Tag: Sudan
The Sudan negotiators need to hurry
Things are heating up in Abyei, an oil-endowed region that lies along the boundary between North and South Sudan. According to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005, Abyei should decide in a referendum whether to join the North or the South, where a January 9 referendum will decide whether the South will declare independence next July.
But North and South have failed to agree on who should be permitted to vote in the Abyei referendum, with the North backing Arabic-speaking nomads who enter Abyei, which is largely settled by Ngok Dinka farmers loyal to the South, for a substantial portion of the year.
There is talk of a negotiated settlement of Abyei’s fate, to be reached in talks led by former South African President Thabo Mbeki. The negotiators had better hurry.
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A helpful reminder of the Ottoman Empire
Why is this helpful? Because it illustrates how many of today’s enduring conflicts–not only those termed “Middle Eastern”–are rooted in the Ottoman Empire and its immediate neighborhood: Bosnia, Kosovo, Greece/Turkey, Armenia/Azerbaijan, Israel/Arabs (Palestine, Syria, Lebanon), Iraq, Iraq/Iran, Shia (Iran)/Sunni (Saudi Arabia, Egypt), North/South Sudan, Yemen.
Ottoman success in managing the many ethnic and sectarian groups inhabiting the Empire, without imposing conformity to a single identity (and without providing equal rights) has left the 21st century with problems it finds hard to understand, never mind resolve.
In much of the former Ottoman Empire, many people refuse to be labeled a “minority” just because their numbers are fewer than other groups, states are regarded as formed by ethnic groups rather than by individuals, individual rights are often less important than group rights and being “outvoted” is undemocratic.
A Croat leader in Bosnia told me 15 years ago that one thing that would never work there was “one man, one vote.” It just wasn’t their way of doing things. For a decision to be valid, a majority of each ethnic group was needed , not a majority of the population as a whole.
In a society of this sort, a boycott by one ethnic group is regarded as invalidating a decision made by the majority: the Serbs thought their boycott of the Bosnia independence referendum should have invalidated it, but the European Union had imposed a 50 per cent plus one standard. There lie the origins of war.
The question of whether Israel is a Jewish state is rooted in the same thinking that defined Yugoslavia as the kingdom of the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, and it bears a family resemblance to the thinking behind “Greater Serbia” and “Greater Albania.” If it is the ethnic group that forms the state, why should there be more than one state in which that ethnic group lives?
Ours is a state (yes, that is the proper term for what we insist on calling the Federal Government) built on a concept of individual rights, equal for all. The concept challenges American imaginations from time to time: certainly it did when Truman overcame strong resistance to integrate the US Army, and it is reaching the limits of John McCain’s imagination in the debate over “don’t ask, don’t tell.” But the march of American history is clearly in the direction of equal individual rights.
That is a direction many former Ottoman territories find it difficult to take, because some groups have more substantial rights than others; even when the groups’ rights are equal, they can veto each other. A lot of the state-building challenge in those areas arises from this fundamental difference.
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Sudan is the next big thing
and this conference at NDU December 16 will be a good opportunity to get up to date.
For those who need a reminder, the Southern Sudan independence referendum is scheduled for January 9, followed by a 6 month transition period. It is going to be an enormous challenge to prevent this from becoming a mess.
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A negotiated solution for Abyei?
Voter registration for the South Sudan referendum on independence January 9 starts Monday and extends until December 1. Preparations are reported to be adequate.
The problem is Abyei: there is no agreement yet on who can register there for the separate referendum on whether it goes north or south. That could spell trouble. The U.S. is telling the Security Council it wants a negotiated solution in Abyei, rather than a referendum. This is the classic “who does it belong to” problem. Remember Eastern Slavonia, Brcko, and Kirkuk?
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Tell me the Senator isn’t running for SecState
Laura Rozen reviews Senator Kerry’s visits to Khartoum, Beirut and Damascus. Clearly well-coordinated with State, but also clearly calculated to keep the Senator in the running. No harm in that–Hillary Clinton can’t stay on forever.
Laura Rozen: on foreign policy – POLITICO.com.
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Sudan is losing its race against time
Sudan’s two referenda–in the South and in Abyei–on January 9 are in the Rift Valley Institute’s words “the most critical events in the contemporary history of Sudan.”
Get ready for a rough ride as Southern Sudan looks to independence without having settled the many issues that threaten to disrupt the process laid out five years ago in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. No better primer than this one:
Race Against Time – Aly Verjee – 30 Oct 2010.pdf (application/pdf Object).
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