By Kremena Krumova
October 3, 2011
But hopes arise for the future
While all eyes are on South Sudan, being the youngest country in the world and the 193rd United Nations member after separating on July 9 from the rest of Sudan, little is said about what is going on in the north.
Apart from losing its national pride along with one-third of its territory, North Sudan is facing even bigger problems: harsh repression of civil protests, soaring inflation, and near-war status in the border areas of Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile state, as well as in Darfur.
But while many see the future of the Republic of Sudan as bleak, there are indications that the country is stabilizing and starting to open up to the world.
As a result of a referendum in January, the southern portion of Sudan, which has oil, is less developed, and populated mostly by Christians and Animists, decided to split from the north, which is richer, mostly Muslim, and has the pipelines to transport the oil. The act of secession that followed in July put a stop to more than two decades of Sudan’s north-south civil war and paved the way for South Sudan’s independence.
Still, while the separation saw new-found freedom for the south, it ushered in a hard period for the north. Even before the secession, many southerners who had previously lived in the north moved back to the south—either for fear of violence or out of a will to develop their homeland. This made many businesses in the north lose their consumers. In addition, the trade between the north and the south has become difficult since the separation, which has caused food and commodity prices to rise dramatically.
“It is remarkable how inflation flies,” Nico Plooijer, manager of the Horn of Africa Program at IKV Pax Christi, a peacekeeping organization based in the Netherlands, said in a telephone interview.
Plooijer, who visits Sudan regularly and has constant communication with both capitals—Khartoum in the north and Juba in the south—said meat prices have risen 30–50 percent recently. Veal, the favorite meat of the Sudanese, used to cost about 20 Sudanese pounds (US$7.47) per kilo, but now has jumped to more than 30 pounds (US$11.20). Beef, which was usually affordable to poor people, is now eaten by the rich and out of the reach of the poor. Tomatoes, an important part of poor peoples’ diet, used to cost around 2 pounds (US$0.74) per kilo but are now 10 pounds (US$3.74) per kilo.
According to a recent International Monetary Fund report, consumer prices in Sudan will increase by 20 percent in 2011 compared to 13 percent in 2010.
Plooijer pointed out that much of the food and diesel that used to come from the north is now provided by other countries like Uganda and Kenya, which makes things even more expensive.
“Of course, the global crisis also plays a role. The people in Sudan felt it very strongly,” he said.
Khartoum was engulfed by a wave of protests that started Sept. 27 in the eastern Burri area and quickly spread to several other areas in the capital and also to the city of Omdurman, the Sudan Tribune reported. Demonstrators have been shouting slogans denouncing the government and condemning the high food prices.
The country lost 75 percent of its oil reserves after the south seceded and was denied billions of dollars in revenues. Prior to the breakup, Sudan produced close to 500,000 barrels of oil per day. Apart from that, Sudan faces a huge national debt amounting to $38 billion and a devaluating currency that continues to slide sharply against the U.S. dollar.
To make matters worse, international sanctions have been imposed on the country because of the genocide in Darfur. Earlier this week, Sudan’s Foreign Minister Ali Karti painted a grim picture of the country’s economic situation, describing it as “really serious.”
Some say that the protests may lead to something similar to the Arab Spring, but unlike Libya and Tunisia, Sudan is much more loosely organized and any opposition is being brutally suppressed by the government, which is trying to consolidate its power.
“The unrest has already started but every time the government suppresses the demonstrations and disperses the protesters—even those who went on peaceful ones protesting the food prices hikes,” Ayman Elias Ibrahim, a Northern Sudanese reporter for The Citizen, an English daily based in Khartoum, wrote in an e-mail.
Apart from economic losses, North Sudan seems to have also lost a crucial advocate for human rights.
“Northerners were seeing the south as a source of advocacy for freedom and human rights. Now northerners feel that they have to forget about human rights,” said Waakhe Wudu, a correspondent for the Gurtong Trust project, in a telephone interview from Juba.
“Some fear that after the secession, the NCP [National Congress Party] will reinforce the implementation of Sharia Law. This is because the southerners who advocated for its removal have broken away. The Khartoum regime is a military regime, so you cannot expect something different from what is now.”
Last week, Sadiq al-Mahdi, the leader of the National Umma Party (NUP), announced that his party will not partake in the upcoming government because the ruling NCP is “not serious about letting other political powers have a role in decision-making.”
According to some observers, opposition to President al-Bashir is weak and usually chooses to “co-opt into the power system” in order to obtain benefits.
Amir Ahmad Nasr, a leading Sudanese blogger and digital activist, confirmed that being filial to the ruling party can secure a good life.
“If you work for the party, you can get a job very easily, and this job will provide you a decent car and apartment, and decent money, even if you are not qualified for that job,” said Nasr, from Kuala Lumpur.
Nasr, who blogs under the name “Sudanese Thinker,” explained that Bashir and his cronies control the economy and have a lot of influence but little accountability to society.
“They can go and use weapons and be very thuggish, because they have this privilege to be above the law,” he said.
“It is all about interests: ‘If you scratch my back, I will scratch your back,’ and about corruption and making money. They are a bunch of corrupt mafia and want to continue and maintain their power.”
However, he warned that the government of Sudan is not a solid, unified entity but rather a conglomerate of various interests, with Bashir playing a balancing role.
They include Islamists who genuinely want an Islamic state; people who pretend to be Islamists but in fact they care only about money and their businesses; very corrupt businessmen allied with the government; highly educated businessmen who are not corrupt but who also maintain cooperation with the government in order to do business; the intelligence or security services; and the tribal leaders and the military.
“Bashir has to always play a balancing act to make everyone happy. When he wants to make the Islamists happy he says: ‘Oh, after the South secedes, we will have an Islamic state, we are going to have Sharia.’ And when he tries to appeal to the business community, he promises to bring investors from China and Brazil,” said Nasr.
But Bashir has been having trouble appealing to and gaining support from the military, which showed in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile state. There, the military launched campaigns without Bashir’s approval. Nasr said there is speculation that tension exists between Bashir and the military because of that.
“I don’t think Bashir is interested or even wants to crush the fighters there, but I also do not think he could stop the attacks even if he wanted to,” said Nasr.
He added that the battles along the border with the south are of interest to the military because they lost soldiers there during the civil war.
He also said there are rumors that Bashir will not continue serving as president and that a successor is in the process of being selected.
But hope is appearing on the horizon. Foreign Minister Ali Karti has just returned from summits in Paris and New York, and will attend an economic forum in Turkey in the beginning of December. Also, Bashir demonstrated political maturity and willingness for peace during the referendum in the south.
“We have seen that Bashir can also play a democratic role, to the extent possible in the framework of the existing regime in Sudan,” said Mariya Nedelcheva, a member of the European Parliament and member of the European Union delegation to Africa, in a telephone interview from Brussels.
Moreover, earlier this week Bashir announced that he will negotiate with the south but without international mediation, which is also seen as a positive sign by political observers.
“This is the most correct way to do it. In order to give the chance to these countries to build themselves as such, they have to do it by themselves,” said Nedelcheva.
She pointed out that Bashir deserves a review of the verdict handed down by the International Court of Justice against him for crimes against humanity in Darfur. But she warned that if South Sudan decides to implement the verdict if Bashir ever visits Juba, it will bring new tensions due to the sensitivity of the topic.
On a positive note, Nedelcheva remembers her travels across North Sudan and said that when she spoke to local people she didn’t detect any sense of resentment toward Bashir. She said that in comparison with the south, there is much more progress in the north.
“While in South Sudan there is almost nothing built, in the north you can see the efforts made by Bashir, and people feel these efforts.”
Source: The Epoch Times.
Link: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/world/sudan-faces-hard-times-after-secession-of-the-south-62362-all.html.
October 3, 2011
But hopes arise for the future
While all eyes are on South Sudan, being the youngest country in the world and the 193rd United Nations member after separating on July 9 from the rest of Sudan, little is said about what is going on in the north.
Apart from losing its national pride along with one-third of its territory, North Sudan is facing even bigger problems: harsh repression of civil protests, soaring inflation, and near-war status in the border areas of Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile state, as well as in Darfur.
But while many see the future of the Republic of Sudan as bleak, there are indications that the country is stabilizing and starting to open up to the world.
As a result of a referendum in January, the southern portion of Sudan, which has oil, is less developed, and populated mostly by Christians and Animists, decided to split from the north, which is richer, mostly Muslim, and has the pipelines to transport the oil. The act of secession that followed in July put a stop to more than two decades of Sudan’s north-south civil war and paved the way for South Sudan’s independence.
Still, while the separation saw new-found freedom for the south, it ushered in a hard period for the north. Even before the secession, many southerners who had previously lived in the north moved back to the south—either for fear of violence or out of a will to develop their homeland. This made many businesses in the north lose their consumers. In addition, the trade between the north and the south has become difficult since the separation, which has caused food and commodity prices to rise dramatically.
“It is remarkable how inflation flies,” Nico Plooijer, manager of the Horn of Africa Program at IKV Pax Christi, a peacekeeping organization based in the Netherlands, said in a telephone interview.
Plooijer, who visits Sudan regularly and has constant communication with both capitals—Khartoum in the north and Juba in the south—said meat prices have risen 30–50 percent recently. Veal, the favorite meat of the Sudanese, used to cost about 20 Sudanese pounds (US$7.47) per kilo, but now has jumped to more than 30 pounds (US$11.20). Beef, which was usually affordable to poor people, is now eaten by the rich and out of the reach of the poor. Tomatoes, an important part of poor peoples’ diet, used to cost around 2 pounds (US$0.74) per kilo but are now 10 pounds (US$3.74) per kilo.
According to a recent International Monetary Fund report, consumer prices in Sudan will increase by 20 percent in 2011 compared to 13 percent in 2010.
Plooijer pointed out that much of the food and diesel that used to come from the north is now provided by other countries like Uganda and Kenya, which makes things even more expensive.
“Of course, the global crisis also plays a role. The people in Sudan felt it very strongly,” he said.
Khartoum was engulfed by a wave of protests that started Sept. 27 in the eastern Burri area and quickly spread to several other areas in the capital and also to the city of Omdurman, the Sudan Tribune reported. Demonstrators have been shouting slogans denouncing the government and condemning the high food prices.
The country lost 75 percent of its oil reserves after the south seceded and was denied billions of dollars in revenues. Prior to the breakup, Sudan produced close to 500,000 barrels of oil per day. Apart from that, Sudan faces a huge national debt amounting to $38 billion and a devaluating currency that continues to slide sharply against the U.S. dollar.
To make matters worse, international sanctions have been imposed on the country because of the genocide in Darfur. Earlier this week, Sudan’s Foreign Minister Ali Karti painted a grim picture of the country’s economic situation, describing it as “really serious.”
Some say that the protests may lead to something similar to the Arab Spring, but unlike Libya and Tunisia, Sudan is much more loosely organized and any opposition is being brutally suppressed by the government, which is trying to consolidate its power.
“The unrest has already started but every time the government suppresses the demonstrations and disperses the protesters—even those who went on peaceful ones protesting the food prices hikes,” Ayman Elias Ibrahim, a Northern Sudanese reporter for The Citizen, an English daily based in Khartoum, wrote in an e-mail.
Apart from economic losses, North Sudan seems to have also lost a crucial advocate for human rights.
“Northerners were seeing the south as a source of advocacy for freedom and human rights. Now northerners feel that they have to forget about human rights,” said Waakhe Wudu, a correspondent for the Gurtong Trust project, in a telephone interview from Juba.
“Some fear that after the secession, the NCP [National Congress Party] will reinforce the implementation of Sharia Law. This is because the southerners who advocated for its removal have broken away. The Khartoum regime is a military regime, so you cannot expect something different from what is now.”
Last week, Sadiq al-Mahdi, the leader of the National Umma Party (NUP), announced that his party will not partake in the upcoming government because the ruling NCP is “not serious about letting other political powers have a role in decision-making.”
According to some observers, opposition to President al-Bashir is weak and usually chooses to “co-opt into the power system” in order to obtain benefits.
Amir Ahmad Nasr, a leading Sudanese blogger and digital activist, confirmed that being filial to the ruling party can secure a good life.
“If you work for the party, you can get a job very easily, and this job will provide you a decent car and apartment, and decent money, even if you are not qualified for that job,” said Nasr, from Kuala Lumpur.
Nasr, who blogs under the name “Sudanese Thinker,” explained that Bashir and his cronies control the economy and have a lot of influence but little accountability to society.
“They can go and use weapons and be very thuggish, because they have this privilege to be above the law,” he said.
“It is all about interests: ‘If you scratch my back, I will scratch your back,’ and about corruption and making money. They are a bunch of corrupt mafia and want to continue and maintain their power.”
However, he warned that the government of Sudan is not a solid, unified entity but rather a conglomerate of various interests, with Bashir playing a balancing role.
They include Islamists who genuinely want an Islamic state; people who pretend to be Islamists but in fact they care only about money and their businesses; very corrupt businessmen allied with the government; highly educated businessmen who are not corrupt but who also maintain cooperation with the government in order to do business; the intelligence or security services; and the tribal leaders and the military.
“Bashir has to always play a balancing act to make everyone happy. When he wants to make the Islamists happy he says: ‘Oh, after the South secedes, we will have an Islamic state, we are going to have Sharia.’ And when he tries to appeal to the business community, he promises to bring investors from China and Brazil,” said Nasr.
But Bashir has been having trouble appealing to and gaining support from the military, which showed in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile state. There, the military launched campaigns without Bashir’s approval. Nasr said there is speculation that tension exists between Bashir and the military because of that.
“I don’t think Bashir is interested or even wants to crush the fighters there, but I also do not think he could stop the attacks even if he wanted to,” said Nasr.
He added that the battles along the border with the south are of interest to the military because they lost soldiers there during the civil war.
He also said there are rumors that Bashir will not continue serving as president and that a successor is in the process of being selected.
But hope is appearing on the horizon. Foreign Minister Ali Karti has just returned from summits in Paris and New York, and will attend an economic forum in Turkey in the beginning of December. Also, Bashir demonstrated political maturity and willingness for peace during the referendum in the south.
“We have seen that Bashir can also play a democratic role, to the extent possible in the framework of the existing regime in Sudan,” said Mariya Nedelcheva, a member of the European Parliament and member of the European Union delegation to Africa, in a telephone interview from Brussels.
Moreover, earlier this week Bashir announced that he will negotiate with the south but without international mediation, which is also seen as a positive sign by political observers.
“This is the most correct way to do it. In order to give the chance to these countries to build themselves as such, they have to do it by themselves,” said Nedelcheva.
She pointed out that Bashir deserves a review of the verdict handed down by the International Court of Justice against him for crimes against humanity in Darfur. But she warned that if South Sudan decides to implement the verdict if Bashir ever visits Juba, it will bring new tensions due to the sensitivity of the topic.
On a positive note, Nedelcheva remembers her travels across North Sudan and said that when she spoke to local people she didn’t detect any sense of resentment toward Bashir. She said that in comparison with the south, there is much more progress in the north.
“While in South Sudan there is almost nothing built, in the north you can see the efforts made by Bashir, and people feel these efforts.”
Source: The Epoch Times.
Link: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/world/sudan-faces-hard-times-after-secession-of-the-south-62362-all.html.
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