Salah Ibrahim asks if the Sudan-South Sudan agreement will begin to repair
the damage of the past few years
22-03-2013 04:10PM ET
On 8 March, in Addis Ababa, Sudan and South Sudan signed an agreement
intended to resolve the outstanding security issues between the two
countries. The Sudanese and South Sudanese ministers of defence witnessed
the signing of the accord which is the culmination of the efforts of UN
Special Envoy Haile Menkerios and former South African President Thabo Mbeki
who had shuttled between the two countries, meeting with both President Omar
Al-Bashir and President Silva Kiir Mayardit. The agreement included, for the
first time, specific arrangements and timeframes for the implementation of
provisions of previously security agreements.
Since the secession of South Sudan from the north, the two sides have
engaged in several rounds of negotiations over a number of unresolved
issues, such as borders, oil and debts. The negotiations would always
collapse due to the mutual mistrust that was bred by decades of war between
the north and south. However, it was not just the lack of trust that led to
the non-implementation of previous agreements but also the lack of the
necessary political will to fulfil their provisions. After all, it is easier
to apply a stroke of the pen to a piece of paper than to take the necessary
steps to follow through on the ground. Therefore one still has cause to
wonder whether the agreement signed in Addis Ababa two weeks ago will mark
the end of the disputes between Khartoum and Juba or whether one or both
sides will renege on their commitments bringing them back, again, to square
one.
Although the agreement won praise and support from the African Union, the
EU, the US State Department and Beijing, it is important to bear in mind
that it did not address the outstanding differences between Juba and
Khartoum over the contested region of Abyei. Perhaps the international
parties are pinning hopes on additional doses of good will that would be
derived from the success of forthcoming talks between Juba and Khartoum over
remedying the humanitarian situation and solutions to the conflicts in the
Blue Nile and South Kordofan provinces.
Under the new security agreement, the two sides are required to withdraw
their forces 10 kilometres away from the disputed border area, a process
that the agreement stipulated had to be set in motion between 14 and 20
March. On top of this, Khartoum and Juba signed a security matrix agreement
marking the first time that the negotiating parties announced that they
would implement the controversial security matrix that had brought several
previous negotiating rounds to a standstill.
Mediators played a crucial role in brokering the cooperation agreement that
provides for the export of oil from South Sudan via northern Sudan, the
freedom of the movement of citizens between both countries, the freedom of
the movement of trade between the two sides. By paving the way for these
freedoms, the agreement has been hailed as an opportunity for both countries
to focus more effectively on their economic reconstruction and development,
and has been warmly welcomed by domestically, regionally and abroad as a
major shift in the bilateral relations between the two countries.
The security agreement also stipulates that the UN Interim Security Force
for Abyei (UNISFA) is to be tasked with monitoring the troop withdrawals
after 33 days from the date when the initial orders are given, which was set
for 10 March.
Meanwhile, Khartoum and Juba also agreed to resolve the matter of more than
$45 billion foreign debts by the end of this year. Towards this end they
will explore possibilities of having the debt written off by donor agencies
or dividing the burden between the two countries in accordance
internationally accepted economic criteria. The meetings between the two
sides will also discuss how to implement the nine cooperation agreements
that had been concluded between the two countries in September 2012 but
suspended as the result of the change in the security protocol. The
cooperation agreements cover such crucial issues as cross-border trade and
the resumption of oil flow.
The key to solving the security conundrum was to establish a Safe
Demilitarised Border Zone (SDBZ) supervised by an international force,
thereby forestalling future military friction between the two sides. With
this breakthrough in security arrangements, which had obstructed the
implementation of agreements signed between the two countries in September
and dispute over which had been the source of mounting friction between
South Sudan and Sudan, tensions have been alleviated along a broad swathe of
border territory between the two countries and the way appears to have been
cleared for the resumption of South Sudanese oil exports through northern
Sudanese ports and economic recovery for both countries.
But the way still may not be entirely smooth. Khartoum has held that the
implementation of security arrangements had to precede other arrangements as
a matter of principle in order to ensure the resumption of the flow of oil
through northern ports. It also argues that establishing the borders between
the two countries should be prioritised, as well, as this would promote the
resumption of cross-border trade and economic recovery.
At the same time, Khartoum has charged that the Juba has been using the
Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North as an instrument to pressure
Khartoum in negotiations. Juba, for its part, accuses Khartoum of arming and
funding militias working against the central government of South Sudan.
Following the recent security agreement, Khartoum has postponed talks with
SPLM-N pending the results of the security matrix and demonstration of good
intentions on the part of South Sudan. It is therefore possible to say that
the solutions are based on security as opposed to political aspects and this
has complicated the situation rather than solving it.
Simultaneously, one must wonder to what extent the security agreement will
affect the relationship between Juba and SPLM-N, the Revolutionary Front and
the New Dawn Charter. How will the agreement and the implement of security
arrangements under international supervision impact on the military
operations of the Revolutionary Front? Such question assume greater urgency
now that Khartoum has decided to defer talks with SPLM-N that had been set
for 15 March in Ethiopia.
On the other hand, SPLM-N appears not to have been concerned by the
agreement. Does this suggest a disengagement between this movement and Juba
or is it a manoeuvre on the part of one or the other, or both? UN Resolution
2046 calls on both Khartoum and SPLM-N to seek a negotiated solution to
their crisis, but the latter was one of the parties to sign the New Dawn
Charter in Kampala which calls for the downfall of the regime in Khartoum.
In addition to the foregoing questions, the 2,000 km long border between
Sudan and South Sudan is the longest border in Africa. Could the
trans-border tribal demographics, movements of nomadic pastoralists, not to
mention the temptations of the livestock and mineral wealth that abounds in
the border areas become the sources of sparks that could reignite
hostilities?
In light of the foregoing, one can only conclude that the agreement may be
the beginning of the solution of some of the problems, but that many more
agreements will be needed to resolve the plethora of other problems. In
addition, it took heavy regional and international pressures to bring the
two sides this far, which suggests that they still lack the necessary
political will to follow through. The hostile media exchanges between South
Sudan and Sudan support this and may also feed the hawks on both sides which
are already fired by major outstanding issues in Abyei, the Nuba Mountains
and the Blue Nile regions
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Received on Fri Mar 22 2013 - 18:10:05 EDT
