Could southern Sudanese deal inspire others to seek secession?

By DONNA BRYSON, Associated Press Writer

LONDON, Feb 11, 2005 (AP) — Peace talks later this month between the Sudanese government and Darfur rebels could be the first test of whether offering southern Sudan a chance to secede could inspire other parts of the nation to try to break away.

Sudanese residents sing as they await the arrival of John Garang, leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in Rumbek, on Sudany January 23, 2005. (AFP).

History shows Africans are unlikely to rush to change the borders they were handed by Europeans. Still, Darfur rebels have started to speak more forcefully about aspirations for autonomy in their western corner of Sudan since the government and southern rebels signed a deal ending a 21-year-war — African’s longest — and stipulating that southerners will one day get to vote on independence.

And why stop at the south and Darfur in a country U.N. special envoy Jan Pronk has described as “a failed nation … many nations together in one huge territory, held together by force”?

For that matter, why stop at Sudan? Though bigger and more volatile than most, it is only one of many African nations whose borders, it could be argued, are artificial.

Britain, France and the other European colonists who determined Africa’s borders at a 1884 conference in Berlin were concerned not with questions of cultural or national identity, but with balancing their own rivalries and ambitions. The map they drew jumbled kingdoms together in some countries, split tribes and language groups between others.

Yet decades after the last colonial powers left, the proposal to allow southern Sudanese to even consider changing an African border is revolutionary.

The African Union, formed in 2002 pledging to push for the continent’s political and economic development, stipulates that its core values include “respect of borders existing on achievement of independence.”

In the more than a century since Berlin, “these borders have provided the boundaries of much of political, economic and even social life; in other words, they have become rooted — part of the reason why inhabitants would think twice, and even more, before seeking a change of borders,” said Mahmood Mamdani, director of Columbia University’s Institute of African Studies.

Under the peace treaty signed Dec. 31, southern Sudanese will have six years to think over whether to stay in Sudan. The government has pledged to do all it can to persuade the southerners to stay.

“Our ultimate goal is a united Sudan, which will not be built by war but by peace and development,” President Omar el-Bashir told crowds during a tour of the south following the signing of the peace deal. “You, the southerners, will be saying ‘we want a strong and huge state, a united Sudan.'”

El-Bashir likely fears the precedent that could be set by secession — and not just in the minds of rebels in Darfur. Soon after the southern treaty was signed, Beja tribesman, who have long demanded more political and economic power in underdeveloped northeastern Sudan, staged a protest that turned violent. El-Bashir also faces unrest in central areas.

Despite local calls for more autonomy, secession “hasn’t been picked up yet as sort of the next chapter in Sudanese politics,” said David Mozersky, an African specialist for the International Crisis Group. But he did note that sentiment for secession developed only over time in the south.

George Ayittey, an economist and Africa specialist at the American University in Washington, said African dictators like el-Bashir are loathe to lose any territory, which they associate with power. The rebels who oppose them, he said, often feel the same way, fighting to take over the countries drawn up by Europe, not change the borders.

When Africans do resort to re-carving Africa, it’s not necessarily a solution, particularly when it comes through force of arms, Ayittey said. He cited former Italian possessions Ethiopia and Eritrea as an example.

Eritrea, unlike other African states, was not a creation of the Berlin conference. It was a 1952 U.N. resolution that paired it with Ethiopia in a federation, despite Eritrean pleas for independence.

Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie unilaterally annexed Eritrea in 1962, sparking a protracted uprising. Eritrea finally declared its independence in 1991. Seven years later, Eritreans were fighting Ethiopians over an as-yet unresolved border dispute — their 1998-2000 war cost each country an estimated US$1 million.

“That was one of Africa’s most idiotic wars,” Ayittey said. “These are two of Africa’s poorest countries, and they were fighting over a worthless piece of land, spending millions on arms.”

Ayittey worries that if secession became a trend, Africa would be reduced to myriad, tiny states never able to compete in a world controlled by powerful blocs like the United States or the European Union. That is not to say he has any fondness for the colonial borders. Ayittey, a Ghanaian, longs for a “United States of Africa,” in which the borders would be meaningless.

Southern Sudan’s secession six years from now is a real possibility, said Ibrahim Elnur, director of the Office of African Studies at the American University in Cairo.

But Elnur said other provisions in the peace treaty present the possibility of creating a viable, democratic federation in which any disputes can be peacefully resolved, and which would be loose enough so that no member need feel threatened or marginalized. If that promise is fulfilled, he said, Sudan could be a model for the rest of the continent.

“Because Sudan is a small Africa. In terms of diversity — cultural and ethnic,” Elnur said. “It is north African, it is west African. It is south African, it is east African. Everyone is there.”