Egypt’s own instability worsens its blow from creation of South Sudan

“The secession of South Sudan negatively affects Egypt. The emergence of a new state in the Nile Basin will lead to a reformulation of the strategic balance in the region at the direct expense of Egypt,” Hani Raslan, head of the Sudan and Nile Basin Studies Program at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, explained to Daily News Egypt.

With so much of the country’s efforts tied to solving its own political and economic crises, there is fear that Egypt will not be able to effectively address the looming crisis to its south, an issue that can have serious, long-term impacts on the country.

Concerns over Water

One of Egypt’s main concerns regarding the creation of South Sudan is the possibility that a realigned balance of power can threaten its future access to Nile River water, a critical component to the country’s livelihood, Walid Kazziha, political science professor at the American University in Cairo, explained to DNE.

Traditionally, Egypt and Sudan used to side against their southern, “upstream” neighbors, and were the “main beneficiaries of earlier agreements” that gave them preferential access to the Nile’s waters, Kazziha explained.

However, Egypt can no longer “count on the same level of support,” and thus has “reduced bargaining powers” due to the creation of South Sudan, a country that may align with upstream Nile River Basin countries at odds with Egypt and Sudan, he noted.

However, while South Sudan is ethnically and culturally closer to the upstream countries — like Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda that hope to renegotiate a Nile River usage treaty— the new country is unlikely to completely side against Egypt overnight, Raslan conceded.

“South Sudan enjoys heavy rains and is estimated to have about 540 billion cubic meters of water. This is about 10 times the amount of water currently supplied to Egypt. So they really don’t need all of that water.”

In either case, Egypt has worked diligently over the years to cultivate closer economic and diplomatic ties with southern Sudan in order to hedge any potential risks.

“Egypt has been helping South Sudan on some projects related to energy and some other issues. It has also been trying to develop good diplomatic relations for some time,” Paul Sullivan, a professor at Georgetown University, told DNE.

This investment, so far, appears to be paying off, according to Mahmoud Aboul Enein, dean of the Institute of African Research and Studies at Cairo University.

“We have many investments in Sudan; I think around $300 million invested into infrastructure and development projects. Egypt is a major partner of the South. I think the Egyptian government has received many things from the South that makes it feel comfortable,” he said, adding that South Sudan could actually align itself with Egypt and Sudan, because “all three are downstream countries.”

However, according to Raslan, Egypt still has good reason to feel uncomfortable, because there is no guarantee of South Sudan’s acquiescence to Egyptian water interests, especially given that the South’s water consumption needs will increase in the future.

Because South Sudan “has been a disastrously neglected country,” Sullivan added, its expected future development could easily “throw off any expectations of water use by Egypt.”

On top of these risks, Egypt could see further complications to its access to Nile waters due to local and regional instability created by the creation of South Sudan.

The ongoing fighting in contested areas between Sudan and South Sudan has been “an expected feature of the split” that will threaten Egypt’s plans of “water development projects that are meant to supply us with millions of cubic meters of water that we really need,” Aboul Enein explained.

Violence and refugees

In addition to being “far from a country that one could clearly say is destined for peaceful development,” Sullivan noted, South Sudan’s instability could also have adverse affects on the stability of North Sudan.

With conflict between the North and the South currently ongoing, “North-North violence may be even as likely, if not more likely, especially as the oil revenues or other parts of the North’s economy become a weaker source of purchased loyalty,” he added.

Egypt, Sullivan continued, “needs to be very wary of any conflict between the North and the South and amongst the peoples of both regions. The new South Sudan and North Sudan are countries that hold potentially massive instabilities within and across them.”

Large scale fighting within North and South Sudan could replicate the refugee crisis that displaced two million people when the country spiraled into a civil war in 1983, having an adverse impact on Egypt.

In January, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) prepared contingency plans that suggested possibly 50,000 refugees could flood into Egypt in the case of further violence following the creation of South Sudan.

While further violence has taken place, it is too soon to tell whether there has been an increased number of Sudanese refugees coming to Egypt, for it takes six weeks to register newly arrived refugees, the UNHCR office in Cairo explained to DNE.

In June, the UNHCR in Cairo registered an additional 588 people from Sudan, increasing the total amount of Sudanese refugees in Egypt to 23,618.

Precedence of secession

Egypt also has to fear that the creation of South Sudan could set a precedence in the region for minority groups to break away from their parent countries, an especially acute worry given Egypt’s current instability.

“Egypt could also be quite worried about other places in Sub-Saharan Africa and the North Africa and Middle East wanting to go the way of South Sudan and ask for their independence. The Amazighen, what the west knows as the Berbers, could see some ideas here. Darfur could also spin-off as could other parts of Sudan. There are sections of Libya that might be considering greater autonomy,” Sullivan noted.

Aboul Enein also fears this possibility, calling it “bad for Egypt, because the last thing we want to see is a balkanization along our southern borders.”

In regards to Egypt’s internal affairs, there traditionally was little fear that the country’s minority groups would demand more autonomy.

However, following the overthrow of former president Hosni Mubarak and the subsequent instability as the country tries to transition its political order, some have begun to fear that Egypt is increasingly vulnerable to this trend.

“The precedence in Sudan may affect Egypt in its present circumstances, due to having a large Coptic minority. If it happens in the south of Sudan, it can happen in Egypt. There are so many obstacles to that, such as the fact that the Copts are not geographically centered on one specific area, but are scattered throughout the country. But there are provinces where they do represent a sizable minority, which can pose such a problem to Egypt’s integrity.”