Feeding frenzy in South Sudan
<
http://mg.co.za/author/richard-poplak> Richard Poplak,
<
http://mg.co.za/author/kevin-bloom> Kevin Bloom
<
http://mg.co.za/article/2012-12-21-feeding-frenzy-in-south-sudan> 28 Dec
2012 13:44 -
We wake early, for a televised election. The Afex River Camp, situated on
the banks of the White Nile, passes for luxury in the world's newest
capital. Fist-sized insects thwack against our $125-per-night containers,
where we lay like refrigerated produce. We disengage our phone alarms and
stumble into the bilious light of a parking lot. In the shadows on the far
side, CNN blares.
It is a Wednesday in November, the halfway mark of one of those weeks that
creak beneath the weight of historical significance. As we enter the
kitchenette belonging to the International Republican Institute, the Grand
Old Party's pet non-governmental organisation, vote counting is already
underway for the contest between President Barack Obama and his challenger,
Mitt Romney. A day later, China's 18th Party Congress will begin the process
of installing Xi Jinping as its new leader, determining the course of the
world's second largest economy for the coming decade. In Juba, principal
city of a recently independent South Sudan, these events seem both
portentous and menacing. In Juba, geopolitical alliances shift with the
inclement weather.
"South Africans!" says Billy, brightly, when we enter the boardroom. "My
drinking buddies from Iraq were South Africans!" Billy is one of the
Republican faithful, an army reservist and psychological operations
specialist whose halcyon days were spent in Mosul. "A free-fire zone, man!"
he says of the place. "No cameras, no media. Just us and the bad guys."
Here, Billy is a babysitter for the young Americans who preach freedom and
democracy to President Salva Kiir's ruling Sudan People's Liberation
Movement (SPLM). As we eat our way through egg sandwiches and hash browns,
the Electoral College numbers pile up for the Democrat incumbent, and the
mood in the room sours.
"Our job is to help build capacity for legislators, and to try encourage
working, functional opposition parties," says James Turitto, Resident
Programme Officer, and the morning's chief egg fryer. "We're very close to
the SPLM. So when senior members tell us they're going to Beijing for ten
days, it's a little tough for us to swallow. Truthfully, USAID and State are
worried about the path the SPLM are taking. You could see how China would
appeal to them."
Conversely, we can see how South Sudan would appeal to the Chinese, the
Americans, and the dozens of others circling the region with vulpine intent.
"Everyone wants a piece of the pie that is Juba, South Sudan," wrote Kenyan
investigative journalist Wanjohi Kabukuru, in a paper published by Norwegian
People's Aid.
Since independence was celebrated on July 9, 2011, Kiir's government has
been locked in a dispute over oil revenues with Khartoum, a stalemate that's
led to the cessation of oil exports and the implosion of the economy. Oil,
when it is pumping, traditionally accounts for 98% of the South Sudanese
budget. But oil is only one element in the dizzying compound of economic
possibilities that South Sudan represents. There is almost no
infrastructural development here: few paved roads; no electricity grid; a
non-existent sanitation system.
Independence referendum
The vacuum promises untold riches. According to a 48-page dossier titled
"The New Frontier," commissioned by Norwegian People's Aid and written by
David Kuol Mading, the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA)
between north and south in 2005 kicked off a land grab. Foreign interests
now control 5.74 million hectares of land in the South Sudanese agribusiness
sector alone-almost 9% of the country's landmass. South African companies
have had a field day: SAB Miller pumped R354 million into South Sudan
Beverages Limited (tagline-"The taste of progress"), while PetroSA purchased
oil concessions, and Global Engineering Consortium SA signed a R180 million
contract with the Sudan Railway Corporation.
Politically, the players with the largest stake, when the two Sudans are
taken as a piece, are the Chinese and the Americans. While the CPA was
largely a result of consistent American pressure, the independence
referendum in January 2011 could never have happened without the Chinese
conceding to its inevitability. China has for years owned controlling stakes
in Sudan's big energy consortiums, and thus could expect roughly 60% of the
490,000 barrels of oil that flowed to Port Sudan, through pipelines they'd
built and maintained.
The questions become more urgent by the day: how will South Sudan's
fledgling government manage the feeding frenzy? Whose sphere of influence
will they enter? When will the oil start flowing? And will the people of
this battered nation get a chance to reap the rewards of an independence
that cost millions of lives and decades of darkness?
Meanwhile, on the flat screen at the head of the boardroom, Wolf Blitzer
makes it clear that the numbers have all but sunk Romney's campaign.
"Fuck it," says Billy, standing. "I'm going to put in an order for a
thousand rounds of ammo."
The architecture, if you can call it that, is minutely descriptive. The
Ministry of Petroleum is a mirrored gangster palace-cum-70s Baghdad
nightclub, with tight security and a consigliore in a fine suit who barks,
when we enter, "What is your agenda?" At the Ministry of Industry and
Commerce we find no security and compact, welcoming buildings. The Ministry
of Wildlife resembles a bombed-out park.
In office after office, while we wait for interviews that will never happen,
we get reminders of the morning's election. Obama's victory speech-"you
reaffirmed the spirit that has triumphed over War and Depression, the spirit
that has lifted this country from the depths of despair to the great heights
of hope"-has already been downloaded as a ringtone. In Juba, democracy is a
powerful brand, but a bitch to implement.
If there is anyone here who properly understands this, who can pick at the
myriad threads that bind and knot his country into an impenetrable tangle,
it must be Lumumba Stanislaus-Kaw Di-Aping. Known to South African
journalists as the man who once unofficially represented the SPLM in
Pretoria, and to the world's press as the diplomat who engineered a
breakaway of African states at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference (when
he was chief negotiator for the so-called G77 bloc and China), Di-Aping is
currently in charge of his country's development vision.
His liberal-humanist bona fides are impressive-stints at Yale, at Oxford, at
the United Nations and McKinsey & Co. Although he was the architect, with
the assistance of George Soros, of the hundred million dollar Climate Green
Fund, he drew the ire of the West for comparing its climate policy to the
Holocaust, and for "ask[ing] Africa to sign a suicide pact, an incineration
pact, in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries." He
faced down President Obama over the negotiating table, and did not blink.
As for his own homeland, Di-Aping is no less resolute. "There is no such
thing as reconstruction in South Sudan," he says, "we have only
construction. We have no powerful vested interests that can impede a
developmental state the way South Africa's transformation plan was
scattered. Ideologically, we have no power struggles within the movement,
such as there are in the ANC."
Performance-oriented leadership
We have met him at an outdoor café in downtown Juba, where it appears to us
that the broader vested interests are on full display-NGO-types vying for
tables with Chinese businessmen, local politicians whispering lest they be
heard by American ears-but we take his point: compared to South Africa's
ruling party, the SPLM is a paragon of virtuous unity. Di-Aping's contention
is that neither the market fundamentalists nor the socialists within his
party are strong enough to dictate policy, and that given the tabula rasa
before him, what needs to be emulated are the blueprints of countries like
Botswana and Mauritius.
He speaks of ordinary citizens taking precedence over the demands of big
capital, of performance-oriented leadership, of an autonomous bureaucracy
manipulated neither by the market nor by politics. For Di-Aping, the per
capita prosperity of Botswana and Mauritius is important mainly in
hindsight-what was critical when those African exemplars were coming up was
how they managed to spread the wealth. "Luckily enough," he says, "in South
Sudan we own the oil resources. Now we need to orient that towards the
vision."
Hesitating for a moment, Di-Aping then opens his laptop, and invites us to
have a look at a document. This, he explains, is the manifesto for South
Sudanese development; we are among the first outsiders to see it. Due to be
endorsed in December 2012, he says, it will inform three things: all of
South Sudan's development processes, its entire project of state formation,
and its constitutional framework going forward.
The writing in the 33-page document, which was overseen by a committee of
seven, was done mostly by the man before us-in the context of the greed and
misery we've already witnessed on Juba's streets, it soon becomes apparent
that we've been given access to a profoundly beautiful (if profoundly
ambitious) growth plan.
Di-Aping scrolls through the pages until he arrives at a certain paragraph,
which he asks us to read aloud: "The mission of the SPLM is to construct a
knowledge economy in South Sudan and to build a nation and society that is
inspired by peace, freedom, justice, unity, prosperity and progress. The
SPLM will ensure democracy under the rule of law and good governance, to
safeguard fundamental human, economic, social, cultural and religious rights
and freedoms. Through the people, SPLM shall govern."
The question is obvious: a knowledge economy in a country with one of the
lowest literacy rates on Earth, where barely a quarter of the populace is
able to read and write?
"The only way ahead for South Sudan is through a massive educational
programme," says Di-Aping. "This is the difference between where Africa went
wrong and where the Asian tiger economies went right. You cannot think of
creating opportunities when the majority of your people are illiterate, I
don't care whose theories you've read. Okay?"
According to Di-Aping, its late admittance as an independent state has given
South Sudan the opportunity to learn from the developing world's
mistakes-and what it's learned is that where education hasn't been a
priority, only suffering has been harvested. He rejects the assertion that
his country lacks "capacity," countering that whatever the term means, no
nation in history ever started off with it. "What we need," he says, "is the
will and the wit."
The developing world's mistakes
It's the country's vast pool of youth, Di-Aping continues, that's at the
core of the manifesto. South Sudan's thousands of young, returning
exiles-the so-called "Lost Boys," who in the '80s and '90s trekked on foot
across the border, receiving their secondary education in refugee camps,
gaining admittance to universities in the United States-have been earmarked
to haul the rest of the nation up. It will be up to them to erect what the
SPLM recognises as the Five Pillars: mass education; effective petroleum and
mining management; sustainable agriculture and climate change policies;
infrastructural development; financial and industrial growth.
Later, while we're taking cover from a torrential downpour, Di-Aping
stresses the urgency of getting this vision squared away. "We understand how
the West plays the game-that's old hat. As for the Chinese, the only way you
manage them is after you have everything spelt out. Otherwise? Otherwise
they'll finish you."
It's a Saturday afternoon in Unity State, the oil-rich province on the
border with Sudan, and James Adiok Mayik is once again quoting John Garang.
Killed in a helicopter crash in 2005, South Sudan's liberation icon is never
far from the thoughts of the country's intelligentsia. Adiok, recently
returned from Portland, Oregon, more than fits the bill-armed with a Masters
of Education, he is exactly the caste of young leader of whom Di-Aping
spoke.
"'Bring the town to the people,'" he intones, as we lounge on the concrete
roof of our bare-bones hotel, "'not the people to the town.'"
Like most of his ilk, Adiok's Lost Boy history began when he was in his
early teens, and his life is marked with violence and hardship. A firstborn
Nuer herder who was never meant to enter a schoolhouse, he was forced to
walk barefoot across the country, finding refuge in Kenya. Ironically,
without the war, Adiok would not have learned to read and write. Now, he
teaches teachers how to teach.
Garang's quote, which Adiok repeats twice for effect, pumps through the
veins of local thought-leaders-it implies a decentralised system of
governance, where service delivery to the rural areas slows the pace of
urbanisation that has all but destroyed many African states. Still, the pull
of petroleum is irresistible, and Unity State illuminates the oppositional
forces at work in South Sudan.
Bentiu, for instance. A town that swells by the day, thumping with the noise
of generators for a few raucous hours after dusk. Standing at midnight in
its starlit, sewage-lined streets, in a preternatural quiet that speaks to
the lack of basic 20th century amenities, we come to understand the scale of
the country's challenges.
Fully demarcated
The governor of Unity State is an ex-warlord named Taban Deng Gai- according
to a local civil rights activist, who speaks to us on condition of
anonymity, he's "not only the most corrupt man in South Sudan, but in all of
Africa." Deng, who has been absent from his state for almost three months,
is currently paying a visit to his heavily fortified bush camp. With him, we
have it on good authority, are his deputies, come to provide reports on the
latest events.
He is unlikely to receive much good news. After Chevron found oil near
Bentiu in 1981, Sudan's then president, Jafaar Nimieri-who in 1983 rekindled
hostilities between the Muslim north and Christian/animist south by
introducing sharia law-tried to push the nominal border as far back as
possible. Unity was thus rendered a permanent frontline, and in arming
proxies and stoking inter- and intra-ethnic grievances, Khartoum froze the
area in the Stone Age.
At its quietest, the state writhes with political and ethnic tension. In
many regions, particularly in the restive north, where the border has yet to
be fully demarcated, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) has scant
authority, and roving rebel commanders have enormous sway. Characterising
the war as a conflict between north and south becomes almost laughably
reductive-Deng himself was variously aligned with Khartoum, the SPLA, and a
range of splinter groups. The alliances, broken, renewed, or otherwise,
resemble the plot of a particularly convoluted soap opera.
Partly in preparation for our trip to South Sudan, we met in October with
China's Special Envoy to Africa, Ambassador Zhong Jianhua, at the Foreign
Ministry in Beijing. The ambassador's brief has always focused (some might
say to a disproportionate degree) on the Sudan issue; his predecessor, Liu
Guijin, was instrumental in brokering talks with then Chinese premier Hu
Jintao and Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, a dialogue that led directly to the
independence referendum.
"Africa used to buy expensive and sell cheap," Ambassador Zhong told us.
"Now, they sell expensive and buy cheap."
He was referring to the unprecedented opportunities that an oil price of
$100 a barrel presents to South Sudan, and his outlook reflects a key
difference in how China and the West view the region. Seen through Beijing's
lens, the country is in a far better position than China was after the
Cultural Revolution, when commodity prices were at an historic low.
Ambassador Zhong made it clear that, for him, South Sudan is a universe of
potential. Whereas from Washington's perspective, the country is not much
more than a basket case, a backwater in need of nursing and aid.
Ambassador Zhong assured us that negotiations were underway to turn the oil
taps back on. By the time we arrive in Bentiu, his words have proved
prescient: the pipelines are being flushed, and the lifeblood might flow as
soon as December, or January, or some other point in the not-too-distant
future.
Sell expensive and buy cheap
On the Sunday following our arrival, in order to allow us to see for
ourselves, Adiok arranges a four-by-four, an armed guard, and an audience
with the local security chief. We are allowed to proceed along the path of
the buried pipeline, through swampy wastelands, to the refinery of the
Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company, 40% owned by the China National
Petroleum Corporation.
A few kilometres beyond a bridge that al-Bashir's warplanes failed to bomb
in April, the craters lying muddy and deep by the side of the road, we stop
for lunch. "This place used to be beautiful when the oil was flowing," Adiok
informs us-although amid the stench and the torpor, it's hard to imagine
how.
Forty minutes later, we're inside an aluminium compound, in conversation
with a local superintendent. We are led to a second compound, where the
refinery's Chinese production manager appears less than thrilled to see us.
"But they are looking for Chinese investment in Africa," says the
superintendent. "That is you!"
Laughs all 'round. And then there are six men at the production manager's
door, two large members of the project's security detail having just joined
the fray. The production manager is thus rescued, allowed to return to his
Sunday rest. We are led away and mildly interrogated. Who are we? What do we
want? The large men, almost sympathetic to our story, in the end play it
safe. Like everyone else in Unity State, they are pawns in a geopolitical
game. The rules at this refinery are determined by Beijing, by Khartoum,
and-still only last-by Juba.
That night, on a TV hanging in a boma in a Bentiu hotel, we watch news of
the highway being built between South Sudan and Kenya, with help from China
Exim Bank. A contingent arrives on November 15, to hasten negotiations.
Adiok sighs.
"There you go," he says.
Security detail
The feeding frenzy will continue, as will the struggle for South Sudan's
soul. Shortly before our arrival, the creation of the country's new capital
is announced: according to the Sudan Tribune, the Pan-China Construction
Group will fund and build a glittering modern metropolis from the
nothingness of Ramciel, which lies in the dead centre of the country.
There is an all too apt parable lurking in the news of Ramciel. As the
nascent United States of America did with Washington, D.C., South Sudan will
fashion a fresh government seat to echo its fresh democracy. Except that
here, construction comes at the behest of the Chinese. Ideals versus
pragmatics: the curse of the postmodern liberation movement.
What would John Garang, who wanted to bring the town to the people, say
about Ramciel, about Bentiu, about Juba, about the 18 months following
independence?
For his part, Adiok doesn't equivocate. "The war smashed our way of life,"
he says. "We need to heal. What good will come of people going to the city?
What will they do there?"
This article was made possible by a grant from the China-Africa Reporting
Project, managed by the Journalism Department of the University of
Witwatersrand. For more on the China-Africa story from Bloom and Poplak,
visit <a href="
http://africa3point0.tumblr.com/
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http://africa3point0.tumblr.com/%20> " target="_blank">africa3point0</a>or
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Received on Fri Dec 28 2012 - 07:31:32 EST
