|
|
 Give peace a chance in Sudan
|
>From globeandmail.com, Friday, August 9, 2002
Give peace a chance in Sudan
The prospects for peace in Sudan's civil war are dim
if Egypt, the giant among Nile nations,
isn't at the table, says ALSIR SIDAHMED
ALSIR SIDAHMED
The fragile agreement between Sudan's government and the southern rebel movement signed last month in Kenya is meeting with resistance from one of the region's strong players: Egypt. A second round of peace talks is scheduled to begin Monday. If Cairo's worries are not addressed and Egypt brought on board, the window for peace and an end to one of Africa's longest-running wars may close once more.
For almost two decades, a civil war has raged between Sudan's Islamic north and the oil-rich south, populated largely by Christians and animists who resist state-imposed Islam. The July negotiations, brokered by Kenya and Uganda and backed by the United States, saw the Khartoum government and the rebel Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) pledge to allow a referendum in 2008 on self-government for the south.
Then Egypt expressed its displeasure. And to make its point clear, President Hosni Mubarak declined to meet Sudan's First Vice-President Ali Osman Mohammed Taha during his recent visit to Cairo. Cairo also refused a British request to endorse the agreement publicly.
In Egypt's view, self-determination for the south could easily lead to eventual separation -- which could have huge implications for the country's water supplies. For millenniums, Egyptians have depended almost exclusively on the waters of the Nile; the country gets little rainfall and has few underground reservoirs. So Egypt is reluctant to see the birth of yet another poor country along its life-giving river, especially one likely to fit into the African pattern of underdevelopment and tribal divisions.
Giving southern Sudan more self-determination may remind Egypt's rulers of bitter past experience. In the mid-1950s, it threw its weight behind the unionist parties in Sudan, which were raising the banner of unity with Egypt. The unionists won the elections -- and promptly became the very political forces to table an independence motion before parliament. Two weeks later, there was an independent Sudan, separate from Egypt.
It's ironic that the latest deal has been negotiated by the Khartoum government, which is run by a group of radical Islamists -- the same group that staged a military coup in 1989 partly to thwart a peace initiative and then launched unprecedented military operations to crush the southern rebels once and for all.
After 19 years of civil strife, however, the north is coming round to the realization that the bloody civil war is unwinnable, and has decided that it would be better to work toward voluntary unity. The south now wants to exercise its right for self-determination as a way to test the seriousness of the north's commitment to peace. And so, in July, all political forces inside and outside Sudan, in government or opposition, agreed to the principle of self-determination for the south.
Now what's needed is for Egypt to fall in line: to endorse what the Sudanese have agreed on, and to work with all to ensure that unity will be the outcome after the six-year interim period.
Besides, peace is the most effective way for Egypt to increase the security of its water supplies. It was in the mid-1970s, during a previous 10-year peace period in Sudan, that the Jonglei Canal project in southern Sudan got under way. Nine months later, civil war broke out once more as SPLA units attacked the camp of the French company Compagnie des Constructions Internationales. Work stopped on the 380-kilometre canal.
Restoring peace would finally let work resume on the canal, which will, it is hoped, provide Egypt and Sudan with an additional four billion cubic metres of water to be split equally between them.
Moreover, peace will give a boost to the Nile Basin Initiative (launched last year by the 10 countries in the basin, as well as donors and international institutions such as the World Bank and Canadian International Development Agency). The initiative is a coming-together of all players in the region to work on environmental projects and to increase co-ordination of the region's water supplies.
However, none of this can happen until Egypt joins in the second round of peace talks scheduled to start Monday in Kenya. Egypt is not a member of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (composed of central and eastern African countries), which is leading the mediation. But it is entitled to a seat at the table, given its long association with Sudan's issues and because it can represent the Arab world. Sudan, after all, is Arab as well as African -- and Arab involvement and investment in developing southern Sudan would help insure the country's ultimate unity.
As for fears of south Sudan's separation, Amr Mousa, Egypt's former foreign minister and the current Secretary-General of the Arab League, used to say that with 10 countries in the Nile basin, an 11th could hardly add to the region's complexity. It's time to put his words to the test and give peace a chance in Sudan through accommodation, hard work and vision.
Alsir Sidahmed, a Sudanese journalist living in Toronto, is a former editor of Sudanow, an English-language magazine, and a columnist for the London-based, pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat.
|
|
 
|
|
|
|
asidahmed
almulaomar
فيس بوك
تويتر
انستقرام
يوتيوب
بنتيريست