A build-up of troops on the north-south border has gone on recently, writes JODY CLARKEin Juba, southern Sudan
THE CLOCK is ticking. Every new visitor to Juba, the southern Sudanese capital, can’t miss it. At the first roundabout on the road from the airport to the dusty city, a digital clock stares down on a jamboree of UN vehicles and motorbike taxis below.
“Countdown to Southern Sudan Referendum Period Remaining. 10 days. 255 hours. 15323 minutes.”
On January 9th, southern Sudanese are scheduled to vote in an independence referendum that will split Africa’s biggest country and give birth to the world’s newest.
The issue is no longer whether the south will vote Yes. The south’s political leaders are united in their quest for freedom, while US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has already called a vote for secession “inevitable”.
The question now is whether renewed fighting will break out between the north and south, or even, if the south votes to split, between the newly independent tribes in the south.
On the first issue, the consequences are almost too horrible to contemplate. More than 2 million people died in the 22-year civil war that only ended in 2005 with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the two sides.
More than five years later, although agreement has still not been reached on the final demarcation of the border between the two regions and the sharing of oil revenues, four-fifths of which lie in the south.
The Khartoum government in the north says it has agreed to offer rights of self-determination to southern Sudan, but there has been a worrying build-up of troops on either side of the north- south border in recent weeks.
In Blue Nile State, north Sudanese forces were required under the CPA to reduce forces to the pre-war level of two battalions (about 1,600 soldiers). According to the state’s governor, Malik Agar, they still have 20,000 troops there.
The south has about 17,000, according to the Small Arms Survey, and local observers have noted a marked increase in traffic of tanks, trucks and pick-ups in recent weeks by southern Sudanese forces.
A resumption of war could cost Sudan $50 billion in lost economic growth over 10 years, according to a study by Frontier Economics.
The Khartoum government has waged war against rebel and secessionist tribes in the east, south and west of the country for years. Taking on the south again, no matter how horrible the consequences, might not be such a huge problem for them.
“For autocratic regimes, focused on retaining control over their population, there is no such thing as a win-win situation; if anyone else gains, then by default, they lose,” says Thomas Talley, a lieutenant colonel in the US army assigned to US Africa Command. “There will be war in Sudan.”
It is a particularly gloomy assessment, but even if he is wrong, several dissidents with their own local or tribal grievances have begun to launch insurrections against the south’s ruling SPLM regime.
The government has managed to quell them in the run-up to the vote, but keeping the south stable and peaceful will require a lot more work, no matter what the result on January 9th.