With Sudan in the spotlight as the south's referendum vote looms, it's no surprise that rhetoric on the situation varies widely between actors on the ground and policymakers calling the shots on the international level. But how do the forecasts of war from external actors impact the struggle within the country to preserve the fragile peace?
How one small border town is a bellwether for the way relations between north and south are headed as the South Sudan independence referendum approaches.
JUBA, Sudan—The sun was setting at the standard Equatorial time of just after 7pm, and I was bumping along a potholed road with my trusted motorcycle taxi. Another day in Juba beginning to draw to a close. Then, my driver Issa said to me over his shoulder, “Do you have any good news from today?” This is not the first time in the 11 months that I have known Issa that he has said something to me that has struck me as powerful, insightful, or simply startling in its honesty.
MUNDRI, Sudan—Earlier this week, I flew to Mundri, in the fertile green state of Western Equatoria, to attend the United Nations Mission in Sudan’s unveiling of its first “county referendum base.” Per the request of the National Congress Party and the south’s ruling SPLM, the U.N. is upping its support and assistance to the referendum process. Part of this bigger effort is establishing a presence in each of the south’s 79 counties, a step that clearly shows the U.N.
JUBA, Sudan--“You are the same people,” the southern Sudanese vice president Riek Machar remarked to a conference room full of elites and traditional leaders from the Lou and Jikany clans of the Nuer tribe. “What is the problem?” he asked, seeming to be genuinely perplexed as to the causes of continued conflict between these two groups.
JUBA, Sudan—Sudan’s national elections in April highlighted the fact that elections are a process, not a one-day event that happens only on polling day (or during polling period, since Sudan had five days of polling). This is significant because a process can be manipulated more easily and more subtly than a one-day or five-day event. Some thoughts on this note...
LUONYAKER, Sudan—This month, I’ve had the chance to travel to several different corners of Southern Sudan.
NZARA, Sudan—As if southern Sudan doesn’t already have its proverbial hands full in terms of the wide array of security threats facing the Afghanistan-sized territory, enter the Lord’s Resistance Army. In fact, the brutal militia is not new to Sudan; during Sudan’s long civil war, the LRA found safe haven in Khartoum-controlled areas of the South, including in what is now the southern capital, Juba.
“The president of Sudan, he doesn’t need the people. He only needs what he can take,” said Chief Nyol Jeffur Alor, one of the leaders of the Ngok Dinka people of Abyei—the contested zone straddling Sudan’s North-South border that has often become a battleground where the political interests of NCP and SPLM and their respective armies have played out with brutal consequences for the people on the ground.“He’s taken enough, we should get the rest.”
