Khartoum should not be gagged about its territorial integrity and national sovereignty, but it should start learning from the grave errors it committed in the past, postulates Gamal Nkrumah There is a whiff of sauve qui peut over Khartoum. The tempo of the struggle for greater participation in the decision-making process in Sudan has been stepped up. The campaign for greater civil liberties has entered a new phase and the pressure on Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir is mounting. It is, however, too soon to write off the regime of Al-Bashir. In an exclusive interview with the London-based Pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat, President Al-Bashir warned that the escalating violence in South Kordofan and Blue Nile is the work of foreign agents provocateurs aiming at toppling the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) in Khartoum. It is precisely the fanatical tone that led to the Darfur uprising and made the people of South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Darfur determined to secure their own autonomous status within Sudan or even outright independence. The nuance in Al-Bashir's pronouncements has been overwhelmed by his soundbites. Al-Bashir disclosed that Egypt under Mubarak was part of a wider design to overthrow the NCP government. The Sudanese president, however, praised Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and stressed that Cairo now considers Sudan a prerequisite component of Egypt's national security. He also stated that his government was one of the most tormented by the regime of the former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. For all the flaws in Al-Bashir's argument, he may have achieved his chief goal. He aims to detract attention from the troubles brewing in South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Darfur and focus on the alleged interference by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) -- the ruling party in the newly independent South Sudan -- in the internal political dynamics of North Sudan. Perhaps the most discernible ministration Sudanese President Al-Bashir delivered to his people has been to get on, in defiance of the catcalls, ruthlessly with the job at hand. A long-time advocate of the imposition of stricter Islamic Sharia laws, his latest hobby-horse is to promote the Arabisation of peripheral regions such as Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan. The indigenous populations in these regions do not consider themselves Arabs and have been subjected by social mores and successive Sudanese governments to institutionalised racism tantamount to slavery. But there is a strengthening sense of inevitability concerning the political future of South Kordofan and Blue Nile. The frontlines in the next battles over the two provinces' destinies are now delineated. Sudanese officials know this well. And so do their protagonists in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile. Darfur, in particular, hit the headlines this week with the discovery of vast reservoirs of gold deposits in South Darfur. Ethnic tensions flared among the various warring factions and Al-Bashir has managed deftly to play one militia against the other. The most influential of these militias, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) received a shattering blow with the political demise of the former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. JEM leader Khalil Ibrahim is said to have fled Libya in the aftermath of the fall of Gaddafi, his chief benefactor, and rumoured to be at large in Darfur. A number of key JEM leaders have dissented and formed their own rival militias. Gaddafi had united them with his largesse and now they fight as soldiers of fortune for the highest bidder. Alleged dissenter Mohamed Adam Bekheit has warned that JEM is in danger of disintegration and will never be the force that it once was. The people of Darfur are also keen to know the whereabouts and fate of JEM leaders in Libya such as General Mohamed Ahmed Abdel-Rahman and Colonel Ezzeddin Youssef. They concur with the leader of the Liberation and Justice Movement leader Al-Tijani Al-Sisi who signed a peace accord with Al-Bashir's government in Qatar recently. He upholds the Doha Document as the basis for lasting peace in Darfur. In the meantime, Al-Bashir is currying favour with the peoples of eastern Sudan. Al-Sudani newspaper disclosed that Al-Bashir is to meet his Eritrean counterpart President Isaias Afeworki this week to officially open the $9 million highway between the two neighbouring countries that is being paid for by the Qatar government. According to the daily Al-Sudani, Al-Bashir in conjunction with Governor Mohamed Youssef Adam of Kassala Province in eastern Sudan have jointly inaugurated several development projects designed to improve water and electricity supplies in the underdeveloped region predominantly inhabited by the non-Arab albeit devoutly Muslim Beja. The Sudanese president is keen to appoint well-known and influential local politicians with enough clout to give his Islamisation campaign an attention-grabbing voice and face but one unlikely to overshadow his political master. How this is to be done remains a mystery. Of course, Al-Bashir is entitled to air his views, even though not all his arguments are convincing. His obstinacy, meanwhile, could trigger all manner of unintended consequences including an intensification of demands for self-rule in marginal, non-Arab fringes of Sudan. This will inevitably provoke further disillusionment in Al-Bashir's already tarnished presidency. Certain evils must be avoided at all costs. Al-Bashir's policy of coercion and brutish clampdown campaigns in South Kordofan and Blue Nile will generate even more instability in the two provinces than exists now. Al-Bashir also noted that North Sudan has forfeited an estimated $10 billion in revenues because of the loss of oil reserves to the nascent South Sudan nation that now has a monopoly over oil production, exploitation and export. If the point is to stave off economic ruin in North Sudan this monopoly of oil usage by South Sudan must take into account compensating North Sudan for loss of oil revenues. Restoring political backing for North Sudan in its endeavours for economic reconstruction and development is a necessary condition to stop the trust of investors in Sudan from eroding further. But such a policy is not sufficient. The Sudanese political and economic landscapes are ingrained with vested interests -- Arab, Asian and Western. Endemic kleptocracy, cronyism, corruption and nepotism have crippled the Sudanese economy. Lack of political leadership and the deliberate peripheralisation of the predominantly non-Arab fringes of North Sudan partly explain the country's economic travails. Furthermore, Sudan's key trading Asian and Arab partners have persistently failed to hold the Arab and NCP elite in Sudan to account. Al-Bashir vowed to do "whatever it takes" to bring the far-flung backwaters of Blue Nile and South Kordofan under the firm grip of the powers that be in Khartoum. As a result it has become virtually impossible to reverse Al-Bashir's system of populist support for his militant Islamist cause. Take all this together and we can be sure that the rebellions in South Kordofan and Blue Nile will exacerbate further. The only way to avoid disaster is for peaceful co-existence between North and South Sudan. Even the Sudanese president himself conceded that Khartoum and Juba must collaborate more closely together to iron out differences and ease tensions between the two countries. He also acknowledged the pre-eminent role Juba plays in the politics of Blue Nile and South Kordofan since both provinces are geographically adjacent to South Sudan and share long borders. Ethically, morally and politically, South Sudan must be acknowledged as a nation that has vital interests and kith and kin allegiances with the peoples of Blue Nile and South Kordofan. The prominent role played by the SPLM in these two provinces in particular must be publicly admitted and acclaimed. It is undeniable that South Sudan has important national security interests in South Sudan, Blue Nile and North Sudan as a whole. It is equally unthinkable that after 40 years of largely inconclusive war, the time is ripe for a new approach to protecting those interests as well as the interests of the peoples of Blue Nile and South Kordofan who fought alongside the Southern Sudanese under the leadership of the SPLM. The uprisings in Blue Nile and South Kordofan are perfectly capable of remaining a thorn in the side of Khartoum for years to come if the crisis of confidence between the SPLM and the NCP is not resolved. Unless such problems receive prompt observance, the political situation in Sudan is destined to remain volatile and unpredictable. The forces fighting Sudanese government troops in South Kordofan and Blue Nile are distinct indigenous movements with exceptionally close cultural and political links with South Sudan. More glaringly, it would be absurd to expect Khartoum to pretend that those bonds do not exist. South Kordofan and Blue Nile could scupper a new deal with Khartoum inspired by South Sudan. Khartoum and Juba are not the only capitals that count, of course. Al-Bashir is on firmer ground in his criticism of Western interventionist policies in the domestic affairs of Sudan. Western powers, China and Arab countries have a stake in an economically viable and politically stable Sudan. That is a worthy ambition.
