What a break-up would mean to the Sudanese and Africa

Benjamin Madut was barely into his teens when the second Sudan civil war broke out.

He remembers everyone in his family fleeing in different directions as the Sudanese air force bombarded his village near the North-South border.

When the bombing subsided, villagers gathered in groups and trekked for days until they reached Ethiopia. Families were divided as those old enough to fight returned to join the war on the Southern side and others died from their wounds or from hunger as they made the long journey to refugee camps.

Mr Madut was one of the lucky ones. He survived and came to Kenya before being moved to the United States as one of the tens of thousands of “Lost Boys of Sudan” who were the subject of a 2003 documentary film of the same title.

On Sunday he will be one of the 3.9 million registered Southern Sudanese voters who will cast their votes in polling centres in eight countries across four continents in a pivotal referendum on self-determination.

“People are very excited to witness this dawn,” he said. “We are anxious to vote. Personally, I feel grateful and privileged that this happened in my lifetime, and, God willing, I will tell my grandchildren that I was one of those that took part in this process.”

Across Southern Sudan that feeling will be shared by thousands of people who will vote in a referendum whose results some analysts say will give way to the most important political transformation on the continent since the end of apartheid two decades ago.

There is little doubt that Southerners will vote to secede as officials of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) focus their efforts on achieving a decisive win.

The break-up

That vote to separate will have major consequences. It will lead to the break-up of Africa’s biggest state and the world’s tenth-largest country. It will also fundamentally alter the economic and geographical landscape of the East African Community, in which Southern Sudan has already applied for observer status.

But a return to war – especially if the North and South fail to thrash out key post-referendum issues – could also be vastly costly, with one aid agency estimating the cost to the region at $100 billion.

That is an outcome regional players such as Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Egypt and others like the US and China will be anxious to prevent.

Kenya’s Foreign Affairs permanent secretary Patrick Wamoto told the Sunday Nation he was optimistic the transition would be peaceful.

“The registration process has gone remarkably well, and it is encouraging that the pronouncements of leaders from both sides have been largely positive. This is a vast country with major infrastructure challenges, but from all indications I would say there is every sign that the vote will meet the threshold of a fair referendum,” the PS said.

Border demarcation

Mr Wamoto said Kenya would engage the two parties to resolve crucial post-referendum issues such as border demarcation, citizenship rights and the fate of the Abyei region.

The decision on Abyei will be especially contentious because it is claimed by both sides and is rich in oil and populated by both the South-leaning Dinka and the Misseriya Arabs.

On Friday Sudan President Omar al- Bashir said if the South took over the Abyei region it would risk a return to war. But the South points to multiple international arbitration decisions that have given it the right to the region.

In the past 10 days there have been several efforts to engage the key players in a bid to find peaceful means of resolving their disputes in the critical six-month window that closes on July 9 when the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) expires.

Last week Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka was in Egypt where the leadership has been strongly opposed to Southern secession, mainly due to their fears that the South would reject their proposed Nile treaty. Mr Musyoka told President Hosni Mubarak that Kenya would work with the South and Egypt to resolve any differences and that there was nothing to fear from an independent South.

Last Monday, Lands minister James Orengo delivered a message of good will to Salva Kiir from Prime Minister Raila Odinga assuring him that Kenya would stand by the South and support it in the post-referendum phase. It was a similar message to that delivered by acting Foreign Affairs minister George Saitoti, who is leading a government delegation to Juba to observe the referendum.

The high-level Kenyan engagement is a reflection of what is at stake in South Sudan. Kenyan firms are the dominant players in the telecommunication, banking and insurance, construction, airline, food and beverage and retail sectors in most of Southern Sudan.

Independence for the South will unleash its vast untapped potential. Apart from having some of the largest oil reserves in Africa outside Nigeria and Angola, Southern Sudan has the capacity to feed most of the region.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says 90 per cent of the land in Southern Sudan is arable, representing 12 per cent of sub-Saharan Africa’s total arable land. Currently, only 16 per cent of this land is under cultivation.

All this potential could remain untapped if there is a breakdown in negotiations that will follow the vote.

Due to the length of the voting period – which will run over seven days – there have been concerns about the possibility that the process could be disrupted by militias that have been fighting the Southern leadership over the last five years.

On Saturday it was reported that fighting instigated by a militia had left six dead in Unity State.

Mr Wamoto said “a few skirmishes” could not be ruled out but expressed confidence that the vote would largely pass smoothly. He said security had been stepped up in overseas voting centres, including in Kenya which, at 15,000, has registered the highest number of overseas voters.

Possibility of violence

Many in Southern Sudan, though, are not worried about the possibility of violence before or after the vote. They are also not concerned about the doubts that have been expressed about the capacity of the country’s leadership to handle the challenge of nation building.

“When you have been through 50 years of fighting and instability as we have been, there is nothing that would worry you too much. We are confident about the future. And whatever it holds, we know we will tackle those challenges as an independent and sovereign nation,” Mr Madut said.