[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un-FUh3-zEQ[/video]
The tenuous calm between Sudan and South Sudan may have just burst. On Wednesday, in an emergency session, the Sudanese Parliament declared a general mobilization of the army after soldiers from South Sudan gained control of the oil-rich northern town of Heglig.
The escalation comes as African Union’s mediator, former South Africa President Thabo Mbeki, was hoping to broker another peace summit between the restive neighbors. But all bets are off. The Parliament in Khartoum declared it was also withdrawing from the African Union’s peace process, according to a report in the Sudan Tribune on Wednesday.
This puts the two Sudans as close to war as they’ve been since the South became independent last July and since the government in Juba decided to turn off the oil wells at the end of January.
Renewed war has been threatening for months with intermittent clashes in the border states of Blue Nile, South Kordofan, and Abyei. More importantly, the many outstanding issues from Juba’s succession nine months ago, such as oil revenues, border demarcation, citizenship, and division of debt, are still far from settled.
Until the two parties can reach amicable solutions to these issues, Sudan observers warn that conflict is inevitable, and the danger of an all-out war looms large.
“If tensions are not addressed, the sporadic fighting we have seen between North and South forces along the border could trigger a rapid escalation that could bring the countries to the brink [of war],” Daniel P. Sullivan, director of policy and government relations at End Genocide activist organization, wrote via email.
The original summit was scheduled for April 3, but was called off by Sudan’s President Omer Hassan al-Bashir after South Sudanese soldiers attacked the oil field in Heglig inside Sudan’s South Kordofan State. Juba said the attack was payback for the Sudan Armed Forces’ (SAF) bombing of oil fields in the South Sudan’s Unity State a few weeks earlier.
Last week, Khartoum rejected a deal proposal by the African Union High Implementation Panel (AUHIP) for a ceasefire and withdrawal of armies. Khartoum accused Juba of not admitting it supported the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army-North (SPLA-N), which fights the SAF on the northern side of the border. Juba at the time was ready to sign the deal.
As recently as last week, Mbeki met with the two sides separately and concluded that war was not imminent.
“I have confidence that the leadership of the two countries will reach an understanding to resolve issues currently under discussion,” Mbeki told media in Juba on April 5.
The current conflict is a continuum of two Sudanese civil wars, 1955–1972 and 1983–2005. The latter claimed 2 million lives, largely in the Khartoum-sponsored genocide in Darfur. The war ended with the signing of a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005 that included the terms for South Sudan’s secession.
No Oil: “We Can Hold Longer than You!”
Control over oil has been a defining theme throughout. The borders of South Sudan now contain 75 percent of the region’s oil; the north earns its revenue from transporting that oil to Port Sudan for export through its pipelines.
Khartoum claims that the state of South Sudan has yet to pay any dues for using the pipeline and is $1 billion in arrears. Juba in turn, accuses the Sudanese government of confiscating $815 million of South Sudan’s crude oil.
At the end of January, South Sudan shut off all of its 300 oil wells in Unity State to choke Sudan’s revenue stream and hopefully break the stalemate in negotiations.
On April 3, South Sudan’s oil minister, Stephen Dhieu, accused Khartoum of constructing an illegal pipeline near the oil field in Toma South and Naar, in order steal oil from Unity State.
Continued on the next page: Stuck in the Middle
Both countries suffer economically from the oil limbo, resulting in rising inflation and greater poverty. South Sudan relies on oil revenue to fund 98 percent of its state budget.
The North’s entire economy and social infrastructure has long since relied on the oil industry as well. But neither country appears willing to compromise.
“It is like two people strangling each other by the throat and they think to themselves, ‘I can hold longer than the other one,’” says Nico Plooijer, manager of the Horn of Africa Program at IKV Pax Christi, a peacekeeping organization based in the Netherlands.
South Sudan’s government has signed a memorandum of understanding with Kenya to build a new pipeline to Lamu Port in Kenya to avoid exporting through Sudan. Another alternative being explored is building a pipeline though Djibouti, the tiny coastal state between Eritrea and Somalia.
Stuck in the Middle
Matt Brown, associate director of communications at the Washington-based Enough Project, has just returned from the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan State. He was there with movie star George Clooney on a mission to gather information about the plight of the Nuba people.
The Nuba people are southerners, who were stuck in the north after secession. Because of their allegiance to the South, they are attacked daily by Khartoum troops.
“Nuba people are very scared and live in fear—they are being bombed almost every day by their own government in Khartoum. Planes flying over the Nuba Mountains are dropping bombs almost every day, in order to scare people and keep them in fear. They are now forced to live in caves inside the mountains and they can’t return to their villages, can’t go to their farms to plant their crops, so as a result they are starving. The people we talked to there are in a bad situation, there is fear, and right now there is nothing anyone is doing for them,” says Brown.
According to Brown, al-Bashir is using the same genocidal strategy on the Nuba that was used in Darfur.
“They wipe out villages and then don’t allow any aid workers to clean up the mess. Then people starve and that is how the genocide happened in Darfur,” says Brown.
On March 16, Clooney and other activists protested at the Sudanese Embassy in Washington the escalating humanitarian emergency affecting some 500,000 people.
“Mr. George Clooney is very passionate and engaged in Sudan issues. He is not a celebrity that comes in once in a while, sees things and leaves,” says Brown.
“One of things [Clooney] said was: ‘The cameras follow me wherever I go.’ So his goal is to bring the cameras where people have no attention and where he can shed light on these people, like in the Nuba Mountains.
“That is an example of a celebrity activism done the right way,” concluded Brown.
Last week, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay warned that comments made by Gov. of South Kordofan State in Sudan Ahmed Haroun, could amount to a serious crime and lead to an escalation of violence, thereby exacerbating an already dangerous situation in the border state.
Haroun, who has already been indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC), was filmed telling Sudanese soldiers to “hand over the place clean, swept, rubbed, and crushed. Do not bring them [i.e. rebels] back alive, they will be an administrative burden.” The government has since claimed Haroun was simply trying to boost the soldiers’ morale.
Sudan’s President Omer al-Bashir is also wanted by the ICC for the genocide in Darfur. On March 26, al-Bashir issued a decree establishing “a committee to mobilize jihadists,” U.N.’s IRIN news reported.
During the civil war, the Nuba, who are Christians, were victims of a jihad declared by mostly Muslim Khartoum.
The next shoe to drop may come in the form of forced deportations. On April 9, the nine-month transitional period expired for southerners living in the north to either register with the Sudan government or leave the country. With the route to the south now far to risky to travel, nearly 500,000 people are at risk of deportation.
