SUDAN-2012/06/28 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
SUDAN-2012/06/28 1 THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION SOUTH SUDAN ONE YEAR AFTER INDEPENDENCE Washington, D.C. Thursday, June 28, 2012 PARTICIPANTS: Introduction and Moderator: MWANGI S. KIMENYI Senior Fellow and Director, Africa Growth Initiative The Brookings Institution Panelists: PETER BIAR AJAK Founder Centre for Strategic Analyses and Research NADA MUSTAFA ALI Faculty Member New School for Social Research AMBASSADOR PRINCETON LYMAN U.S. Special Envoy for South Sudan and Sudan U.S. Department of State JOHN PRENDERGAST Co-Founder The ENOUGH Project JOHN MUKUM MBAKU Nonresident Senior Fellow The Brookings Institution * * * * * ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 SUDAN-2012/06/28 2 P R O C E E D I N G S MR. KIMENYI: Good afternoon. My name is Mwangi Kimenyi. I am a senior fellow, and Director of the Africa Growth Initiative. And I would like to welcome you to this event, where we are looking at one year of independence of South Sudan. It's a really great honor that we have you participating in this event. It's important in many respects that, you know, we celebrated the birth of a country last year, you know, after a very long struggle following the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. And we are very excited, both in Africa and all over the world, to see a new country, and peace being restored in Sudan. But as we look back now, we want to understand the various dynamics, what has been going on, are we moving in the right trajectory, what do we need to do, what does the international community need to look at? And especially that both South Sudan and the Republic of Sudan, what should we be focusing on? There are a lot of things at stake: the quality of life, there are issues about lives and, you know, when you talk about the issues relating to the economy, there have been conflicts. So it's really time to reflect and figure out, as we celebrate this first birthday, how do we want to proceed from here, and what can be expected of these two countries? On behalf of my colleagues at the Africa Growth Initiative and Brookings at large, we are really greatly honored to have what I would consider one of the best panels that we have in Brookings -- a diverse group of experts, people from different backgrounds -- people from South Sudan, people from Republic of Sudan, and our own Americans here. So this is great. ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 SUDAN-2012/06/28 3 And I'm going to introduce them, and we'll get a lot of views. We have some official views, we have some views from Juba, from Khartoum, from individual academics, and so on. But just as we start, and we know we have a lot of people following us, and we've been receiving a lot of mail contact, please, we have a twitter tie, it's AGI Χ so it's hash-tag AGIsouthsudan. And we have several people who are already connected, so they will be either responding or giving us any questions that come through that. I'll make very brief introductory remarks. These CVs are too long. And so what I will do is make very brief remarks. And I have negotiated with my colleagues that I will be very brief in the introductions. So I will start with the person who came from the farthest, and that is Peter Biar Ajak, in the middle over there. He's the founder and director of the Center for Strategic Analysis and Research, an independent policy think-tank based in Juba, South Sudan. He is also the deputy country director for International Growth Center, IGC, in South Sudan, and the CEO of South Sudan -- this is the interesting part -- he is the CEO of South Sudan Wrestling Entertainment. I assume this is like what we see on TV, with guys -- you know -- MR. AJAK: Something like that. (Laughter.) MR. KIMENYI: But after founding CSAR, Mr. Ajak was a World Bank economist based in South Sudan. I'm going to stop it at that point. Good morning, Peter. Now, my colleague here is coming from Boston, but actually from Khartoum. Nada Mustafa Ali is a scholar and activist who is a part-time faculty member in global studies at the New School University in New York, where she has been teaching courses on gender and conflict in the Middle East and Africa, and on refugees, and forced migration. This is obviously very relevant. We've got her by searching for good ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 SUDAN-2012/06/28 4 people who are doing -- good people. And we read her work, and decided we wanted to bring her here. The gentleman at the corner there was here before, a visitor, is Distinguished Ambassador Princeton Lyman. If you don't know him and you are thinking about Sudan, probably, you know -- I want you to know him now. (Laughter.) Ambassador Lyman was appointed United States Special Envoy for South Sudan on March 31, 2011. He served as U.S. Senior Advisor on North Sudan negotiation, where he led the U.S. team, the team that focused on supporting ongoing negotiations between the parties to Sudan's 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Again, so he has been there from the beginning of 2005 to the independence, and now he is Special Envoy. So how can I forget John? I'll start with John Mbaku, who is -- we have two Johns, one he’s a rock star (laughter). But John Mbaku is a non-resident fellow with the Africa Growth Initiative. He is a professor at Wilbur State. He had noted for a long time -- I should be saying he's a distinguished university professor, and he just finished another degree. I don't know why, but he did a law degree. And he is now doing a lot of work on governance and so on. So he will talk. He's one of our colleagues. John has been here before, many of you know him again. John Prendergast is a human rights activist and best-selling author, who has worked for peace in Africa for over 25 years. And he is the co-founder of ENOUGH Project. I think that's enough. (Laughter). So I will -- the way we are going to do this, so that we still can -- and we want to give you some time to comment -- I'm going to start with a few questions. And, again, starting from the person who came farthest, I'm going to start with you, Peter. And, basically, since you just came from Khartoum -- ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 SUDAN-2012/06/28 5 MR. AJAK: Juba. MR. KIMENYI: Juba. (Laughter). That's a big error. So, would you begin by discussing, providing some comments, on the current situation in Juba, in anticipation of the forthcoming anniversary? What is the mood there? What can you say about the situation? And, four or five minutes, just a quick summary. MR. AJAK: Well, thank you so much, Kimenyi. It's a pleasure to get the invitation to participate in this event. And it's really a pleasure, also, to see some of the colleagues that I haven't seen in a very long time -- and also to come and discuss with you about this important event. I'd like to also thank the Africa Growth Initiative at Brookings for the work that you are doing bringing in the African expertise and input to policy debate in Washington, which is very critical, because a lot of decisions and policies that come from Washington have a lot of implications for what happens in the rest of the world. In terms of what is going on in Juba, as we head towards the July 9th, in South Sudan there's a lot of excitement about what people have been able to accomplish so far. Just thinking, a year ago, and even after the referendum itself, there was still sort of hesitation among the South Sudanese whether the independence was really going to happen, or would there be a last-minute attempt on the part of Khartoum to sort of derail the entire process. And there was that worry, especially when the occupation of Abyei occurred in May, and you see a lot of different problems occurring at the border last year. So, as people head towards July 9th, there's a lot of excitement, there's a lot of reflection about what they have accomplished. ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 706 Duke Street, Suite 100 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 SUDAN-2012/06/28 6 But within that excitement, there's also the sense of soul-searching. And this soul-searching is very critical for the country. And it comes from a number of elements. First, it comes from the, sort of the economic anxiety that the entire country is going through. And this anxiety is extremely important in regard to the future of South Sudan. And it comes, basically, from the structure of the economy of South Sudan. As most of you know, the entire economy of South Sudan used to be extremely dependent on oil, which accounted for over 98 percent of government revenues, over 70 percent of South Sudan GDP, and nearly 100 percent of South Sudan foreign exchange.