’s Secession Crisis

Can the South Part From the North Without War?

Andrew S. Natsios and Michael Abramowitz

Under the Comprehensive Peace Agree- particularly its oil, to fill government coªers. ment, the 2005 deal that ended the lengthy The Comprehensive Peace Agreement, civil war between the north and the south which was signed by Omar al-Bashir, the of Sudan, voters in the south are supposed president of Sudan, and John Garang, to vote on January 9, 2011, to decide whether the leader of the southern rebellion, who their region should secede and form the was killed in a helicopter crash soon after world’s newest country. The civil war, the deal, was intended to correct some of which lasted 22 years and during which these problems. It gave the south its own an estimated 2.5 million southerners died, semiautonomous government and an was fought over several issues: the central independent standing army and required government’s long-standing neglect of the upcoming referendum on secession. Sudan’s periphery; the excessive concen- But now ’s stalling tactics are tration of jobs, wealth, and public services threatening to delay the vote, with poten- in the region known as the Arab triangle, tially disastrous consequences. along the northern part of the Nile River During a visit to southern Sudan in valley; the government’s brutal attempts late September and early October, we to impose Arab culture and Islam on the met nearly 100 people, including the south, where Christianity and traditional south’s president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, and religions prevail; its persistent refusal to vice president, Riek Machar, civil-society grant the south any autonomy (except groups, church leaders, international for a brief period in the 1970s); and its humanitarian workers, un o⁄cials, and exploitation of the south’s resources, many others. We traveled outside

Andrew S. Natsios, U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan in 2006–7, is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, and the author of the forthcoming book Sudan and : What Everyone Needs to Know. Michael Abramowitz, a former Washington Post reporter and national editor, is Director of the Committee on Conscience at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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Andrew S. Natsios and Michael Abramowitz to the southern cities of Malakal and have the troops and the weapons to do so. Rumbek but were denied permission to If Khartoum thinks it can protect Sudan’s travel to the north. In the course of our oil infrastructure, it should reflect on the conversations, we came to see clearly that failure of the U.S. military to protect Iraq’s Garang’s vision of a unified, democratic during its occupation of that country. Sudan died with him. Given the depre- Some balloting will likely take place dations and atrocities that the southern in early 2011, but if the north tries to Sudanese have suªered for two centuries manipulate the referendum or postpone at the hands of the northern Arabs, getting it by more than a few weeks, the south southerners to vote for unity would have could erupt. Stonewalling might even been di⁄cult even with Garang in power. precipitate war—and perhaps a war even One cause of the ongoing tensions is the bloodier than the north-south conflict condescending attitudes of some Arab or the rebellion in Darfur, where the gov- elites in Khartoum: they continue to refer ernment troops’ scorched-earth tactics to the southerners as a’bid, the term left a lasting imprint of misery, displace- for low-caste black slaves. For them, the ment, ongoing violence, and atrocities. south’s revolt during the civil war was no On the other hand, the path to a peaceful liberation struggle; it was an uprising of partition as provided for by the Compre- slaves that needed to be crushed. Now, hensive Peace Agreement is full of dangers, these northerners cannot abide dealing not all of which are adequately recognized with southerners as equals. The southerners, in the West. The peace deal calls for a for their part, wish to be rid of the Arabs and six-month period of transition after the Islamism once and for all. scheduled date for the referendum, during In the fall, as the date of the referendum which the north and the south are supposed neared, international observers and south- to work out any remaining details about ern o⁄cials reported that Khartoum was their split. According to many people redeploying its army, with newly purchased we spoke to in the south, it is during this heavy weaponry, along the disputed north- time that the threat of violence will be south border. In response to the north’s the greatest—either because the vote has muscle-flexing, the southern government, been held, in which case the international which is based in the city of Juba, sent the community is likely to turn its focus toughest units in its own armed forces, elsewhere, or because the vote has been the Sudan People’s Liberation Army delayed by the north’s dilatory tactics (spla), and also equipped them with new and violence has broken out. heavy weaponry. The south’s leaders threatened to issue a unilateral declaration THE GREAT DIVIDE of independence if the north manipulated Even though they signed the peace deal or canceled the vote. They also privately nearly six years ago, Khartoum and Juba warned that if the north attempted to only recently began serious negotiations occupy the oil fields in the south—where over their divorce settlement. As we were 80 percent of the country’s known oil writing this article last November, many of reserves are located—they would destroy the thorniest questions were still unresolved. the country’s oil infrastructure. And they Where should the north-south border be

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Sudan’s Secession Crisis drawn? How will the citizenship of south- that the referendum be held on time. But erners living in the north and of Arabs the government in Khartoum is not budg- living in the south be established? How ing, worried that it might be signing its own should the dispute over the oil-rich area death warrant if it fulfills the final terms of Abyei, which straddles the current, of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. tentative border, be settled? How should Some Sudan observers fear that if the the country’s debts be apportioned? How south secedes, the world’s newest country much oil revenue should Juba give Khar- will be born a failed state. Un o⁄cials in toum for the construction of the north’s the country distribute to visitors a fact oil pipeline and port and the south’s use sheet entitled “Scary Statistics” showing of them? And how much water from the that southern Sudan’s health and educa- Nile River, which flows from the south, tion indicators are extremely poor, even will the north (and Egypt) be allowed to compared to other troubled states in Africa. use? To gauge the di⁄culty of working out But those who focus on such data over- any one of these matters, just consider the look the fact that the south has eªectively question of how oil revenues should be been a functioning state for the last five distributed. Under the Comprehensive years and that it has made remarkable Peace Agreement, the two sides were progress under very di⁄cult circumstances. supposed to split the proceeds evenly. Will During our trip, we found Juba to be that arrangement continue even though unexpectedly vibrant. Since 2005, the the south, where most of the resources city’s population has grown from roughly are, thinks that the north’s leaders have 100,000 to roughly 1.1 million (which is cheated it out of billions of dollars? about 13 percent of the south’s entire pop- The Bashir government believes that ulation). A dozen government ministries the way these issues are resolved will and o⁄ces and the University of Juba, determine whether its party, the National which were wrecked by the war, have Congress Party (ncp), remains in power. been rebuilt. Major city streets have been And the south’s leaders are wary of com- paved and are lined with a new electrical promising the long-term development system, and 7,000 new businesses have of their region by granting the north too been registered, including eight banks, many concessions. Khartoum wants to seven water-bottling plants, and a brew- negotiate the terms of any divorce before ery. There were only three hotels and the referendum—one reason it is trying two restaurants in 2007; there are now to delay the vote—but Juba is refusing to 175 small hotels and dozens of restaurants. settle until after the ballot for fear that Some 300,000 southerners have cell Khartoum might hold the vote hostage to phones. There is a serious shortage of these questions. With the parties’ strategies trained teachers, but encouragingly, school clashing, negotiators are at an impasse. attendance has increased fourfold. The south did win a symbolic victory last The south still faces serious challenges. September, when during a high-level sum- In 2009, there was an upsurge of violence mit at the United Nations in New York in the south, the root causes of which virtually the entire international community were historic rivalries among the region’s lined up behind the south and insisted 50 tribes. This fractiousness has long

foreign affairs . January /February 2011 [21]

Andrew S. Natsios and Michael Abramowitz been the south’s greatest weakness, and genuinely open and democratic path. In successive governments in the north have the long run, they will also have to ensure exploited it, arming one tribe to attack that oil and mineral revenues do not another, in order to keep the south divided. corrupt their political culture or get mis- But some international o⁄cials we met used, diverted, or distributed unevenly. in Juba said that the latest bout of violence was due not to any shortcomings on the NORTHERN EXPOSURE southern government’s part but to failed The north has its share of challenges, too. harvests and the suspension of salaries to It already is a fragile state, and it may southern militias on the spla’s payroll— be approaching state failure. The ncp’s itself the result of a large drop in oil rev- traditional means of exercising control— enues after the 2008 financial crisis. The brutally repressing the opposition, turning government in Juba is already functioning its adversaries against one another, using as a state, and it is likely to continue to do oil revenues to buy oª opponents—no so as long as a new war does not break out longer work. Khartoum has lost control of and its oil fields keep producing revenues. southern Sudan, faces nonstop rebellion in That said, a new would Darfur, and could soon confront uprisings surely be a fragile state. Although the in the Nuba Mountains, at the center of south’s elite is very able and bright, it the country, and, in the east, from the Beja consists of a few hundred senior o⁄cials people of the Red Sea Province and the at most, and the large state bureaucracy Funj people of Blue Nile, El Gezira, and beneath them is short on skills and man- Sennar Provinces. Bashir’s ncp knows that agerial experience. The rural areas of its authority is slipping away; it is circling the south know little of the prosperity its tattered and rickety wagons to main- now evident in Juba; whether a new state tain state power in the Arab triangle, an could spread these benefits more equitably area it believes is more secure and whose will determine its viability over the long inhabitants it takes to be more loyal to term. Opposition leaders in the south Arab interests. During the past three years, also complained to us that the spla used the north’s leaders have canceled large- heavy-handed tactics to force some 20 in- scale development projects in the El Gezira dependent tribal militias—the source of and Sennar regions and moved their in- 80 percent of the violence in rural areas, vestments in dams, irrigation schemes, according to a senior un o⁄cial—to give roads, and bridges to the Arab triangle. up their small arms. Now, many opponents of the Bashir Judging from our interviews, however, government in the north fear that it will the south’s ruling party, the Sudan People’s impose even more repressive measures and Liberation Movement, and Kiir, its leader, after the referendum abrogate the national appear to be genuinely popular among the constitution in order to prevent the dis- southern people. (Kiir won 93 percent of solution of the country. the vote when he was up for reelection Khartoum is increasingly coming under as the south’s president in April 2010.) Still, pressure from all sides. Bashir has been the south’s leaders will have to be careful indicted for genocide by the International that their new country is launched on a Criminal Court for the atrocities committed

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Sudan’s Secession Crisis in Darfur, and in the fall of 2010, he and about Islamists, it reviews all the sermons his colleagues came under assault from prepared for Friday prayers in mosques politicians and the press for having ever looking for incendiary language. agreed to hold the referendum on secession. The ncp is essentially worried that it When Bashir consented to peace with could be deposed by political upheaval in the south in 2005, he was acting under Khartoum—for instance, a military coup, duress: the national army was losing the a conspiracy in the dreaded National war to the rebels, casualties were rising, Intelligence and Security Service (niss), and the war had grown unpopular in the a popular uprising, or the mobilization of a north—all of which was exacerbating rebel movement from outside Khartoum— the country’s chronic economic problems. before, during, or after the referendum. Bashir’s government also feared the The most likely beneficiary of any such military power it saw the United States coup would be Turabi or other Islamists. exercising in Afghanistan and Iraq. But Turabi, who is in his late 70s, is the only a deal that may have made sense then opposition figure with both an extensive appears now to have come at too high a political organization, including networks cost, at least to some Arab nationalists of fanatically loyal followers in the military and Islamist groups in Khartoum. If the and security apparatus, and a serious south does secede, Khartoum will have grudge against Bashir and the ncp, which to negotiate to get access to the region’s expelled him from the party, removed natural wealth: not only its vast oil reserves him as Speaker of the National Assembly but also mineral resources in the region— in 1999, and has jailed him repeatedly for gold, diamonds, copper, and coltan—that criticizing the regime. Until his falling- have yet to be fully explored, the plentiful out with Bashir, Turabi had dominated water from the Nile River watershed and the regime from behind the scenes. In his the Sudd marshlands, the region’s luxuriant heyday, he brought Osama bin Laden soil, and its thousands of square miles of to live and work in Sudan—the two are open range with the greatest concentration related by marriage—and invited numer- of cattle per capita in sub-Saharan Africa. ous violent Islamist groups to locate their A growing chorus of Bashir’s opponents headquarters and training camps in the in Khartoum are asking what the north country. He supported multiple rebellions has received for making peace with against moderate Arab regimes and even the south. orchestrated the attempted assassination In late 2010, newspapers in the north of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak were making vitriolic attacks on the refer- in 1995. In his fiery sermons, Turabi has endum. Some are allied with the Islamist called for a worldwide Islamist revolution Hassan al-Turabi, a former ally of Bashir’s— that would start in Sudan and spread Turabi helped Bashir seize power in a throughout Africa. Were the government coup in 1989—who is now his archenemy. of Sudan to fall to him or one of the Islamist The Bashir government, which is already factions he has inspired, its first action accustomed to repressing the regime’s would likely be to abrogate the north- more liberal opponents, moved to close south peace agreement; for them, the some of the newspapers. Concerned south would be an ideal base from which

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Andrew S. Natsios and Michael Abramowitz to spread their Islamist movement to the 2008, many Darfur soldiers had grown rest of Africa. furious about the atrocities that Khar- The ncp is understandably nervous; toum’s forces had committed in their home the threat from Turabi and the Islamists province.) The government also began is real. Turabi is suspected, for example, building a network of underground of plotting the overthrow of the govern- weapons caches and safe houses through- ment with Khalil Ibrahim, a rebel leader out Khartoum in order to defend the city from Darfur. Ibrahim, once a radical fol- street by street should another attack take lower of Turabi (whom he has called his place. It moved all but 4,000 of the most godfather), has since tried to distance loyal soldiers out of the capital for fear himself from him—Turabi is radioactive of a coup. And Bashir placed the army politically—but many Sudan watchers under the eªective control of the niss. suspect that their friendship endures. In The episode underscored the Byzantine May 2008, Ibrahim led 130 heavily armed nature of politics in the north, which are trucks with 2,000 troops across 700 miles opaque even to longtime Sudan analysts. of desert from the Chadian border all Bashir and his government could almost the way to Khartoum. Fighting its way certainly be convicted of serious crimes, through the city, the force made it as far responsible as they are for massive as a bridge close to the presidential palace, suªering among civilians in the south where it was turned back by troops from and Darfur. Yet Bashir is also the man the niss. The northern army, which had who signed the Comprehensive Peace been given orders to stop the rebels, refused Agreement, and he may be one of the to intervene. Many of the well-connected few politicians in Khartoum willing to southerners to whom we spoke in the fall fulfill its final provisions. It is theoretically were certain that Turabi and Ibrahim had possible that if he were suddenly to depart planned the attack on Khartoum together. from the scene, he would be succeeded Apparently, so was Bashir: he had Turabi by a more humane, enlightened govern- arrested the day after the incident and ment; however, many observers we spoke publicly accused him of being involved. to believe that a new regime would prob- The attack was the first time in over three ably be worse. Even if a decent government decades that street fighting had occurred were to take power instead, the centrifugal in Khartoum, and it is the closest the forces pulling Sudan apart today are Bashir government has come to being accelerating at such a rapid rate that deposed during its reign of more than following the south’s likely secession, two decades. the eventual dissolution of the remaining The response by the government was north Sudanese state might be inevitable. swift and severe, according to human rights reports. It executed dozens of the ON THE BRINK rebel soldiers its troops had captured. It All-out war is, of course, the gravest danger purged the army of hundreds of suspected facing Sudan, especially for civilians and Turabi loyalists and Darfur o⁄cers. (His- ethnic groups such as the Beja, the Dinka, torically, Darfur was the main recruitment the Funj, the Nuba, and the Nuer, all of ground for the Sudanese army, but by which have been targeted by Khartoum

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Sudan’s Secession Crisis and its allied militias in the past. It is have feared these people. When Garang unlikely, however, that either Bashir or returned to Khartoum after signing the Kiir would ignite a new conflict. Both peace agreement in 2005, he was greeted are military o⁄cers who know the cost of by a jubilant crowd of two, some say three, war—unlike some of the militant Islamists million people. After he died in a heli- who are demanding blood but have never copter crash that summer, southerners who heard a shot fired. Bashir might also fear thought the accident was an assassination that his army would not fight: Khartoum’s by the niss rioted and burned down parts soldiers have been demoralized by repeated of the city. (No evidence incriminating purges, some have grudges against the the service has surfaced yet.) In both government for its actions in Darfur, and instances, the authorities lost control of many do not understand anymore why Khartoum, and they remain terrified they are fighting. of the displaced population. Last fall, the The greater risk comes from rogue minister of information and the minister commanders. Under one scenario, Turabists of foreign aªairs announced that if the in the army might try to depose Bashir and south voted to secede, southerners living the ncp before, during, or soon after the in Khartoum would lose their right to referendum. This would almost certainly get a job, conduct financial transactions, mean war. The south has a large standing obtain medicine, and even buy food. army and will not tolerate any interference Bashir was quick to rebut these claims in its secession. On this question, all the and said that the government would tribes in the south are united; they have protect all southerners living in the north. long sought independence from Khartoum. But if war broke out and the southern army However unlikely it would be to attempt advanced toward Khartoum, the niss to invade the south with ground forces, a might well begin targeting southerners successor government in Khartoum might living in the north. Northern o⁄cials well use the country’s new air force to bomb have reportedly mapped out the locations the region. The spla would probably be of all the settlements of internally displaced outgunned by the north’s superior weapons, people in Khartoum and bought hand but its soldiers would be highly motivated: guns for mass distribution to the Arab once more, they would be fighting to pro- population. tect their families and their farms from the north’s aggression. MUTUAL ASSURED DEPENDENCE War would also endanger the one mil- Although the international community lion southerners who are still internally must continue to make clear to both the displaced around Khartoum and other north and the south that resorting to vio- northern cities—one and a half million lence or attacking civilians is unacceptable, have already returned to the south—as its eªorts to encourage a resolution of the well as members of the Funj, the Nuba, impasse in Sudan will not be decisive: both and other African Muslim tribes who are sides know their own interests well and similarly displaced. Since Sudan’s inde- are skilled at negotiations. The southern pendence from the United Kingdom in Sudanese we spoke to dismissed as ineªec- 1956, successive governments in the north tual the threat of applying new economic

foreign affairs . January /February 2011 [25] Andrew S. Natsios and Michael Abramowitz sanctions against the north if it does not revenues precipitously decline because cooperate. They believe that Khartoum, of a war or a political crisis between the regardless of who is in charge, will be north and the south, Khartoum and Juba deterred from aggression only by mili- would have to lay oª their huge public- tary force, either by the spla or by the sector work forces, which would destabilize U.S. Air Force. Inducements on the both governments over time. And thanks part of the Obama administration to to corruption, the elites in both capitals encourage the north to compromise—for have personally profited from the oil example, removing Sudan from the list of revenues. In other words, maintaining states sponsoring terrorism, normalizing oil revenues is in the interests of many diplomatic relations, lifting economic parties—and thus a powerful incentive sanctions—would provide ammunition to find a peaceful way out of the current to Bashir against critics of the Compre- impasse. hensive Peace Agreement. But because Given these stakes, the Sudanese, in the Bashir government is fighting for its both the north and the south, might very survival, any outside pressure short of well manage on their own and do once military force is unlikely to change its more what they have done over the past fundamental calculations. six years: pull back from the brink of For all their diªerences, the north and catastrophe, averting the worst violence, the south will remain dependent on each and patch together an inadequate but other after the referendum, if only because functional compromise that protects both need oil revenues. And so one way both parties’ interests. Considering the to avert violence might be to encourage circumstances today, Sudan could do a the two sides to cooperate in the name of lot worse.∂ their economic codependence. The vast majority of Sudan’s oil reserves may be in the south, but most of the infrastructure necessary to export that oil—pipelines and a port—are in the north. Thus, with- out cooperation between the north and the south, oil revenues could quickly dry up for both. Any new pipeline running from the south through either Ethiopia or Kenya is a decade and billions of dollars away. Meanwhile, some energy experts predict that Sudan’s oil production may peak and then decline over the next decade. (The government in Juba, 98 percent of whose revenue comes from oil, is now racing to get international mining compa- nies into the south to explore its mineral resources and thus help the government diversify its sources of revenue.) If oil

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