After the celebrations, the Juba government will battle to meet its people’s dreams and handle relations with Khartoum

History is made in Sudan this week. Dignitaries from across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas flew into Juba, the makeshift capital of the new Republic of South Sudan, which will become Africa’s 53rd sovereign state and the world’s 194th on 9 July. The RSS (though some Southerners are calling it ROSS) is born to overwhelming public rejoicing, the culmination of a liberation struggle that officially dates beyond British colonialism to 1820, the eve of the Turkish invasion.

Some Southerners even date it back to the Egyptian pharaohs, when men from the North sought slaves and other wealth in Southern Sudan, as they did routinely until the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and in some cases still do. The strength of Southern feeling is hard for outsiders to grasp. That strength will be needed if one of the poorest places on the planet is to become a successful state, despite the lack of health facilities, schools, administrative structures, roads and, in many areas, peace.

Many Northerners had underestimated the strength of Southerners’ feeling, without questioning their widespread treatment as second-class citizens, in the manner of colonial rulers. Southern Independence has therefore aroused sadness and incomprehension among many Northerners. Although Southerners usually blame all Northern governments for their half-century of war, many Northerners hold the National Congress Party responsible. The Islamist NCP has used the same oppressive tactics against civilians in Darfur, the South, and most recently in Abyei and the Nuba Mountains.
 

This visceral opposition to NCP rule looks set to grow. In a clash with oppositionists inside the London Embassy, Presidential Advisor Nafi’e Ali Nafi’e was hit by a chair as Mustafa Osman Ismail watched. The furious and blood-stained former security boss, who signed June’s Kordofan ceasefire with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), shouted there would be no ceasefire until Abdel Aziz Adam el Hilu (the former Deputy Governor) had been captured.

Regional implications
Southern secession has regional implications. Some African diplomats argue that if Eritrea’s divorce from Ethiopia could be treated as an exception, South Sudan’s case was less obvious. It was a founding principle of the Organisation of African Unity that colonial borders were sacrosanct, lest chaos ensue. Its successor, the African Union, emphasises continental integration, firstly economic and then political. AU officials say there is no necessary contradiction between greater continental cooperation and restructuring states. Yet anxiety exists.

Just one week before Southern Independence, two champions of the same fate for Somaliland published a long plea in South Africa’s weekly Mail & Guardian. This will resound across the continent: Patrick Mazimhaka, a Rwandan, was formerly Deputy Chairman of the AU Commission, while fellow author Greg Mills, a South African, was Director of SA’s Institute of International Affairs. Both have just been to Somaliland and both are senior associates of the Brenthurst Foundation, an economic think-tank financed by De Beers.

The economic opportunities offered by South Sudan are of particular interest to neighbours, especially Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, which have all flooded Juba with labour, skilled and unskilled, and business people, especially in service industries. They provide the shops, restaurants and hotels that an aid boom-town requires but which an isolated town in a war-torn country with a minimal cash economy never needed. Goods also flow in, at least to Juba, which although supposedly a temporary capital is acquiring a sense of permanence with newly paved roads and permanent buildings it previously lacked.

Preparations have been frenetic, especially for the main ceremony at the Dr John Garang de Mabior Mausoleum in Juba. Much attention has been paid to the new national anthem, a challenge for the many who do not speak English, especially returnees from the North who speak Arabic and may have lost their tribal language. In Lankien, the authorities installed speakers throughout the town to blare out, repeatedly, the inevitably optimistic stanzas: ‘And sing songs of freedom with joy, For justice, liberty and prosperity shall for ever reign’.

Expectations are indeed high but the tough security measures, especially in Juba, reflected the depth of concern that, as they have in South Kordofan and Abyei, rebel militias and the NCP might move to spoil the South’s big day, shared by 30 heads of state and the United Nations Secretary General. ‘I have to say the situation is grieving me a lot, so much so that I can hardly share the joy of all the Southerners,’ said one non-Sudanese source in Juba. ‘Juba is on edge... weapons searches, check points, riot police on the streets already, practising sitting in the sun in full gear all day long.’

The Sudan People’s Liberation Army has been raiding for illegal arms and reportedly found hundreds. The SPLA was also raiding places popular with Kenyans and Ugandans, said an aid worker, ‘using this opportunity to get rid of African migrants who don’t have work permits’. There were reports of people being beaten up. ‘This is a very ill-disciplined military,’ said United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Kang Kyung-wha on 29 June. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International issued a joint statement with recommendations.

Cleaning frenzy
A happier note was struck by a frenzy of town cleaning. Many of the old trees lining Juba’s main streets had already been felled to make safer, though not shadier, pavements for pedestrians but remaining city-centre trees have been painted white – an environmentally uncertain ceremonial habit shared with Northern Sudan. ‘If it remains clean, that would be fine,’ one Southern official told us. A health worker was sceptical: ‘The city will look just as crap in a few weeks and there will be no longer-term benefits for the people.’ Clean water and sanitation are among the most desperate needs and would help to reduce the prevalence of many killer diseases.
 

Crime, including violent crime, has soared and much is linked to drink. In a city where many inhabitants have only recently discovered commercially produced alcohol, thanks to SABMiller’s new Juba Brewery, a healthier note was struck by the Deputy Mayor, David Lokonga Moses, previously the Yei County Commissioner: ‘Don’t be drunk when you are seeing something good, when you are celebrating, don’t be drunk – you need to be sober, you need to hear. Don’t move unnecessarily at night please.’
 

When the party is over, the challenges will increase: many critics have been holding back, so as not to be accused of spoiling the celebrations. Reports abound of disagreements within the Government of South Sudan. The NCP seized on an unedifying public quarrel between SPLM Secretary General Pa’gan Amum Okiech, the Minister of Peace and CPA Implementation, and Lual Achuek Lual Deng, federal Oil Minister and an SPLM appointee. There is speculation about conflict between party barons Nhial Deng Nhial and Kuol Manyang Juuk. All this will test President Salva Kiir Mayardit’s powers of reconciliation.

Outside his already large tent, a divided and disorganised opposition is lying in wait. Lieutenant General Kiir’s pardon last week for rebel David Yauyau may help to bring peace but it will not reassure those oppositionists whose main goal seems also to be a seat in the tent. There is little talk about policy and programmes, much more about regionalism and ethnicity. ‘They won’t talk to us!’ one oppositionist told AC. ‘Didn’t you walk out of discussions?’ ‘Yes! They disagreed with us!’ There is a long way to go in governance and civic education. The fact that over 20 opposition parties exist for an electorate of some 4.5 million reflects much of the problem.

Discontent focused on the draft constitution (which passed into law on 6 July): complaints abound that it was designed to suit the ruling party and should have had an independent review. Many fear that the SPLM could establish a de facto one-party state. Some counterbalance is found in a strengthening civil society, which is expanding beyond the traditional church stalwarts. The incisive Episcopal Archbishop of Sudan, Daniel Deng Bul, said on 4 July that the church would have liked to be involved in constitutional consultations. ‘We don’t need a dictatorship again.’ He offered church mediation with rebels such as George Athor Deng, Peter Gatdet Yaka and Abdel Bagi Ayii Akol Agany. These are all warlords backed by Khartoum and the GOSS waits to see whether Khartoum ratchets up this support.

As an independent country, the South would be much better placed to withstand Khartoum’s assaults, one SPLM activist told AC. The robust military response of the SPLM-Northern Sector to NCP attacks on villages in Kordofan suggests a nod from Juba. SPLM and NCP have agreed to go on talking after 9 July. Major ‘post-referendum issues’ have still to be resolved but delay suits the NCP more than the SPLM – indeed, it constitutes NCP tactics.

Oil is the most urgent issue, since South Sudan and North Sudan will remain tied by their common dependence on export revenue and the pipeline that runs north from the oil fields in the South to Port Sudan. Stopping the flow risks serious damage to the wells. Juba may have most of the oil (75%) but it has little else: oil is 98% of its budget. ‘The North has actual management control, whatever the agreement reached,’ said an oil analyst, noting that Khartoum still has about 115,000 barrels a day from Northern fields. This may give the NCP the edge over the South but may not be enough to buy off discontent in the North.

Source: www.africa-confidential.com