North Sudan is on the verge of ethnic cleansing, worries Asmaa El-Husseini This year's 9 April was a sad day for the 700,000 or so southern Sudanese still living in northern Sudan. The Khartoum government has threatened that those who fail to have the right papers by that day face the prospect of being treated as illegal aliens. If the government enforces its regulations to the letter, the southerners may find themselves completely thrown out of the legal systems, Sudan's answer to the Bidoun (people without citizenship) in Gulf states. The irony of the situation is that it may hurt the northerners just as bad as the southerners, if not more. Nearly seven million northerners who raise cows for a living have to venture into south Sudan for eight months every year in search of water and pasture. If Juba retaliates by holding those back, a major humanitarian disaster is likely to ensue. In the hope of containing the situation, Juba sent a delegation to Khartoum to discuss supplying the appropriate documents to southerners living in the north. Juba has also called on the UN to look after the interests of its nationals living in the north. In Khartoum, the signals are mixed. Some officials say that the measures are not punitive and that the government only aims to keep track of the southerners living in its territories. Others say that the southerners deserve to be treated as foreigners. Judging by previous patterns in relations between Khartoum and Juba, one cannot be too optimistic. The two countries have discontinued air travel between them, not exactly a sign that reconciliation is around the corner. It is only nine months or so since Sudan was divided in two countries, and yet Khartoum and Juba are failing to establish a modicum of cordiality. Their actions are not only self-destructive, but run in the face of the common humanity shared by the population across the borders. I talked to many people in the south who remember the kindness with which the northerners treated them when they fled north to escape the war. Theirs are the kind of memories that can maintain cordiality in future ties, and also the kind of memories that the harshness of the present measures can ruin. In the north, there have been protests by southerners bent on staying in Khartoum despite the government threats. Many were born in the north, worked there and got married and had children there, and they have no connection whatsoever with the new country born to the south of the borders. It didn't have to be that acrimonious. Last month, Khartoum and Juba reached a framework agreement that could have resolved the question of expatriates, but now this agreement doesn't seem to be worth the paper on which it was written. With chauvinism on the rise, the two governments seem to ignore the interests of their own people. You hear rhetoric in Khartoum about how the south is in bed with the Americans and the Israelis. And yet, what the northerners are now doing is likely to drive a lasting wedge in relations between the two countries, and thus make the worst predictions of the north true. If Khartoum really wanted to win back the hearts and minds of the southerners, it could have promised them aid and expertise that is much needed there, instead of threatening to throw out the southerners. It is not hard to make friends and to win hearts. With so much history and culture in common, the two sides of Sudan could have a more reconciliatory future. But this is not where they are heading for the moment. And unless something is done to remedy the growing bitterness on both sides of the borders, hopes for reconciliation are likely to dwindle.
