South Sudan's Five Challenges

South Sudan finds itself at a complex crossroads, and Alex Thurston has written the most accurate and succinct analysis of the situation I have seen so far. Here it is.

- Shimron
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Attention is turning from South Sudan’s referendum on independence, which yielded a nearly unanimous “yes” vote, to South’s Sudan’s future. Here are five challenges the new country will face:

1. Borders

Even though North Sudan appears resigned to the South’s secession, the two countries will still have to agree on the precise border that divides them. One major piece of that puzzle is Abyei, an oil-rich region that was supposed to hold its own referendum and decide whether it would secede along with the South or remain with the North. Due to disagreements between North and South Sudanese leaders, Abyei’s referendum was postponed indefinitely. Verbal and physical conflict in Abyei (between the largely pro-secession Ngok Dinka farmers and the largely pro-unity Misseriya Arab pastoralists) punctuated the voting earlier this month.
Now that the voting is over, Abyei remains a “potential tinderbox.”

On the southern side, the secretary general of the ruling party, the Southern People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), Pagan Amum, has said that if the Abyei referendum is not conducted, the only remaining option is for Abyei to be transferred to the south by presidential decree. On the northern side, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has said he will not accept Abyei being part of the south.

The Ngok Dinka say they fear that if they do not make their declaration before the votes are counted in the southern referendum, they will miss their chance to join the south.

The Ngok Dinka were ready to make their declaration before voting started on Jan. 9. But two high-level officials from the SPLM persuaded them to hold off.

The officials said a declaration before the referendum would give the north “an excuse to disrupt” the vote, said Juac Agok, deputy chairman of the SPLM in Abyei.
The SPLM is now asking them to wait until after July 9, when southern independence would formally begin.

But Agok said, “I don’t think it will be possible for me to convince the people of Abyei to wait.”
The seriousness of the situation in Abyei is so great that one analyst calls it “the key to South Sudan['s] stability.” Without a solution that both governments and the people of Abyei can accept, violence may escalate.

2. Oil

Oil is the primary driver of Sudan’s economy. The US Energy Information Administration says, “In 2009, according to the International Monetary Fund, oil represented over 90 percent of export earnings. For South Sudan (Juba), oil represented 98 percent of total revenues for the year compared to Khartoum at 65 percent.” The Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005 (which provided for the referendum) established a 50-50 revenue-sharing agreement between North and South, but now the two countries will have to negotiate a new agreement on revenues. Addressing issues like transparency, a report released in early January argued, will be key to establishing trust and peace between North and South, who must rely on each other when it comes to oil: Three-quarters of the oil is in the South, but the North has the pipelines and refineries.

In addition to this challenge, South Sudan has its own internal challenges when it comes to oil revenues: accusations of government corruption and continued poverty in the midst of rising government income threaten to increase public discontent with the Government of South Sudan. Fast growth has led to income inequality and a sense of chaos in Juba. South Sudan will have to use oil revenues carefully in achieving development and building a unified society.

3. Integration and Citizenship

Who is a citizen in South Sudan? With refugees and members of the diaspora returning from near and far, and with everyone in the new country pondering its political future, South Sudan will need to develop a basis for national integration, citizenship, and unity that relies on more than just opposition to the North. Maggie Fick captures this problem poignantly:

A Southern Sudanese told me that “the referendum is the only thing that united us southerners.”

He believes that one of the hardest tasks of the southern government in the coming years will be to create the idea of being a Southern Sudanese citizen—an idea that will arguably be foreign to many ofthese citizens.

After my friend made the above comment, he proceeded to give me an extensive history lesson on “the struggle,” speaking with pride and deep knowledge about the causes of the south’s two post-independence rebellions against regimes in Khartoum. He drew upon stories of battles fought in areas of the south that he has never visited but that appear vividly in his oral retelling of years of bloody conflict that eventually led to the south gaining the chance to decide its own destiny in a self-determination vote.

If this isn’t pride for a nation and in a group of people than I don’t know what is.
But the new Southern Sudan will be about more than the struggle of the past, and it will be a new struggle for the new country’s leaders to forge a path that includes not only those groups who fought in the war but also those people who were born in refugee camps in East Africa, who grew up in Nebraska, who studied at Oxford and who drive motorcycle taxis in Juba.

Picking the country’s name (it may well remain “South Sudan”), national anthem, flag, and emblem is a first step, but crafting national unity and integrating newcomers will take a long time.

4. Political Reform

This point is related to the last point. Along with building a sense of one nation, South Sudan will face the challenge of allowing multiple voices to speak. South Sudan will face international and internal pressures to move beyond the one-party model that allows the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) to dominate.

The International Crisis Group’s Zack Vertin ably explains the issue:
The rebel movement turned governing party — the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement — dominates the political arena. Since the end of the war, opposition voices have suppressed grievances and taken a back seat to the SPLM so as to preserve the goal shared by all southerners — self-determination. But now that the vote has been cast, that common denominator is gone. When the jubilation of last week’s vote subsides, the political environment will slowly begin to transform. The current leadership must respond accordingly, recognizing that a genuine opening of political space is both necessary and in their long-term interest. They must find a way to equitably manage the South’s own diversity, lest they simply duplicate the sort of autocratic regime they’ve finally managed to escape.

Allowing political pluralism means more than just who wins at the ballot box – it also means addressing human rights issues (h/t Rob Crilly), managing dissent, and promoting positive relations between ethnic groups. None of that will be easy.

5. Development

South Sudan’s development challenges are wide-ranging and stark. A Reuters report from 2010 puts South Sudan’s predicament bluntly: “By many yardsticks, it is the least-developed place on earth: 70 percent of its people have no access to any form of healthcare, one in five women die in childbirth and one in five children fail to make it to their fifth birthday.” UNDP provides alarming statistics on education, disease, sustainability, and other issues in South Sudan. These problems are not just economic – they also threaten to undercut political stability. The worst outcome, as Rob Crilly says, would be for South Sudan, burdened by economic crisis and political failure, to join the world’s failed states.

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This list is not comprehensive, and I hope commenters will weigh in on these issues and others. What have I missed? What challenges do you see ahead for South Sudan?

The Rest @ Sahel Bog

36 Killed by Gatluak Gai's Forces in South Sudan

Even after casting his vote at the grounds where his father's remains lie, Mabior de Garang, son of former Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) leader, John Garang de Mabior, was not an entirely happy man.


Mr Mabior, who went with his mother and two siblings to symbolically pay their respects to their father's grave that was only metres away from the polling centre where he voted from, said his thoughts on what was a historic day for Sudan were with parts of his father still unfulfilled vision. He said the dream of his father and other SPLA founding fathers had been for a day when the entire Southern Sudan would have a chance to choose whether to stay united with the north or secede.

Disputed areas...

However, he added, the three areas of Abyei, Nuba Mountains and Southern Blue Nile - all found at the disputed border points between the south and the north - would not vote as expected on whether they would want to belong to the north or the south of Sudan.

"I have mixed feelings; what the white people call a bitter-sweet moment," he told Daily Monitor shortly after voting. "On one level, I am happy because we are getting our freedom and on another level I am not happy because the marginalised areas are not voting in this referendum.

It was part of the CPA. Our New Sudan that we envisioned was Southern Sudan of the 1956 border and the three marginalised areas of

• Abyei
• Nuba Mountains
• Southern Blue Nile.

So because it is not being done in Abyei and the Nuba Mountains, it gives me a bitter-sweet feeling."

Administrative status


The three areas are largely inhabited by the Ngok Dinka, who are related to the inhabitants of the rest of Southern Sudan.

However, Misseriya nomads migrate seasonally through the territory, which often results in conflict between the two groups over land.

When Sudan's north and south signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), a protocol in the deal granted the disputed territory special administrative status under the presidency and its own January 2011 referendum to decide whether to continue that status within the North or become part of the South.

Locals in the three 'marginalised' areas were therefore expected to vote in their own separate referendum on the same day as the south, but the plans have been shelved indefinitely. Instead, developments in the controversial areas during the run up to the referendum in the south provided a glimpse into the potential conflicts that could erupt in an area with the potential of dragging the north and south back to war.

On Friday, three days before the referendum in the south, militias loyal to renegade Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) renegade officer, Gatluak Gai, engaged the Southern Sudan military based in Unity State in a gun battle in which two militiamen were killed.

• Southern Sudan Minister of Internal Affairs, Lt. Gen. Gier Chuang Aluong, said during two days of fighting, the SPLA also captured 32 prisoners of war, including two officers from Gatluak's attackers.

About 36 people have been confirmed dead in the four days of fighting. Both Gen. Aluong and the chairperson of the Abyei Referendum Forum, Deng Mading Mijak, said the people in the three areas in the north had fallen victim to joint attacks between the Sudanese armed forces and government sponsored militia.

Mr Mijak said the attacks made an already bad situation worse because besides not getting the opportunity to decide their fate, they were now mourning lives that had been lost. He added that the attacks would only make them more determined to fight for an opportunity to decide where they belong.

According to Gabriel Garang Deng, the Director of Taxation in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, the unresolved fate of the marginalised areas is a recipe for trouble in future because no side is likely to cede ground.

"In the long run the issue of Abyei could become like that of Kashmir [a region between Pakistan and India, which has been the source of a protracted conflict between the two countries]," he said, "because if they don't want to surrender it to us, we are not ready to surrender it to them

The Rest @ All Africa