Winter 2010 - Project Ploughshares

Brinksmanship, delayand broken agreementsThe Southern Sudan independence referendumJohn SiebertIt was under a tree in a dusty field in Southern Sudan in September 2008. The research interview was over, but the truckto take us to lunch hadn’t arrived. They asked me to sing a Canadian song. But what? I asked myself.These were 15 young men, mostly in their twenties. They had all recently returned to Tonj East County in WarrapState after having been displaced during the latest phase of the Sudan civil war (1983-2005).There was no way I was going to sing the Canadian national anthem. Too clichéd. Then I remembered the CBC radiocontest to determine the greatest Canadian song.So I sang the chorus of “Four Strong Winds.” Despite their English training in Kenya and Uganda, my listeners couldnot understand what the song was about. With all due respect to Ian Tyson, how could they? To outsiders the lyrics are astring of metaphors and romantic, poetic nonsense.Then I asked them to sing me a song. It took several minutes of consultation in Dinka to decide. What they sang camein gusty unison with much pointing and broad arm gestures. It was like a rah-rah song a group of guys might sing afterthe game on the way to the pub.So I interpreted my song – it’s about a man leaving a woman – and they interpreted theirs. It was a SouthernSudanese fight song, which said, in effect, that even if the North killed every last Southerner in Sudan, a pen wouldsurvive to write the story.I told them I liked my song better. It was about loving a woman. Smiles and knowing chuckles broke out all round,and we were off to lunch.16Southern dreamsIt’s difficult for those of us watching from afar toappreciate how deeply the hopes and dreams of SouthernSudanese are connected to the referendum on secessionslated for January 9, 2011. The most recent phase offighting with the North followed a decade-long hiatusof a civil war that has been fought since Sudan gainedindependence in 1956. But the conflict’s roots go muchdeeper in Sudan’s history.For most Southern Sudanese, the referendum is theprimary and final set piece of three set out in the 2005Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), after a sixyearinterim period in which both the North and theSouth formally committed themselves to “making unityattractive.” Oppressed even in the colonial period bythe primarily Arab and Muslim North that continuesto advocate for the application of sharia law across thecountry, the heavily Christian and African South hasfought, negotiated, and organized itself for one goal:independence.Commentators acknowledge that a fair and wellorganized referendum would result in an overwhelmingvote by Southerners for independence. And there is therub. The previous two major markers leading to January’sreferendum were the census in 2008 and elections in2010. The census and election processes were not good.But they were good enough, setting the stage for the finalact: referendum.Juba in Southern Sudan. Ploughshares photo.Delay tactics or new preparations for war?With six years’ lead time, you would think there wouldbe plenty of time to get ready, but apparently not. Itseems that the National Congress Party government inKhartoum, headed by International Criminal Court-The Ploughshares Monitor I Winter 2010