Tag Archives: Khartoum

the lra menace

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That Joseph Kony and his top lieutenants are still alive and well is testament to the ineptitude of the Ugandan and Congolese armies. The Ugandan rebel leader continues to roam the forests in the border regions of Chad, the DRC, Uganda and Southern Sudan, killing villagers with abandon. The BBC reports that late last year the Lord’s Resistance Army massacred more than 300 people.

The LRA has morphed into a thuggish movement with loads of ideological deficit. They stand no chance of reaching Kampala and so roam in the forests of the great lakes region killing villagers and abducting children. This is yet another textbook case on the Continent of a rebellion that festers on for no other reason than because of state incapacity.

a pre-election truce in darfur? fingers crossed

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Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president,  might be having information that we don’t in relation to the upcoming general election in April. His government just signed a peace accord with the JEM, Darfur’s biggest rebel movement. Mr. al-Bashir is desperately trying to stay in power. He also dreads the inevitable secession of Southern Sudan come 2011. Perhaps this is why he wants to make peace with the Darfuris so that he won’t have to deal with two war fronts if he chooses to maintain the territorial integrity of Sudan by force post-2011.

The conflict in Darfur has killed at least 200,000 people and displaced almost 2 million. Like Southern Sudan, the former independent Sultanate of Darfur has never really integrated into the Sudanese state – dominated since independence by the north central valley. The Southerners fought a protracted civil war between 1983 and 2005 before Khartoum agreed to a peace agreement that provided secession as an option. Southern Sudanese will most surely vote to secede in 2011. It will be interesting to see how the Darfuris will react to this. Khartoum is obviously loathe of any further dismembering of the Sudanese state.

Sudanese elections

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Southern Sudan continues to be an extremely dangerous place as it prepares for elections in April. “Ethnic clashes” have so far killed at least 2500 this year alone. The SPLM has nominated Yasir Arman, a northerner, as its presidential candidate in their attempt to dislodge the genocidal al-Bashir from power. The fact that President Kir of Southern Sudan is not running at the national level is a clear signal that the South has its eyes on secession come 2011. President al-Bashir is likely to win the presidential election in April. What matters the most is whether he will let the Southerners go if they so choose in the 2011 referendum.

In the meantime, one of the things that should be done ASAP is to professionalize the Southern Sudanese army and mop up the excess weapons floating around. There are 2.7 million small arms in circulation in Sudan. Quite the definition of a tinderbox if you ask me.

development issues

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My promise to write a post on African development is almost becoming like Dr. Dre’s promise to release the Detox album. I promise it will come soon, after I settle on an opinion that is robust enough to withstand more than a few critiques.

For now we should be content listening to much wiser development experts – like Blattman, TN Srinivasan (the man who taught me intermediate microeconomics) and cynic in chief Bill Easterly.

A few years ago I used to conflate economic development with modernization. I thought that all it took to make vibrant economies in the global south was the importation of technology, material goods and ideas of governance from the more developed parts of the globe. But time has taught me that historical lock-in effects matter. The global south’s geography, historical poverty and social structures have created path dependencies that will take a lot of time to undo. This is not to say that we should give up on the idea of accelerated development. What I am suggesting is that as we do this we should have it in mind that certain things take time to change and that short-term failures disappear when you look at the long-term picture.

In other news, the conflict in Darfur has become less sexy and so it is no longer all over the news. But Darfurians are still suffering. The same applies to the Congo. Here is yet another reminder that the madness in the land of Mobutu continues unabated.

Nimeiri bites the dust

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It is un-African to be irreverent to the dead. I don’t intend to break this particular ancestral tradition. OK may be I will, just a little bit.

Jaafar Nimeiri, the man directly responsible for the start of the second Sudanese civil war, died last Saturday (May, 30). He was 79.

Nimeiri took over power in Khartoum in 1969 through a military coup. His authoritarian rule lasted until he was himself overthrown in 1985. The late Nimeiri will be remembered as the man who brokered and then broke the Addis Ababa Peace Agreement. After years of pretending to govern as per the 1972 agreement, Mr. Nimeiri (under pressure from Islamist extremists in the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood movement) finally decided, in 1983, to impose Sharia law on all Sudanese, including the non-Muslim South. In addition, he sought to redraw the borders of Southern Sudan and created new administrative structures in the region in an attempt to sap some of the newly acquired power of Southern Sudanese leaders. His actions led to rebellions in the South and the formation of the Southern Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) led by the late Col. John Garang de Mabior.

The almost certain secession of Southern Sudan in the upcoming 2011 referendum will be one of Nimeiri’s lasting legacies. His autocratic style of government and lack of spine in the face of extremist Islamism gave the South no option but to rebel against Khartoum, and win, more than two decades later. To put a positive spin on this, may be we should all be grateful that Khartoum’s extremism during his tenure exposed the non-viability of Sudan as one nation-state. The South and the North were never part of a single polity. It is probably a good thing that the South will secede from Northern Sudan and occupy its rightful place as an East African state.

May Jaafar Muhammad an-Nimeiri rest in peace.