By Justin Ambago Ramba
April 18, 2010 (SSNA) — It is now clear that when war was ravaging in south Sudan over a period well beyond two decades, some African leaders like the types of Idriss Deby, weren’t even keen enough to see where the whole thing was eventually driving the politics in this region of the continent. Even the 2 million plus lives lost in that war seem to move none of their nerves. Countries like Chad were either busy installing their own totalitarian regimes or as likely could be, were in fact supporters of the Islamic government of Khartoum that declared the Islamic Holy War of “Jihad” supposedly against the non – Muslims infidels of South Sudan.
Like Dr. Khalil Ibrahim of the Darfuri, Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), President Déby’s cousin, it was a religious duty to fight against the southern Sudanese rebels. He took his AK 47 and joined the Mujahedeen to raise the banner of Islamic conquest in the jungles of Africa. The dream never materialized and Khalil himself is now a rebel leader against the same unjust regime that he once fought to promote.
Given the many ideological and ethnical commonality between the two Zaghawa Islamists, it came as no surprise at all that on April 16th, 2010 the Chadian president went on the Media to add his voice to the handful sceptics and warned against the outcome of South Sudan’s forth coming self determination referendum where it is more likely to vote for secession and become Africa’s newest state. Deby openly declared that south Sudan’s independence would spell trouble and he calls it "a disaster for Africa."
"We all have a north and south, part Muslim and part Christian. If we accept the disintegration of the Sudan, how do confront attempts to break the other countries?" Chad’s President Idriss Deby said.
"I say it loud, I’m against this referendum (separation) and against the possibility of division" he added. "Do you really think that the Khartoum government would agree easily on the loss of the south with its oil and minerals?"He added.
Chad is a country that borders the war torn province of Darfur. Officially it is known as the Republic of Chad, and is a landlocked country in north central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west. Due to its distance from the sea and its largely desert climate, the country is sometimes referred to as the "Dead Heart of Africa".
Like Sudan Chad is abound with ethnic and religious groups, which fought with each other bloody conflicts.
In 1960 Chad obtained independence from France under the leadership of François Tombalbaye, a southern Christian. Resentment towards his policies in the Muslim north culminated in the eruption of a long-lasting civil war in 1965. In 1979 the rebels conquered the capital and put an end to the south’s hegemony.
However, the rebel commanders fought amongst themselves until Hissène Habré defeated his rivals. He was overthrown in 1990 by his general Idriss Déby who received huge backing from the National Islamic Front (NIF) a.ka National Congress Party (NCP) government in Khartoum. Recently, the Darfur crisis in Sudan has split over the border and destabilised the nation, with hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees living in and around camps in eastern Chad.
In 2006 Déby unilaterally modified the constitution to remove the two-term limit on the presidency. This removal allows a president to remain in power beyond the previous two-term limit. Most of Déby’s key advisers are members of the Zaghawa ethnic group, although southern and opposition personalities are represented in government.
Corruption is rife at all levels in Chad; Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index for 2005 named it the most corrupt country in the world, and has fared only slightly better in the following years. In 2007, it scored 1.8 out of 10 on the Corruption Perceptions Index (with 10 being the least corrupt). Only Tonga, Uzbekistan, Haiti, Iraq, Myanmar, and Somalia scored lower. Critics of President Déby have accused him of cronyism and tribalism.
The aforementioned lines were meant to give the readers some insight into the country that is patiently rotting under the current totalitarian regime of General Deby. If it is anything to go by, Chad in its own right is atypical example of an active political volcano. But instead of working out home-made solutions, unfortunately our Zaghawa life president is worrying himself with issues next door. This is typical of post Oil boom intoxication. You only need to look up north at Muamar Ghadafi of Libya to fully appreciate this political syndrome.
Let no one make mistake in generalising the political problems of the African continent though on the surface they all seem to have their roots in the artificial national boundaries. These frontiers were drawn by the European colonialists with the primary aim of weakening existing African governing structures in order to make the people easily colonisable.
However while the whole of the African national boundaries were drawn for them, the African people themselves have on the general defied frontiers in favour of communicating with their kinsmen across them. This is true of all the existing frontiers where similar communities and ethnic nationalities exist on either side.
Although the entire continent of Africa is yearning for a continental unity as was enshrined in the organisation of the African unity (OAU) charters and then carried forwards into the African Union (AU), yet the anomalous existence of what are in fact a distortion of the image of Africa, in the form of Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Chad, Nigeria, Somalia, Ethiopia …….etc (all piled together and forced into a life- long disharmony) has had its toll by creating artificial citizenry. Our people are so much consumed within our national disharmony, that we are left with no energy to unify Africa.
It is the types of Idriss Derby who go on changing their countries’ beautiful constitutions so that they can remain in power for life thus oppression the people and denying them any chance of peaceful transfer of power. And now when he is done, the Chadian general who has his eyes on Darfur, is questioning, how could the northern Sudanese possible allow the south to secede with all that huge oil?
By Zechariah Manyok Biar
April 14, 2010 (SSNA) — The elections taking place in Sudan today and the upcoming referendum are exposing the real interest of some members in the international community in Sudan. Some people in the international community are trying to brand South Sudan as a failed state to scare South Sudanese away from voting for secession in 2011. There are disturbing articles that are published these days by great newspapers like New York Times that appear to play nothing more than planting fear in the people of South Sudan.
Alex Perry, in his article published by the New York Times on April 12, 2010, quoted David Gressly, the U.N.’s regional coordinator for southern Sudan; former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, whose Carter Center promotes health and democracy in Sudan; and Major General Scott Gration, U.S. special envoy to Sudan as doubting the standing-alone of South Sudan if its people chose to secede from the North in 2011. Mr. Perry says in his article that many aid workers and development experts in Juba have now coined the term “pre-failed state” to refer to a potential state of South Sudan. Can South Sudanese agree with these views?
One cannot rule out the difficulties that South Sudanese will face when they voted for independence in 2011. There might be violence or even economic collapse. However, nobody in South Sudan will regret his or her choice for secession as some people in the international community would like South Sudanese to believe.
What standard of functional state in Sudan is the international community using to call South Sudan a potential failed state? Had there been a functional government in South Sudan under both the British and the Arab rules in Sudan? If functional economy and stability are among the criteria used to judge a functioning state or a failed state, then when did South Sudan have the functioning economy and the stability since the independence of Sudan in 1956?
I lost six siblings from late 1950s to early 1970s in their young ages to malaria that would have been treated if there were clinics in the area. I am the first to graduate with the college degree in my family since the creation of the world. I am now thirty-five years old and I have never voted in any election. Some people who are voting at the age of 90 today in South Sudan are voting for the first and the last time in their lives, but the voting process is still not free and fair. Many people in South Sudan tasted sugar for the first time in the history of their families in the 1980s from the rations provided by the United Nations.
Do we have any criterion of a functional state in the above examples to compare the potential South Sudan nation with? If staying under Khartoum rule is what makes South Sudan functional, then why did we face all the above conditions and more under the Khartoum rule from 1956 to the time we rebelled against the government in 1983? What evidence shows that Southerners cannot rule themselves?
The fact that the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/A (SPLM/A) managed to control Southerners during the war would have been a good indicator on how South Sudanese can rule themselves. SPLM/A was undoubtedly one of the most organized rebel groups over the last two decades. SPLM/A even had better human rights records, compared to the government in Khartoum. SPLM/A was able to educate its soldiers during the liberation war not to kill the prisoners of war (POWs). After the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005, SPLM/A set free thousands of the POWs of Sudanese army. Those freed POWs are still alive today. How many POWs from SPLA did the government in Khartoum release? None.
So, who between SPLM and the National Congress Party (NCP) can lead a functional state? If SPLM/A could control the people under its command during the war without paying them any salary, then why would one think that South Sudan under SPLM or any other Southern party would be a failed state after 2011 when it will be paying at least some kind of salary to its workers?
The international community does not seem to care about the freedom of choice of South Sudanese. Some groups in the media are hunting these days for people who are willing to say whatever the media would like them to say in order to give the impression that Southerners love to live in the united Sudan, even when opinion polls of Southerners indicate otherwise both internationally and locally.
The Voice of America (VOA), the Radio that I admire, published on April 12, 2010 an article that has so many errors that the well-known Radio like the VOA would have first crosschecked before publishing the article.
