Unity of Southern Sudan critical to implementation of the CPA
By Jacob K. Lupai*
November 15, 2007 — The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) was achieved at the cost of about 2 million Southern Sudanese dead and 4 million as internally displaced persons (IDPs) living in squalor and in conditions of abject poverty or as miserable refugees in camps while others scattered far and wide. If the Antarctica were habitable Southern Sudanese would have headed that way too.
The CPA was a result of the war that could not be won by either side. The price paid was very high that the CPA has to be maintained at all cost. The alternative would be a repeat of what had preceded the CPA. No southerner in his or her right frame of mind will therefore accept the CPA document to be destined for the recycle bin or to be recycled into a toilet tissue. To face the onslaught of the enemies of peace in Sudan the unity of Southern Sudan is critical. Simple wisdom dictates, “Unity is strength”. We have seen that the CPA is being attacked from all flanks with the ultimate objective of throwing it out altogether as a worthless document. However, for Southern Sudan the CPA has been achieved at a very high price that it is unthinkable to allow anybody to play games with it. The CPA embodies the vision of Dr John Garang de Mabior the architect of the CPA and a legend in the liberation struggle. There is no way to honour John Garang, and all the fallen heroes and the disabled other than to protect the CPA.
Unity of Southern Sudan is the one thing the enemies of the CPA fear the most. Through disunity the CPA is likely to be trampled with impunity. However, regardless of the diversities in Southern Sudan the CPA acts like a magnet that holds southerners together for the CPA defines and decides their destiny after centuries of marginalisation in the land of their birth. Nonetheless ethnocentrisms will creep in when people lose the vision of the path to freedom and prosperity for all. The glaring example is an incident that took place in Yambio in Equatoria on 4 November where some indiscipline Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) soldiers gunned down in cold blood police officers on duty. The incident was horrifying and destabilising to say the least. The ethnic connotations thereafter were reverberating with venomous exchange of anger that could have prepared the ground for a wider ethnic conflict. The conflict could have dire consequences for the very survival of the CPA. The only profiteers would have been the diehard enemies of the CPA who had held the CPA in contempt from day one. However, southerners have shown the enemies of the CPA and the world at large that they are above ethnocentrisms. Major General Clement Wani Konga, the Governor of Central Equatoria State and a respected leader in Equatoria and the South urged the people of Equatoria to be calm. The Government of Southern Sudan moved swiftly to defuse the situation. Lt General Salva Kiir Mayardit, the President of the Government of Southern Sudan issued orders for immediate implementation to address the situation. Southern community groups also called for calm. To the frustration of the enemies of the CPA the steps taken so far to defuse the situation in Yambio have demonstrated that Southern Sudan will not be distracted an inch from the full implementation of the CPA in spirit and letter.
Sadiq el Mahdi, the leader of the Umma Party in Sudan has proposed a national conference of all political parties to address constitutional issues with special consideration for self-determination for Southern Sudan. This is Mahdi’s solution to the impasse between the SPLM and the National Congress Party (NCP). Mahdi’s proposal for a national conference is naturally a way to destine the CPA to the recycle bin. However, it is early to say whether Basir is like Numeiri who listened to Mahdi to destroy the Addis Ababa agreement between the government of Numeiri and the Southern Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM). It is not a secret that Mahdi is against the CPA from its inception. In fact on a number of occasions Mahdi has called the SPLM a separatist. Probably Mahdi withdrew his Umma Party from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) because of the SPLM perceived influence in the NDA. Mahdi’s proposal may have many supporters but it is difficult to see how Southern Sudan would like another conference to renegotiate the CPA. The CPA was signed with the government of the day with all the guarantees witnessed by the international community. Mahdi may go ahead with his national conference but that should have no bearing on the implementation of the CPA. If Mahdi had supported the CPA his Umma Party would have instead brought pressure to bear on the NCP to implement the CPA. However, the constitution of Sudan guarantees freedom of speech and any Sudanese has the right to say whatever he or she may think of interest.
To add more confusion to the situation Dr Hassan Abdalla el Turabi thinks that the SPLM will declare secession when the Abyei protocol in the CPA is not implemented. It seems Turabi has inner knowledge of the NCP in relation to the CPA. Turabi may have intelligence report from the NCP that the Abyei protocol will never ever be implemented. Turabi may not also trust what the SPLM has been saying all along. The SPLM has reiterated its desire to see the CPA implemented in spirit and letter. It is therefore unlikely that the SPLM will make a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI). The SPLM nonetheless has made it clear it will not make a UDI. The SPLM is not like the NCP that says one thing and does the other. Turabi’s prediction may be another element of planting confusion in an already confused situation. It is, however, clear that the SPLM and Southern Sudan are focused on the CPA. No amount of distraction will deter the SPLM from pursuing the course of action that will lead to the ultimate goal of freedom for the people of Southern Sudan, Abyei, Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, also as a model to the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan.
Ahmed Ibrahim Direge the leader of the Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance, another Darfur political grouping, claims that Darfuris fought secession in Southern Sudan to confirm that Darfuris are unionists. Direge claim was about one Darfur rebel group, which has said it is also fighting for self-determination for the people of Darfur. Direge dismisses the idea of self-determination for Darfur as untenable because he claims Darfuris are unionists. Probably Direge is very close to the people on the ground that he is confident the people in Darfur reject the concept of self-determination as alien. The destruction of lives and property in Southern Sudan by Darfuris as a demonstration of unity of Sudan is something Direge seems to relish as a way of showing off his unionist credentials. Direge, though, seems unaware of the fact that southerners were the first to call for a federal system in Sudan, the system he has now adopted for the name of his political party. Direge also seems to ignore the fact that the Darfuris were used as in “kill a slave with a slave” (aktul el abid bil abid) so to speak to silence the agitation from the South against marginalisation by the ruling clique in Sudan. Direge himself tasted marginalisation when he decided enough was enough and left Sudan for foreign lands but probably not as a miserable refugee.
Even though marginalisation of Southern Sudan went unabated the Darfuris have never been better off for the last fifty years since the independence of Sudan from colonial rule. Direge should be aware that the Darfuris had slept for too long until the southern resistance awakened them in 2003 when they began to speak the language of the marginalised after decades of naivety. Direge should not be worrying much about the unity of Sudan but should instead be concerned about the down grading of the conflict in Darfur as tribal in contrast to a conflict for the people’s legitimate right for a greater say in their own affairs and a fairer share of the national cake.
Direge may need to do more about the unity of the countless Darfur rebel splinter groups and political groupings for the next round of talks to address the marginalisation of Darfur instead of the unnecessary worries about the unity of Sudan and boasting about the brutal suppression by the Darfuris of secession of Southern Sudan. The unity of Darfuris is the most critical to any peace agreement reached with the government of Sudan. Probably due to the lack of unity among the Darfuris the agreement reached in Abuja, Nigeria is now hardly an agreement as shown by the frustrations of the rebel leader to the agreement. The agreement has become a non-starter as the government of Sudan with impunity dishonours it.
One would have expected Direge if not to acknowledge the southern resistance as exemplary to all the marginalised in Sudan but at least to apologise to southerners for what his tribesmen, the Darfuris, did instead of the offensive language that the Darfuris fought to stop secession in Southern Sudan which meant destruction of lives and property for the enforced unity of Sudan. Direge may care to know that southerners were unionists when they first called for a federal system to sustain the unity of Sudan. One would expect Direge to be honest enough to admit that southerners were treated badly that they resisted until the CPA. It is also hoped that Direge will give an honest answer to: what did the Darfuris get or gain in return for being a party to the destruction of Southern Sudan for unity of Sudan? Observation seems to suggest that Darfuris are pioneering what southerners had pioneered before so that they do not become the only marginalised of Sudan after southerners have achieved freedom.
Direge should not also be so paternalistic to the people of Darfur even if he was the son of a chief. It is for the people to decide probably through a referendum whether they want to be a part of an oppressive state that treats them as second-class citizens or to run their own affairs the way people see fit. Sudan has already adopted a federal system like the one Direge is talking about. What is new that Direge wants to bring into the already existing federal system of the NCP if not to demand for a greater local say and responsibility for Darfur? Why did not Direge remain in the Umma Party if he was not being marginalized to form his own political party, the Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance? Times are changing and one may need to catch up. Preaching unity that has failed miserably is not helpful but identifying the problem for a solution is. Unity of Sudan will be realised when a solution that is acceptable to all the stakeholders is adopted and implemented with tangible and observable results.
Sudan is well known to be a multi religious, racial, ethnic and cultural nation. The South, Darfur, Abyei, Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile on the other hand are non-Arab regions of Sudan with animists, Christians and moderate Muslims. To institute Sudan as an Arab state does not make unity attractive and worse when it is an extremist Islamic state. However, Sadiq el Mahdi and Dr Hassan Abdalla el Turabi would like those regions to be united with the northern predominantly Arab regions even if Sudan has to become an Arab Islamic state. Who knows Direge may also like Sudan to be an Arab Islamic state although he has been one of those marginalised.
As Direge claims proudly that Darfuris were sent to the South to stop secession it seems it is now the turn of the Darfuris to appreciate the southern resistance that has made the Darfuris to learn the hard way to mount their own resistance similar to that of the South. Anyway the Darfuris deserve commendation for emulating the southern resistance when they innocently or probably ignorantly participated to crush it.
For Southern Sudan unity is key to achieving all the goals of the CPA. There is no short cut in the face of persistent undermining of the CPA from all flanks. However, the strength is that southerners have experienced and realised that disunity is a liability to their aspirations. The call for calm from the various sections of Southern Sudan with regard to the volatile situation in Yambio in Equatoria is an illustration that the unity of Southern Sudan is critical to the implementation of the CPA to achieve the ultimate goal of freedom and prosperity for all in Southern Sudan, Abyei, Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile. However, there is no reason why Darfur should not join forces with the South to realise a Sudan that all are proud of and identify with. After all the South and Darfur are in the same boat of marginalisation by the minority ruling clique in Sudan.
*The author is a Sudan Tribune contributor He can be reached at [email protected]