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Sudan |
CIVIL WAR
Cease-fires and peace agreements of one kind or another are all part of Sudan’s civil war situation. Yes, the road to peace is indeed uncertain
Sudan is one of the poorest countries in the world. It’s infrastructure is abysmal, with bad roads, unreliable electricity and telephone lines. Several droughts and the ongoing civil war are causing devastation. Sudan has also been strongly criticized by international organizations for human rights violations.
But Sudan need not be in this dangerous position as nature has endowed the country with benefits from the River Nile and oil resources. Both far from being adequately exploited.
Bentiu, in southern Sudan, is the centre of the government-controlled oil fields that are now producing more than 250,000 barrels a day. The government earns more than $500 million a year from this wealth, most of which is being used to buy weapons of war and helicopter gunships and warplanes.
In early June, the United Nations warned that virtually the entire population in the war-affected part of southern Sudan (population about 1.7 million), were at risk from famine as a result of both the increased fighting, and what many critics call Khartoum’s «scorched-earth» policy, especially in areas around the oil fields. According to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), as many as 300,000 people have been uprooted from their homes in the oil rich region.
The Nuba cease-fire, which has held for several months, now, has permitted both sides to divert forces to the main battlegrounds in the war, especially the Western Upper Nile region, which lies at the heart of the oil fields.
The International Crisis Group (ICG) reports that the Sudanese Government is enjoying substantially enhanced revenues from the oil it is pumping from southern Sudan. According to this report, this cash is now being used to purchase Russian MiG-29s. News of these purchases first emerged in May when a Russian report suggested Sudan had placed a one hundred and twenty million US dollars order for the MiGs.
The report came at a time when the Sudanese Government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) were engaged in peace talks in Kenya. The ICG report, written by John Prendergast, who served as African expert on the National Security Council under US President Bill Clinton, said Sudan’s civil war has entered its most destructive phase to-date.
The example of Port Sudan
Port Sudan is one of the most important cities in Sudan. It is located about 1,000 km north east of Khartoum. It is Sudan’s only seaport. Juba and Kosti are harbours along the Nile River. Port Sudan’s population is now of more than a million. It also hosts more than half a million internally displaced people from southern Sudan, the Nuba Mountains and the Ingessena Hills in the southern Blue Nile region.
Temperatures in Port Sudan can get as high as 42 degrees centigrade descending to about 29 degrees centigrade. Water problems and general lack of services to the impoverished population have bedeviled this city.
Albert Ohide, from eastern Equatoria, has been living in Port Sudan for the last five years as a displaced person. He wrote an article, which was published in the Khartoum Monitor (issue of 23 June 2002. He said: «The problem of drinking water is a major issue left hanging in the air since Sudan’s Government engaged itself in exportation and searching for minerals such as petroleum, iron, gold and other resources. Port Sudan is an international port handling both imports and exports. All the governments since independence have paid little attention to the city’s drinking water problem (which is worse during July and August when there are high temperatures.) A barrel of water during that period costs about four US dollars a day.
«Port Sudan’s water is collected during the rainy season and stored in a reservoir. This water is supplied to the people for sale by tankers. For the reservoir to be filled, it must have rained nine times the previous rainy season. But last year, it rained only twice. The reservoir is now empty. Many people have resorted to drinking and bathing using the salty Red Sea water».
Ohide is somewhat bitter about the situation. «Omer El Beshir’s Islamic dominated regime has been able to extend oil pipes from southern Sudan, some one thousand five hundred kilometres, to Port Sudan, but it has failed in thirteen years to extend water pipes from the Nile to Port Sudan. The Nile water is nearer to Port Sudan than the crude oil. Despite the cash that accrues from the oil, the people’s suffering continues unabated nationwide.
Insincere calls for unity
The fact is, the Northern Islamic regime is bent on war. Though it insists on Sudan’s unity, it is not sincere. The regime wants the peoples’ land in southern Sudan, but not the southern Sudanese. Development is concentrated in the triangle of cities of Khartoum, Khartoum North and Omdurman. The rest of the country is ignored. There are no roads, no electricity, no good school buildings, and services are very poor. In western Sudan, some people don’t even know the name of Sudan’s president. They think that Khartoum is another country.
In its 6 July 2002 issue, the Khartoum Monitor stated that Sudan’s Government has rejected the constitutional right of southerners to undertake a referendum on self-determination. Dr. Ibrahim, the ruling National Congress Party (NCP)’s secretary-general, was quoted as saying that though the right to self-determination was included in the 1998 Constitution, the spirit of self-determination was not understood by the general public.
He said that when the government negotiated with the rebels in 1996, culminating in the 1997 Khartoum Peace Agreement, separation was not part of the options. «Both parties had voluntarily agreed to Sudan’s unity». He also said that according to international law, the principle of self-determination is not applicable to Sudan, because the government in power is not a colonial one. «The Sharia (Islamic law) and the unity of the country will not be tampered with».
The Presidential Peace Advisor, Dr. Gazi Salah Eddin, has decreed that any mention of self-determination in the Press amounts to treason. Early this year, when the Khartoum Monitor ran an article on self-determination, its Chairman of the Board of Directors, Mr. Alfred Taban, and the newspaper’s Editor-in-Chief, were the first to be arrested by security agents. They were charged with «crimes against the state». And on 7 July 2002, the NC‘s Secretary for Political Affairs, El Shafie Ahamed Mohamed, said that «The ruling National Congress maintains that Sudan should remain as one united country with a single constitution». He was commenting on a proposal by the SPLA at peace talks in Nairobi, which suggested that the Sudan be governed through two different systems, one in the south and the other in the north. He said the south should be granted a special status within a united Sudan, not only in terms of the way in which the country is governed, but also as regards finance and development.
However, those who live in the south are concerned that «a united Sudan means the controversial Islamic Sharia will reign supreme over Muslims and non-Muslims alike». It is also affirmed that the Islamic regime has accumulated enough money from its oil wealth to buy jet fighters so as to crush any opposition. Decades of war have weakened the south, so the south has more than one reason to worry about its future prospects.
The Machakos Protocol
The recently signed Machakos Protocol [20 July 2002] (named after the town in Kenya in which it was signed), is intended to usher in a an era of peace for Sudan, but it has generated a wave of heated debate in Khartoum. Some are in favour and fully support the Protocol, others condemn the deal. Gazi Suleiman (from the north) is a lawyer and strng human rights supporter. He says: «I am for peace in a new Sudan but I am against the Protocol. Why? because this Protocol will eventually lead to the separation of the south, whereas our programme is for a united but diversified Sudan. On the other hand, Makluac Teng Youk (from the south), who is a state minister in the Ministry of Federal Relations, warmly welcomes the Protocol. He says: «The southern Sudanese are suffering and they need peace. Despite our differences we should support the Machakos deal, which is an extension of the Khartoum Peace Agreement signed in 1997. It does not matter who brings peace, what is important is the peace itself».
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PeaceLink 2002 - Reproduction authorised, with usual acknowledgement