South Sudan: Watching a fragile nation

[M-A Lagrange]

Sudan presses US special envoy on lifting sanctions

December 15, 2009 (KHARTOUM) – The US special envoy to Sudan General Scott Gration met with a number of officials here who urged his government to ease the decade long unilateral sanctions imposed stressing that they are no longer justified.
The Sudanese finance and national economy minister Awad Al-Jaz told Gration that debt relief is one of the peace deliverables and part of the Oslo donors’ conference obligations adding that Sudan has made substantial efforts in improving economic growth as shown in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reports.
Al-Jaz stressed that Sudan is working on sustainable and balanced development as well putting efforts to bring peace to the war ravaged region of Darfur.
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article33477

Is that the bargain? Debt relief against hostages?

What ever comments Mr Gration can do, the elections will not be free, frai and transparent. Registration has been a success because population almost did not have the choice. Registration is nothing! What will count are the results and how they achieve those results and what will be the out comes of those results.
If it’s another fake government who tells its population (and I quote): “tell me what you need and I will make sure the UN will give it to you…”
Then guy, move, make war, what ever but do not participate to that joke.

South Sudan demands ancestral land from Uganda

Muki Batali Bulli, the Commissioner of Kajo-Keji County, South Sudan demands ancestral land that Uganda has "extended ownership claims."
The meeting convened in Moyo last week to discuss the border dispute between Uganda and South Sudan’s Kajo-Keji County turned chaotic after the Uganda team dismissed Sudanese’s claiming of more areas of Moyo and Yumbe districts.
In the 17-paged report presented by the Kajo Keji commissioner, Muki Batali Bulli, the Sudanese community of Kuku did not only claim "ancestral” ownership of the 5km-stretch of land that has been at the centre of the conflict but also other areas in Moyo and Yumbe.
The meeting chaired by the Ugandan international affairs state minister, Henry Okello Oryem, at Multipurpose Hall in Moyo town on Saturday, was attended by political leaders and elders from both countries including South Sudan Central Equatoria State Gov. Clement Wani Konga.
In Kampala, the Ugandan State Minister for Regional Cooperation, Okello Oryem, confirmed the meeting saying South Sudanese officials demanded a 5 km (3 miles) portion of Ugandan land at a meeting on December 12.
"It’s true the Sudanese claimed ownership of a bigger chunk of land but of course we have colonial maps and other documents that clearly state where the border lies and I’m confident we’ll reach an agreement when we meet in January,"
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article33455

Looks like nothing this, but it’s a huge problem to come. Land is the best war promoter in Africa.
Sudan can claim for ancestral land, but they rather should ask Uganda to invade them. Ugandan troops are deployed inside South Sudan from the tri border point between Uganda, Kenya and Sudan up to Darfur.
I wonder how much colonial maps did include Darfur as a part of Uganda?

All right, they are hunting down LRA (On that, See the excellent threat COIN case: LRA). But GoSS is much too happy to welcome Ugandan troops on his soil, while population all over just doesn’t see it the same way. Ugandan troops come with families, with traders, with plenty people. They take some land to settle, waiting to come back with the troops.
In Magwi County, they don’t even bother anymore in asking to Sudanese elders the right to take land, they just take it. According to various definitions, it is basically a form of colonization.
South Sudan went close to war with its best military supporter Kenya due to border issues. Tanks and the best SPLA were deployed for several weeks on the border.

If they don’t manage to go at war with North, they definitively are looking for other bordering alternatives. But! What can do a government (and its neighbors) when its army looks like a gang? Apply the Rwandan strategy. If you want to stay in power: send your generals abroad to make war!

[M-A Lagrange]

Sudan urges France to review its colonial policy

Foreign ministry spokesperson Muawiya Osman Khalid condemned on Wednesday the "French irrational attitudes that throw rocks hinders the path of peaceful settlement in Darfur". He also warned its negative impact would be extended to "Francophonie belt" in central and western Africa.
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article33480
I love the irrationality to respect law and also the colonialist politic of France in Africa… Coming from a man who considers that 2 third of the people of the country he is ruling are slaves with a lower humanity that dogs… Let me laugh.
Yes there are new partnerships in Africa but this does not change the bottom line: you do not compromise with people under investigations of the ICC.

Well, what about US? Can Khartoum really afford to use such words against US?
Are US congress men all irrational colonialists?
Guess what? Most probably apparently.

Congress presses for harder line on Sudan diplomacy, arms embargo

USCIRF Commission Chairman Leonard A. Leo, having recently returned from a five day visit to Khartoum, said "it is time for the United States to exercise strength. The policy of engagement – ‘cookies and gold stars’ – is not working. It is emboldening Khartoum to a point where this peace process is perilously close to failure."
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article33478

Just to remind every body of what is freedom of speech in Sudan during presidential elections:

Sudan says it will not permit any demonstrations by opposition

The Sudanese presidential adviser and the former director of the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) Salah Gosh told a convention for the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) that the government will crack down “on any attempts to stir up the absurdity and the destabilization of the country’s security”.
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article33487


Could, one day only, African politician stop undermining this continent?

Mbeki softens stance on Darfur hybrid court proposal
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article33484

Just like with Bob who is killing Zimbabwe, Mbeki is playing his soft diplomacy again about Sudan and Bashir.

Soft diplomacy is a perversion of African traditions. Yes: countries sovereignty has to be respected but justice is independent.
A transparent and fair trial is not hold on the crime scene!


For all the soft rebels with a cause: keep on fighting men!

[M-A Lagrange]

SPLM says will not endorse national security bill

The current law, the 1999 National Security Forces Act, allows the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) to arrest and detain people without charge for up to nine months, and without judicial review for six months. It also grants them broad powers of search and seizure, and contains immunity provisions.
Yaser Arman, the leader of SPLM block at the Sudanese parliament and SPLM deputy Secretary General for northern Sudan, told Sudan Tribune Thursday they reiterated their opposition to the national security bill during the meeting because they "are opposed the powers to arrest, detention, search and seizure, and immunities for national security personnel," he said.

http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article33492

I agree with them but they have to propose something. The old strategy of being opposed to everything did not work in any of the African countries. Opposition has to come with propositions and bill draft, not just oppose.


South Sudan army minister says peace is vital for growth

Defense forces have a critical responsibility of preserving, protecting and defending the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country to safeguard citizens from internal and external aggression, the minister said.
Nhial further blatantly admitted Government cognizant of numerous challenges particularly those personnel in the defense force faces in carrying out their duties, he called on men and women in uniforms not to deviate from the cause of the SPLM.

Here again, who will disagree with such the assertion that defense forces have the responsibility to protect and defend the people? No one.

But in a nation, an army (here the SPLA) is not the army of a party (the SPLM).
Once again, nation building hits at full speed its limits and our great incapacity to introduce and conduct security reforms in post conflict countries and fragile states.
Nations are built on two things: the ownership of power sharing mechanism by the people (democracy) AND the ownership violence monopoly by the people through defense forces (the submission of the army to a State apparatus and not a party).
US army is the tool of a nation not the property of a man or a party.

SPLA has to be the tool of a nation and not the armed wing of a party.
What we are building in South Sudan is a democratic dictatorship.
Elections are not fake because parties will tickle the boxes but because democratic power basics are not in place in Sudan.

As long as the elite of North and South Sudan will not be able to separate military and political power, the democratisation process supported by the UN will never build a democratic nation. It will just give another flavor to a dictatorship. In Sudan as in so many other places…
But by saying so, I just said that nation building is not just limited to elections and replacing an elite by another. I just rejected all assumptions of nation building as we do it to day.

But the worst comes from IGC:

the latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, examines the situation in the run-up to national elections due next year and the early 2011 referendum on self-determination in the South. It concludes that key elements of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended the two-decades-long civil war between North and South Sudan, have not been implemented. The failure to foster democratic transformation in the North has also undermined the chances for political settlement in Darfur and exacerbated tensions in other parts of the country.
“Sudan is sliding towards violent breakup, and time is running out” says Fouad Hikmat, Crisis Group’s Sudan Adviser. “Less than thirteen months remain to ensure that national elections and the South’s self-determination referendum lead to democratic transformation and stability in the country”.
The current negotiations between President Bashir’s National Congress Party (NCP) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) cannot achieve an all-Sudan peace. Both want elections but for the wrong reasons. Bashir’s party wants to re-establish its political legitimacy, the SPLM to ensure that the referendum, which must be no later than 9 January 2011, goes ahead.

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=6438&l=1

In one word, neither North nor South are looking to build a democratic nation through an electoral process but are looking for a just war coming from electoral boxes.

And the proof of how bad it is from Small Arms Survey :
According to Small Arms Survey, North army is strong of 225000 men and 310000 small fire arms. South army is strong of 125000 men with 175000 small fire arms. This is naturally without counting the 2 000 000 small arms hold by civilian population. Neither the 100 tanks bought by South and North military industrial capacity.

[M-A Lagrange]

There has been a lot of news about South Sudan this week end. Elections, yes! But also many on core issues as the security bill, local governance, climate…

First the serious news:

Parliament voted the security bill

The law voted on Sunday still gives power to National Security to arrest and conduct investigations without real accusations but the duration of detention has passed from 3 times 3 months to a maximum of 4.5 months.
In fact the details are not that much different from what we have in our post 9/11 western countries.
SPLM voted against and the National Alliance, Minni Minnawi’s party (from Darfur) left the parliament…

In fact SPLM point is very clear and is one more time linked to CPA. This law does not comply with transitional CPA constitution.
But as they do not comply so much with CPA constitution is South, specially on SPLA deployment locations… I wonder to who we could throw the first stone.

Anyway, Human Right Watch already denounced it. I wonder what they will say when South Sudan will pass an internal security Bill…
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...Ow49EJlorMlahw
(in French)

Elections:

Once again, Catholic Church is call for rescue and legitimacy.
Governor calls on church for moral supports during elections
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article33525

More seriously, once again, fake elections will cost a huge amount of money:
UNDP funds $91m programme to support Sudan’s election
The UNDP program, which is funded by the governments of Italy, United Kingdom, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Japan, Netherlands, France and the European Commission, will cover all the materials needed for the elections including voting cards, ballot boxes, and educational campaigns for voters, together with training sessions for election officers and local police.
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article33503
After the disastrous election funding in DRC, EU tries again to buy an African country…

Local governance:
South Sudan calls for traditional leadership involvement in conflict resolution
The government of the semi autonomous region of South Sudan has called for traditional leadership involvement in conflict resolution in the region awash with fire arms and other weapons.
The regional government has in recent past witnessed regular killing of innocent people mostly children, women elderly and other vulnerable groups.
It is also experiencing public hateful and/or divisive speeches mainly from intellectuals seeking political appointments in the government as alternatives to reaching compromises.
Do not want to be arch on this but once again, central African power calls “tradition” to the rescue. When will we escape from the infernal circle of the African tradition as the solution to all the problems, especially bad governance and corruption?
If intellectuals are complaining about governance, monopoly of violence, accountability… It’s not in appointing local illiterate traditional chief that thingswill change.
South Sudan is just taking the old path of a too well known African dictatorial regime. I guess the advice comes from Uganda. Former Ugandan leader used the same trick to lower down intellectual opposition.

In my knowledge, it’s the same local traditional leaders who are complaining the youth is not listening to them.

As stated into the very well documented and excellent “guide to rebuild governance in stability operations: a role for the military?”, traditional leaders are often the source of ultra local conflicts and use of violence.

Then the funny news:

Climate:
Some are trying to use Darfur as the first climate war.
http://www.cyberpresse.ca/le-soleil/...bonne-note.php
Well, I am sorry, but Darfur war is based on power sharing and development benefit access. It is not even an ethnic war. Environmental changes have nothing to do with that ever going on war that pop up in western news papers only in 2004.
What happened in Darfur since 2004 is more or less linked with the CPA (even more than less). Khartoum faced an insurgency after being defeated by another insurgency. The response is the worst in the word, yes. But it is not due to climate. Otherwise Chadian war is due to climate. And my experience in that beautiful sunny sandy desert tells me that mass population movement and thousands years of no environmental management is far from being at the center of the conflict. Politics, yes.
Climate may be the war cause of tomorrow but do not try to reduce once again complex African political issues on power and economical access into a small tiny box!
African wars are as political as Western, Arab, South American, Asian wars! To quote Wilf quoting Clausewitz: war is politic.

I guess, as the opinion is coming from Quebec, it’s just Canada trying to get access to its oil fields. (But I am a political paranoid).

And still the hostages:

Red Cross calls for unconditional release of kidnapped staff members.
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article33522
Message is clear, nothing to add.


For all the soft rebels with a cause: keep on fighting men!

[Stan]

onto my keyboard and monitor

"With the financial support, provided by the donors, the NEC can affirm its ability to organize free, fair and credible elections", he added.

Have any of these so-called donors ever seen a free and fair election in Africa

I did get kick out of the Carter Center's "However" regarding their campaign contributions

Unfortunately, 13 of Sudan's 25 states fell short of the NEC's registration targets, including all three states in the Darfur region.

So, exactly how many people really did register ?

[M-A Lagrange]

Stan,

I will try to respond to your question on registration.
In South, things went not that bad. The main problem is not really registration but rather the figures they will present.
First of all, there has been an over estimation of South Sudan population by SPLA during CPA talks. Census and reality have shown that only around 4 million people are actually present in South Sudan. Then only half of them are in age to vote…
Basically IDPs in Darfur used their last weapon to resist against the UN circus and elections: they boycotted registration.
In South, as in the state where I am, I would simply say that even dead and babies will vote.
Figures are anyway all fake from the very first day.
- SPLA over estimated its population so they could threat Khartoum.
- Khartoum is running an anti election campaign as they may loose presidential election if they go for transparency and fair elections.

Few months ago, a report called tickle the boxes went out to explain why all parts will cheat. And, at that time, my comment was: only Khartoum needs to tickle the box; in South, military will probably just make a coup if not elected.

For more details on elections (what a joke) please, have a look at:
Imagine the elections from NDI:
http://www.ndi.org/node/15795

Oxford analytica
http://www.oxan.com/countries.aspx?country=Sudan

And Carter centre…
http://cartercenter.org/news/pr/sudan-081909.html
But I must say that I am not very much impressed by them.

[Stan]

MA, Thanks for the links (especially another Carter Link !).

I wasn't trying to be sarcastic

I once visited Juba from Zaire, but then the governing authority were mostly military. So I find it hard to believe that something democratic will come from these "free and fair" elections in GoSS.

I noticed there is also a reserved election position for a female candidate. I can't imagine what that will do in Khartoum

Do the locals still refer to Khartoum as Qadaffi’s egg ?

Regards, Stan