The two Sudans: After the divorce
The Economist
Hope of a Clean Break turn Sour
IT HAS been only a month since South Sudan split from the north. Already, however, the new neighbours are squabbling. The first flashpoint has been oil. Three-quarters of the former Sudan’s oil production is now located in South Sudan. But the new country is landlocked, and needs the north’s pipelines to send its oil to the world. The two sides have not agreed on a specific price.
Aug 13th 2011 | from the print edition
South Sudan says the north wants $32 per barrel, about one-third of the total value, which it considers exorbitant. But after losing its oil to the south, rump Sudan is now running deficits of some $350m a month and needs to drive a hard bargain. The result has been stalemate. In recent weeks customs officers in Port Sudan refused to allow a shipment of 600,000 barrels of southern oil to leave harbour for lack of sufficient fee payment.
Another source of tension is currency. Although the two countries had agreed that the south would continue to use the old Sudanese pound for a transitional period, within weeks both governments issued new monies. This left the south with what it claimed is up to $700m worth of notes that can only be spent in the north. Sudan promptly banned the import of these notes for fear of sparking inflation.
In addition to failing to stop the conflict in Darfur, in the west, the two countries are now facing the reincarnation of an old insurgency on their new border. In the north Sudanese state of South Kordofan, rebels from the Nuba Mountains and neighbouring Blue Nile state fought alongside the south during the civil war in the hope of escaping northern control.
Rump Sudan is also miffed at the lack of rewards it has received for letting the south go. America had promised Sudan that it would start normalising relations in exchange for a peaceful separation. Although this offer formally remains in effect, American officials now say that Sudan has not fulfilled all its obligations under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) it signed with the south in 2005.
Now that their one-time allies have won independence, they continue to oppose the Sudanese army on their own. Susan Rice, America’s ambassador to the UN, has accused Sudan of ethnically motivated violence in South Kordofan, which it is required to stop under the 2005 CPA. Sudan has loudly responded that it is seeking to quell a rebellion without regard to race or religion.
A bright spot is news of the two countries’ efforts to finalise their often remote border, which is 2,000km (1,250 miles) long. Within the past month their negotiators have met in neighbouring Ethiopia and tentatively agreed on a line as well as a limited UN mission to monitor it. And both sides have pledged to resolve the currency and oil disputes in talks led by the African Union before the end of September. But the more time that South Sudan’s new leaders have to spend on finalising the terms of their divorce from the north, the longer it will take them to build a state and an economy.
http://www.economist.com/node/21525962
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