The south Sudan: Which way to go after 2011?

BY: Dr. Anthony Lupai Simon, Sudan

DEC 5/2009, SSN; The people of south Sudan are now counting down to zero that ends on the 9th of January 2011 when they will be in the Referendum room deciding the fate of their semi-autonomous region. After a long period of intermittent military struggles for independence that started in 1955 with the Anyanya movement of Rtd. General Joseph Lagu which ended in 1972 with the Addis Ababa agreement and then got reactivated by Dr. John Garang in 1983, the people of south Sudan finally got some thing to smile at.

The international body led by IGAD were convinced to come into a compromise in 2005 to grant the people of south Sudan their rights for a self determination come 2011.

Based on the fact that the people of south Sudan have constantly continued to be treated differently in this Sudan of today and felt themselves badly crippled by manacles of cultural and religious discriminations while at the same time being leveled to carry the stigma of inferiority complex in their own mother land, they are more likely to go for independence than for a unity.

South Sudan is a vast oil rich region that falls in the heart of Africa and inhabited by black Africans that are mainly Christians in contrast to the north that call themselves Muslims and Arabs. The region is just like any other African country that was supposed to have had her independence in the mid fifties or sixties when the colonial powers were waving their bye bye salute to the continent.

But unfortunately things worked differently in 1956 when the British left and handed the south to the Arab north and called it an independent Sudan. Why no two countries at that time nobody knows despite the fact that right from the beginning the north and south were two different entities?

It has been said given a state of their own state during those days, southerners were not in the position of governing themselves. That notion was proclaimed by the Arabs, echoed by the British and was then given for a blessing by the south Sudanese chiefs and elders that were calling for a confederal type of government before the independence.

For it was clear that the independence of any state in those days entirely depended on how much a particular community was organized in telling the imperialists that it was time they should leave their region. So perhaps there might have been some sorts of lack of proper organization from the southerners of those days that was why they were denied their rights for self rule.

All the same the ball has now been thrown into the hands of all those who call themselves southerners to decide on whether to be or not in 2011. That is the time when the area which was believed to have been drawn by the British as their own protectorate for some economic gains until 1956 is finally going to be converted into a country that will solely be controlled by the indigenous black Africans of Sudan.

But as southerners begin to see the chimneys of the referendum rooms they are again being fed with the same songs that their parents had heard in the days preceding the independence of the country. And as usual the Arabs start the tune and then the Europeans complete the rest. No one can doubt that, because Egypt is already on the fore line.

We have seen how much they are struggling to keep the country one in spite of the other option that was clearly defined in the CPA and enriched in the interim national constitution. Their songs have echoed well across the globe and have been gripped by the European Union. For just some months ago the  EU foreign policy Chief, Javier Solana, had expressed out his views that it is very important to have the country united and that he is for a unity after looking at the map, the distribution of the resources and the situation on the ground. But he felt short of referring to a particular situation.

Although he seemed to have swallowed up some of his words, there was no doubt that on his face the unripe situation for an independent south is what is being created by the southerners themselves. After four years of a test for a semi self rule we have not been able to convince the rest of the world that we can smoothly manage ourselves. Corruptions, nepotism, insecurity and rampant tribal conflicts arising from our regions are sending bad signals to the world of how we are going to be if left alone.

These are all entities which label how much immature a particular society is. And the central points governing these entities are GREED and SELFISHNESS. They have entered into every aspect of our living by shaping our political and military set up as well as our economy for the last four years.

But yet the southerners’ yearning for statehood still remains high in their minds. This thirst can only be translated on the ground if the right formula is followed.  

Nonetheless the exercises of tribal politics that still peak in the south coupled up with the allocations of most of the opportunities for better socioeconomic advancement along tribal lines will wrongly sway the international body to remain skeptical about creating a future troublesome country. Their fear will continue to dominate the world and will subsequently deny the people of south Sudan to separate in 2011.

This is simply because they would not need to see more tribal clashes in the south as every tribe will eventually try to hit back to show some supremacy in order to get to the ladder of the military and economic power as is the case in Somalia now.

South Sudan has been offered a golden chance from the Naivasha treaty, but selfishness and greediness among some communities will let the chance slip off their hands. There are people that had once thought that their problems would be better solved by having an independent south. But now they have again been set in a state of dilemma.

So the dilemma of the world plus that of the southerners themselves will amount to nothing but only one Sudan of one million square miles standing tall on the world map after 2011.

Although every concerned and responsible southerner strongly stands for a stable and strong south some of them have already been made to feel reserved due to some of the mentalities that are currently being propagated in the south which will clearly lead the region to what others are saying would happen. There is no doubt that when heavy clouds accompanied by lightening and thunder gather on the sky everybody will begin to say that it is going to rain although not all ends in that way.

So perhaps to some of the international bodies the whole of the south has now tuned itself into a heavy cloud to such an extent that no one should blame them for whatever stand they take. This is quite evident as each time I come in to contact with the media I find that a very significant statistical data is being piled about us from our actions just for the purposes of being used negatively against us.

These include the comparison of the level of our on going ethnic violence to that of the troubles in Darfur where a large figure is being produced every month, it also includes the level of comparison between us and Somalia, how we govern our selves and treat foreign diplomats etc. And as far as my understanding is concerned all these indicators are tending to the negative direction.

However it is never late yet. South Sudan can still have her way to the independence paved and decorated with golden ornaments if they begin to value themselves equally, share everything equally and respect every citizen of south Sudan equally free from all sorts of stigmatization. At the same time erasing out those elements where some people tend to level themselves as being more southerners than others or liberators than others.

South Sudan will go where southerners need it just by their actions on the ground but not by what individuals preach under cover of some sorts of selfish ideologies.
   
Dr. Anthony Lupai Simon.

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