Journey to Southern Sudan's independence

Discussing the right to self determination

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Journey to Southern Sudan's independence

By Opoka p'Arop Otto on Thursday, 24 February 2011 at 03:45

Right to SELF DETERMINATION

By Opoka Christopher Arop

JUBA (3rd Nov. 2008) �" Dr. Mansour Khalid and Dr. Lam Akol while making presentations during a Forum on Southern Sudan’s history of failed Referenda have argued that “Right to Self Determination is initiated by people who are inclined to secession,” said Lam Akol while Mansour complimented “I don’t understand why people are talking about Unity on a new basis.” Moulana Abel Alier echoed a famous replica of Southern Sudan’s history when he said “Our history of referenda is interesting but also discomforting.”

Dr. Lam expressed in no retractable terms that the Comprehensive Peace Agreement must refrain from being silent about the “Likelihood of secession.” He explained that the two parties to the CPA are talking about making unity attractive without talking about the right of the people of Southern Sudan to express their right to Self Determination in a 2011 Referendum poll.

“Referendum is simply a process, and an instrument to achieve an end which in all cases is the exercise of the right to Self Determination,” defined Dr. Mansour Khalid, a Northern Sudan strong member and long-time friend of Late Dr. John Garang. He said that “Unity on a new basis or attractive unity is secondary to the right of Southern Sudanese to exercise a Self Determination for the region of Southern Sudan, Abyei, Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan States, simultaneously in 2011.”

He said that the Machakos Protocol signed in 2002 had discussed all issues facing Southern Sudan in their totality, and was in itself a solution to all failed agreements in Southern Sudan, including botched Referenda in Southern Sudan. “Machakos gave priority to the right to Self Determination for the people of Southern Sudan, Abyei, Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan. People should not be talking about any other issues regarding this right.”

Dr. Mansour added his voice to numerous speakers who called for a unity of Southern Sudan political parties in addressing the case for decentralization of the system of governance in the South, West and East of Sudan. “Actual democratic transformation must become a national agenda, wealth sharing not only between the north and South, but also in the whole of Sudan. Creation of Joint Integrated Units as a nucleus for a national army for Sudan in the future,” all these must be done he explained.

“The first priority of the CPA in my view is the autonomy of Southern Sudan,” Dr. Mansour said. He explained that the SPLM and NCP must be committed to making unity attractive by upholding powers given to the Government of Southern Sudan, and enabling Southern Sudan to play a visible role in national politics quantitatively commensurate with their demographic size and qualitatively enabling them to participate in areas not limited to the Presidency, civil service and national police.

Dr. Mansour shared his sentiments: “We [Southern Sudanese] always fail to connect the dots. There is a misunderstanding that parties to the CPA are SPLM and NCP. Wrong. The CPA is an agreement between the SPLM and the government of Sudan. This has been written like this because all factors were kept in mind that other political parties who vie for office will and must honor the legitimacy of the CPA when they oust NCP from State House.”

He said that a proposal made on December 12th 1955 by the Late Benjamin Luk in which he stated that “There should be an all party conference to include in the Declaration of independence a statement saying Southern Sudan wants to be federated in a united Sudan,” was rejected by the then government.

As a result it sparked the 1955 revolt in Torit, the famous Torit mutiny. After this event an indeterminate clause was included in the declaration of independence saying that the coming constitution committee would look into the claim of Southern Sudan for federation or “shall give due consideration.” Few months later, the committee came up with a strange conclusion that “it has looked into the matter of Southern Sudan’s demands for federation in a united Sudan and found out that the disadvantages outweighed the advantages; it didn’t state to whom the advantages and disadvantages were incurred,” Dr. Mansour narrated in his argument for a careful handling of the issue of referendum.

Father Saturlino Oliha, who was one of the only three Southern Sudanese representing the region in the committee of 12, said thus “The South has no intention towards the north whatsoever; the south simply claims to run its local affairs in a United Sudan. The South has no intention to separate from the North, for had that been the case, nothing else would have prevented it from demanding separation. The South claims to federate with the North, a right the South undoubtedly possesses as a consequence of the principle of Self Determination.” He put the whole issue in context as far back as 1958.

Dr. Mansour: “What has happened is not only failing to pay hid to these prophetic words from Fr. Saturlino, but the ruling class in the North persuaded itself that federation is bad and that it is against unity. And for these views to come from a very educated ruling class, that to my mind is a very sad thing.” At that time United States of America, Canada, India, Soviet Union, Brazil were federal states and none of them complained that federalism was failing the unity of the state.

In the former USSR, the only country at that time to have had a clause in its constitution giving the right to the states to seek Self Determination, Lenin used this argument when faced with proponents who said federalism would disunite the nation: “Saying giving States the right to Self Determination would lead to the breakup of the state is as foolish as saying that allowing people the right to divorce might lead to the breakup of families.” This was the original sin when Fr. Saturlino’s words were ignored. This is where the problem of Southern Sudan started.

The period of ultimate betrayal came after the overthrow of the Khalifa government, a government that was the first to attempt addressing the root cause of the Southern Question in relation to the issue of right to Self Determination.

“It had only remained for Niemeri to implement the efforts of the Khalifa government. What was achieved by Niemeri in the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement not only made him a hero in Southern Sudan, in Africa, but also gave him recognition internationally. His retraction of the agreement was something that could not be understood by anybody, of course there were political reasons: bottom line is that this act reached a new line of shame; Niemeri gave us the model of the ultimate betrayal,” said Dr. Mansour.

From that day, there was never any trust for any political party from the north and rightly: the right to Self Determination became apolitical and Southerners became more determined not to take any Khartoum government for granted nor at face value. “Nobody is the minority of anybody,” said Dr. John Garang. “It is this philosophy that everybody should feel that this country Sudan belongs to him; it is not for anybody to consider himself master and others his minorities,” Dr. John continued in a letter to the communists.

“The 1979 Referendum in fact in the end turned into a ‘Neverendum’.” SPLM is the first political party in Southern Sudan to break the cycle. Other parties had done so, but acceptance was reluctant, but SPLM made political parties in the North to recognize its right to exercise Self Determination. This caused all major political parties in the North to want to correct jointly what they had destroyed severally when they were in power.

“I want to say that agreements are not agreements because of the negotiations that produce them or the architectural institutions that design them. They are agreements also because of the socio-political realities on the ground are limitless. This agreement cannot be separated from the struggle of the SPLA, as the determinant force that made the other party to accept what others in Sudan rejected.

In the 1960’s the UN Security Council rejected giving recognition to the government of Katanga, but only a year later Secretary General Alberto accepted and endorsed full international recognition to the secession of the Bengalese leading to the independence of Bangladesh from Pakistan. This was because of the severity and long spell of the war and because the Bengalese were in control of the territory they occupied. And the war between India and Pakistan contributed to this development. And the whole world was forced to accept the independence of Bangladesh.

“Did they follow the principle of customary international law and the jurisprudence of practice of international recognition, two bases on which the United Nations rejected the secession of Katanga, when it embraced the nation of Bangladesh?” a question Dr. Mansour posed to listeners as other discussants pointed out that there will be need for Southern Sudan to engage the international community in order to seek international recognition of their new State “If and when Southern Sudanese choose to secede from the Sudan in 2011.”

This is why the United Nations holds conferences on the right to Self Determination, an issue which the UN normally doesn’t discuss: engaging topics like forced assimilation of people, ethnocide. “The whole idea here is that international customary rules no longer apply,” Dr. Mansour said Khalid summed, exerting confidence that “Should Southern Sudanese vote for Separation, the international community would not object to their right to Self Determination.”

This story is from a personal collection of stories by the same writer. 

 

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