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Sudan: Reflections, 3
AfricaFocus Bulletin
Jan 10, 2011 (110110)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor's Note
"I do not believe that either the ruling National Congress party
(NCP) in Khartoum or the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM),
which governs the south, want to fight. War would almost certainly
bring an end to NCP rule in the north and devastate an already
impoverished south. Leaders on both sides are smart enough to know
that." - Mo Ibrahim
As world attention focuses on the dramatic process of the
referendum in Southern Sudan, this series of AfricaFocus Bulletins
contains several reflections on the historical significance of the
referendum and the transition process
which will be unfolding in the coming months.
- Two lectures by Thabo Mbeki, Chairperson of the African Union
High Level Implementation Panel, one at the University of Khartoum
(sent out by e-mail and available on the web at
http://www.africafocus.org/docs11/sud1101a.php) and one at the
University of Juba (available at
http://www.africafocus.org/docs11/sud1101b.php), are both
diplomatic interventions and nuanced reflections which warrant
careful reading.
- An op-ed by Mo Ibrahim, Sudanese mobile phone magnate and
philanthropist, and a statement by the Sudan Democracy Group
entitled "A letter from the men and women of the North to the men
and women of the South On your Democratic Right to Self
Determination," available at
http://www.africafocus.org/docs11/sud1101c.php) address both the
referendum and the future for the expected two separate states.
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Sudan, see
http://www.africafocus.org/country/sudan.php
For up-to-date news coverage, see
http://www.sudantribune.com
and
http://allafrica.com/sudan
++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note++++++++++++++++++++
Sudan is a warning to all of Africa
by Mo Ibrahim
The writer is chairman of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and founder of
Celtel, the telecoms group
Mo Ibrahim Foundation
http://www.moibrahimfoundation.org
[Oped in Financial Times, January 7, 2011]
One evening, some 40 years ago, a progressive north Sudanese was
giving a lecture in Khartoum. He was talking about the problems
posed by the chronic underdevelopment of south Sudan, and the need
to entrench brotherhood and unity among all Sudanese if we were to
develop as a nation.
A southern man stood up and brought the audience back to earth.
"That is all fine, sir," he said to the speaker. "But will you
allow me to marry your sister?"
The prejudice to which he alluded has remained sadly relevant up to
today, when the south of my country is preparing to vote in a
referendum on independence.
Late last year, my foundation held its annual forum in Mauritius,
a beautiful country which has led our Index of African Governance
for the past four years. Some 300 African opinion leaders came
together to discuss the economic integration of the continent. The
debate was not about whether we need integration: African markets,
as well as African voices, are too fragmented to compete globally.
Rather, the debate was about why we are moving towards closer
political and economic co-operation so slowly.
In the evening, as everyone danced joyfully to the music of Youssou
N'Dour and Angelique Kidjo, there was a cloud hanging over the
Sudanese guests among us. A woman was crying as her colleagues
tried to calm her. While other Africans were celebrating their
coming together, we knew that in a few weeks our country would
start to break apart.
Later that night I joined my Sudanese friends from all corners of
the country, the north, the south and Darfur. The meeting was
reflective, sad and awkward. Looking at my friends, I wondered how
each would have responded to that 40-year-old question.
Sudan has been an experiment that resonated across Africa: if we,
the largest country on the continent, reaching from the Sahara to
the Congo, bridging religions, cultures and a multitude of
ethnicities, were able to construct a prosperous and peaceful state
from our diverse citizenry, so too could the rest of Africa.
That we have failed should sound a warning to all Africans. Sudan,
at one million square miles, is the continent's largest country,
sharing borders with nine other states. The fault lines that have
divided us as a people extend from Eritrea to Nigeria. If Sudan
starts to crumble, the shock waves will spread.
Khartoum today projects a sense of normality, modernity and
relative affluence. This is in sharp contrast to the rest of the
country. Lack of investment, underdevelopment and the exclusion of
populations on the periphery from the political process has
resulted in alienation. It has strengthened local identities.
We have not nurtured that sense of brotherhood and unity. Rather,
since independence the way Sudan has been governed has undermined
any potential for a common Sudanese purpose.
President Omar al-Bashir's regime has aggravated the problem by
seeking absolute power and repressing dissent. The result has been
the civil wars in the south, the east and in Darfur to the west.
Our country has torn itself apart.
The separation of the south following the forthcoming referendum on
January 9 is inevitable. The least we can do now is to separate
peacefully and amicably.
I do not believe that either the ruling National Congress party
(NCP) in Khartoum or the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM),
which governs the south, want to fight. War would almost certainly
bring an end to NCP rule in the north and devastate an already
impoverished south. Leaders on both sides are smart enough to know
that.
The north must now focus on finding a peaceful solution to the
separate conflict in Darfur, and the leaders of the three main
rebel movements there must come together around a coherent agenda
to achieve this.
The government in Khartoum feels isolated and under siege, facing
criticism from within its own ranks, the population at large and
even its Arab neighbours, who are usually tolerant of each others'
misdeeds. It needs to reflect on the outcomes of 21 years of
absolute rule - and address its legacy, to which partition will now
be added. If you are in a hole, stop digging.
But decent governments need decent opposition. The crumbling old
opposition parties in Khartoum, led by the same grand old men who
were there when I was at school, lack vision or even coherence.
The south faces its own enormous task of nation-building. Civil war
and underdevelopment have left the region with little
infrastructure and few institutions. Moreover, the south is not as
homogenous as often portrayed: there too a national identity must
be constructed, representative of the diversity of its people.
At our meeting in Mauritius we all agreed that Africa's future is
in its own hands. Freedom of movement of people, goods and capital
is essential for the development of our sub-scale economies and for
maximising the potential of our immense resources. Regional
economic communities across Africa, the African Union and the
African Development Bank are all focusing on this as a top
priority.
Sudan cannot afford to be on the wrong side of history. The north
and south will have to work together, but will they? Less than two
decades before the independence of India and the creation of
Pakistan, Winston Churchill claimed: "India is a geographic term.
India is no more a country than the equator is a country." It is
with great sadness that we Sudanese must recognise that the same
rings true for us.
Sudan: A letter from the men and women of the North to the men and
women of the South On your Democratic Right to Self Determination
Sudan Democracy Group (Khartoum)
1 January 2011
http://allafrica.com/stories/201101060985.html
[includes link to list of signatories]
Dear sisters
Dear brothers
This is a critical and historic moment for Sudan. The decades' old
project of building the national identity of the Sudanese people is
now facing the possibility of the re-construction of the country,
including its geography. After a long history of suffering finally
the people of South Sudan are in the process of achieving their
self determination. We, the signatories below, Northern Sudanese
citizens, appreciate and support the people of South Sudan as you
prepare to exercise your democratic right of self determination.
Dear Brothers and sisters of South Sudan,
We had hoped that the interim six years of the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement (CPA) would heal the wound of the real injustices that
have been inflicted upon you throughout our contemporary history,
and that we would reach the moment of the referendum at a time when
we --all of us in the South and North- were ready for a healthy
start for a new and inclusive future. However the six years have
passed without achievement and without any real, conscientious
effort by the central state to make unity an attractive choice for
citizens of the geographical and cultural South. For six years,
attempts to kill the spirit and letter of the CPA have continued,
leaving the rights contained in the CPA with no protection and no
defence, paving the road for efforts to undermine the agreement, to
the degree that racist attitudes and conspiracies have publicly and
tirelessly continued to kill the CPA.
We, the signatories below, citizens of the broader North Sudan, do
value and join hands with you while you are preparing for this
historic moment and pledge to protect and defend your democratic
right of self determination.
This step was heavily paid for through atrocities, loss of life,
discrimination and the waste of generations of potential by
successive regimes since independence. These regimes, in particular
the regime of the National Congress Party during the last twenty
years, have provoked and continue to provoke, civil conflicts. They
have tried to manipulate the country's ethnic and cultural
diversity and turn it from an advantage and asset into a curse,
mainly for the purpose of sustaining their own existence in
government. As a result, the current Sudanese national state has
failed to represent the people of South Sudan, the Nuba Mountains,
Blue Nile, Far North, Darfur---and the people of the country as a
whole---by implanting division and hatred and promoting a negative
culture of racial discrimination, injustice and inequality between
the citizens of the country and between the men and women of Sudan.
We, the signatories below, Northerners from all walks of life, are
fully aware of the vital importance of self determination for the
people of South Sudan as expressed in the CPA and the referendum
vote which will take place on January 9, 2011. At the same time,
the people of Southern and Northern Sudan have shared, and will
continue to share, strong ties of a common history, the many
generations of inter-marriages and shared ethnicity, family
relations, common culture and attitudes, religious diversity,
livelihoods, and impact they have had on each other's lives. We
believe that the bonds between the people of South Sudan and the
people of the
broader North still hold strong beneath all the rivalry and
aggression demonstrated through the years by the blind military and
political power of the North, which led to such pain and
destruction in the South. These ties must be revealed, celebrated,
empowered and tended by the people of the North and the South. We
believe that the Sudanese people, regardless of whether the people
of the South choose secession or unity, are destined to seek
solidarity and support from each other in both the long and the
short term.
We, the signatories of this letter, strongly call upon both current
governments in the North and the South not to compromise the
safety, security and rights of Southern and Northern Sudanese
citizens residing in the North or in the South and along the
putative borders, whatever the outcome of the referendum. Southern
and Northern populations in both parts should be allowed to hold
dual citizenship in case of secession. Their ease of movement,
residence, labour and property ownership, in addition to freedom of
religion and conscience, should be guaranteed and receive support
from the two entities. Acts of aggression against the people of
Sudan on grounds simply of place of residence, religion and
ethnicity will lead to escalation of conflict and further unrest.
We, in the South and the North, must be vigilant against any such
occurrence.
At this historic moment, we would like to salute those who believe
in and champion the vision of a New Sudan: those Sudanese citizens
from across all the Sudanese peoples who worked together shoulder
to shoulder, enlightening and empowering against all forms of
marginalization. We, the signatories below would like to salute
those of us, from North and South, who contributed to the struggle
tirelessly teaching all of us lessons on looking and acting beyond
race, tribe, religion, gender, class and culture.
Dear brothers and sisters of South Sudan
We urge you to take this historic momentum of self determination as
an opportunity to learn from the devastating mistakes made by
Northern governments. We hope, in the event of your choosing
independence, that you will also choose democracy over repression,
embrace diversity over division, defend human rights and justice
over abuses, empower transparency and accountability over
corruption and nepotism, and promote equality between men and women
over discrimination. As we have learned through our long shared
history, if our leaders had chosen to follow a different path of
equality, justice and democracy the country could have avoided
decades of bloodshed and devastation.
As the signatories below, we Northerners are looking forward to the
conduct of a peaceful referendum and accepting its results whatever
its outcome. The peaceful exercise of the democratic right of self
determination is an important lesson for us as Northern Sudanese as
we are called to continue the struggle for liberation towards
peace, justice and democracy in the broader North. The peaceful
completion of the South Sudan self determination process is a
critical transformational moment therefore not just in the history
of the people of Southern Sudan but also for the people of the
different regions of the Sudan.
Finally, we draw the attention of all concerned stakeholders, both
Sudanese and friends of Sudan, to the importance of investing in
the re- creation of the relationship between the people of the
North and the South. There must be a commitment to work with
communities and civil society to promote peaceful coexistence on
the terms and the principles of equality and respect, to empower
the voices of the civilians of the North and the South to be freely
expressed through their civil society and community institutions,
and to give them genuine roles in the process of ensuring the
sustainability of peace and security for all the people of Sudan.
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with
a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.
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