Sudanese Elections: Backstory and Future Prospects

Awesome noted on the blog earlier this week that indicted international war criminal/president Omal al-Bashir won reelection and that Salva Kiir had similarly cruised to reelection as vice president and (thus) president of the Autonomous Government of Southern Sudan. I've followed this election somewhat closely and wanted to throw in my $.02 on the situation in Sudan.

First, the elections were pretty much a sham. Go over to the Enough Project and read all about the abuses and irregularities perpetrated by the ruling party (or watch videos of the vote being rigged) or go read about all of the problems with the process listed by the Carter Center.

However, no one is making much of a fuss over this because...

a) Most of the opposition candidates did not participate, so there weren't really many choices for voters. This includes the candidate that was going to be put forward by the leading party in the South, the SLPA/M. The calculus by the SLPM seems to be...what's the point? Why worry about national elections when we are just going to secede next year?

b) As far as I can tell, the US and other Western governments seem to have made similar calculations--something like: yes, we could raise a big stink over these elections, but we want to stay on Bashir's good side in order to have at least a shot at a peaceful secession process next year (it seems fairly certain that the South will vote to secede).

There are a couple of problems with this prognosis by Southern Sudan and by the West. First, it presumes that Bashir will follow through with a fair referendum process next year and, if the South votes to secede, he will allow them to do so peacefully. This seems wildly optimistic given his past antics and the fact that huge issues such as border demarcation and oil revenues remain unresolved. For its part, Southern Sudan seems to be hedging its bets in order to force Bashir to think long and hard before trying to re-ignite the North-South Civil War that raged from the 80s all the way up until the CPA in '05.

But even assuming all goes as planned, a newly independent Southern Sudan faces seemingly insurmountable development obstacles including:
-crushing poverty (I've heard estimates that it would be the poorest country in the world)
-sporadic but deadly intercommunal violence
-periodic incursions by the Lord's Resistance Army
-landlocked with (mostly) bad neighbors, including Bashir's state, whose proximity will likely lead to very high military spending by the new state
-resource curse problems (with oil)
-likelihood of a one-party state dominated by the SPLA/M

Violence in Southern Sudan

Reuters reports that 17 people were killed, including 13 soldiers, in an attempt to disarm armed civilian groups in Southern Sudan.

Seventeen people were killed on Thursday when armed civilians ambushed south Sudanese soldiers trying to disarm tribes following heavy fighting in the semi-autonomous region last year, an official said on Tuesday.

A 2005 peace deal ended more than two decades of north-south civil war, but the south Sudan army has found it difficult to disarm civilians in the lawless south and tribal violence claimed an estimated 2,500 lives in the south last year.

"The soldiers clashed with armed civilians, 13 were killed from the soldiers' side and four from the civilians," Lakes State Deputy Governor David Noc Marial told Reuters. The civilians' refusal to disarm was behind the ambush, he said.

It is important to note that these soldiers were from the the South Sudanese military, not the Sudanese military proper. South Sudan is experiencing a number of concurrent crises, including raids from the batshit crazy Lord's Resistance Army. These attempted disarmaments were likely an attempt to halt intertribal violence that rocked the area last year, stemming from disputes over pasture land and cattle raids.

The big unspoken here, not mentioned in the Reuters article, is that the government in Khartoum is probably arming many of these groups itself in order to destabilize the South in the run-up to the 2010 elections and 2011 secession referendum. Expect to see a whole lot of news out of Sudan in the months to come.

Renewed North-South Civil War in Sudan Slated for 2011

Take it to the bank.

Sudan already has huge problems. The lingering effects of genocide and insurgency in Darfur. Incursions by the batcrap crazy Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army into the south. Ethnic violence and raids in the south. Now, it look's like a renewed civil war between the northern Muslim-dominated government and breakaway Christian south is likely in the near future.

The festering turd of a government in Khartoum recently showed its hand by rounding up southern politicians from the southern SPLM (the political wing of the Sudan People's Liberation Army--the north's opponent in the civil war, and the junior partner in the current Sudanese ruling coalition) at an anti-government rally in the capital.

A referendum on creating an independent South Sudan is slated for the summer of 2011, but it is becoming increasingly clear that the government in Khartoum doesn't intend to hold anything resembling a fair election.

For its part, the south is also preparing for war. Satellite imagery and a freight manifest have demonstrated that a freighter captured by Somali pirates last fall and subsequently released was filled with tanks, RPGs, & AA guns headed for the Autonomous Government of South Sudan (via Kenya, who seems to be the GOSS's patron here).

War will (once again) hit Sudan before we know it. Some sort of diplomatic or even military intervention by the international community seems to be the only possible way to avoid this. Is that a good idea? I dunno...