Sudan is a northwest-central African country that borders the Red Sea. It could be in the dictionary as the standard for perpetual civil war and human injustice. Sudanese refugees are ubiquitous, and since 1983 “[m]ore than 2.5 million people have been killed, and more than 5 million have become externally displaced while others have been internally displaced, becoming refugees as a result of the civil war and war-related impacts.” Wikipedia. Dirt poor and lacking any semblance of meaningful infrastructure, Sudan also defines hopelessness. A nation the size of France, it is estimated to have fewer than 5,000 miles of paved roads.
The Nile courses through the country, providing some reasonable agricultural areas, but war and strife had made traditional farming exceptionally difficult. Rape, plunder and war are not conducive to stability and growth. The landlocked south – populated mostly by Dinka, Nuer and Shilluk tribal groups – felt a cultural distance from their brethren in the north. Islam, which dominates the northern repressive regime, didn’t cross the vast geographic barriers into the south, and southerners pretty much cling to their traditional religions and cultural practices. And the south wanted separate nation, a solution born of blood and civil war, armies battling each other in a seemingly interminable conflict. The war finally settled in 2005. “A referendum took place in Southern Sudan from 9 to 15 January 2011, on whether the region should remain a part of Sudan or become independent. The referendum was one of the consequences of the 2005 Naivasha Agreement between the Khartoum [in the north and the Sudanese capital] central government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M).” Wikipedia.
And while the north still struggles, a semblance of relative calm has settled in the south, at least within its own borders and with its own population. Oh, did I mention one very important and economic development: Oil in the south provides a revenue base for the future of this war-battered country. Oil is now the economic lifeblood of the south. But there’s a catch. Because South Sudan is landlocked, it has moved its oil up through a pipeline through the north and into the global markets. The north, sensing a great loss of this incredible natural resource, has seized on a mechanism to get a very significant part of that southern oil: a prohibitive transmission tax as southern oil crosses over their land to the Red Sea for export.
“Sudan and the breakaway nation of South Sudan have been locked in an exceedingly dangerous game of brinkmanship over billions of gallons of oil, seizing tankers, shutting down wells and imperiling the tenuous, American-backed peace that has held — just barely — between the two countries after decades of war… After emergency talks to prevent a full-fledged conflict, the two sides agreed to a vague nonaggression pact late on [February 10th], yielding to intense pressure from the African Union, the United States and China — a major oil partner for both sides — to move beyond the language and tactics of mutual destruction. But few analysts see any easy solutions to the heated push and pull over oil, and it is not clear how the nonaggression pact will be any different from previous security deals that have led nowhere. In May, the two sides agreed to demilitarize the contested border. But just days after that, Sudan began heavy bombardment along the border, occasionally dropping bombs in the south, while the South Sudanese rushed in weapons to rebel allies fighting just across the divide.” New York Times, February 10th.
With the north effectively applying a confiscatory tariff on oil flowing through the pipeline from the south, South Sudan simply stopped pumping oil, shutting down its production until a solution could be found. “The conundrum of the two Sudans is that 75 percent of the oil is in the south, just across the border, but the pipeline to export it runs through the north. Because of this, oil was once thought to be the glue that would hold the two nations together and prevent a conflict. Now, it seems, oil is becoming the fuse. .. When South Sudan broke off from Sudan last year, after years of guerrilla struggle, its independence was heralded as the triumphal capstone ending one of Africa’s deadliest civil wars. But the question of how exactly the two sides would share oil profits loomed ominously over the separation, unresolved. Now that both nations are struggling to make it on their own, the issue has proved to be as prickly — and perilous — as many feared…
“South Sudanese officials have admitted they are using their oil to squeeze Khartoum to make concessions on all sorts of issues, including the disputed area of Abyei, insisting that oil production, about 350,000 barrels a day, will resume only after ‘all the deals are signed.’ … The south has even threatened to sit on its oil for years while it builds an alternative pipeline through Kenya. But it is not clear how the new country will survive that long; oil provides about 98 percent of government revenue. And experts question whether the Kenya pipeline is even feasible. It would have to run uphill, requiring many expensive pumping stations, and most likely slice across Jonglei, a South Sudanese state that, with all its militias, is essentially a war zone.” NY Times.
NY Times, February 17th: “Negotiations between Sudan and South Sudan over billions of gallons of oil have ended with very little progress, prolonging a dispute that is undermining the fragile economies of both nations and straining the tenuous peace between them after decades of war.” The tensions are escalating: “The [northern] Sudanese government says it is going to strip all southerners [living in the north] of their citizenship starting in April. If they want to remain in Sudan, they must apply for a visa, work permit, residency papers and the like, all of which will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to get for impoverished, illiterate people… Facing all this, more than 350,000 southerners have recently relocated, by bus and by barge, from the north to the south, part of a huge migration facilitated by the United Nations and the South Sudanese government. Many others are in line to go.” NY Times, February 19th. Troops are massing on both sides of the border. The smell of war is certainly in the air.
I’m Peter Dekom, and I wonder if policy-makers would even care if oil prices weren’t at the core of global concern.
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