Mar 04, 2008

War Imminent in South Sudan

by Laura Starita

For the past two weeks, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has been calling attention to the downwardly spiraling situation in South Sudan. The international community has had its attention deflected from South Sudan since Darfur erupted in late 2003, allowing Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir to piece by piece renege on the commitments he made under a North-South peace agreement, which was brokered with the help of the Bush administration. The agreement gave South Sudan a share in the oil profits accruing from its wells, and created the potential for the region to become independent in a referendum scheduled for 2011. Yet North Sudanese soldiers have yet to pull out from South Sudan, and the Khartoum government has begun to arm Janjaweed-like Arab militias to terrorize villagers and keep the oil fields pumping. War, Mr. Kristof avers, is imminent.

More than a year ago Mr. Kristof gave a talk at Hunter College in New York City where he explained how the Darfur conflict, though horrific by itself, created broader instability in a region that was already vulnerable. He pointed to potential renewed conflict in Chad—which the events from last month realized—spill-over conflict in the Central AfricanRepublic and renewal of hostilities with South Sudan. Far from prescient, Mr. Kristof is simply informed. Though few have traveled to witness the carnage first hand as he has, it would be impossible to claim that Darfur and South Sudan are obscure events. Advocacy activity has been strong regarding Darfur, and journalists like Mr. Kristof and Samantha Power, as well as the UN, have kept the conflict—and its potential for spill-over consequences—at the top of the awareness register.

In an ironic twist, the Bush administration is being praised this week for the force of its diplomacy efforts in Kenya, which has spent the past two months engulfed in violence over an election-results dispute. The sitting president and the opposition leader—now prime minister—have come to a power-sharing agreement, many claim because of efforts by the UN and the US. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has been praised for “speaking sternly” to Kenya’s sitting president. It will probably take more than stern words to create positive movement in Sudan, and to its credit, the US administration has been more willing than most to decisively condemn al-Bashir’s actions. But Khartoum has seemed indifferent, probably because it has China on its side, buying its oil, funding the building of its pipelines, selling it weapons and blocking UN resolutions in favor of international sanctions. Politics in these matters certainly aren’t simple. But if the world is to avoid seeing huge swaths of East Africa enveloped in carnage—with the resulting humanitarian crises—some effective action is needed on the part of the African Union, the United Nations, as well as individual governments, and Nicholas Kristof should be praised for saying so.