By Dupe Atoki
Sudanese all over the country celebrated the new year with their eyes on the upcoming January 9th
referendum, which was not just a shift from a year to another, but an occasion that was mixed with complicating aspirations, fears and hopes. The issue is no longer whether the south will vote Yes.

The quote below from a speech at a town meeting in 2003 by one of the tribal chiefs -Makwec-kuol-Makwec-  during the Sudanese peace negotiation under the auspices of the International Agency for Development – IGAD says it all representing majority opinion:

‘’ When you visit the north, you must have noticed the difference between the Arabs in the north and us here in the south… they are red skinned and we are black… their names were Ali, Muhamed, Osman, etc. and our names here are Deng, Akol, Lual, etc., we have no shared ancestry, they pray differently but they want to force us to believe in their gods, they try to impose their language upon us.

Their economy is more advanced and we have nothing here because they have extracted our resources for their own use, their entire way of life is different from ours,…. and now are asking us if we can live together with the Arabs as one people in a country where we, the black people, do not have a voice?

Dupe Atoki

If you really want to bring peace and you have the support of people from other countries in this mission, my suggestion to you is that you treat the country like a piece of cloth, have John Garang grab one end of it and Omer al_Bashir the other, and you take a knife and cut in the middle.

I assure you, the Arabs are not people we want to share anything with and history speaks for us. We have never been one, we will never be one.’

The south’s political leaders are united in their quest for freedom, while US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has already called a vote for secession “inevitable”.

The question now is whether renewed fighting will break out between the north and south, or even, if the south votes to split, between the newly independent tribes in the south. On the first issue, the consequences are almost too horrible to contemplate. More than 2 million people died in the 22-year civil war that only ended in 2005 with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, CPA,  between the two sides.

The wrangling over the nation’s identity is so deadly that non-Arabs fight not only for political inclusion but also to prevent the country whose population is over 70% non-Arab from being labelled an Arab country. Furthermore, racial lines and the degree to which Sudanese people are bounded by them are magnified by confrontation over resource as demonstrated by the war in Darfur.

Arab cattle herders lose much of their grazing land to drought and desertification, and therefore seek pastures in areas occupied by settled farming African communities, the non Arab Darfurians stick more strictly to the racial category to deny the herders grazing rights.

Following several protracted negotiations, Southern Sudan will on  January 9, 2011 hold a referendum to determine whether to remain part of a united Sudan or become a separate state.  The referendum was a core component of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, CPA,  that ended decades of conflict between the Southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, SPLM and the Khartoum government.

In the event of secession it will become the newest and the 55th African State. Should the south choose to separate, numerous thorny issues have to be negotiated few amongst which are:

Nationality: If the South separates, Southerners in the North and Northerners in the South will be especially vulnerable to violence and loss of citizenship, resulting in statelessness, Sudan’s information minister Kamal Obeid fuelled such fears on September 25, 2010 when he said “They will not enjoy citizenship rights, jobs or benefits, they will not be allowed to buy or sell in Khartoum market and they will not treated in hospitals: we will not even give them a needle in the hospital,”

It is imperative that a progressive and inclusive framework for addressing citizenship in the event of secession is adopted. Minority nationals living in both northern and southern jurisdictions may choose to continue to live there with basic civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights on an equal footing as citizens.

The referendum presents Sudan with more nuanced options than merely unity versus partition. In the event of secession, it is not yet clear whether the border will be a “hard” one between two fully separate states, with restricted movement and visa requirements, or “soft” with free movement guaranteed for people and goods, and guaranteed residency rights.

Too firm a barrier would threaten pastoralist livelihoods in North and South alike, create hardships for Southerners who rely on goods and services from the North and unnecessarily restrict communities which see the benefit of joint cross-border initiatives and interaction.

Borders: Five major border areas are in dispute. The first, and perhaps most potentially explosive, is around the oil-producing region of Abyei. The region will decide in a separate referendum also in January whether to join the south or the north.

The borders were outlined in a July 2009 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, but demarcation has stalled. Four other areas are in dispute: the northern-most border separating Renk county in Upper Nile from the north’s White Nile state, the borderline running north-south between the south’s Unity state and the north’s Southern Kordofan (this will determine who controls the Heglig oil field), whether the Bahr al-Arab river forms the exact border between the south’s Bahr el-Ghazal and Darfur in the north, and which river forms the exact western-most dividing line between Western Bahr el-Ghazal and Southern Darfur.

Oil: Oil revenue accounts for 98 percent of Southern Sudan’s government revenue, and 60 percent of the national budget (according to 2008 figures). Foreign investors, primarily from China whom Sudan exports 60% of its oil to, are beginning to side with the South Sudan government ahead of the referendum.

The sole export route for the landlocked south is a pipeline running to the north to Port Sudan on the Red Sea. Under the CPA, the two sides divide proceeds from oil pumped in the south. They will have to negotiate how to share oil revenue, as well as any user fees levied against the south for using the pipeline and refineries.

The two parties must also negotiate how to honour current oil contracts.

Water: Under a 1929 agreement between Egypt (which had control over Sudan) and Britain, and a 1959 agreement between Egypt and Sudan, they control up to 90 percent of the water. Will Southern Sudan recognize these old treaties, or will it work with Nile basin countries in eastern Africa to work towards a “fair” accord? If it honours the colonial pacts, as it has indicated to the Egyptians, the south must then negotiate with Khartoum over what percentage of the 18.5 billion cubic metres of water designated to Sudan it can claim.

Debts and Assets: The national debt is estimated by the International Monetary Fund in 2008 to be US$34 billion. National assets and the properties of state-owned companies in the south will need to be negotiated. Analysts say the north will want a seceding south to take on a portion of its public debt burden. SPLM officials have rejected such suggestions, often accusing the north of using that borrowed money to wage war against southerners.

Currency – After the CPA, Sudan’s official currency, the dinar, was replaced with the Sudanese pound. If the south secedes, will the north and south continue under the pound? A newly independent south could choose to create its own currency, or switch for a period to an established foreign currency such as the US dollar. A decision to maintain the Sudanese pound on both sides is preferable as it has the potential of bonding the two economies together.

As Southern Sudan hurtles towards an acrimonious split, the president Omar Al Bashir at the 55th independence anniversary broadcast on the 1st of January 2011 promised to respect the results of the votes.

That is reassuring but he also needs to guarantee the willingness of his government’s support of the new state.  Concerted flexibility in negotiation is imperative for the survival of the new southern Sudan. The rights of citizens of both states must be respected. The referendum may change the existing boundaries of Sudan, and much more but it does not change the human rights standards in force.

* Dupe Atoki a lawyer and Commissioner of the African Union Commission on Human and Peoples Rights, writes as the Commissioner responsible for the promotion of human rights in Sudan.