Southern Sudan’s vote of independence sounds great. But in the current climate in North Africa, it could have dire repercussions.
Awesome! A nation of people just voted for their freedom and a horrible, repressive dictator claimed he would honor the vote!
But…
- al-Bashir (who is wanted by the ICC on genocide charges) is still in power in the now economically defunct North. Oil revenues that had formerly propped up the (now two) nations have halted as oil from the fields in the south fails to make it to northern refineries.
- The north is still under trade sanctions for supporting terrorism (although Obama may relax these in lieu of the recent good behavior). However, the Darfur conflict, which has been heating up in recent months, remains.
- Nations straddling religious fault lines tend to have issues, so do not expect the Sudans to be happy places for long (they just had a civil war in 2005). Consider the Balkans, Israel, Nigeria, or India as reference.
And there’s also the entire issue of Northern Africa destabilizing in the midst of an unprecedented push for accountable governance. Northern Sudan is smack dab in the middle of the recent surge for freedom that is taking the Arab world by storm and minor protests have emerged in the streets of Khartoum over the shortcomings of the al-Bashir administration (it just lost half the country and is as ineffectual as the other autocracies in the region). In a nation as unstable as Sudan (recall we are only five years removed from a long, painful, and ethnically-fueled conflict) this could spark some additional trouble.
Fear and war have long been tools for demagogues. Mobilizing populations against foreign or internal enemies has long been the go-to for dictators or ineffectual autocracies clamoring to hang onto power. Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Milosevic’s War on the Croats and the Bosnians, and Kim Jong-il practices in North Korea are all examples of violence and fear as a means by which regimes remain in power.
Northern Sudan has its own dictator in the form of Omar al-Bashir, a military man who rose to power in a coup in 1989. In al-Bashir’s twenty-one years in power, Sudan has been in a constant state of civil war (the Civil War itself until 2004 and the Darfur Conflict since 2003). The continual conflict and large oil revenues from reserves in the South have allowed the autocrat to maintain control despite a stagnant economy and international sanctions on foreign trade.
Even with the approaching referendum on succession approaching in early January, al-Bashir’s position as the head of North Sudan was relatively secure a mere month ago. Yet, entrenched dictators in Northern Africa are not exactly stable right now and al-Bashir is most certainly cautious about his position in power.
Should revolutions spread to North Sudan, I shudder to think what may be the outcome. With a large, genocidal militia already at his disposal in the shape of the Janjaweed (the forces responsible for Darfur), al-Bashir has the capacity to launch a last ditch effort to solidify or maintain power by invading the newly created southern state on some technicality.
Oil is going to be at the center of diplomatic wrangling between the two countries and I foresee al-Bashir using the South’s oil fields as a point of contention that eventually escalates into a clash between the two nations. The ethno-religious question is still present in the region and continued ethnic cleansing in Darfur as well as among Christians living in border states in the southern portion of Northern Sudan are scary possibilities. Right now he has been content to promise reform and blame Western and secular conspiracies for the shortcomings of the state. But if his power comes under serious attack, I can see al-Bashir resorting to conflict as a defense of his position.
Though the partition is a fantastic thing in my eyes, I regretfully cannot envision it as the end-all, peaceful solution for Sudan. The region is much too unstable and the al-Bashir regime is all too comfortable in power.
Photocredit: Wikimedia Commons