Referendum in Sudan: Prelude for a North-South Divorce?

The North and South in Sudan have a long history of division and conflict. As part of their “Southern Policy,” Sudan’s colonial masters, the British, opted to seal off the South from northern influence: leaving education to missionaries and depending on native administration for local governance. Meanwhile, the British ruled the country from Khartoum, relying on the help of northern Sudanese elites – the same elites to whom the British eventually surrendered power in 1956, making Sudan one of Africa’s first countries to achieve independence.

The IGAD peace process  only really gained momentum once Sudanese oil started flowing in 1999, thereby augmenting the peace dividends on both sides, and once the US threw its weight behind the process after the Bush Administration came to power in 2001. In July 2002, the Sudanese government and the SPLM signed the Machakos Protocol  in which they laid out the vision of democratic transformation in Sudan, while endeavoring to work together “to make unity attractive.”  At the same time, the SPLM secured an “insurance policy,” whereby southerners would be given the right to determine the final status of South Sudan in a referendum at the end of a six-year transitional period. Along with other protocols on security, power-sharing, and wealth-sharing, the provisions agreed upon in Machakos were included in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA)  signed in January 2005.

The CPA officially ended the civil war in southern Sudan and brought the former belligerents together in a Government of National Unity, but the celebrations were short-lived. The implementation of the CPA  was a rocky affair, made difficult by political tensions and delays. The ruling National Congress Party (NCP) – re-branded from the NIF after an internal split ousted Turabi in late 1999 – has followed through on the most important commitments it made towards the SPLM: an autonomous Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) was established in Juba; the SPLM was included in the government in Khartoum; and, despite some disagreements, southern oil revenues were transferred to GoSS.

Broken promisesHowever, the democratic transformation promised by the CPA did not materialize. The NCP was unwilling to give up its tight control of state power or to abandon its repressive policies. This was demonstrated by the government’s brutal response to the insurgency in Darfur  and its handling of the April 2010 elections, which failed to meet international standards.  Disagreements over the implementation of the CPA also fostered mistrust. Not surprisingly, therefore, many southerners have found the notion of a united Sudan to be unattractive and a majority  seem prepared to vote for separation next week.

Disappointment, however, is apparent on both sides. During the CPA negotiations, the North was under the assumption that it was dealing with a unionist partner. Indeed, John Garang was a staunch supporter of a united Sudan, despite popular sentiments favoring independence.  However, when Garang died in a helicopter crash in July 2005, just a few weeks after being sworn in as Sudan’s First Vice President, the camp of unionists within the SPLM was weakened. Slowly but steadily, the voice of the secessionist camp grew louder, even as the official SPLM policy until Anne Itto’s recent December 2010 statement  was to support unity. However, as at the grassroots level, many SPLM officials have made the case for separation. In this context, it is not surprising that Khartoum proffers a sense of betrayal over the SPLM’s broken promise to do its part to make unity attractive among southerners.

Towards a divorceAs the preference of southerners for independence has become more and more evident, Khartoum has experienced some “buyers’ remorse.” However, with support from the international community, the SPLM has ensured that the referendum process was kept on track, despite important delays. The Southern Sudan Referendum Act  was finally adopted by the National Assembly in late 2009, stipulating that a simple majority of votes were required for either unity or separation, in addition to a turnout of at least 60 percent of registered voters. In July 2010, the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission  was appointed to organize the voting process. A further step was the registration of eligible voters, which took place in November and December. International observers  found it to be “generally credible,” despite “logistical, procedural, and security challenges.”

As the referendum draws near, a vote in favor of separation is a foregone conclusion, acknowledged even by the NCP, as is the willingness of the SPLM to follow through on divorce with the North. Three factors will decisively shape for whether or not the separation is smooth and peaceful. One is the process itself. The more irregularities occur during the referendum, the more difficult it will be for the SPLM to convince the international community to grant recognition to an independent state in southern Sudan.

The second factor pertains to Khartoum’s reaction. President Bashir  has repeatedly avowed  that he will accept the result of the referendum, but there are some elements within the regime that may choose to challenge it, for example through Sudan’s constitutional court,  especially if the voting process is flawed. The US government has offered some incentives  for Khartoum’s acquiescence, but it remains unclear whether the moderate voices within the government will prevail. A third decisive factor is whether the North and South will manage to accommodate each other in the ongoing post-referendum negotiations on a host of thorny issues, including: citizenship, border demarcation, the status of the Abyei enclave, and the sharing of oil revenues.

As all eyes will be on Sudan next week, one thing is certain: the referendum is not a panacea to solve the country’s intractable problems, neither in the North, nor the South. Northern Sudan continues to be a highly diverse society that is challenging to manage, and the NCP’s current monopoly on state power will continue to be contested. The South faces its own challenges: foremost the dual effort of building a new state in one of the world’s poorest countries, while fostering cohesion among its many tribes (some with a history of conflict), once the common enemy in the North is no longer present.

After independence, the Sudanese experienced a series of democratically elected as well as military regimes. What these regimes had in common was a tendency to concentrate power in the hands of elites from the Nile Valley, who emphasized the Arab Muslim identity of Sudan and excluded the peripheries, in particular the South, from political power and economic development. It was amid these root causes  that rebellion broke out in the South as early as 1955 and lasted until 1972 when the Addis Ababa Agreement  granted substantial regional autonomy to the South.

This peaceful interlude ended in 1983 when President Nimeiry, under pressure from the ascending National Islamic Front (NIF) of Hassan al-Turabi,  declared Sudan an Islamic state. Consequently, a group of southern soldiers under the leadership of John Garang,  the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A)  took up arms against the government in Khartoum. This was the beginning of Sudan’s second civil war, which originated in the south, but later spread to the Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile State, Darfur, and eastern Sudan.

Towards a peace agreementDuring this decade, there were various peacemaking efforts, but only in 1992 did John Garang, along with his rival Riek Machar, put forward the idea of a referendum on self-determination for southern Sudan. Subsequently, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD),  the regional organization of east African states that had become the mediator in Sudan’s North-South conflict, proposed this option in its 1994 Declaration of Principles (DoP).  Adamantly opposed at first, the Sudanese government, led by Turabi’s NIF following a 1989 coup, eventually accepted the DoP as a basis for negotiations four years later.