Promoting peace and stability in Sudan

By Bul Garang Mabil

September 17, 2010 — The present situation in the Sudan — marked by the upcoming January 2011 referendum on self-determination in Southern Sudan as defined in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in Kenya between the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the Government of Sudan’s National Congress Party (NCP) — poses complex questions to many people. With the possibility of Southern Sudanese independence in 2011, many people in the international community and the Sudan alike have begun to express a growing fear not only over a possible resumption of the north-south civil war, but also over the likelihood that a new independent state will not prove viable. The reasons commonly cited for this pessimistic prediction are insecurity and the potential for tribal fragmentation.

Yet there are grounds on which to refute this prediction. The history of the Sudanese people as a whole from time immemorial has been the struggle of the masses against internal and external oppression. Ancient Egyptian records from the third millennium B.C. tell of thousands of slaves and cattle captured in the African lands to the south, which is modern-day Sudan. Sudan’s centuries of association with Egypt formally ended in 1956 when the joint British-Egyptian rule over the country ended and Sudan was granted independence. At that time, the British attempt to allow Southern Sudan to join newly independent East African colonies was thwarted by leaders in Khartoum; ever since then, Sudan has been at war with itself. This protracted conflict is rooted in the cultural and religious divides that characterize the country today. The northerners who have traditionally controlled the country in Khartoum have sought to unify the country along the lines of distinctly radical forms of Arab-Islamic principles, in which Sharia law is regarded as the supreme law of the land, despite the opposition of non-Muslims, moderate Muslims, southerners and marginalized peoples in the west and east of the country. As a result, the regimes in Khartoum have time and again employed a variety of policies and methods to destroy or weaken the just struggle of the Sudanese people, including the notorious policy of “divide and rule,” in order to maintain their own power.

This policy has been the country’s lot and is currently being pursued by President Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s governing party (NCP) in order to try to undermine the January 2011 referenda in which the people of Southern Sudan will go to the ballot box to vote between unity or separation; and the people of Abyei, an oil-rich area on the border between the south and north, to decide whether to become part of Southern Sudan or remain part of the north. The people of the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile, on the other hand, are to hold “popular consultations”—a CPA-mandated process whereby the two states will seek to renegotiate political, administrative and constitutional arrangements with the central government.

According to these agreements, therefore, the referenda must take place in Southern Sudan and Abyei, and the people given a choice. The people of Southern Sudan and Abyei must be allowed a free and fair vote. The people of Southern Sudan have been denied this right by the different regimes that have ruled the Sudan since it became a sovereign state. While the CPA provides principles to make unity attractive to the people of Southern Sudan and all the other marginalized areas of the Sudan, the Khartoum government has not acted in such a way as to make the unity of the country seem an attractive option.

It is now imperative for the international community, especially the countries that helped negotiate the CPA — the Intergovernmental Authority on Development and the “troika members” (the United States, Norway and the United Kingdom) — to unify efforts and support to help and sustain the process leading up to the 2011 vote, drawing lessons from the recently concluded elections, so as to assure the serious and peaceful completion of the CPA. The current atmosphere in Southern Sudan suggests that the peaceful conclusion of the CPA will only prevail when the people of Southern Sudan are allowed to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination.

The idea of self-determination is not a new phenomenon, nor would this be the first time that international forces and interests have worked to undermine the rights of others to determine their own future by employing scare tactics. It is critical to remember that self-determination is a political human right that cannot be denied to the world’s oppressed people. Eritrea, East Timor and Kosovo are among the recent countries that benefited from this right. During their struggles, these countries stood always for separation, from day one to the end. In the case of Southern Sudan, it is the general exploitation, oppression and neglect of the Sudanese people by the successive regimes in Khartoum that will be remembered at the ballot box this coming January 2011; the South is expected to vote to separate from the north, bringing to an end what was supposed to be a united, “new” Sudan.

In case of a vote in favor of secession, the Khartoum-based regime must face the consequences of not transforming the country democratically — Southern Sudan must be declared an independent state on that very day. The international community must be ready to support a massive program of state-building and development in the event of this decision. Sudan’s bordering countries’ choices in supporting and respecting the vote of the Southern Sudanese will also be particularly important. As a recently released International Crisis Group Report (May 6, 2010) explains in detail, each of Sudan’s neighbors — Kenya, Uganda, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya and Eritrea –has had a role, in one way or in another, in Sudanese history and in the negotiations that led to the CPA. In the same way, each one of them has different “interests at stake and will be directly affected by either peaceful separation or a return to conflict.” They will thus have to consider very carefully what they can or should do, as a renewed conflict in Southern Sudan would inevitably bring war and instability to the entire region, creating more humanitarian crises like the recent one in Darfur. The United States’ peace process and counterterrorism policies in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa would also be endangered.

It is not too late to help; now is the time to make that happen, if anything has been learned from Sudan’s past history of dishonoring too many agreements. Friends of Sudan who care about the future peace of this country should write or call President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, their senators and representatives and urge the peaceful implementation of the 2005 Peace Accords in Sudan, brokered in part by former Republican senator and Episcopal priest John Danforth.

Bul Garang Mabil came to the United States in 2000 as one of Sudan’s “Lost Boys,” and serves on the Diocese of Mississippi’s Sudanese Ministry Committee. He is also a member of South Sudan Referendum Task Force in the United States, whose aim is to mobilize, coordinate, educate and enlighten the South Sudanese communities in the United States about their participation in the upcoming January 2011 referendum in Sudan.