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UNISCI Discussion Papers, Nº 33 (Octubre / October 2013) ISSN 1696-2206“Two roads diverged in a wood,I took the one less travelled by,And that made all the difference”Robert Frost (1920), The Road not Taken.1. Introduction and BackgroundThe Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), was signed between the government of theRepublic of the Sudan (GOS) and Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) inthe Kenyan town of Naivasha on 9 th January 2005. The CPA was a materialisation of threeyears of sustained negotiations under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental DraughtAuthority (IGAD), supported by the African Union, the Arab League, the EU, the UN and thegovernments of Italy, Netherlands, Norway, United Kingdom, and United States. The signingof the CPA brought to an end Africa's longest civil conflict in living memory that had eruptedin 1955, stopped for 13 years before resuming in 1983 and continued for 22 years until theCPA was signed in January 2005. The CPA is comprised of six protocols and three annexesand was recognised by the United Nation's Security Council Resolution 1574. A centralprovision of the CPA is that the people of Southern Sudan have a right to self-determinationwhich they will exercise by voting in a referendum scheduled for January 9 th 2011, that is, six(6) years after having signed the peace agreement to decide whether to confirm the status quoof united Sudan or secede to form their own independent state. 2 The Machokos Protocols alsoobliged the two parties to the agreement to strive to improve institutional arrangements inorder to make unity an attractive option to the people in Southern Sudan. 3 Furthermore, theparties to the CPA (the National Congress Party (NCP), and SPLM) were required by theReferendum Act 2009 to agree on post-referendum issues such as citizenship (status ofNortherners in the South and Southerners in the North), security, currency, distribution of oilrevenues, national assets and foreign debts, and sharing of Nile water.As the implementation of the CPA progressed, by the end of 2010 there was concernthat the referendum planned for 9 th January 2011 would be behind schedule because of adeadlock over boundary demarcation and continuing disagreements over voting eligibility ofMessiryia in Abyei's referendum; 4 there was also a serious concern that no tangible agreementor coherent vision had been reached by the CPA partners on the nature of relationshipsbetween the North and the South in case of a vote favourable to secession. 5 Lack of visionregarding the form of future relationships between two parts of Sudan in post-2011 period didcast enormous shadows of uncertainty over the future of both the North and the South andmade it hard to plan for 2011 and beyond, especially amongst the government bureaucratswho were expected to make vital decisions whose impacts could go beyond January 2011.That uncertainty was commonly expressed in such statements as: “We do not know what willhappen in January 2011”. 6It is quite certain that those making these statements knew that the referendum´soutcome would impact their plans and ongoing activities in many unpredictable ways, yet2 Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA): The Machakos Protocol, Articles 1.3 and 2.53 Ibid., Article 2.44 Verjee, Aly (2010): Race Against Time: The Count Down to Referenda in Southern Sudan and Abyei, RiftValley Institute, p. 14.5 Akec, John A.: “A Call for Renewable Confederation in Post-Referendum Sudan”, Sudan Tribune, 8 June2010, at http://sudantribune.com.6 Ibid.154
UNISCI Discussion Papers, Nº 33 (Octubre / October 2013) ISSN 1696-2206were almost helpless to craft an effective response to it. There was no strategic thinking apartfrom being concerned with here and now. This was as if the world knew about Year 2000problem, or the so-called Millennium Bug that was predicted to cause date-keeping system incomputers to malfunction when year 2000 arrived, thus, raising the risk of data loss, yet wereunable to stop it or to put in place measures to thwart its adverse impacts on business data andoperation of vital and strategic utilities that are computer-controlled. 7 The truth is: the worldknew the implications of Millennium Bug and acted by dedicating a huge amount of resourcesand expert skills to fix the problem, and when the day and the hour arrived (midnight ofDecember 31, 1999), everything was under control and no major catastrophe or financiallosses whatsoever were reported. The contrast could never be starker in the case of Sudan inregards to post-referendum arrangements .The continuing uncertainty over the future relationship between the North and the Southdid not only make it hard to plan, but also made it difficult for parties involved in negotiatingpost-referendum arrangements to make compromises on issues such as citizenship, residenceand so on; as each party exercised a 'maximum precaution' rule to guard its stakes. 8 The twoparties talked of 'good neighbourliness and peaceful secessions' but no one knew what shapethis good neighbourliness was going to take, or how smooth secession could be achieved. 9In fact, the lack of agreement on post-referendum arrangements, of which the North-South relationship was an important part, aggravated by inflammatory statements of Sudanesepoliticians across the divide, caused a mass-exodus of South Sudanese from the North. 10While the Naivasha agreement might have brought relative peace to the country afternearly a quarter of a century of strife and bloodshed, there was increasing realisation amongstsignificant Sudan watchers during the transition period following the CPA that the unityversus secession black or white dichotomy may not be the ideal solution for bringing about alasting and sustainable political accommodation in Sudan. 11By mid 2010, there was an increasing interest in confederation as one of the potentialoptions for closing the gap in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement without sacrificing theright of people in South Sudan to determine their own political future. 127 “The Year 2000 problem (also known as the Y2K problem, the millennium bug, the Y2K bug, or simply Y2K)was a problem for both digital (computer-related) and non-digital documentation and data storage situationswhich resulted from the practice of abbreviating a four-digit year to two digits”, Year 2000 problem, athttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2000_problem8 Fick, Maggie: “Preparing for Two Sudans”, Enough Project, (March 2010). “Both parties represent the rulingelites of North and South, and neither side wishes to give up their respectively precarious positions. Anaccommodation between elites in Khartoum and Juba could be in the offing, but both sides are understandablyreluctant to accept potentially painful compromises on their overarching objectives: access to southern oil wealthfor the NCP, and sustainable southern independence for the SPLM”.9 Akec: “A Call for Renewable Confederation”, op. cit.10 Heavens, Andrew: “South Sudanese Risks Citizenship Rights in Vote – Minister”, Reuters, Khartoum, 25September 2010.11 Mc Hugh, Gerard: “Envisioning the Future: Options for Political Accommodation between North and SouthSudan Following Referendum”, Conflict Dynamic International report, Governance and Peace Building Series,Briefing nº 3 (September 2010). Mc Hughs explains that by political accommodation is meant a “constructwhich can provide more opportunities to reconcile different and potentially competing political interests than asingular or disjointed focus on “power sharing”, electoral system design, legislative decision making procedures,or other areas can achieve … The essence of political accommodation is mutual conciliation in situations wherethere is absence of comprehensive consensus but not a complete lack of consensus”, p. 12.12Mukhtar, Alweeya: “The CPA Partners Discuss Mbeki's Proposals on Structure of North South Relations”, Al-Sahafa, (11 November 2010). The writer reported that the two partners had started discussing the shape of155
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