Will Garang’s comeback assure durable peace in Sudan?

By Anaclet Rwegayura

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, July 11, 2005 (PANA) — Last weekend ushered in a ‘New Sudan’ with a legendary guerrilla war
bastion from the devastated south of the country
becoming First Vice President of the country.

But what does the future hold for the country whose
history is full of ignominious chapters of conflicts
and associated human crises?

The swearing on 9 July 2005 of Dr. John Garang,
leader of Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement/Army
(SPLM/A), as Vice President in the new Sudanese
Government of National Unity may represent a giant
step towards durable peace in Africa’s largest
country.

What worries many, however, is whether peace would
hold and let the whole country prosper or any misstep
could lead the 60-year old Garang back to the bush.

For over two decades, SPLM/A fought a vicious
guerrilla war against the Arab-speaking dominated
regime in Khartoum.

While the outside saw it as a war of getting an
Islamic hold on the largely animist and Christian
South, the Southern Sudanese maintained that they
were shedding blood for self-determination.

Sudan has been ravaged by civil wars on different
fronts since its independence in 1956.

Political, social and economic marginalisation, as a
veiled policy of the minority clique in Khartoum, was
at the centre of the conflicts in which millions of
lives perished, millions were displaced and millions
became destitute.

Under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed
on 9 January 2005 in Nairobi, Kenya, between SPLM/A
and the Government of Sudan (GoS), Garang has also
assumed the Presidency of the Government of South
Sudan (GoSS), provisionally based in Rumbek town.

The Interim Constitution under which GoS and GoSS
have been formed, provide for the holding of a
referendum in Southern Sudan in 2011, which will
enable the people of the South to determine whether
they will choose to remain within Sudan, as it is
known now, or opt to become a new state.

“It is the calculation of Northern politicians that,
during the interim period, they will persuade the
people of Southern Sudan to appreciate the attraction
of unity,” argues Dr Njunga Mulikita, a freelance
democracy and governance advisor, based in Nairobi.

Mulikita, who until recently was senior governance
advisor with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in
South Sudan, suggests that by channelling oil
revenues into the South Sudan Reconstruction and
Development Fund (SSRDF), GoS could attract the
fervour of the Southerners to national unity.

“The revenues would then be used for a massive
recovery and reconstruction programme in a region
that was devastated by the long-running civil war,”
he told PANA.

“As schools, water, sanitation, hospitals, roads and
other social infrastructure become available, the
political elite in the North reckons that Southerners
will choose to remain in Sudan.”

Given the deep mistrust between Northerners and
Southerners after so many years of war, it is
absolutely vital that the international community
promotes confidence-building measures between both
sides.

“Had the international community, particularly
African countries, adopted a robust stance against
the Numeiri government when it unilaterally abrogated
the 1972 Addis Ababa agreement, Sudan might not have
suffered two decades of a destructive civil war,”
Mulikita argues.

That pact had accorded Southern Sudan substantial
autonomy.

According to the governance expert, the international
community should draw a lesson from the past
experience and ensure that both sides meet their
obligations under the CPA.

Moreover, Mulikita said that a rapid and vigorously
implemented capacity building programme was needed
for Southern Sudan.

Essentially, the programme should focus on human and
institutional capacities to accompany autonomy for
Southern Sudan.

“Capable states in Southern Sudan, founded on
transparency, accountability and the rule of law must
rapidly emerge if the oil revenues, plus external
resources, are to reach the most disadvantaged and
vulnerable categories,” Mulikita emphasised.

To avert disenchantment with the ‘New Sudan’, the
expert strongly advised that SPLA combatants wounded
during the war must be rehabilitated.

Also, fighters who will be demobilised and the rest
of the war-weary population must be given access to
sustainable livelihoods.

“It is not possible to tell which way Southerners
will vote in the referendum scheduled for 2011,”
Mulikita said, recalling the 1993 referendum in the
erstwhile Ethiopian province of Eritrea.

Eritrea voted to break away from Ethiopia and has
since become an independent nation.

“Evidence shows that armed conflict situations tend
to give groups of people who have suffered real or
perceived suppression or subjugation, a distinct
group or national identity,” Mulikita added.