03 May 2012 By Osman
Mirghani The atmosphere in
Khartoum these days is similar to the atmosphere in
the 1990s when the war between the north and south was
at its peak, and the government raised slogans of
Jihad and sought to mobilize the people through
broadcasting programs and passionate chants, showing
images of martyrs who died on the battlefield, and
preaching to "defeat the enemies and root out the
insurgency". What else could people do but follow the
newspapers, watch television or listen to official
statements, until they became embroiled in the
atmosphere of war? Again, the beaten country of Sudan
is living amidst war and tension because of the
failures of its politicians, rather than enjoying the
peace for which it has lost a large part of its
territory and population, not to mention most of its
oil wealth. Sudan has returned to square one; to the
atmosphere of war, and it has not reaped any fruit by
doing so, rather it has destroyed the Comprehensive
Peace Agreement (CPA). Despite this, the regime and
its supporters do not want the people to ask: why is
this happening? Why has peace failed? What is the
benefit of a new round of war if all the previous
rounds ended at the negotiating table with trade-offs?
As soon as such
questions are raised, one is met with a torrent of
responses that the regime is not responsible, that all
the blame lies with the south and its government, and
that peace has failed because there is an
international conspiracy to overthrow the regime and
break up Sudan. In short, this is a case of "blame the
Italians" [a Sudanese colloquial phrase]; the regime
is not responsible for anything. It is not responsible
for the CPA, although it oversaw every detail and
excitedly signed it, and forgot in the midst of its
joy that the north – after it had "gotten rid of the
burden of the south" – would be alone in ensuring
border demarcation, the distribution of wealth and the
dismantling of all other time-bombs before the south
voted in the referendum and seceded. Nor is the regime
responsible for failing to make unity an attractive
option, and nor for returning to an atmosphere of
hostility. The regime is not responsible for any of
this, just like it is no longer responsible for
education, health care or other services. It is only
responsible for its senior figures and party members'
monopoly over trade and the economy, whereby the
Sudanese are beset and overwhelmed by stories of
extravagance and corruption. Whoever bears this
responsibility must carry every burden, accepting
accountability and face the repercussions for any
failure or shortcomings; there is no benefit to be
derived from blaming matters on others. The problem is
that the National Islamic Front (NIF) regime, which
took power via force and deception, and rules with
oppression and domination, refuses to take
responsibility for its mistakes and does not want to
be accountable for the mountain of problems that weigh
heavy on the shoulders of the Sudanese people. It does
not want to take responsibility for squandering peace,
which it claimed would sacrifice the unity of the
country, disregarding the tens of thousands of young
Sudanese who were sacrificed before that in a war
fuelled by the regime, before it returned to sit at
the negotiating table and accept the secession.
The reality is that
this war, which is expanding every day, is a mindless
conflict that trades on illusions. The regime is
gambling on things that have not yet been achieved. It
is gambling on the theory that South Sudan's secession
will save it from all burdens, and will enable it to
monopolize the north in order to implement its project
of declaring an Islamic republic, or the "second
republic" as some of its leaders have termed it. It is
worth noting that it launched such slogans in the
1990s under the name of the "civilization project",
but it did not achieve anything except tyranny and
repression on the domestic level, and isolation on the
international level. After the secession of the south,
the regime is gambling that it will be able to
reconcile relations with the president of Chad to
crush any armed opposition in Darfur and South
Kordofan, but this will fail because the regime has
not thought to genuinely address the problem of
governance in the north, and the roots of the problems
of marginalization and injustice. Sudan's issues will
not be solved by declaring an Islamic republic or an
alleged civilization project, because the majority of
Sudanese are both religious and tolerant by nature.
Sudan's most important issues and concerns are
underdevelopment and a lack of political stability
caused by the spiral of coups, political jockeying and
the rejection of some political forces, especially the
ideological parties, of the principle of the peaceful
transfer of power, combined with their lack of
understanding of the Sudanese people's message, who
have rebelled against military regimes and
single-party dictatorships twice, decades before the
Arab Spring. The regime is also
gambling that it will still receive a large proportion
of the oil revenues that it relinquished to the south
upon is secession, and this will be achieved through
pressuring Juba to pay substantial fees for the
continual flow of oil through pipelines in the north,
towards the only sea port at Port Sudan. According to
some of the regime's theorists, South Sudan will have
no choice but to obey as it has no other alternatives
to exporting oil, which is its economy's only source
of income at the moment, and likewise it also depends
on the north with regards to importing the majority of
its goods and commodities. But this gamble will also
fail because those in power in Khartoum have not
recognized that these issues should have been resolved
via negotiations not hostilities, and all issues of
border demarcations, wealth and debt should have been
agreed upon before the secession, not afterwards.
Worse still, the regime has already incorporated its
share from taxing southern oil revenues within the
terms of its budget, whereas matters have since
deteriorated on the ground, reaching the extent of the
north confiscating shipments of oil followed by the
south closing its oil wells and ceasing to export oil.
Thus Sudan's budget accounts have collapsed as the
country stands on the brink of a serious economic
crisis. Therefore, some people believe that the
current round of hostilities is a war for oil, and
there is an element of truth in this, but this does
not take into account the other outstanding issues
such as border demarcation, debt, the sharing of
wealth, or issues regarding other natural resources,
in addition to the lack of trust between the two
sides, not to mention their proxy wars. The south has also
made mistakes and it is deluded if it believes it can
seize land and draw borderlines by force, because by
doing so it is entering into a conflict with all the
Sudanese and not just the regime. The destruction that
is happening to the oil sites, both in the north and
the south, affects the wealth that is needed by both
countries and both sets of people, just as the ongoing
economic and military war between the two hinders
future relations, which could have served as a model
for integration and coexistence were it not for the
absence of reason and wisdom, and narrow-minded
political calculations. Comments 💬 التعليقات |