Will the Republic of South Sudan stay alive?
9 min readBy Joseph Monyde Malieny
The troubles of establishing viable South Sudanese State on the historical social and territorial bases provided by colonial rule are not recognized internationally from the very birth of an independent South Sudan. For instance, just on April 19, 2012, The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon criticized South Sudan for reclaiming Panthou (Heglig) area in South Kordofan last week, and called it “illegal”. In the view of South Sudanese people Mr. Ban Ki Moon, the illegal annexation of Panthou (Heglig) done by Sudan over our territory is “illegal” rather than reclaiming our land being taken over by Sudan because of its natural resources.
The colonial boundaries of Sudan had been redrawn by Nimairi especially Panthou (Heglig) was redrawn by Federal Government Chambers of Bashir’s regime as from 14th June 2004. South Sudan restates the same locality it has retained for years, that the North/South boundaries at the time of Sudan’s independence from Britain on 1st January 1956, which underpinned the terms of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between South and North Sudan. The 1956 borderline is the agreed original border for today’s North/South border demarcation which actually lies to the north of Panthou (Heglig) and hence make Panthou/Heglig an integral a part of South Sudan territory. However, Khartoum since 1956 has exercised illegal and arbitrary power to shift the North/South boundary southwards, after the discovery of oil in the Heglig region.
To bring the attention of international community into the present basis of Panthou (Heglig), the growing influence of humanitarian pressure groups has also had an impact on the way the war is reported and understood. It is human rights researchers, rather than indigenous of the land, who are documenting the war’s most cruel aspects. Yet mindful of the requirements of objectivity, international community strive to apportion blame equally, with their opinion ending up with a demand to give our land with the expense of exploring the structural patterns of injustice. Their criticism of South Sudan is a pattern of misreading of a very sophisticated structure of our traditional ethnographic record of which the Arabs of North Sudan are “voluntary incorporation” within our natural resources such as Land, Oil and even water.
The Sudan and South Sudan original borders
The border issue at first revolved around those areas flanking to the southern region of Sudan, which by the provisions of the Addis Ababa Agreement of 1973-83, were under consideration to the region north. These included certain areas which had been part of southern provinces before independence in 1956, as well as areas deemed similar to the south. The former were supposed to be automatically retransferred, and the latter were to be allowed to vote on whether they should remain in the North or join the South (Addis Ababa Agreement: Chapter II Article 3.iii). The mineral-bearing areas of Kafia Kingi and Hofrat al-Nahas, ceded to Darfur in the 1960s, should have been returned to Bhar al-Gazal province by 1977 but were not and within that same time period, referenda should have been held in the Dinka district of Abyei in Southern Kordofan, and in the Chali area of the Blue Nile Province which had been part of the South until 1953.
No referendums were scheduled. Why was no referendum held? The border issue was a very sensitive and contentious issue for a number of reasons. In Kordofan, the prolonged drought of the 1970s meant that there was increased hardship for Arab cattle herders who grazed their animals in the Dinka of Abyei territories during the dry season pastures along the Kiir River which is now Arab of North, “named it as Bhar al-Arab”. According to their cunning conquest ideology, there was fear that if the territory were to be transferred to the Southern Region, Pastoralist Arabs would be denied to have access to the River. Throughout the late 1970s and with increasing ferocity during the early 1980s, gangs of armed Arabs mainly Misiriyya began attacking Dinka villages with the intent of driving the Dinka Ngok out of Kordofan, into Bhar al-Gazal. It was widely thought at the time that members of Umma party were involved in arming and encouraging the Nomads because the area had been Umma stronghold before 1969 as Umma leadership was initially hostile to the Addis Ababa Agreement.
Also the border region of Chali in Southern Blue Nile excited less emotion in the North but was still contentious because it was administered by Upper Nile Province until 1953, when it was transferred to Kurmuk district. This Region of Chali was well known as Southern part of Upper Nile Province because Southern United States was set up in Chali in the 1940s and remained active until the Missionaries were expelled by government order in 1964 while its local continued to function among the Uduk of Chali that survived the first Civil War. The activities of the local church elders were scrutinized just as much as they had been during the wartime. When the church leaders petitioned for referendum to be held on Chali’s future, but they were harassed by provincial officials and some were arrested and beaten.
The issue of the Southern Region’s borders became intertwined with the issue of oil and economic development. In November 1980 the new National Assembly considered a bill to set the boundaries of the new regions in the North. At Hassan al-Turabi’s instigation, the bill redrew the Southern Region’s boundaries, placing the oilfields of Bentiu (Unity State) and the agriculturally productive areas of Upper Nile Province inside neighboring Northern Provinces.
Oil
The Southern Region’s main asset is oil, but this was discovered only after the Addis Ababa Agreement was signed and the regional government of Southern Sudan established. The regional government was not consulted on the granting of concessions to the Chevron and Total oil companies for prospecting and drilling for oil within the region but stealing it as Bashir’s government did with present oil companies recently. Chevron began to exploit the three “Unity” fields outside of Bentiu near the border with Southern Kordofan, and fields of oil and natural gas in the Maban area of northern Upper Nile near the border of Blue Nile.
It was “Chevron’s policy” that contributed to the deterioration in relationship between the regional and central government over Sudan’s boundaries. This was claimed by Abiel Alier that, “the oil issue turned Nimairi against the Addis Ababa Agreement and insisted that a proposed oil refinery to be built by Chevron should not be placed inside the Upper Nile province, closed to the oilfields but resolute that the oil refinery will be placed inside the northern Sudan. This controversy united the Umma and Muslim Brothers members of Nimairi Cabinet in excluding the southern Region from any decisions in petroleum affairs.
President Nimairi, not surprisingly, ordered the construction of the refinery outside the Southern Region. Even that project was deferred in favour of a pipeline direct from the Bentiu oil fields to Port Sudan, via Khartoum, enabling a quick export of crude oil to offset some of the Sudan’s deficit (Peter Nyot Kok,’Adding fuel to the conflict: oil, war and peace in the Sudan’, p.104).
The Jonglei Canal
The South’s other main asset is water. It has higher rainfall than the North, and it is the meeting place of numerous rivers arising in East Africa such as Ethiopia and Central Africa. The exploitation of our natural resources was planned by both the northern Sudan and Egypt of making heavy demands on water from the Nile through numerous irrigation schemes. But their share of the water was regulated by the 1959 Nile Waters Agreement which doesn’t bound on our economic interests especially South Sudan now and other Eastern and Central African countries because it is not valid anymore. First proposed was in 1901, it was the momentum for the plot’s unvarying revitalization throughout the twentieth century.
Before invoking the forces of inexorable demand and the historical inevitability of hydro-politics, Cairo and Khartoum proposal to build the Canal was presented by the central ministers of Irrigation and Agriculture to the president of the High Executive Council, (HEC) which was the Southern Regional Government from 1972 to 1983, and then to the High Executive Council itself in 1974. Their argument was that, “the Canal was needed to meet planned agro-industrial expansion in both Egypt and the Sudan”, (Alier, Southern Sudan: Too Agreements Dishonoured, p.199).
With some hesitation, the High Executive Council agreed supposedly to oppose the canal. From this point onwards, the Arabs North supported forceful exploitation of Southern Regional land. The importance the government attributed to the construction of the Canal was gauged by its response to any opposition in the Southern Region. When there were demonstrations against the Canal plan in Juba in 1974, and when some Regional Assemblymen publicly opposed the Canal, the demonstrations were crushed by police and the Assemblymen were arrested or forced to flee the country.
The outbreak of war in 1983, and the SPLA’s early attacks on Canal and oil installations brought these two major economic projects to a halt by 1984. Nevertheless, illegal land acquisition process on paper was still being carried out from Khartoum, since even Panthou (Heglig) reconfiguration was made in 2004 during the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) process that was signed in 2005. The determination to secure the oil fields for northern needs, first demonstrated by Turabi as Attorney General when he attempted to redraw the Southern Region’s boundaries in 1980, had been a consistent policy of the Islamist government he helped to usher into power in 1989 of Bashir that called our democratic elected government authorities “insects” while the Sudan government robbed our land and stolen our oil.
If I were President Salva Kiir Mayardit, I would not have supported withdrawal from Panthou (Helglig) even though the international community was misguided to pressure us by condemning our reclamation of our land of Panthou/Heglig. Even if the creator of this planet earth were to pressure us, I would have told him “you created my ancestors on this land and is mine now and there is no way for me to withdraw from it now and forever, not even at the advice of the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon “.
To Conclude, I wrote this article to show the world that Panthou (Heglig) is our gift from God not based on political ideologies of international community or United Nations configuration. Throughout the late 1970s and with increasing viciousness during the early 1980s, mob of armed Arabs mainly Misiriyya began to attacked South Sudan with the intent of driving the Dinka Ngok out of Kordofan, into Bhar al-Gazal. It was their ideology, those Arabs of North such as Umma party and Islamist brothers that collaborated since 1969 to redraw Sudan 1956 boundaries as that controversy united the Umma and Muslim Brothers members of Nimairi Cabinet in excluding the southern Region from any decisions in petroleum affairs.
President Nimairi stole our natural resources by ordering the construction of the refinery outside the Southern Region and Umma leadership made hostility to the Addis Ababa Agreement as Bashir is practicing it now in relation to the CPA. The exploitation of our natural resources was planned by both the northern Sudan and Egypt by making weighty demands on water from the Nile through numerous irrigation systems. Nonetheless their share of the water was regulated by the 1959 Nile Waters Agreement which doesn’t bound on our legality especially South Sudan now because we were not ask for our inputs or opinion as well as Eastern and Central African countries.
Gone are the days colonial authorities exploited African resources for their own interests and their counterparts Arabs who made African people as their goods for sale in what are now urban areas. Land and natural resources are our heritage materials that cannot be given away by international community or United Nations.
This article was written By Joseph Monyde Malieny: A South Sudanese Native and a Student at university of South Africa, (UNISA) Pretoria. I can be reached at 46403027@mylife.unisa.ac.za
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