No mean or weird faces wanted on Southern Sudan's independence day

In just over two weeks, the world’s newest nation will officially come into being. South Sudan is due to celebrate its independence on Saturday, 9 July and the Sudan Tribune has been issuing edicts on what to do on the day. “Prayers must be conducted by a Christian; no Islamic prayers are allowed,” it said in one commandment. “The Big Day must be kept short, brief and entertained. Long speeches aren’t welcome,” said another. Another read: “the Southern leader must smile this time about; mean or weird faces aren’t needed.” The smiles should be plentiful but a few mean or weird faces may also be expected especially among northerners present, for the new nation’s birth pangs are proving difficult and protracted.

Ever since Sudan itself gained independence from Britain in 1956, Muslim Khartoum has been at war with the Christian/animist south. The Tribune mentions nothing about animist prayers on independence day, but no doubt they will heard, at least in private. It has been a long and bloody conflict in which two million people have died. A so-called Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005 finally allowed for a referendum in January this year in which 98 percent of the Southern Sudanese voted to go their own way. But tensions and troubles continue to dominate in the border regions of the soon-to-be two countries especially the disputed oil-rich Abyei whose status remains unclear after independence.

Khartoum seized Abyei's main town on 21 May, causing tens of thousands of people to flee the area, triggering an international outcry and raising fears the two sides could return to open conflict. For the last week, Ethiopia has hosted a peace conference between the Sudanese government and Southern Sudanese People's Liberation Movement. Finally former South African president Thabo Mbeke announced yesterday he had brokered a ceasefire in Abyei to demilitarise the region and bring in Ethiopian peacekeepers. Mbeke said the northern Sudanese military, the south's Sudan People's Liberation Army and Ethiopian officials would meet to settle on a mandate for Ethiopian peacekeeping forces that will be deployed in the region.

While it is culturally analogous to the rest of the south, it has geological features that make it attractive to Khartoum. It sits on top of the Muglad Basin, some 120,000 km2 of land which home to the Muglad Basin Oilfield. Khartoum has built a 1540km long pipeline – with Chinese and Indian help - to carry 150,000 barrels of crude every day from the Basin to Port Sudan on the Red Sea. The bulk of Sudan’s oil (proven reserves estimated at five billion barrels in 2007) is in the south at Abyei and Heiglig. The 2005 deal allowed for 75 percent of oil revenue sharing from the southern fields (but with no reciprocal agreement from northern fields). Khartoum has also fudged the figures to avoid sharing revenue and much wealth has been skimmed off by the capital’s kleptocracy. The north also has all of the oil infrastructure with fulcrums at Khartoum and Port Sudan.

The 2005 CPA agreement makes it far from clear what will happen to Abyei. The region is administered by a committee of northern and southern Sudanese, with security provided by so-called Joint Integrated Units, groups of soldiers from both sides. But it is racked by disagreements and violence. The Bashir regime has used the instability of Abyei as a tool in their ongoing struggle to delay full independence. He ordered the army to invade the town after fighting in the ethnically mixed region gave him a pretext. He sent artillery, dozens of tanks and thousands of soldiers in and shelled a UN compound. They claimed the invasion was a response to attacks by southern forces which killed northern soldiers.

The new agreement puts a bandage on Abyei but does little to stop the wounds from re-opening elsewhere along a porous 3,500km border. Darfur is a well known trouble spot as is Southern Kordofan. There the Sudanese Army have been on the rampage in the Nuba Mountains. Tens of thousands of rebel fighters have refused the government’s order to disarm and instead have disappeared into the mountains. The army has sealed off the area threatening to shoot UN helicopters if they intervene.

So far, the fighting in Kordofan and Abyei has done nothing to change the plans for 9 July. But the new nation could start its life with a humanitarian catastrophe with half a million people on the move. Lise Grande, the top UN humanitarian official in the south said last week they needed $200 million to deal with a looming refugee crisis. “It really is a race against time at this stage because with the rainy season at its height, in probably less than two weeks large parts of the south will be inaccessible so we need to do it right now,” Grande said. “We can't wait.”

Southern Sudan set for independent path

Southern Sudanese leaders have called for locals to warmly welcome Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir as he visits the region five days before a referendum is held to secede. Bashir is visiting former enemy and now Southern Sudanese leader Salva Kiir in the run-up to the vote. Barnaba Marial Benjamin Bill, Southern Sudanese minister of information and broadcasting service is calling for a “massive reception” for Bashir when he visits Juba on Tuesday. Marial and others are welcoming Bashir because they said he has been courageous in announcing he would be one of the first leaders to accept the new nation if the result is secession. (photo:Reuters)

Bashir made the call on 28 December at a party rally in Gezira state, southeast of Khartoum. Bashir said he would be "the first to recognise the south" if it chooses secession in a free and fair vote on 9 January. "The ball is in your court and the decision is yours. If you say unity, welcome. And if you say secession, also welcome, and welcome to a new brotherly state,” Bashir said. "We are going to cooperate and integrate in all areas because what is between us is more than what is between any other countries."

The January 9 referendum is a major plank of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement reached in 2005 which brought an end to 22 years of civil war which left two million people dead. The Islamist north has much to lose if the animist and Christian south decides to split. Southern Sudan produces over 80 per cent of all Sudanese oil, which contributes to a little over 70 per cent of all Sudanese exports. Under the terms of the 2005 CPA, the two sides will equally share oil resources from Southern Sudan in the short term.

In the aftermath of the CPA, the Northern Sudanese leaders played down the prospect of splitting and advocated a “no” vote in the referendum. However as the vote nears, and the likelihood of a landslide vote of “yes” approaches, the Bashir administration has started to take a more realpolitik view of events. As the BBC reports senior northern officials have started to say publicly what many have believed for years - the south is almost certain to split away.

For the vote to be declared valid, at least 60 percent of the population must take part. International observers will be watching out for "potential spoilers". John Prendergast, co-founder of the Enough Project said they wanted to avoid the referendum potentially triggering a renewed civil war. "We have to keep our eye on those potential spoilers that will attempt to undermine the process and the aftermath of the process in order to keep Sudan united and the oil flowing from southern Sudan to northern Sudan,” he told CNN.

The Southern Sudan Referendum Commission said it is ready to process the vote of more than four million people. The SSRC deputy chair Chan Reec Madut told Al Jazeera the vote would be a week-long process ending on January 15 but did not rule out extending the number of days if mobility in remote areas is a problem. He said it could take three weeks after that to get a result. Vote counting will be done on a daily basis and results will be displayed at individual centres. Permanent residents of south Sudan since 1956 when Sudan gained independence are eligible to vote as are those elsewhere who can trace their ancestry to an established south Sudan tribe.

Not everyone is favour of secession with the Misseriya tribe dead set against it. The Misseriya are one of two dominant tribes in the province of Abyei while the other, the Dinka, want to go with Southern Sudan. Bishtina Mohammed El Salam of the Misseriya is threatening war if the Dinka get their way. The status of Abyei is one of the most contentious elements of the CPA. An international court in The Hague redrew the border to give important oil fields to the north but some Misseriya on the wrong side of the fence are still not happy. But the south holds a symbolic attachment to the region, as many of its leading figures come from there, including Salva Kiir.

One Southern Sudanese intellectual is warning of the danger the new nation could become another Somalia, riven apart by ethnic strife. Zechariah Manyok Biar, writing in Allafrica.com said Southern Sudan could descend into chaos if it abandoned the principles of democracy “that brought us this far”. Biar warned against returning to the old way of doing things in Sudan. “This old way of doing things is coup d'état,” he said. “When leaders take power by coup, they disregard the views of citizens because citizens do not have a say in who should be their leader when leaders take power by force.”

With the Abyei region, border demarcation and other post referendum arrangements still up for grabs, it is just as well relations between Kiir and Bashir are cordial - the difficult task of nationhood will need all the help it can get. As the Algerian revolutionary leader Larbi Ben-M’Hidi warns in the classic post-colonial film The Battle of Algiers said. “It’s hard enough to start a revolution, even harder to sustain it, and hardest of all to win it. But it’s only afterwards, once we’ve won, that the real difficulties begin.”

West and Third World disagree on legitimacy of Sudan elections

International observers have disagreed on whether Sudan’s first multi-party elections in 24 years were free and fair. While western observers and media say the election falls “far short” of international standards, African and Middle Eastern observers say it was successful despite defects. The vote was held over five days last week and results have not yet been formally announced but President Omar al-Bashir and his National Congress Party are expected to win comfortably. (photo: AFP)

Al-Bashir who took power in an Islamist-backed coup in 1989 is hoping to legitimise his rule ahead of war crimes charges from the international criminal court. The country’s national election commission said the election results due tomorrow would be delayed further. An election official told AFP they could not set a definite date because the count was a “complicated process”.

Counting of the votes began on Friday amid logistical snags and charges of fraud. The Sudanese National Elections Commission has said 60 percent out of 16 million voters cast ballots. The election was marred by an opposition boycott and the withdrawal of two presidential candidates, the Umma party's Sadiq al-Mahdi and the former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement's Yasser Arman. The NCP dominates the north of the country and currently rules alongside the SPLM as part of a peace deal that ended civil war in 2005, but there are significant tensions between the two parties.

The head of a 130-member EU observer mission in Sudan criticised the poll, saying there had been "significant deficiencies". Veronique de Keyser said the organisation of elections represented a complex challenge. “Unfortunately…deficiencies in voters’ lists and weak organisation hindered the voters’ participation,” she said. “I am also concerned that polling was affected by intimidation and threats. De Keyser said that although the elections paved the way for democratic progress, it is essential shortcomings are addressed to achieve a genuine democratic environment for future elections.

The EU’s position was endorsed by monitors from the US Carter Centre, run by former US president Jimmy Carter. A statement from the centre said it was apparent that the elections will fall short of meeting international standards and Sudan's obligations for genuine elections. "Unfortunately, many political rights and freedoms were circumscribed for most of this period, fostering distrust among the political parties,” the statement read. "Ultimately the success of the elections will depend on whether Sudan's leaders take action to promote lasting democratic transformation."

However Arab League observers said the election was a “big step forward” and will become “an example for other African and Arab countries”. The African Union also disagreed with the EU and Carter Centre assessments. The head of the AU observer’s mission, Kunle Adeyemi said it was not a perfect election but a historic one. “Looking into the fact this is a country that had not had a multi-party election for almost a generation…to say they are free and fair, to the best of our knowledge we have no reason to think the contrary,” Adeyemi said.

UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon was also upbeat about the success of the election. He welcomed efforts by the ruling parties in Sudan to enter dialogue with opposition candidates and parties. The UN said polls closed across Sudan today without any major violent incidents, although there were some reported cases of irregularities and opposition boycotts. In a statement, Ban said he “encourages all political actors in Sudan to tackle issues in a spirit of dialogue, towards a peaceful electoral outcome and ongoing implementation of the CPA [the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the north-south civil war]”.

That war is heading towards its inevitable conclusion next year. This is likely to be the last time Southern Sudan voters vote for their autonomous leaders within the Sudanese election. In January 2011 Southern Sudan votes on a referendum on full independence which most observers expect will be carried. However Juba, which is set to become the world's newest capital city, has no landline telephones, no public transport, no power grid, no industry, no agriculture and few buildings. Growing fears over a post-Sudan split is leading Southern Sudan to build new trade routes. One ambitious plan calls for a high speed railway line from Juba to Tororo in Uganda which would cost $7 billion. This railway line could facilitate the movement of goods and people to and from Juba to any part of the wider East African region including Mombasa, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia and Djibouti.

Southern Sudan looks towards its own independent future

Southern Sudanese leader Salva Kiir has used the third anniversary of the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement to call on his people to support the national census next April. In a meeting with traditional chiefs in the Great Bahr el-Ghazal area of the south, Kiir said the census was linked to development and provision of services to all citizens. Kiir, who is both the President of the Government of Southern Sudan and first Vice-President of Sudan, said “enemies of peace” want to destabilise the CPA and stressed the need for disarmament in the south. Kiir also said the border between the two parts of Sudan would be demarcated by February and Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir asked him to withdraw SPLA forces south of the border.

In a major speech, Kiir renewed his call to all sectors of the Sudanese people to demonstrate tolerance, renounce violence and uphold the principle of justice. He urged his people to allow Arab nomads move south to pursue water and pasture and invited the Arab League, the AU and the international community to monitor implementation of the peace agreement and address its challenges. He reiterated the option for unity or separation is reserved for the people of the South by referendum. If separation takes place, he said, they will remain “two harmonious states”.

His speech came as the final peace talks were brokered in Kenya on 9 January to follow up on implementation aspects of the CPA. Southern Sudan is now planning a celebration to honour the anniversary as soon as Sudanese government forces and its own forces withdraw behind the agreed lines. According to local journalist Joseph Machok Makak in Khartoum, the only way to ensure peace in Sudan is by “fully implementing the CPA that forms the legal base for the resolution of Sudan's civil war, which claimed about two million innocent lives".

The Sudan CPA signed on 9 January 2005 contained a number of key resolutions. Firstly it insisted on separate armed forces for north and south with both sides withdrawing from each other's territory. Secondly the South would be autonomous for six years with a referendum in 2011 on total secession. Oil wealth would be split fifty-fifty. Two separate currencies are to be used within a dual banking system. Central government positions were to be split 70:30 in favour of Sudan and 55:45 in their favour in the contentious areas. Sharia law continues in the north but not in the south. Finally each area was to use its own emblems with the South to design a new flag.

The conflict between the sides is older than Sudan itself. Prior to independence in 1956, British rulers treated the north and south differently. They modernised northern Sudan by expanding rail and telegraph services but made little attempt to help the south. Believing the area was not ready for modernisation, they sealed off the area from outsiders and issued laws to discourage northerners from working or travelling there. They also kept the black Dinka tribesmen of the south from adopting Islam or speaking Arabic or dressing like northern Sudanese. Instead they encouraged Christianity and missionaries to establish churches and schools.

In the year before independence, a southern military unit mutinied at Torit and began to wage a guerrilla war campaign. It continued sporadically for 17 years. In 1971 new Sudanese leader Jaafar al-Nimeri met southern chief Joseph Lagu in a conference in Addis Ababa mediated by Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie. The accords signed in 1972 gave the south some autonomy and ten years of peace followed. Nimeri ended the agreement by unilaterally imposing Sharia law on the south in 1983 in a vain attempt to head off fundamentalist opposition. Civil war broke out again coordinated by the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement under the charismatic leadership of American educated John Garang.

Nimeri was deposed in a coup in 1989 which brought current leader Omar Hassan al-Bashir to power. Bashir declared martial law and all-out war against the south. But he was eventually forced to compromise and abolished Sharia for the south in 1991 (the SPLM wanted Sharia removed for all Sudan). In 1998 both sides agreed in principle for a referendum for the south but were unable to finalise the details until Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and Development leaders forced the CPA in 2005. Garang was killed in a plane crash barely weeks after finalising the peace agreement. His death brought Salva Kiir to the leadership of the SPLM and defacto leader of Southern Sudan.

Southern Sudan now has its own constitution and seems well on the way to negotiating its own future. Yet seasoned Sudan watchers wait pessimistically for President Bashir to weasel his way out of this latest agreement as he has done with so many in the past, both in Southern Sudan and Darfur. Kiir knows he has to tread delicately, hence the cautious speeches this week. Khartoum remains highly reluctant to give up its power in the margins of its British inheritance, particularly one with so much oil. The conflict has claimed the lives of two million people who have died directly of war, or of disease and famine. Another half a million have fled the country. The stakes are high for those who hope.

Sudan Man: deconstructing a George Forbes feature story

This report is a deconstruction of a feature article “Our Man in Sudan” by Cameron Stewart from the Weekend Australian Magazine on 15-16 September, 2007. The article is about Australian citizen George Forbes who achieved media headlines when he faced the death penalty after being charged with murder in Southern Sudan. After three months, the news story ended when a higher court eventually overruled a lower court sentence and Forbes returned to freedom in Australia.

Cameron Stewart’s 3,600 word article tells Forbes’s story in feature format. It was
presented as the second of five feature articles in the magazine that weekend and was billed on the front of the magazine as “How I survived a living hell in an African jail”. The article is an example of a news feature that is simultaneously a backgrounder and a historical feature. It is an in-depth of a story that made recent news and takes advantage of the fact there is already public interest in the subject matter.

Stewart’s story is a meticulous timeline of events especially while the case in front of the Sudanese courts. Stewart had to piece together events that were taking place simultaneously in several theatres of action. Stewart’s sources of information included his newspaper’s clippings file of the initial news story and the knowledge he gained from detailed interviews with Forbes. Stewart also gathers information and quotes from six other key actors: a politician, a diplomat, a lawyer, a barrister, a pastor and a medical scientist.

The one key question Stewart asks in his article is “Why hadn’t (Forbes) run
when he had the chance?” It is the only question asked by the journalist that ends up in the article. Stewart asks this question so he can set up a detailed account of Forbes selfless actions to protect the men working for him and the consequences of this action. It is an open question designed to get more than a few words for a satisfactory answer. Forbes himself drives the narrative forward with his complex answer to the question.

Because Stewart opened his account with a narrative of a dramatic incident in the story, when the outcome is uncertain, the feature is obliged to convey the story’s theme early. But he moves forward to the present tense of the interview before giving a potted thumbnail of the story in paragraphs 6 to 8. Only then does Stewart settle in to a chronological account of the story before returning to the interview setting at the end.

Stewart goes for a “gotcha” lead to grab the reader’s attention. It is a suspense lead, playing with readers expectations and withholding information. Why is there a dead man next to Forbes and why would Forbes be next? The reader wants to know more. The last paragraph of the article is a ‘looking ahead’ closer where the reader is invited to project ahead to coming circumstances.

The article takes its style and tone from the stark accompanying picture of Forbes next to a noose in a cell-like room. It also owes a lot to the ‘cloak and dagger’ nature of the article’s misleading title “Our Man in Sudan” (with its connotations of Graham Greene and espionage). Forbes is not a spy or a government employee. Nevertheless it establishes a sombre tone that is suitable for the seriousness of the story.

The use of quotes from Forbes is designed to flesh out his personality. We hear of Forbes administering an antibiotic to a dying man, showing a sense of humour as he discusses “Monty Python moments” and his “few bad apples” quote shows his native optimism. Len Granato calls these anecdotes “the heart and soul of the feature story and demonstrate attitude and outlook".

Southern Sudan, Dia, and George Forbes

On Mayday, six men were charged of murder in Southern Sudan. They were three Sudanese: Joseph Dut, Isaac Chol, and Matur Maher and three Kenyans: Bernard Alumasa Mheri, James Munyao Mbithi and George Forbes. The last man, Forbes, also has Australian nationality. The men work for a Kenyan construction company in the southern Sudan town of Rumbek. They were charged over the killing of Ukrainian Mykola Serebrenikov, who worked as a flight engineer for another firm.

The Ukrainian man was found hanged from a towel rack at the Kenyan construction company's property. Several locals had chased him to the site and he was allowed in. Two independent post-mortem reports (one done in Kenya) concluded that Serebrenikov’s death was suicide. But the judge believed otherwise and said it was murder. His judgement was based on the testimony of Awan Gol, the deputy state governor, who said he had seen the body of the Ukrainian and he was suspicious about the towel rack from which he was found hanging. "It was not a high place where he could hang himself, his knees were on the ground, and his hands on the ground," he said.

The judge remanded the six men to appear in court on 7 May in Rumbek. The city of Rumbek does not belong to Sudan itself but rather Southern Sudan, officially a “semi-autonomous southern region” but unofficially the second city of a new country. Then Kenya launched a protest about the detention of its citizens despite an autopsy report done in Nairobi showing it was suicide. The Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) spokesman Major General Kuol Deim Kuol dismissed the Kenya autopsy and refuted their claims that SPLA soldiers are harassing Kenyan nationals working and doing business in Southern Sudan. He claimed that three Kenyans killed 15km inside Southern Sudan were in fact “Kenyans bandits”.

Meanwhile the Australian media jumped on the case of the third suspect George Forbes. Forbes was born in Kenya but migrated to Australia 20 years ago. He lived in Sydney and Brisbane before travelling to Sudan. On 26 April, the Sydney Morning Herald quoted a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman who gave the facts of the case. “An Australian man has faced a Sudan court charged with murder and failing to prevent suicide.” Australia had no-one inside Southern Sudan and was relying on British contacts inside the country to see if they could make contact with Forbes.


The Fairfax press described Forbes as 45 and an employee of Trax International Construction. It mentioned five other arrests. Serebrenikov, the Ukrainian engineer, was found hanged in a bathroom at Trax's compound. If found guilty of murder, the six men could all be sentenced to death.

When the case came to trial on 7 May, the judge heard the evidence and said he would give his verdict on 18 May. There are three possible outcomes. They are: death by hanging, life imprisonment, or the payment of dia to the victim's family. Dia is bloody money that is institutionalised in the Sudanese law that Southern Sudan has inherited. One of Forbes’ relatives in Rumbek for the trial was directed by the judge to conduct talks with Serebrenikov's family about financial compensation. Under Sudanese customary law, dia is paid in the form of cattle, at the rate of 31 cows for one human life. The judge said they should find out what Serebrenikov’s family want. But that might not be easy to do. Rumbek is a long way from Kiev. The judge challenged the men to produce a member of the Ukrainian's man’s family in court which they were unable to do.

Meanwhile, the Australian ambassador to Egypt, Robert Bowker came to Rumbek to attend the trial. A former Associate Professor in the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, the Middle East and Central Asia at the Australian National University, Bowker is probably aware that the trial may not be foremost in Rumbek’s priorities.

The town was initially chosen to be the new country’s capital but was overtaken by Juba. With a population of less than 100,000, Rumbek's facilities remain poor. The city was destroyed by two decades of civil war with Khartoum’s central Government that left 1.5 million dead. Here, people live in traditional thatched huts and hardly anyone has electricity or running water. But there is a sense of optimism as the city tries to pick up the pieces of peacetime.

The trial of the six men rumbles on.