Sudan

This is a guest post by Asch Harwood. Asch is the Council on Foreign Relations Africa program research associate. Malawi has decided not to host July’s African Union (AU) summit because of demands that Sudan’s al-Bashir be permitted to attend. It’s a heroic effort toward ending impunity on the continent. Despite explicit statements that Malawi’s new president, Joyce Banda, was concerned about offending international donors, her position in support of the ICC’s arrest warrant for al-Bashir is principled. Malawi is a signatory to the Rome statute and intends to fulfill its obligations. Of course, when your country’s budget is dependent on aid (40 percent before donors cut off support last year), international opinion is a real concern. But as Peter Fabricius writes, “(Banda) probably intended to mollify Malawians, who are very annoyed at losing the summit and the business opportunities that would have gone with it.” As any Africa watcher knows, one of the biggest holds on sub-Saharan economic and political development is impunity. So any champion, particularly one in a position to benefit from impunity, should be supported accordingly. The AU does face a conundrum though, which can easily be lost on ICC supporters. As Simon Allison writes, due to AU’s own internal governance, all heads of state must be invited. But Malawi, rightly, has chosen to value its commitments to justice over AU rules, even if it makes her unpopular in Africa. “By taking the opposite view, Banda - a relatively young, female leader in a group of old, grumpy men - is openly defying the African consensus, something sure to make her unpopular amongst her counterparts,” notes Allison. While it will certainly lead to some grumbling, I doubt Malawi’s decision will do any serious long-term diplomatic damage. And, in turn, perhaps other African countries will follow suit to help bring al-Bashir before the ICC.

One of the major unresolved issues from South Sudan’s split from Khartoum has been the citizenship status of Sudanese of southern origin living in the north, and those of northern origin living in the south. Optimists had hoped that the citizenship issue would be amicably resolved and that most people involved would stay in place. Alas, in the context of the increasingly bitter divorce between Khartoum and Juba, it looks like a folk migration of southern Sudanese back to the south is underway. When South Sudan voted for independence, Khartoum revoked the citizenship of all South Sudanese. In response to concern voiced by the international community, Khartoum allowed a nine-month grace period, which ended in April, for South Sudanese living in the north. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) on May 8 stated that 376,226 people have returned home since October 2010. It estimates that half a million South Sudanese remain in Sudan. Of these, up to fifteen thousand have been stranded in Kosti waiting for barges to take them down the Nile to South Sudan. According to the press, Khartoum is saying they are stranded because the Juba government has diverted the barges for military use. IOM’s response is to return the refugees to Khartoum and then fly them to Juba. IOM negotiated the necessary arrangements with the local authorities and with Juba. On May 14, the flights started, with four hundred people arriving in Juba. The belongings of the returnees are being transported by road, according to the Juba ministry of information. Each returnee is restricted to twenty kilograms of baggage. IOM is moving the refugees from Kosti to its Khartoum transit camp by bus. At the camp, IOM provides medical checks and prepares the manifests. It then flies the refugees to Juba, where they are housed in a camp operated by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. According to the press, after the returnees arrive in Juba, they will be dispersed to their place of origin. This episode illustrates the crucial role of IOM, an international organization headquartered in Geneva, in large refugee movements. With 146 member states, and 98 observers, it spent US$1.3 billion in 2011. Its funding comes primarily from member states.

Despite reports that fighting is ebbing between Sudan and South Sudan, the situation is troubling. Last week, Sudan (Khartoum) president al-Bashir escalated his rhetoric against South Sudan (Juba) in the aftermath of the latter’s forces occupying an oil-rich region, Heglig, inside Sudan’s borders. Al-Bashir has characterized the Juba government as an "insect," and he appears to be repudiating the independence of South Sudan. The press reports him as saying, "Either we end up occupying Juba or you (South Sudan) end up occupying Khartoum but the boundaries of the old Sudan can longer fit us together, only one of us has to remain standing." He said that his Sudan Armed Forces will teach South Sudan "a lesson in jihad and patriotism," according to press reports. On April 17, Thabo Mbeki’s African Union (AU) mediation team and UN Special Envoy to the two Sudans Haile Menkerios briefed the UN Security Council. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice is quoted in the press as saying that the two characterized Juba and Khartoum as locked "in a logic of war." The UN Security Council is considering sanctions against both states with the goal of ending hostilities. On April 18, the U.S. Department of State spokesman said, "We continue to call for an immediate and unconditional cessation of violence by both parties, and that means we want to see the immediate withdrawal of South Sudanese forces of Heglig and we want to see an immediate end to all aerial bombardments of South Sudan by the Sudanese armed forces." The spokesman said that U.S. special envoy Princeton Lyman has been meeting with both governments. And, most recently, the AU  issued demands that the two sides resume negotiations. Al-Bashir’s reference to ’jihad’ is particularly provocative given Khartoum’s history of trying to Islamicize Christian and animist South Sudan before the latter’s rebellion and independence. Al-Bashir’s comments will confirm for many South Sudanese their doubts as to his commitment to the Comprehensive Peace Accords that led to Juba’s independence last year. For now, Juba and Khartoum do, indeed, appear to be locked "in a logic of war." It remains to be seen whether they will back down in the face of international opinion as expressed by the UN Security Council and the African Union.

The International Crisis Group (ICG) has just issued a must-read analysis of China’s new initiatives in South Sudan. "China’s New Courtship in South Sudan" is a cogent, credible analysis of the tightrope Beijing must walk between Khartoum and Juba in the aftermath of the Sudan split. Most of China’s oil investments in the former Sudan are in the south, and Chinese companies are also salivating over the possibility of participating in the the construction of South Sudan’s now almost absent infrastructure. The ICG reminds its readership that the number of Chinese in the South Sudan has spiked over the past year. But, China has been a close ally of Khartoum in the past, and the memory of that reality is a factor in Juba and likely a brake on Beijing’s ambitions. Nevertheless, despite its pro-Western orientation, Juba is open to Chinese commercial proposals, and President Salva Kiir is visiting China for the first time since South Sudan’s independence. Given the ongoing, poisonous relationship between Khartoum and Juba that periodically threatens to morph into open warfare and produces fresh humanitarian disasters, there is the hope that China can play a more positive role than it has in the past. But the ICG includes a salutary caution that Chinese influence over the behaviors of Khartoum and Juba can be overestimated. And China always faces the risk of being caught in the middle of disputes between Khartoum and Juba, especially over oil. Nevertheless, I think a Chinese commercial relationship with Juba may raise new, positive possibilities -- so long as Salva Kiir’s government manages it carefully.

Even as Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir escalates his rhetoric against the United States and mobilizes paramilitary forces against insurgencies within Sudan, opposition parties in Khartoum are calling for him to step down. While the opposition seems too weak and fragmented to pose a serious threat to al-Bashir for now, its statements are a reminder that al-Bashir must watch his back. On March 3, al-Bashir urged the Sudanese to mobilize for war and to deploy the paramilitary Popular Defence Forces against multiple insurgencies. In a ceremony, the PDF pledged its undying loyalty to al-Bashir and ascribed the insurgencies to American imperialism, international Zionism, and resurgent colonialism. In response, on March 5, the opposition Umma Party, the Communist Party, and the Popular Congress Party (PCP) said that al-Bashir’s mobilization call was issued not in the interest of the Sudanese people but rather for the ruling National Congress Party (NCP). The three parties called for the Sudanese people not to respond to al-Bashir and for the president to step down from office. The political secretary for the PCP called for a transitional government. He called on the Sudanese people to overthrow the NCP. The leader of the Umma party accused the NCP of making war against its own citizens in Blue Nile and South Kordofan, an approach, she said, that earlier resulted in the secession of South Sudan. A spokesman for the Communist Party called on the Sudanese people to reject "the policy of war." Strong stuff in a country where the the regime shows itself capable of exceptional brutality in Darfur and in the contested border regions in the South. Yet, al-Bashir apparently calculates that it is not in his best interests to initiate all-out repression against his opposition. Or, perhaps he does not feel himself strong enough to be able to do so.

Representative Donald Payne, Democrat of New Jersey, died March 6 of colon cancer, according to the press. He was 77 years of age. He was a college graduate (Seton Hall University) and by profession a teacher. His district was heavily African-American and centered on New Jersey’s largest city, Newark. President Obama carried the district in 2008 with 87 percent of the vote – an exceptionally high percentage in the United States, if not in many African elections. Many Americans think of him as a civil rights pioneer – he was New Jersey’s first African American congressman. In an obituary published today, the New York Times notes the mark he made on American social and educational issues, such as promoting steps to make college more affordable. I want to highlight here Rep. Payne’s consistent involvement with African issues, ranging from the struggle against apartheid (when I first met him) to the war in Darfur. He served on, and chaired when the Democrats were in the majority, the Africa subcommittee of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, where he worked for U.S. assistance in the fight against diseases in Africa ranging from HIV/AID to malaria. He traveled frequently to Africa, visiting refugee camps, medical facilities and establishing a personal relationship with African leaders. I can attest that his trips were no boondoggles. Payne’s consistent focus on Africa was shared by only a few of his congressional colleagues in the House and the Senate; Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wis) while he was in office and Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) now also come to mind. (Sen. Coons chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs.) But, in general, interest in Africa in the Congress is not high. Congressional concern tends to spike in the aftermath of natural disasters, such as famine in the Horn, human rights atrocities, such as in Darfur or epidemics of rape in the Eastern Congo, or wars, such as the fighting between Sudan and South Sudan and the civil war in the Ivory Coast or the struggle against the Lord’s Resistance Army. Then it dissipates. There is also some interest if African developments may have a link to international terrorism. At present, for example, there is some congressional concern about alleged links between Boko Haram, a radical Islamic movement in Northern Nigeria, and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. But most members of congress are wrapped up in U.S. domestic issues or international matters that impinge directly on the security of the United States. Even the congressional Black Caucus, of which Payne was a member and had served as chairman, had a more salient domestic agenda than an international one. In Congress, as among the American people, concern about Iran and Israel appears to be widespread, but not Darfur. Readers of this blog will recall that I argue that Africa is of much greater strategic and other importance to the United States than we often realize. Hence the value of the contribution of congressional figures like Donald Payne who worked to keep Africa on the U.S. agenda.

Delegations from South Sudan (Juba) and Sudan (Khartoum) have announced they will meet immediately to demarcate the border between the two countries. The goal is for the talks to be completed within three months. However, this round of negotiations will not address five disputed areas, about which talks will continue. In another border issue, the Khartoum press reports that the two countries have signed an agreement to monitor border areas and to open ten crossing points along the 2200km border. The border between the two states, along with the division of oil revenue and questions of nationality for those from the North who now live in the South and vice versa are among the vexatious issues that were not addressed before South Sudan became independent. Meanwhile both Khartoum and Juba accuse the other of supporting rebel groups. There are also difficult ethnic and land-use issues. Both migratory and agricultural people living in the disputed territories and along the border have been subject to nearly unspeakable atrocities, perpetrated especially by Khartoum ostensibly to suppress rebel groups, and to famine. (Khartoum denies access by international assistance organizations to many border areas.) Nicholas Kristof, in a New York Times February 23 op-ed, describes clandestinely visiting areas in the Nuba mountains, an area regularly subject to Khartoum bomb attacks. His conclusion: “This is a mass atrocity that has attracted little attention: a government starving its people, massacring them, raping them, and bombing them – in hopes of crushing a rebel movement.”

This is a guest post by Asch Harwood, CFR Africa program research associate. Follow him on Twitter at @aschlfod. A comment was recently made to me citing the huge number of mobile phones in Nigeria—over 90 million—as an indicator of that country’s budding middle class. However, in this conversation, my interlocutor failed to make the distinction between mobile phones and mobile phones subscriptions, which turns out to be important. In most of Africa, prepaid SIM cards dominate and, almost always, mobile phone statistics refer to subscriptions. A person can have a mobile phone subscription without having a mobile phone; or multiple mobile phones and multiple subscriptions; or a subscription without any minutes. Bottom line: mobile phone statistics can be misleading. We don’t know how many actual handsets are out there. Nor do we know how many subscriptions are not being used or how many are being shared. Jeffrey James and Mila Versteeg, in a 2007 paper (pdf), “Mobile Phones in Africa: How Much Do We Really Know?”, go a step further to show how much we don’t know. They make the argument that we must differentiate between “mobile phone subscribers, mobile phone owners, mobile phone users, those who benefit from usage and those who have access to this technology.” These differences have implications for mobile phone impact, and whether we can equate mobile phone subscriptions with a middle class. They conclude that “it is on usage (rather than ownership) that data collection needs to focus, because this concept comes closest to capturing the benefits that are actually derived from mobile phones.” As they point out, it is also the most difficult. What we do know is that the number of mobile phones in sub-Saharan Africa has exploded, and will most certainly impact development.

United Nations World Food Programme (UNWFP) deputy executive director Ramiro Lopes da Silva announced yesterday that his agency will assist eighty thousand people in South Sudan’s Jonglei state, who are victims of escalating ethnic conflict between the Lou Nuer and the Murle. He also warned that the conflict in the states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan, in Sudan, could lead to the flight of half a million people to South Sudan if Khartoum continues to deny access to the area by humanitarian agencies. The two crises are separate. Conflict between the Lou Nuer and the Murle predates the Sudanese civil war and the independence of South Sudan. Over the years, as now, it involves cattle theft, kidnapping, and revenge. There is evidence that neither group surrendered all of their weapons to the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army when South Sudan became independent, as they were required to do. Though the fighting and resulting internally displaced population appears to be confined to South Sudan, the two peoples also live in adjacent countries, and there must be concern that it could spread. By contrast, the conflict in Blue Nile and South Kordofan is directly related to Sudan’s division last year into two states. The boundary between Sudan and South Sudan is not fully demarcated and border territories are disputed by various groups with links to Juba and Khartoum. Establishing the frontier between the two states is one of the serious, unresolved issues left over from what was hardly a velvet divorce. Khartoum and Juba accuse each other of supporting rebel groups and militias in Blue Nile and South Kordofan. Khartoum continues to deny access by humanitarian agencies to large areas ostensibly because it fears that food aid will reach the pro-Juba rebels. Large numbers of people need assistance. In addition to the eighty thousand displaced because of Lou Nuer and Murle fighting, Lopes da Silva said that during the past week, a thousand people crossed the border into South Sudan. He observed that this number was comparable to the rate of people fleeing Somalia into Kenya during last year’s famine in the Horn of Africa. The international community should take Lopes da Silva’s warnings as a wake-up call and start to prepare for what could be a major humanitarian operation that will likely require additional resources for UNWFP and other humanitarian agencies.

An unresolved issue between Juba and Khartoum has been how to divide the revenue from oil that is essential to the finance of both South Sudan and Khartoum. According to the press, South Sudan is now producing 470,000 barrels of oil per day. But the infrastructure and principal port for its export is in Sudan. The two governments have not been able to reach agreement on fees, tolls and other payments that Juba would make. The South Sudan government alleges that Khartoum has seized up to $815 million worth of oil.  This week Juba announced that it will stop exporting oil stop exporting oil through Sudan, even as talks continue. South Sudan president Kiir and Sudan president al-Bashir are supposed to meet today. Given these hang-ups, many in South Sudan have sought an alternative export route for their oil. And maybe they have found one. On January 25 South Sudan and Kenya announced an agreement whereby Juba would construct an oil pipeline and a fiber optics cable from its oil fields to the Kenyan port of Lamu. While the pipeline would be owned by Juba, it would pay fees to the Nairobi government. For Kenya, the pipeline would be part of an elaborate infrastructure development program that would include railways, super highways, airports, and tourist resorts as well as new port facilities at Lamu. Some may see the agreement as part of Juba’s effort to pressure Khartoum. But, given the host of unresolved issues between Sudan and South Sudan, including border disputes that are resulting in low-level warfare, the political arguments for Juba to acquire a new outlet to the sea appear to be strong. It remains to be seen how the pipeline will be financed or how long it will take to build it. But, even in the unlikely event that Juba and Khartoum reach an oil agreement today or tomorrow, the construction of the pipeline will probably proceed.