Egypt and the Arab world have not understood the telltale signs that litter the road to secession for South Sudan, writes Abdullah Al-Ashaal* There are irrefutable and tangible indications that, since 2003, Sudan has been the object of a partition process occurring beneath the guise of a peace process that began with the Machakos negotiations. These negotiations resulted in a framework agreement for a settlement between Khartoum and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), in accordance with which a referendum is to be held in the south six years from the date the peace agreement goes into effect, which is to say in 2011, over whether the south should remain part of Sudan or secede and form an independent state. Such were the pressures exerted on the government of Sudan that it had no alternative but to accept this agreement, especially when a body of opinion in the north voiced its approval of the secession of the south, which has long been heavily supported by the US, Israel and neighbouring countries hostile to Khartoum, if that meant saving what remains of Sudan. President Bashir must certainly have realised that the southerners would be little swayed by his government's policies, however sympathetic they were to their demands in order to induce them to remain an integral part of the nation, and perhaps he had already mentally prepared himself for this type of political defeat. However, what he and other Sudanese officials had not anticipated was not only that the SPLM would refuse to change its name, but that it would also take this name as its literal objective: the liberation of Sudan, in its entirety, from the Arabs and Muslims, whom it would drive northwards into Egypt, thereby abolishing Sudan's Arab-Muslim identity and making it possible to bring the country into the fold of regional alliances hostile to Egypt and to the Arab world. Curiously, Egypt had not discerned the full dimensions of this scheme, even when signs of its implementation began to stare it in the face. To date, the following signs should have been impossible to miss and misinterpret: First, the SPLM's involvement in Darfur and the Eastern Sudan crisis betrays its determination to rebel against the notion of one government over a united and indivisible Sudan, even though the SPLM attained the office of vice-president and became a partner in national decision-making processes. Second, the SPLM has been furnishing arms, rumoured to come from Israel, to the rebels in Darfur and encouraging other rebel movements to reject the Abuja Treaty despite the many concessions offered by Khartoum. Third, the vast arsenals being accumulated in the south by groups falling under the SPLM umbrella are further indication of the movement's resolve to secede, by any means, beneath the façade of a local government that is being surreptitiously equipped for statehood. Fourth, it is suspiciously odd that the SPLM vice- president of Sudan should adopt stances diametrically opposed to those of the president, especially as pertains to the presence of an international force in Darfur. Obviously, the US and Israel are using every means possible to weaken the position of the Sudanese government, including the tactic of encouraging its vice president to break ranks. Fifth, the south has established full-fledged embassies in more than 25 countries and has invited countries to establish consulates in the capital of the south. Although the government of Sudan approves these consulates, it will be only a short step to elevate them to embassies in the event the south declares its independence. In addition, a southerner heads the Sudanese embassy in Washington, in deference to the demands of various international powers, thereby facilitating the smooth coordination of the conspiracy with the US and its unsubtle projection as policy officially sanctioned by the Sudanese government. Little wonder, therefore, that when clamour erupted over the establishment of an SPLM mission in Washington alongside the already existing Sudanese embassy, the Sudanese ambassador stepped in to voice his approval and to deny that that mission enjoyed diplomatic status. His simultaneous silence on the legal status of similar SPLM missions in 25 other countries was very telling. Sixth, the south's media and official rhetoric leaves no shadow of a doubt that they have made secession their only option. Furthermore, they more than hint that there is a conspiracy afoot in support of this objective, towards which end Darfur and the Eastern Province are being incited to revolt against the central government. Seventh, despite the fact that the government of Sudan gave the French-owned Total petroleum company exploration and drilling rights in the south, the government of the south concluded an exploration and drilling contract for the same area with rival British firms. Nothing could constitute clearer proof that the south intends to secure control over mineral resources in the south, and, undoubtedly, water resources there as well. In light of the foregoing evidence, it is difficult to imagine that SPLM leaders have not already commissioned feasibility studies with the purpose of assessing the repercussions of secession, especially with regard to prospective relations between an independent South Sudan and its neighbours. * The writer is former assistant to the Egyptian foreign minister.
