| By Alberto Priego This comment was published in The Gulf Times on 20/11/2010  |
Recently it has been brought to light that the Islamic Republic of Iran frequently contributes significant quantities of money to the government of Hamid Karzai. Although the news has come as a surprise to many people, it has been well-known that relations between Karzai and Historically, The relations between The Iranian refusal to recognise the Taliban as the legitimate government of It is for this reason that the Iranian state is giving financial aid to the government of Karzai, since for In fact, Karzai and Ahmadinejad have continuous and overlapping criticism of the presence of international troops in At the same time we find a new kind of movement of non-alignment – involving Political, religious, cultural or even historic differences do not matter, as the relations between Thus, by way of conclusion, we can say that the recent improvement in relations between The progresses since 2001 have been many and very important to the extent that As President Obama said, the solution to the problem of |
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Tehran And Kabul Pragmatic Allies Now
Lebanon: Justice At What cost?
Indicting Hezbollah members for Rafik Hariri's assassination risks creating turmoil- but it would be an important step.
By James Denselov
This comment was published in The Guardian on 20/11/2010
But justice at what cost? The tribunal is testing the limits of Lebanon's government consensus. Prior to the fudged cabinet session, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea warned: "If having to choose between the STL and the cabinet, then it is better not to have a cabinet."
The predicted indictment of Hezbollah members would suggest that they are suspected of killing Hariri at the behest of their Syrian allies. In response, the Syrians have regularly looked to discredit the investigation as biased, with a senior Syrian diplomat telling me that its enemies were using the tribunal as "a game" against it.
If it is a game then Syria still has cards to play and none more powerful than its alliance with Hezbollah. A senior Hezbollah official warned that "such an indictment is a warning bell equivalent to lighting the fuse, to igniting the wick for an explosion, and is dangerous for Lebanon".
Over the past two months, Saad Hariri has reached out to Nasrallah with the option of blaming "rogue" elements of Hezbollah – a suggestion that was immediately rejected. Steadily the political positions towards the tribunal are solidifying and the space for compromise is disappearing.
Ultimately, all involved in Lebanon will have to answer the question: will solving the murder of Hariri unite or divide the country? Postponing the cabinet vote is a delaying tactic born of indecision about which decision to make. However, the political elite are running out of time as the schedule for the next confrontational cabinet session is at the end of the month.
There can be little doubt that assassins revel in an absence of accountability – and in Lebanon's history few of them have ever been brought to justice. Any indictment could lead to turmoil, but if the political system does prove capable of handling the consequences, it could signal an end to the culture of impunity regarding political killings and mark a significant moment in the country's development.
By James Denselov
This comment was published in The Guardian on 20/11/2010
The Lebanese cabinet dodged a bullet on 10 November by postponing a vote about witnesses who allegedly gave investigators false information on the killing of former prime minister Rafik Hariri. The issue has been dominating Lebanese politics amid fears that it could spark an internal conflict similar to that of 2008, when Hezbollah and its supporters took over the streets of Beirut.
The special tribunal for Lebanon (STL), set up to try those suspected of involvement in Hariri's assassination, is supported by western governments but Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia movement, has condemned it as "biased". Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has warned against attempts to "discredit" the tribunal, while William Hague, the British foreign secretary, announced a further £1m funding in support for the tribunal and declared that "justice is the only way to ensure stability in Lebanon".
But justice at what cost? The tribunal is testing the limits of Lebanon's government consensus. Prior to the fudged cabinet session, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea warned: "If having to choose between the STL and the cabinet, then it is better not to have a cabinet."
It has been just over a year since Saad Hariri – son of the assassinated leader – formed a national unity government after five months of wrangling. During that time the pro-western March 14 alliance has steadily moved towards building bridges with the March 8 opposition and its Syrian allies, most spectacularly with Walid Jumblatt performing a classic volte-face and reaching out to Damascus.
But the UN investigation into the Hariri killing has a mandate and momentum of its own and recent reports suggest the court will move to indict members of Hezbollah before the end of the year.
The tribunal was originally created when the UN realised that Lebanon had neither the capacity nor commitment to do the job itself. Established in 2007 under UN security council resolution 1757, the tribunal overrode Lebanese constitutional procedures and, as a Chatham House report explained, provided a potential solution "for an impossible political situation and laid a claim for the rule of law to prevail over violence".
Over the past five years the UN investigation has also become a tool of political pressure against Syria, whose troops were forced to leave Lebanon following the 2005 assassination. Later that year the UN international independent investigation commission, led by Detlev Mehlis, issued a report saying that "given the infiltration of Lebanese institutions and society by the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services working in tandem, it would be difficult to envisage a scenario whereby such a complex assassination plot could have been carried out without their knowledge".
The predicted indictment of Hezbollah members would suggest that they are suspected of killing Hariri at the behest of their Syrian allies. In response, the Syrians have regularly looked to discredit the investigation as biased, with a senior Syrian diplomat telling me that its enemies were using the tribunal as "a game" against it.
If it is a game then Syria still has cards to play and none more powerful than its alliance with Hezbollah. A senior Hezbollah official warned that "such an indictment is a warning bell equivalent to lighting the fuse, to igniting the wick for an explosion, and is dangerous for Lebanon".
The day after the cabinet decision was delayed, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned that the group would "cut off the hand" of anyone who attempted to arrest its members, while the Lebanese daily, al-Akhbar, reported that within two hours of any indictment, Hezbollah would react and "hold a security and military grip on large areas of Lebanon".
Over the past two months, Saad Hariri has reached out to Nasrallah with the option of blaming "rogue" elements of Hezbollah – a suggestion that was immediately rejected. Steadily the political positions towards the tribunal are solidifying and the space for compromise is disappearing.
Ultimately, all involved in Lebanon will have to answer the question: will solving the murder of Hariri unite or divide the country? Postponing the cabinet vote is a delaying tactic born of indecision about which decision to make. However, the political elite are running out of time as the schedule for the next confrontational cabinet session is at the end of the month.
There can be little doubt that assassins revel in an absence of accountability – and in Lebanon's history few of them have ever been brought to justice. Any indictment could lead to turmoil, but if the political system does prove capable of handling the consequences, it could signal an end to the culture of impunity regarding political killings and mark a significant moment in the country's development.
An American Bribe That Stinks Of Appeasement
By Robert Fisk
This comment was published in The Independent on 20/11/2010
In any other country, the current American bribe to Israel, and the latter's reluctance to accept it, in return for even a temporary end to the theft of somebody else's property would be regarded as preposterous. Three billion dollars' worth of fighter bombers in return for a temporary freeze in West Bank colonisation for a mere 90 days? Not including East Jerusalem – so goodbye to the last chance of the east of the holy city for a Palestinian capital – and, if Benjamin Netanyahu so wishes, a rip-roaring continuation of settlement on Arab land. In the ordinary sane world in which we think we live, there is only one word for Barack Obama's offer: appeasement. Usually, our lords and masters use that word with disdain and disgust.
Anyone who panders to injustice by one people against another people is called an appeaser. Anyone who prefers peace at any price, let alone a $3bn bribe to the guilty party – is an appeaser. Anyone who will not risk the consequences of standing up for international morality against territorial greed is an appeaser. Those of us who did not want to invade Afghanistan were condemned as appeasers. Those of us who did not want to invade Iraq were vilified as appeasers. Yet that is precisely what Obama has done in his pathetic, unbelievable effort to plead with Netanyahu for just 90 days of submission to international law. Obama is an appeaser.
The fact that the West and its political and journalistic elites – I include the ever more disreputable New York Times – take this tomfoolery at face value, as if it can seriously be regarded as another "step" in the "peace process", to put this mystical nonsense "back on track", is a measure of the degree to which we have taken leave of our senses in the Middle East.
It is a sign of just how far America (and, through our failure to condemn this insanity, Europe) has allowed its fear of Israel – and how far Obama has allowed his fear of Israeli supporters in Congress and the Senate – to go.
Three billion dollars for three months is one billion dollars a month to stop Israel's colonisation. That's half a billion dollars a fortnight. That's $500m a week. That's $71,428,571 a day, or $2,976,190 an hour, or $49,603 a minute. And as well as this pot of gold, Washington will continue to veto any resolutions critical of Israel in the UN and prevent "Palestine" from declaring itself a state. It's worth invading anyone to get that much cash to stage a military withdrawal, let alone the gracious gesture of not building more illegal colonies for only 90 days while furiously continuing illegal construction in Jerusalem at the same time.
The Hillary Clinton version of this grotesquerie would be funny if it was not tragic. According to the sharp pen of the NYT's Roger Cohen, La Clinton has convinced herself that Palestine is "achievable, inevitable and compatible with Israel's security". And what persuaded Madame Hillary of this? Why, on a trip to the pseudo-Palestine "capital" of Ramallah last year, she saw the Jewish settlements – "the brutality of it was so stark" according to one of her officials – but thought her motorcade was being guarded by the Israeli army because "they're so professional". And then, lo and behold, they turned out to be a Palestinian military guard, a "professional outfit" – and all this changed Madame's views!
Quite apart from the fact that the Israeli army is a rabble, and that indeed, the Palestinians are a rabble too, this "road to Ramallah" incident led supporters of Madame, according to Cohen, to realise that there had been a transition "from a self-pitying, self-dramatising Palestinian psyche, with all the cloying accoutrements of victimhood, to a self-affirming culture of pragmatism and institution-building". Palestinian "prime minister" Salam Fayyad, educated in the US so, naturally, a safe pair of hands, has put "growth before grumbling, roads before ranting, and security before everything".
Having been occupied by a brutal army for 43 years, those wretched, dispossessed Palestinians, along with their cousins in the West Bank who have been homeless for 62 years, have at last stopped ranting and grumbling and feeling sorry for themselves and generally play-acting in order to honour the only thing that matters. Not justice. Certainly not democracy, but to the one God which Christians, Jews and Muslims are all now supposed to worship: security.
Yes, they have joined the true brotherhood of mankind. Israel will be safe at last. That this infantile narrative now drives the woman who told us 11 years ago that Jerusalem was "the eternal and indivisible capital of Israel" proves that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has now reached its apogee, its most treacherous and final moment. And if Netanyahu has any sense – I'm talking abut the Zionist, expansionist kind – he will wait out the 90 days, then thumb his nose at the US. In the three months of "good behaviour", of course, the Palestinians will have to bite the bullet and sit down to "peace" talks which will decide the future borders of Israel and "Palestine". But since Israel controls 62 per cent of the West Bank this leaves Fayyad and his chums about 10.9 per cent of mandate Palestine to argue about.
And at the cost of $827 a second, they'd better do some quick grovelling. They will. We should all hang our heads in shame. But we won't. It's not about people. It's about presentation. It's not about justice. It's about "security". And cash. Lots of it. Goodbye Palestine.
To Each Their Sectarian War And Their Shiites
By Husam Itani
This comment was published by al-Hayat on 19/11/2010
The renewal of sectarian violence in Egypt urges the reconsideration of a saying which has become a quasi-constant principle in the Arab region, and can be summarized by the fact that the Sunni-Shiite conflict is the “characteristic of this era.”
Indeed, we cannot exclude the objective reasons behind some villagers’ burning of the shops and homes of their peers from the Coptic sect, as the climate is heated with the imminence of legislative elections that might increase the stalemate. This makes any side wishing to exploit the tensions affecting the sectarian relations try its luck.
The targeting of the Copts in Egypt - in parallel to the attacks on churches and Christian worshipers in Iraq and Al-Qaeda’s threats to target their counterparts in Egypt - reveals the presence of a phenomenon that extends beyond the frameworks in which some writings are trying to place the Sunni-Shiite conflict. In this context, believing that the crimes committed against the Iraqi Christians stem from the conflict over power is justified, as the Christians are being forced to play the role of the scapegoat to defuse the rising tensions on the eve of Al-Maliki’s victory in the competition over the post of prime minister.
However, in Egypt where there are no Shiites except for a few, the domestic tensions are being turned toward the Coptic “others,” as it would be impossible to turn the popular restlessness and uproar toward Israel or the United States after they were depleted by the popular and nationalistic media (noting that the media war on Algeria at the beginning of the year was short-termed and that football was not enough to contain the different facets of the domestic crisis).
The definition of the areas of Sunni-Shiite friction in the Arab and Islamic worlds and saying that this friction has historical and denominational bases that are oblivious of the current developments affecting Arab and Islamic communities is inaccurate. Moreover, naively saying that a Zionist-imperialistic conspiracy is continuously planting the seeds of strife in our countries to maintain our division and allow Israel and America to eternalize their dominance and pillaging of the region’s wealth lacks objectivity.
Whoever saw the posters which featured the pictures of the dead in the ranks of Fatah after Hamas gained control over Gaza in 2007, could not help but notice that a number of them carried the expression “was killed by the Shiites.” Whoever printed these photos claimed that the alliance between Hamas and Iran meant the “Shiization” of the movement which has emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood. What is meant here is that a consciousness that is in crisis invents its own “Shiites” to fight them and explain why it is drowning in various predicaments, while securing a way to elude the urgent need for self-accountability.
Lebanon, Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iran and Pakistan all witnessed the eruption of sparks of sectarianism during the last few months, shedding light on the flaws affecting Sunni-Shiite relations and the necessity to handle them. However, the greatest problem is revealed by the situations witnessed in Egypt and Gaza among others, where the Arab communities seem to be deploying great efforts to invent domestic enemies as the only way out from unbearable conditions and bleak horizons.
What the analysts of the Sunni-Shiite conflict are forgetting is that the majorities and minorities around the world are reconsidering the outcomes of their current policies, as it is now seen in Europe. They are also forgetting that the persecution of the minorities - regardless of their names - is a global historical practice, and that the current chapter represented by the conflict between the Sunnis and the Shiites is nothing but a modern translation of it. As for the books of denominational history, they neither provide answers nor treatment for this plague whose germ was produced by the problems of neglect, backwardness, social discrepancies, political depravation and whatever equals them or can enter through their wide open doors to falsify the facts and mislead us.
The renewal of sectarian violence in Egypt urges the reconsideration of a saying which has become a quasi-constant principle in the Arab region, and can be summarized by the fact that the Sunni-Shiite conflict is the “characteristic of this era.”
Indeed, we cannot exclude the objective reasons behind some villagers’ burning of the shops and homes of their peers from the Coptic sect, as the climate is heated with the imminence of legislative elections that might increase the stalemate. This makes any side wishing to exploit the tensions affecting the sectarian relations try its luck.
The targeting of the Copts in Egypt - in parallel to the attacks on churches and Christian worshipers in Iraq and Al-Qaeda’s threats to target their counterparts in Egypt - reveals the presence of a phenomenon that extends beyond the frameworks in which some writings are trying to place the Sunni-Shiite conflict. In this context, believing that the crimes committed against the Iraqi Christians stem from the conflict over power is justified, as the Christians are being forced to play the role of the scapegoat to defuse the rising tensions on the eve of Al-Maliki’s victory in the competition over the post of prime minister.
However, in Egypt where there are no Shiites except for a few, the domestic tensions are being turned toward the Coptic “others,” as it would be impossible to turn the popular restlessness and uproar toward Israel or the United States after they were depleted by the popular and nationalistic media (noting that the media war on Algeria at the beginning of the year was short-termed and that football was not enough to contain the different facets of the domestic crisis).
The definition of the areas of Sunni-Shiite friction in the Arab and Islamic worlds and saying that this friction has historical and denominational bases that are oblivious of the current developments affecting Arab and Islamic communities is inaccurate. Moreover, naively saying that a Zionist-imperialistic conspiracy is continuously planting the seeds of strife in our countries to maintain our division and allow Israel and America to eternalize their dominance and pillaging of the region’s wealth lacks objectivity.
Whoever saw the posters which featured the pictures of the dead in the ranks of Fatah after Hamas gained control over Gaza in 2007, could not help but notice that a number of them carried the expression “was killed by the Shiites.” Whoever printed these photos claimed that the alliance between Hamas and Iran meant the “Shiization” of the movement which has emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood. What is meant here is that a consciousness that is in crisis invents its own “Shiites” to fight them and explain why it is drowning in various predicaments, while securing a way to elude the urgent need for self-accountability.
Lebanon, Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iran and Pakistan all witnessed the eruption of sparks of sectarianism during the last few months, shedding light on the flaws affecting Sunni-Shiite relations and the necessity to handle them. However, the greatest problem is revealed by the situations witnessed in Egypt and Gaza among others, where the Arab communities seem to be deploying great efforts to invent domestic enemies as the only way out from unbearable conditions and bleak horizons.
What the analysts of the Sunni-Shiite conflict are forgetting is that the majorities and minorities around the world are reconsidering the outcomes of their current policies, as it is now seen in Europe. They are also forgetting that the persecution of the minorities - regardless of their names - is a global historical practice, and that the current chapter represented by the conflict between the Sunnis and the Shiites is nothing but a modern translation of it. As for the books of denominational history, they neither provide answers nor treatment for this plague whose germ was produced by the problems of neglect, backwardness, social discrepancies, political depravation and whatever equals them or can enter through their wide open doors to falsify the facts and mislead us.
The Palestinian President's Gifts
By Abdul Rahman al-Rashed
This comment was published in Asharq al-Awsat on 20/11/2010
In return for a 90-day settlement freeze, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has gifted Israel with 20 fighter jets and 20 billion dollars, in addition to increasing the appetite of Jewish contributors around the world in supporting the construction of more houses and flats in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem.
President Abbas's achievements also includes contributing to Obama's defeat at the recent midterm elections after the Democrat Party lost the support of the American Jewish community; which lent its voice and money to the Republican Party due to what they perceived as Obama's hard-line position against Israel. I also do not forget that the pressure exerted by Abbas left the US President feeling guilty towards Israel.
What was the point of all of this?
This has not recovered the West Bank or freed occupied Jerusalem, nor has this even resulted in the return of a few thousand Palestinians to their homes. The only battle that Abbas has confronted Netanyahu on is his insistence on a settlement freeze!
Without the requirement of a settlement freeze, perhaps the Israelis would not have obtained any of this. The Palestinian side has been the victim of a grand illusion which is that a settlement freeze represents a gain when in reality this would have been nothing but an early loss. This is because the settlements, like the occupation itself, is essentially invalid and does not have international legitimacy.
If you wanted a lesson in cunning then look at what Netanyahu did, for he turned the problem into a profitable business. All that has happened since the Palestinian President insisted upon the condition of a settlement freeze is that he has gifted Netanyahu with four important gains. Firstly he has excused Netanyahu from the negotiations that he originally shunned due to the nature of his hard-line government; this is because Netanyahu is the leader of a coalition government of hard-liners that will collapse if he negotiates. If you recall, the objective of putting pressure on Netanyahu in the first place was to force him to the negotiation table.
The second gain: Abbas preoccupied the Americans during the most important two-years of the presidency. He wasted this [period of time] with a sub-clause, and now Obama has entered the presidential hibernation period due to the Democrat's defeat at the midterm elections.
Thirdly, he has encouraged Jewish hard-liners to strongly support Israel's settlement project, and this is now being supported with money and settlers [wanting to move to settlements]. As a result of this settlement construction has intensified and expanded.
Lastly, Obama has reversed his position from punishing Netanyahu to rewarding him. In the past, Obama sought to satisfy Abbas by confronting Netanyahu, sending envoys to visit Israel instead of visiting in person, whilst on another occasion he snubbed the Israeli Prime Minister refusing to meet him. Even when Obama did meet with Netanyahu, this was conducted behind closed doors, and he refused to allow the press to take pictures of this meeting. However after his party's defeat at the election, Obama has opened the door of the White House, and the US treasury, to Netanyahu, offering Israel fighter jets, generous financial aid, and an accommodating political position.
This is all a result of the battle over a partial settlement freeze. Can the Palestinian delegation tell us on what basis it has built a strategy where the condition of a settlement freeze is more important than seeking to liberate the occupied territories?
I know that Abbas's comrades in the negotiation delegation will assure him that "the truth is that we are not the ones who put the condition for a settlement freeze in place; Obama is the one who proposed this." However we all know that this was a moral position more than it was a political one, and that Abbas could have bargained to drop this in return for gains, but instead he did the complete opposite.
As for the greater tragedy, in my opinion, this is not Israel being provided with 20 fighter jets or given 20 billion dollars in US aid, but rather that this battle has turned Netanyahu into a hero in the eyes of the Israeli public and many Jews around the world. He is the man who said "no" to Obama, the man who defeated the Palestinians without bullets or even negotiations.
Netanyahu returned to power at the head of a weak government, we thought that it would only last for a few short months, however today Netanyahu is a pivotal political leader.
Can the Palestinian team in Ramallah explain exactly what their plan was?
Friday, November 19, 2010
Israel Once Again Wins The PR War
This editorial was published in the Daily Star on 20/11/2010
Although not difficult to achieve, Israel has managed to outmaneuver Lebanon again, using the miniscule village of Ghajar to present itself as internationally responsible and Lebanon as hopelessly inert.
A few decades ago Ghajar was a village of maybe 1,000 inhabitants in Syrian territory which Israel occupied in the 1967 war. After Israel occupied south Lebanon, the villagers began expanding their community onto nearby Lebanese territory. Some 1,500 residents of Ghajar today live in the historically Syrian area, with about 500 more living on Lebanese land.
Although not difficult to achieve, Israel has managed to outmaneuver Lebanon again, using the miniscule village of Ghajar to present itself as internationally responsible and Lebanon as hopelessly inert.
A few decades ago Ghajar was a village of maybe 1,000 inhabitants in Syrian territory which Israel occupied in the 1967 war. After Israel occupied south Lebanon, the villagers began expanding their community onto nearby Lebanese territory. Some 1,500 residents of Ghajar today live in the historically Syrian area, with about 500 more living on Lebanese land.
The Long Road To South Sudan's Secession Vote
If the people decide to form a new nation, the West must step up and help form institutions that will bring stability to the isolated region.
By Mwangi S. Kimenyi
This analysis was published in the Los Angeles Times on 19/11/2010
In about two months, Africa may have a new country, the first since the end of the colonial era. On Jan. 9, the people of southern Sudan are expected to vote in a referendum to determine whether their region will become an independent nation. Indications are that the vote will be overwhelmingly in favor of seceding, but the practicalities of achieving a free, fair and peaceful vote are daunting.
This referendum is the culmination of a long and bloody path. The civil war between north and south Sudan, the longest in African history, claimed the lives of 2 million people and finally ended in 2005 with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Since then, the two sides have been slowly working their way toward the referendum.
Yet southern Sudan is far from ready. The registration of voters began just this week. Polling stations need to be erected, not an easy task in an area bigger than California with only 40 miles of paved roads. They need electoral observers, ballot counters, trucks, computers — the list goes on.
Another challenge is the border. Under the 2005 peace agreement, the border between the north and south was supposed to be demarcated within six months, but it still has not happened. The border runs through the main oil-producing area, making it a highly volatile region. The division of revenue from the oil, most of which lies in the south, has still not been agreed on.
The United States is not the only country that has an interest in seeing this resolved. China gets 7% of its foreign oil supplies from Sudan and has a 40% stake in south Sudan's state oil company, GNPOC. Any fighting over the oil fields would threaten its supplies.
Africa is often accused of not doing enough to help itself, but it has been Sudan's neighbors that have worked hard for five years to ensure that both sides maintain the fragile peace and prepare for the referendum.
Kenya led the negotiations that ended the fighting and created the peace agreement in 2005. It has carried out five years of shuttle diplomacy between Juba and Khartoum, the capitals of south and north Sudan, respectively, to keep both sides on track. It has provided 35,000 primary school teachers to the south, which has suffered decades of neglect and fighting. In addition, Kenya has lent some of its best and brightest civil servants to help Juba create a professional civil service.
Unfortunately, during this same time the international community has been largely absent. The referendum is hardly a surprise — the date was set at the signing of the peace agreement — but only now are the United States and other Western nations beginning to pay serious attention. President Obama attended a crisis meeting on the issue at the United Nations in September, and the U.S. envoy to south Sudan is talking about a "Juba surge," significantly increasing the number of U.S. diplomats in the region.
South Sudan urgently needs the sustained attention of the international community if it is to carry out a successful and credible referendum. This will require more than diplomatic words; it will require resources, funding and expertise to tackle the logistical challenges involved in voter registration, setting up polls, getting people to them and counting the votes.
The importance of an orderly and efficient voting system cannot be emphasized enough. For the referendum to be seen as legitimate, turnout has to reach 60%, a tall order in one of the most inaccessible regions of Africa. But if south Sudan does opt for independence, it will also need the support of the United States and other nations to build effective institutions that will bring stability and pave the way for the new nation.
Kenyans know all too well what the cost of failure will be. During the civil war in Sudan, Kenya had to take in 2 million Sudanese refugees, creating ethnic tensions there and a sizable drag on the economy. At all costs, Kenyans want to avoid a return to fighting and a descent into chaos. Kenya already has one Somalia on its border; it cannot afford another.
Regardless of the outcome, it is important that the world respect the will of the Sudanese people. If there is to be a new country in Africa, let it be blessed with legitimacy from the outset. South Sudan must not become the first nation to be born a failed state. We can still prevent it, but only if the international community gives the region its full attention over the coming months.
By Mwangi S. Kimenyi
This analysis was published in the Los Angeles Times on 19/11/2010
In about two months, Africa may have a new country, the first since the end of the colonial era. On Jan. 9, the people of southern Sudan are expected to vote in a referendum to determine whether their region will become an independent nation. Indications are that the vote will be overwhelmingly in favor of seceding, but the practicalities of achieving a free, fair and peaceful vote are daunting.
This referendum is the culmination of a long and bloody path. The civil war between north and south Sudan, the longest in African history, claimed the lives of 2 million people and finally ended in 2005 with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Since then, the two sides have been slowly working their way toward the referendum.
Yet southern Sudan is far from ready. The registration of voters began just this week. Polling stations need to be erected, not an easy task in an area bigger than California with only 40 miles of paved roads. They need electoral observers, ballot counters, trucks, computers — the list goes on.
Another challenge is the border. Under the 2005 peace agreement, the border between the north and south was supposed to be demarcated within six months, but it still has not happened. The border runs through the main oil-producing area, making it a highly volatile region. The division of revenue from the oil, most of which lies in the south, has still not been agreed on.
The United States is not the only country that has an interest in seeing this resolved. China gets 7% of its foreign oil supplies from Sudan and has a 40% stake in south Sudan's state oil company, GNPOC. Any fighting over the oil fields would threaten its supplies.
Africa is often accused of not doing enough to help itself, but it has been Sudan's neighbors that have worked hard for five years to ensure that both sides maintain the fragile peace and prepare for the referendum.
Kenya led the negotiations that ended the fighting and created the peace agreement in 2005. It has carried out five years of shuttle diplomacy between Juba and Khartoum, the capitals of south and north Sudan, respectively, to keep both sides on track. It has provided 35,000 primary school teachers to the south, which has suffered decades of neglect and fighting. In addition, Kenya has lent some of its best and brightest civil servants to help Juba create a professional civil service.
Unfortunately, during this same time the international community has been largely absent. The referendum is hardly a surprise — the date was set at the signing of the peace agreement — but only now are the United States and other Western nations beginning to pay serious attention. President Obama attended a crisis meeting on the issue at the United Nations in September, and the U.S. envoy to south Sudan is talking about a "Juba surge," significantly increasing the number of U.S. diplomats in the region.
South Sudan urgently needs the sustained attention of the international community if it is to carry out a successful and credible referendum. This will require more than diplomatic words; it will require resources, funding and expertise to tackle the logistical challenges involved in voter registration, setting up polls, getting people to them and counting the votes.
The importance of an orderly and efficient voting system cannot be emphasized enough. For the referendum to be seen as legitimate, turnout has to reach 60%, a tall order in one of the most inaccessible regions of Africa. But if south Sudan does opt for independence, it will also need the support of the United States and other nations to build effective institutions that will bring stability and pave the way for the new nation.
Kenyans know all too well what the cost of failure will be. During the civil war in Sudan, Kenya had to take in 2 million Sudanese refugees, creating ethnic tensions there and a sizable drag on the economy. At all costs, Kenyans want to avoid a return to fighting and a descent into chaos. Kenya already has one Somalia on its border; it cannot afford another.
Regardless of the outcome, it is important that the world respect the will of the Sudanese people. If there is to be a new country in Africa, let it be blessed with legitimacy from the outset. South Sudan must not become the first nation to be born a failed state. We can still prevent it, but only if the international community gives the region its full attention over the coming months.
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