For Egypt, the managed partition of Sudan would not spell disaster, but a descent into chaos would, writes Hani Raslan* Sudan is going through yet another trauma, and even it may not be the last. Never since 1956, when the country got its independence, has Sudan faced such a momentous time. On 9 January, a referendum is likely to break the country in half. After that, Sudan's fate will be hanging on a thread. The Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), a partner in the current government and the primary power in the south, is all for secession, with or without a referendum. It has already put everyone on notice. Unless the referendum goes smoothly and on time, it will secede unilaterally and without further ado. The northerners seem to be resigned to the idea. They have gone through the usual gamut of trauma, from denial to anger to acceptance. And now some of them say that enough is enough, that the south had been a burden all along, a source of civil war and contention, and not really much of an asset, oil aside of course. The southerners are adamant. They have been treated unfairly, excluded from power, and generally regarded as second-class citizens in their country, or so they say. Not really, the northerners counter. Since the 2005 Naivasha Agreement, the south has ruled itself in full autonomy, as well as had a say in Khartoum. The truth is that the SPLM is in full control of the south, politically, militarily and economically. And if it says it supports secession, its word is final -- unless of course the north is ready to go to war. Thankfully neither side wants war. One reason is that war, once started, is likely to spread and perhaps lead to further partitioning or to the collapse of law and order in Somali style. But tensions will be hard to avoid, for exactly 10 reasons. A law on self-rule passed in December 2009 names 10 points that must be settled in the event of secession. One is Abyei. Would the oil rich region belong to the south or the north? What makes this issue particularly thorny is not just the question of oil, but also the tribal rivalries between the southern Dinka tribes and the Arab Misseriya clan. If a tug of war starts, the conflict will get bloody fast. Egypt is worried about Sudan. It has consistently lobbied for a united Sudan and voiced reservations about self-rule in the south. Cairo's position is that the Sudanese should live together and be treated equally, regardless of colour, culture or creed. What worries Egypt most is that secession may not be the end of the road, for the rivalries that follow may leave the country utterly dismembered. Already, some southerners are afraid the Dinka tribe may monopolise authority. The Dinka, constituting 40 per cent of the population in the south, controls the SPLM's top posts. If it secedes, South Sudan will be the eleventh country in the Nile Valley, with a say in an issue of top priority to Egypt; that of how the Nile water is divided. South Sudan doesn't need the river's water for agriculture, for it gets 500 billion cubic metres per year in rain alone. Egypt had wanted to tap onto that water resource through the Jonglei Canal project, envisioned almost 30 years ago, but the civil war put an end to that quest. Since the Sudanese government signed the Machakos Protocol in 2002, Egypt knew that the southerners would vote on secession after a transitional period of six years. What Cairo did, meanwhile, was to try to make unity more attractive to South Sudan than secession. Egypt has offered the southerners assistance in health, education and irrigation. It is going to open a branch of Alexandria University in South Sudan in 2011. The programme of assistance that it promises to South Sudan is significant, with total expenditures of LE1.7 billion, or $300 million. In a desperate attempt to stop partition, Egypt proposed a confederation between north and south. It has invited the signatories of the Naivasha Agreement to two rounds of talks in Cairo in February and August 2010. Egypt's foreign minister and the head of intelligence made repeated visits to Khartoum and Juba to try to reduce tensions between the south and the north. Egyptian diplomats even organised a four-way meeting in Khartoum between Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, Mauritania's president, Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, and Vice President Salva Kiir. The meeting produced a final statement promising peace, stability, and future cooperation, regardless of the outcome of the referendum. In sum, Egypt is encouraging both the north and the south to avoid war at all cost. Secession, if appropriately handled, is something Egypt can live with. But a country slipping into chaos on its southern flank -- another Somalia but on a much bigger scale -- is nothing short of a nightmare. * The writer is an expert at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
