic poverty that persists in the region. Southern Sudan is free of terrorists and has never exported terrorism unlike our North African brothers. In fact, it is Egypt which shall be branded as dangerous because most terrorists including Al-Qaida number two are Egyptians.

If there is anything dangerous about the Sudan, then it is in northern Sudan where the National Islamic Front (NIF) is in control. The NIF is the very regime that attempted to assassinate the Egyptian President in Addis Ababa in 1995; surprisingly, we don’t hear any mention of this glaring dangerousness of the NIF from the Egyptian officials. The NIF supports the Shabab terrorists in Somalia, they support and arm the LRA of Uganda, they arm the militia in Southern Sudan, Al-Bashir is an indicted criminal by the ICC; in addition, they have once harbored Al-Qaida itself –not to mention their rapacious Janjaweeds who committed acts of genocide in Darfur. Despite all these, the Egyptian officials stay mum when it come to Northern Sudan but find a way to scare people about Southern Sudan. There is reason why the US sanctions are imposed on Northern Sudan but not on Southern Sudan; this should tell Egypt that the world is paying close attention and knows the facts about the Sudan.

Such unscrupulous and manipulative remarks by the Egyptian officials are in line with what has been the thinking in Egypt for the last few decades or perhaps for the whole of last century, and shouldn’t surprise anyone. However, the timing could not be more dangerous this time around as referendum nears in Southern Sudan; therefore, Southern Sudanese have a reason to take these remarks seriously this time around. When such remarks come from your former colonizers, there is little doubt that they are out again to subjugate you. But what has been Egypt’s role in the Sudanese conflict ever since? A close look at history reveals a more baleful Egypt which never cared for anything in the Sudan other than its interests. Let’s examine these historical facts about Egypt’s role in Sudan’s affairs so that we may remind officials in Egypt that things have changed.

First, when Mohamed Ali Pasha, Egypt’s famous ruler, decided to invade the Sudan in 1821, his stated goals were: 1.) to search for African slaves, 2.) to explore the River Nile tributaries, and 3.) to search for ivory and gold. In other words, his troops came to Sudan to loot, pillage, and capture slaves. Indeed he managed to enslave many Sudanese as long lines of shackled slaves started to arrive in Egypt and other Arab nations. The echoes of his troops’ horrendous atrocities still reverberate to this day across the Sudan; especially, in Southern Sudan where any mention of this period invokes bad memories of a rapacious Turku-Egyptian army that plundered the region.

Second, when Britain decided to colonize the Sudan, it found a willing ally in Egypt; as a result, the Anglo Egyptian Condominium rule of the Sudan (1899-1956) came about. Egypt had more insidious intensions than being a mere ally to Britain, it wanted the Sudan to become part of Egypt; that’s why, King Fouad and after him his son King Farouk (both grand sons of Mohamed Ali Pasha), used to be addressed officially as kings of Egypt and Sudan. But the Sudan managed to remain separate, despite Egypt’s ambition to annex it to Egypt upon the pull out of British troops.

Third, Egypt’s former President Jamal Abdulnasir is rumored to have contemplated wiping out the inhabitants of Southern Sudan and turning it into agricultural schemes, had it not been for the humiliating defeat dealt to him by Israel in 1967. Of course, Jamal died shortly after that!

Forth, when the IGAD Peace Initiative showed some progress in 1994 by the announcement of the Declaration of Principles, Egypt cunningly tried but failed to water it down. All of a sudden, there appeared in the scene a mysterious Egyptian-Libyan Peace Initiative on Sudan meant to go parallel and opposite to that of IGAD; the reason was that the IGAD initiative included the right to self-determination for the people of Southern Sudan and the Egyptian-Libyan initiative came devoid of such right. But providence intervened when Khartoum sponsored Al-Qaida bombed US Embassies in east Africa in 1998, and afterwards attacked the US itself in New York in 2001. The inexplicable Egyptian-Libyan initiative gave way then, an expedient move from the Egyptians to avoid confrontation with the then angry United States. The IGAD peace process was accelerated, therefore, as a result of pressure exerted on Khartoum by IGAD partners which include the United State and other European nations. This was how the CPA came about; Egypt never contributed to its realization, instead it worked to the opposite.

Fifth, it is a known fact that Egypt has always supported the regimes in Khartoum in suppressing resistant movements in Southern Sudan. Even after the NIF attempted to kill the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa in 1995, Egypt continued to support the Sudanese government militarily. In some cases, the Egyptian air force would participate physically in battles in Southern Sudan; case in point here would be when they airlifted military support to Wau in 1998 when Karbino Kuanyin rebelled against Khartoum.

Sixth, Egypt took Sudanese land of Halaib in 1994 and is still occupying it now. Had it not been for the cowardly regime of NIF in Khartoum, Sudan would have gone to war with Egypt over Halaib.

Seventh and last, Egyptians’ callousness reached its peak in 2006 when a group of Sudanese refugees, most of whom were southerners, were attacked by the Egyptian riot police and killed like rats in front of the United Nations’ office in Cairo. The only sin these poor refugees had committed was that they gathered there in a sit-in strike to alert the UNHCR to their concerns, they sat in in a peaceful gathering for weeks and never attempted to vandalize properties. Nevertheless, they were deemed unworthy to stage such a sit-in strike at the heart of Cairo since they may compromise the purported cleanliness of the city.

Despite this background, Mr. Omar Suleiman would want to tell us and the world that Egypt knows better than everyone else what is good for Southern Sudan, Sudan, and Africa. He is trying to tell us and the world that imposing unity on Southern Sudanese is in the best interest of Southern Sudan; what a man? This is what they called in Egypt Fahlawa or shrewdness, but it won’t work this time around.

Let it be clear to Mr. Omar Suleiman that secession of Southern Sudan –or unity of the Sudan for that matter, doesn’t depend on what Egypt thinks anymore. The days when Egypt used to sign agreements on behalf of the Sudan are long gone. The right to self determination for the people of Southern Sudan wasn’t a gift from anyone in the first place; Southern Sudan earned it by shedding precious blood of its sons and daughters –counted in millions. Therefore, unity of the Sudan, if possible at all, will be decided by the people of Southern Sudan by exercising their right to choose in a democratic, fair, and internationally monitored referendum on self determination.

One would think that the Egyptians, expedient as they are, would court Southern Sudan at this stage as a gesture that they are willing to establish good relations with the soon to become South Sudan country. Installing a 4 megawatt power generator in Wau, which could be bought with less than $100,000 USD, isn’t enough reason to impose unity on Southern Sudanese. If Egypt wants to help Southern Sudan at all, then let such remarks not be uttered by officials in that country; they simply invoke bad memories and can inflict indelible wounds on the relations between Egypt and Southern Sudan.

On the final note, let me remind our Egyptian friends that Southern Sudan has always made it clear to Egypt that Nile waters will continue to flow north even if Southern Sudan secedes. Southern Sudan has no intention of blocking the flow of water in the Nile; this shall never be a cause of war between Egypt and Southern Sudan. The fears of an African state in Southern Sudan are unfounded since other African states exist on the Nile already: Uganda is a live example. Imposition of a fake and exploitative unity on Southern Sudan is the chief reason why Sudan has never tasted peace with itself since 1956 except for the period of Addis Ababa Peace Agreement (1972-1983). And the reason for those ten years of peace was be Addis Ababa Agreement partially admitted that Southern Sudan at least was separate and needed a separate government. Sure enough, and after that admission was repealed; that is, when the Addis Ababa Agreement was cancelled by Numeiri, war resumed and ciaos and destruction became the orders of the day in Sudan again. The semi-autonomous and regional government in Southern Sudan after Addis Ababa was ideal, non-tribal, and exemplary, albeit being a proxy for Khartoum.

Egypt needs to come up with a post-referendum policy which shall establish good relations with a potential Southern Sudan state rather than insist on its current approach of coercion and bullying on the hope that Southern Sudan maybe subjugated again. Having lived in Egypt myself for five years, I came to realized that Egypt doesn’t want prosperity in the Sudan, let alone Southern Sudan which the Egyptians abhor. This needs to change if relations are to continue between Egypt and the soon to be the country of South Sudan.

The author is a southern Sudanese residing in New York. He can be reached at [email protected]