Adonis Diaries

Sudan’s economy relies 98% on its oil production.  China receives 65% of the oil production and Japan 16% and India 4%.  While the US was prosecuting its preemptive war in Iraq for 9 years, China and India were heavily investing in oil rich African States and exploiting vast regions by major rivers for industrial agribusiness and rice fields.  China was bartering oil for building infrastructures to exporting oil and the natural resources it is exploiting (as in colonial times).  Most of the regions for oil exploration and extraction are located on the bordering line of the prospected partition.

Sudan is bordered by 9 States; all border lines are makeshift borders that colonial powers of England, France ,and Italy drew on “virgin maps”.  The southern part produces 65% of the oil and the agreement is to dividing 50% of all oil production between the two States in 2005, even before the coming referendum. Currently, north Sudan is holding the purse, the locations of the two refineries, and the oil pipeline that serves the major port of export in Port Sudan.

The people in south Sudan are expected to vote on the referendum for either an autonomous or an independent south Sudan in 2011.  A peace agreement signed in 2005 between the State of Sudan and the southern separatist movements put formally an end to an open civil war that lasted 17 years, since 1987, and displaced over 4 million; it is estimated that 2 million perished, mostly from famine, diseases, tribal infighting, and military campaigns.

Sudan is a vast State, as large as the USA (excluding Alaska) but is barely as populated as Egypt, less than 50 million. It acquired its independence from colonial England in 1956. England ruled this vast colony from the Capital Khartoum and totally neglected the southern part; England kept south Sudan in order to securing the sources of the Nile River that start in Ethiopia and Uganda and empty in the delta of Egypt in the Mediterranean Sea.

Foreign media are disseminating wrong information:  They are claiming that the people in south Sudan are Christians and want independence from the Moslem north.  Fact is, most tribes in Sudan, north and south, are animists:  They respect nature, the seasons, the ancestors, and the oral traditions and myths.  The people in Sudan, north and south, have been impoverished and discarded by world communities for 5 decades; they are suffering frequent famine and were plagued by common diseases, and dying from curable illnesses.

If the people in the south decide for independence, the first critical problem to resolving is how the equitable sharing of 50% of the oil agreement can be planned, managed, and executed; the negotiations on the procedures is the main cornerstone problem and it might drag for long time without “independent south Sudan” receiving its due share.

China will make sure that oil production will resume unaffected by internal disagreements and deals will be made with the State of Sudan until “independent south Sudan” demonstrates that it is a reliable State to negotiate with.  How the State of Sudan will reimburse its massive military machinery debts from Russia and China if oil production is disturbed?

The people in south Sudan have no interest in a complete independence:  the history in the last forty years, for third world States that got their independence, demonstrated that the next two decades will be ripe for internal conflicts among the powerful tribes and that most of the oil benefit will be siphoned into private bank accounts and internal leaders receiving handsome bribes from international companies, doing business and plundering the natural resources.  South Sudan will be the scene of camouflaged mandated control and management by foreign nations and regional powers.

The people in south Sudan have interest for an autonomous region.  All the central government institutions in the Capital Khartoum could be duplicated in Juba (the de-facto Capital in South Sudan) for the smooth functioning of the central government in the south.

The State of Sudan, independent for more than 50 years, has already relatively well-oiled army, financial institutions, and foreign ministry that are ready for reform that would satisfy the requirements of a newly autonomous region.  I believe that voting for independence will be a major handicap for any further reforms in north Sudan.

Salva Kir, the leader of the south Sudan movement, has already set the tone for a major phase of terribly discontent with northern Sudan. He blatantly made a  public statesman that he will immediately open diplomatic channels with Israel.  The worst part in the statesman was the announcement that Israel will become a major commercial and supplier of war equipments and training.  Salva Kir thinks that inviting bears in his back yard is normal behavior from intelligent people.

Note:  Satellite pictures of Sudan shows that the line of partition separates the semi-desert region in the north from the greener equatorial region in the south.  If the people in south Sudan opt for independence then, south Sudan will be bordered by the Central African Republic on the west, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda in the south, Kenya, Ethiopia in the east.  It will lack any access to the Ocean and will need to invest heavily for infrastructures to exporting by sea through treaties with neighboring States.  Otherwise, south Sudan will be strongly dependent on north Sudan for exporting its oil production.  Maybe vast underpopulated countries such as Canada, Australia, Argentina, and Kazakhstan should be partitioned too for more effective management and equitable distribution of resources among all ethnic minorities.