South Sudan oil up for grab, while Confederation Hawkers Strive to Sway Public Opinion 

By: Peter Lokarlo Marsu, Academic Researcher, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

JULY 17/2010, SSN; In the aftermath of the mysterious passing away in July 2005 of Dr. John Garang, Sudan’s first Vice President and SPLM Chairman, in a helicopter crash on the Sudan-Uganda border, the NCP invited the Southern leaders to Khartoum to discuss the formation of the government of National Unity (GONU), and the sharing of the government ministerial positions. As it was expected, the untrustworthy NCP stalwarts had already conspired to defraud Southern Sudanese of their entitlement at the first ever post-CPA formation of the government of National Unity.

Equally, it was untoward that on the South Sudan negotiating team entrusted to clinch a first-rate deal with the NCP in Khartoum, was in fact an opportunistic and self-centred political figure, who did manage to cajole and mislead the whole team, including the entire SPLM leadership to step down from its demand of wanting to secure the Ministry of Energy and Mining, arguing that the north would go to war if SPLM insisted on taking over the Ministry in question.

This unpatriotic person who I would prefer not to name and shame is certainly known to everyone in South Sudan on account of his shifty past and double-crossing political life. In his address to Southern Sudanese audience after a brief visit to the USA, he admitted to have advised his team members to relinquish their claim and demand on the former Ministry of energy and Mining. According to him, the SPLM had secured a numerically superior representation on the policy-making board of the oil industry in Sudan. The man who remains to be an unremorseful traitor to this day had his own self-seeking agenda, and that was to secure an esteemed job in the first Government of National Unity in Khartoum.

First, I would emphatically state that the North represented by the NCP did not actually have the capacity at the time to go to war against Southern Sudan in 2005. Everyone knew that the Northerners routinely resorted to cheap propaganda and exaggeration of their true worth in terms of military prowess whenever confronted by stack reality. Examining retrospectively the military balance of power in Sudan in 2005, the Sudan Armed Forces ranked at par with the SPLA in military equipment, with only an edge in air power, but they generally lacked combat morale. Today both sides (SPLA and SAF) have identical level of armaments, a fact which would force the NCP to think twice before starting another war against the South, as Khartoum this time around would be deprived of its traditional allies elsewhere in the Middle East because of the watchful eye of the international community led by Washington.

In Darfur, government forces are already getting exhausted as they continue taking heavier toll in various military engagements against the invincible rebels’ army. It would definitely have amounted to a suicide, had the NCP followed up their threat of going to war in consequence of failing to secure the former Ministry of Energy and Mining.  

Secondly, the NCP regime is currently at a precarious shape. SAF would neither sustain nor win a war at the moment and the NCP leaders are fully aware about it but of course they would always pretend to be a formidable army in the country. The policy of brinkmanship as being used by the NCP at negotiations won’t work, because Southern Sudanese know that the regime is a paper tiger. It can’t follow up its threats because its lacks military might.

Further, the Egyptian government would conceive a second thought before throwing their support behind the adventurous regime. There would certainly be good relations between South Sudan and Cairo as long as the Pharaohs play their euchre sensibly and do not meddle in the exercise of the upcoming Southern Sudan and Abyei Referenda in favour of the North. Further it would be unwise for the Egyptian government to follow a blind alley and invest its political resources in the unpredictable regime in Khartoum as the South heads for a definite secession.

Oil Agreement

The oil issue is likely to dominate the discussions with the NCP team in Khartoum on account of its intricacy and controversial nature as well as NCP’s unscrupulous conduct of doing business. I would hence progress on to outline the following pertinent points:

·         SPLM and NCP negotiators at the talks should be cognisant of the fact that the oil resource they are discussing about is the natural endowment of Southern Sudan, and any sharing modality arrived at must be based on the premise that, it is not a birthright or entitlement of the North to share in the resource with the South, but a matter of generosity on the part of Southern Sudan to allow the North a limited and fixed term share of the resource located within Southern territory. Given that, from the year 1999 to 2005, the government of Sudan used the proceeds of the oil from Southern Sudan largely for military procurements in order to sustain the war efforts of the regime of the National Congress Party and to enhance the regime’s capability and power of conducting destructions on a massive scale in the South and other regions of the country.

·         With respect to the first point above, The South, while considering allocating a fraction of its oil to the North, it will have regard on the verity that Southern Sudan has been disadvantaged all along the years and still remains underdeveloped owing to the deliberate policy of marginalisation favoured by the successive and irresponsible northern governments in the country, without exception. It would therefore be the sole prerogative of the South to allocate the sharing ratio of the oil proceeds to the North accordingly. The South would not allow negotiations on the use of its own resources or allow Khartoum to interfere in the apportionment of the share distribution.

·         Previous Agreements between the NCP regime and the oil companies would cease to exist, as the oil reverts to a new ownership and a separate entity which was not a party to the concluded arrangements between Khartoum and other parties. South Sudan must hire a reputable international lawyer to assist in addressing the legality of the issue.

·         If ever the CPA had failed to adequately address the issue of the distribution of the oil proceeds, it is the 50% share arrangement of the oil only in Southern Sudan and not in the Sudan. Allocating equal shares between the prosperous North and the underdeveloped South Sudan with its dilapidated infrastructures appears to reveal some degree of shortcomings inherent in the SPLM negotiating team in Kenya. The share percentage should have been something like 37.5% for the North and 62.5% for the South. We are no longer going back to the CPA inequitable prescription model, but moving towards a fairer benchmark, taking into account the need for the development of Southern Sudan. The  region should allocate 20% of its oil proceeds to the North and another 5% for refinery and other handling costs, which adds up to 25% altogether. This act of generosity from the people of South Sudan to the north would be expected to continue for 5 – 8 years, after which it will cease, by which time, the government of South Sudan would decide whether to keep on hiring the pipe lines that carry the oil to Port Sudan, or find an alternative outlet. The oil companies would have to make new arrangements with the South Sudan, should the autonomous region secede from the North in six months time.

The Ministry of Petroleum

Five years ago, it would have been unimaginable and unthinkable for SPLM to take over the Petroleum Ministry from the NCP. This leads one to pose endless questions demanding to know why the NCP simply abandoned the petroleum portfolio and snatched back the Ministry of foreign affairs. Was it a change of heart, another conspiracy or both? I think that one does not need to brood over deeply to comprehend why the NCP has no desire to keep the Ministry. The story is that, before the portfolio changed hands, it was known as the Ministry of Energy and Mining, which combined Oil, Electricity and Mining together under one roof. After detaching the Mining and Electricity Departments, the NCP strategists left only a skeleton and handed it to the SPLM. It is most probable that no records have been kept about the former Ministry of Energy and Mining so as to keep the SPLM Party in the dark about the activities of the various oil companies exploiting the resource in Southern Sudan. Would the SPLM Minister of petroleum in Khartoum, Dr. Lual Acueil Deng have access to all records pertaining to the number of wells, production levels, the number of barrels per day, proceeds and remittances, and the calculations of the so-called 50% share ratio?

There is yet a major concern that the change of guards in the oil ministry won’t halt the existing corrupt practices of the NCP regarding the management of the petroleum industry in the country. The inherent lack of transparency in the oil revenue figures could oblige the authorities of South Sudan to review the management structure of the industry. Global Witness campaigner Rosie Sharpe observed that the north, which is responsible for marketing and exporting the oil, may be under-reporting its oil figures and thus giving the autonomous Southern Sudan less money than it should.

It was established beyond argument that revenues from some oilfields published by Sudan's Ministry of Finance (among the figures used to calculate the southern share) were significantly lower than revenues for the same oilfields published by operator China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). Regrettably the government of Southern Sudan neither bothered to follow up the thieves so as to retrieve the $600 million owing to Juba for the year 2005 nor seriously warn them of grave consequences should the NCP continue with the inexcusable practice.

The corruption is likely to proceed unless the government of Southern Sudan takes over the management of the oil industry with some assistance from those working in the field in order to verify that the revenue sharing with the North will be fair after the impending secession of the region. Mistrust will likely arise and any future arrangement to share the oil with the untrustworthy regime in Khartoum could exacerbate further conflict.

Another pathetic scenario emerged from Dr. Lual Acueil Deng, an SPLM member who was appointed by President al-Bashir to the government of National Unity. In a controversial statement to the press, the minister argued that a proposed oil pipeline project that the government of Southern Sudan proposed to undertake which would start from Southern Sudan to Kenya would be too expensive to pursue. Such an ill-conceived and unfortunate remark represents a widely held view of the National Congress Party. It appears that Mr. Deng who visibly seems to have fallen from grace was more concerned with safeguarding his new job in Khartoum that identifying and toying with his party’s official line. Mr. Deng must comprehend that occupying a ministerial portfolio on the government of National Unity does not automatically place him on a parallel track with SPLM Policies. Whatever amount of expenditure may be involved in the slated project, the future economic and political spinoff would certainly be substantial. An independent South Sudan would not rely on the unreliable North to handle the marketing of its oil; the feasible alternative is the Kenya Port of Lamu.

Sudan’s Foreign Debts

Sudan’s obligation to repay the more than $34 billion it had incurred from foreign creditors remain to be a contentious issue in the relations between the government in Khartoum and the government of Southern Sudan in Juba. Since Sudan gained independence from Britain in January 1956, the Successive regimes in the country have waged wars against the country’s citizens until today, incurring billions of dollars worth of loans from the international creditors. Sudan’s external public debt has increased from $13 billion in 1989, when the NCP/NIF came to power, to $34 billion today (Probe International 2009), an increase of $21 billion in 14 years of relentless bloody conflicts, first in Southern Sudan and now Darfur. Other estimates put the debt at $37.5 billion. Whichever figure is correct remains a matter of public conjecture. Over the course of the 14-year misrule (1989-2004), the NCP never bothered to invest those billion of dollars in the development of South Sudan, but the regime committed itself to financing a campaign of terror, death and destruction in both the South and recently Darfur.

The debt the Sudanese regime has incurred over the last two decades should be classified as “odious.” This means that it was contracted without the consent of the people of Southern Sudan and not even spent in the interests of the those people, but actually spent to procure advanced armaments – battle tanks, fighter jets, rockets and helicopter gunships to destroy the people of Southern Sudan.

It would probably sound convincing and make some sense if South Sudan is requested to share in the repayment of Sudan’s debts with the present Sudanese regime, from March 1972, when the Addis Ababa Agreement was concluded in the Ethiopian capital, to May1983, on the outbreak of the second civil war in the country, a total of 11 years of relative calm of the 54 years of Sudan’s independence. The lingering question is: How much portion of Ethiopia’s foreign debts did the Addis Ababa government request from the new state of Eritrea to at the latter’s independence? Or what percentage of Indonesia’s foreign debts did East Timor pay after the emergence of the new nation? Khartoum’s demand that Southern Sudan pay a portion of Sudan’s huge foreign debts appears to be quite irrational. South Sudan should halt discussions on the issue as it does not have credible rational foundation.

The NCP Call for Confederation in Sudan.

Fundamentally, confederation is a form of political union that emphasizes on functional interactions between or among member states. The parties to the union must equally be motivated by common desire, goal and reciprocal gains so as to derive advantage from such unification. Would it be a worthwhile commitment for the people of South Sudan to embark on or the North and other parties stand to benefit from it? Indisputably, the oil and the other huge resources found in Southern Sudan have made it attractive for the north to fight tooth and nail to enforce unity or confederal system of government in the Sudan.

Consequently, the relentless drive toward confederation in Sudan is a grand program of the north backed up by Egypt and other parties to advance; sustain and safeguard Northern imperial interests in the country. This dramatic shift of circumventing and sidelining the CPA has become NCP’s last-ditch effort to once more thwart the CPA and return the country to the status quo ante bellum when Khartoum ruled the South twitchily, imposing  its own capricious preferences on the entire people of Southern Sudan. I think, it will not work, because the South currently holds the best alternative option, and that is the full independence for the region. It represents an inconceivable level of naivety and it is utterly imprudent for the North to call for confederation in the country in the wake of the genocide perpetuated by the same regime, in which conservative estimates put the death toll of Southern Sudanese at 2.5 million

If the Serbian government today requests Bosnia to join in a confederal arrangement with Belgrade, such a bid would certainly enrage the Bosnians, especially in light of the Srebrenica massacre in which some 8,000 people died in the hands of the Bosnian Serbs.

It seems too soon for the hawkers of the so-called confederation to strive to steal the show, by thrusting on the table an unpopular agenda for discussion, at the time that Southern Sudanese are gearing up in full force to vote for secession at the upcoming Referendum in January 2011. The north supported by other parties is certainly preoccupied with a strategy designed to undermine South Sudan secession in favour of a confederal system of government in the Sudan. Confederation is not found in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005 or in any other document. Instead of moving forward to demarcate the Abyei and the North-south borders. Perhaps one could successfully construct a comparable facet between confederation and a trap door of a gallows. Southern Sudanese must resist being blindfolded by the North, and led to the trapdoor of the gallows set by the National Congress Party.

A popular cliché or dictum of unknown origin which has massively suffered from regular modifications goes as follows: If a man cheats you once, you are indeed unfortunate, if the same act is replicated on you for the second time, he is definitely cleaver, and if he successfully bamboozles you for the third time in row, then chances are that, you must be ...Er....Er.....  Er......

The notion of Confederation, in its basic sense presupposes a supranational form of government with a lesser mandate to be legally and mutually constituted by a loose association of sovereign yet powerful states that stand to derive reciprocal benefits from such a union.

The very notion of /or an allusion to Southern Sudan joining in a confederation with North whether prior to or as a post-secession arrangement, makes one feel repellently woozy. After all the term “confederation” was a widely held catchphrase and aphorism which had crept into fashion among Southern Sudanese politicians of various persuasions from the mid 1940s to the late 1960s. The demand by the South in 1947, that a confederal system of government be established in the whole country, to address the region’s problem of lagging behind in all dimensions of development, and which was largely ignored, by the North, had its origin in the asymmetrical political ambience of the time.

A traditional confederation emphasis requires that certain of the subscribing states’ competencies be pooled and delegated to common institutions in order to coordinate their policies in a number of areas, without superimposing a new state on top of the member states, with Defense, Foreign Affairs and common Currency forming the basis and cradle of the union. Certainly, such a proposition may appear too sanguine to resist. In a civilized environment and society, where the rule of law and fair play takes the centre stage, the terms of the document sustaining the union is treated with supreme respect. In effect, a confederal system of government presupposes a close and firm adherence to the underlying foedus or covenant that maintains the confederation arrangement. This is unlikely to be so in the case Sudan where countless agreements have been and continued to be dishonored by the Northern supremacist Arab policy makers. This conspicuous testimony questions the rationale of those Northern and Southern street hawkers of the confederation postulations in the country.

The post-colonial history of the Sudan is marred by horrendous episodes of unparalleled violence, emanating directly from the half a Century-long of interlocking civil wars officially pursued by the successive regimes in Khartoum. Since coming to power in a coup in 1989, the present regime of the National Congress Party (NCP) had declared and waged a ferocious Jihad (Islamic holy war) in Southern Sudan for 15 years (1989 – 2004), resulting in a conservative estimate of 2 million deaths in that part of the country, while on a separate onslaught spree, the Sudanese Military including its Janjaweed allies had calculatingly orchestrated unprecedented scale of violence and had as well been excessively involved in unadulterated aggression and wanton bloodbath in Darfur under the direct orders from the NCP. More than 300,000 people are believed to have died and thousands displaced.

In the South, the level of resentment against the North has mounted to a crescendo and would definitely be translated to “Yes Vote” for secession of Southern Sudan at the upcoming Referendum for Self-Determination in that part of the country. Hence it would seem highly implausible that the oil-rich South would embrace the concept of Confederation at this eleventh hour, let alone clinching a bad deal.

One would absolutely be out of touch and utterly naïve to suggest that Bosnia and Serbia forge a unity or structure a confederal system of government, after all the years of antagonistic experiences and bitterness that had prevailed between the Bosnian and Serbs communities. Similarly, Eritrea and Ethiopia would never make a viable confederation with one army, unified foreign policy or single monetary union. Hence asking South Sudan to go for confederation or jump into a political matrimony known as “unity” with the north, after all the resentment of the South against the North would be an act of inexcusable folly. If confederation is Southern Sudan’s ticket to prosperity, then the rational choice is to form one with Uganda or Kenya, which would be a genuine union devoid of religious and racial superiority as would be the case with Northern Sudan.

Foreign Affairs

In a confederal Sudan, the North would have an absolute monopoly and control of all façade of foreign policy matters. This implies that the union’s foreign policy would be aligned with the Arab League’s standard prescriptions. The Arab League, formed on 22 March 1945, is said to be a national and regional organization that seeks to promote closer ties among member-states and co-ordinate their policies and their economic, cultural, and security plans with a view to developing collective cooperation, protecting national security and maintaining the independence and sovereignty of member-states; thereby enhancing the potential for joint Arab action in all fields. This organisation has always backed up all succeeding Sudanese regimes both civilian and military, to subjugate the African majority in the country since January 1956.

A confederal union with the North would not only be a liability to Southern Sudan, but would lead a complete disaster and consequently to war, as it is quite visible that the North is bent on undermining the hard won gains of Southern Sudan in an attempt to usher in the distasteful unity once more. In the proposed arrangement, there would certainly be a single passport designed for each individual citizen in the member states and such a document would bear particularities conforming to Northern and Arab standard political and cultural orthodoxy, which would ban travel to the State of Israel, as Arab nations across the board except Egypt and Jordan consider Israel an enemy.

Now the question arises as to how Christians from Southern Sudan or any part of the confederate states would travel to the Holy Lands in Jerusalem and Bethlehem to perform their pilgrimage duty, as the contents of their travel documents would definitely exclude and ban visits to the state of Israel? The people of Southern would judge for themselves whether or not a confederation with the imperial north is worth considering, given the huge and sulky experiences with the Jallaba (Northerners). Southern Sudan, being overwhelmingly Christian would certainly argue as to why they are part of the membership of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC).

Being a hostage of its own making - should the South consent to a confederation; South Sudan state would never enjoy freedom or be allowed to act in a way inconsistent or deemed to breach the standing policies of the Arab League. It would thus be a sagacious suggestion to listen to the viewpoints of those people who justify a confederal system of government in the Sudan. They should step forward to furnish the South with ample evidence of what Southerners stand to gain in confederating with the North.

Defense

Defense policies are at the core of every aspiring nation on our planet. Giving up the right to fend off one’s own territory from aggressors, in favor of a questionable union with such unpredictable predators as the northerners, amounts to suicide. It is never a healthy idea to have a system in which there would be a unified army in a country like Sudan. Khartoum has more often attempted to eliminate the capability of the South to defend itself. Had the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement provided for a separate army of Southern Sudan, as is now the case with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), Khartoum would have conceived a second thought before launching and pursuing a futile Jihad against Southern Sudan. With this said I would confidently and safely state that the government of South Sudan must refrain from deliberating on the issue of Confederation in the Sudan as proposed by the NCP, as there will be no tangible benefit accruing from such an adventurous venture.

Conclusion

I am inclined to caution the Southern Sudanese community that Confederation, with the north, albeit it may sound blissful as currently being propagated and disseminated by certain quarters in and outside the country, is in fact a titanic trap ingeniously set by those who fear the existence of an independent state in Southern Sudan. Likewise I would argue that “Confederation Club” is not likely to be viable in Sudan on the basis of the concerns I have presented and hence, I am under obligation to reassert that:

(a)    Southern Sudanese should avoid being tempted by favours or material benefits by the NCP in order to act as mouthpiece of the North in Khartoum’s relentless quest to subdue the South and entrench Khartoum’s ruinous policies through the confederation with South Sudan.

(b)   SPLM should be cautious in negotiating the oil sharing arrangements, as the NCP is accustomed to using threats or the policy of brinkmanship when negotiating on sensitive matters with the South. Furthermore, it is not the birthrights of the North to share equally the oil resources of the South. The Northerners must only accept what is allocated to them by the SPLM; they can not demand any percentage or ratio of the oil share. As Southern Sudan with its dilapidated infrastructures requires massive development and the oil revenues would be used for that end. A total of 25% share should be allocated to the north for a time frame of 5 – 8 years maximum, and this would be on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.

(c)    Confederal system of government would never be viable in Sudan, as the North is bent on using the proposed confederation as a vehicle of further oppression of the people of Southern Sudan as well as the other disadvantaged constituencies such as the Nuba people, Darfuris and the Blue Nile regions. In confederation, South Sudan would be perpetually locked up in struggle against the imperial North, whose allegiance is to the Arab League and submissively following the organisation’s standard prescriptions. An unfortunate choice by South Sudan in consenting to a confederal system of government in Sudan, would simply translate into an act of self-incarceration, as Christians would not be allowed to perform pilgrimage in the state of Israel, especially in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus Christ.

The South Sudan Legislative Assembly (SSLA) should therefore debate on the confederation proposal tabled by the NCP for consideration, and reject it outright, as it is not found anywhere in the CPA.

(d)   Experience must have taught SPLM that it is negotiating with an untrustworthy side which believes in extracting as much gains as possible at the expense of the other party at the negotiating table. NCP negotiators normally emphasise that they would prefer war to accepting SPLM’s point of view. Of course, this is an empty Jallaba threat that does not contain substance. As is often the case, Southern negotiators quickly turn the other cheek, apprehensive that the Jallaba is serious, and that sets the trend of Southern Sudanese failures At this juncture, South Sudan would hold anyone responsible for presenting naïve position at the talks which would lead to future bloodshed.

(e)    More time is being wasted in the post-Referenda talks in Khartoum instead of investing it on the demarcation of the Abyei and the North-South borders. This is plainly a coveted Jallaba strategy, designed to procrastinate the implementation of the CPA. The talks should be postponed until after the Referenda, as was suggested by the Vice President of the government of Southern Sudan. END

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