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Why South Sudan Wants Obama to Lose White
House Bid
By Badru Mulumba
Juba Sudan
The people of South
Sudan take great pride in identifying themselves with
Africans, so one would expect them to support Barack
Obama, who is vying for the US presidency on a
Democratic ticket, because his father was an African.
However, that is not the case.
And while many in
the US fear that Republican presidential contender John
McCain would continue with President George W. Bush's
hawkish style, the people of Southern Sudan fully
support the Republican contender.
"The Democrats did
nothing for us," says Juk Langjuk, the editor-in-chief
of South Sudan's BusinessWeek. "They were not
interested."
Even before McCain
became the Republican nominee, the southern Sudanese
were rooting for him because of his reputation as a
fighter.
"McCain would be
better for us," Dr Loi Cingoth, a columnist with Sudan
Tribune, said last December.
As this year's US
presidential campaign gets into high gear, South Sudan
is going against the general feeling in many African
countries, who are extremely excited about the
possibility of an Obama victory.
The Democrat
Party's hands-off approach to Sudan in the 1990s,
compared with the pressure the Republican exerted on the
regime in the 2000s, has condemned Obama in South Sudan.
It is not that the
people of South Sudan hate Obama; they just want the
Democrats out of the White House. The truth is, Obama is
a victim of the Bill Clinton administration, which the
Southern Sudanese feel did not do much to help them.
Indeed, the worst
phase of Sudan's 21-year civil war, which left 2.5
million dead, took place during the Clinton
administration.
And the Southern
Sudanese still recall the Juba massacre of 1992, which
followed the repulsion of a rebel attack on their
capital, when people were picked up and dropped in
crocodile infested waters. Some were dropped from
military jets to their deaths while others were tortured
before being killed at the notorious security
headquarters, curiously known the White House.
Granted, the US
Secretary of State at the time, Madeleine Albright, held
meetings with then Sudan People's Liberation Movement
leader, John Garang, and it is partly thanks to her
efforts that the US accepted to take in South Sudanese
children, who came to be known as the "lost boys".
However, at no time
was Khartoum's hold on power under any serious threat
from the US as a result of its actions in the south. And
that is something the Southern Sudanese will not forget
easily.
But everything
changed when President George Bush became US president.
In just four years, the Bush administration achieved a
lot more for peace in Sudan than the Clinton
administration did in eight years, endearing the
Southern Sudanese to the Republicans.
John Danforth, then
US ambassador to Sudan, put a great deal of pressure on
Khartoum, which forced it to sign a peace agreement with
the South.
Notably, the treaty
gave the South much more than it had sought—and was
denied—
during a series of
peace talks in the 1990s.
By June 2004,
McCain was already saying that "The UN Security Council
should demand that the Sudanese government immediately
stop all violence against civilians, disarm and disband
its militias, allow full humanitarian access, and let
displaced persons return home.
"Should the
government refuse to reverse course, its leadership
should face multilateral sanctions and visa bans,"
McCain wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post.
"Peacekeeping troops should be deployed to Darfur to
protect civilians and expedite the delivery of
humanitarian aid, and we should encourage African,
European and Arab countries to contribute to these
forces."
Then, in October
2004, Obama entered the fray.
"First, the UN
Security Council should impose tough sanctions on the
Khartoum government immediately," Obama wrote in a
statement. "These sanctions should freeze the assets of
the Sudanese government, its leaders and business
affiliates; outlaw arms sales and transfers to Sudan;
and prohibit the purchase of Sudanese oil. The United
States must make this a high priority in our relations
with other governments on the Security Council."
According to
McCain, the priority issues were sanctions and visa bans
targeting leaders and UN peacekeepers, while Obama
stressed sanctions against government leaders and
businesses, disrupting arms purchases and oil sales,
with peacekeepers getting a mention much further down
the statement.
A comparison
between these two statements—four years before the two
senators would run for President— has Obama coming
across as a man who believes in disrupting trade to
force a regime to toe the line. Not so McCain,
whose wife, Cindy, had interests in companies operating
in Sudan even as he spoke out on the need for sanctions.
Obama put military
force in Darfur as priority three—after business has
been disrupted and humanitarian aid taken to the people,
while McCain put it first.
Sanctions, in which
Obama believes so strongly, did not work then, as did
military might, which is McCain's preferred course of
action. Even though the use of military might messed up
Iraq, the threat of military force helped South Sudan
achieve a viable peace agreement.
But that is not to
say that Obama's foreign policy is doomed in Sudan.Whichever one of
them becomes the next US president, he will find a world
that's greatly different from the one in which Clinton
or Bush ruled.
The first challenge
for the next US President who handles Sudan—or any other
conflict—is the image of the country.
Next president
The next American
president will find a US whose say in the UN is
diminished; whose friends are seething at having been
bullied into war; where there are other emerging centres
of global power, such as a new Europe that's
increasingly independent of the US; and an economically
successful China.
The second
challenge is Sudan itself. The next American president
will find a Sudan that is markedly different from that
of the 1990s or the early 2000s, thanks to the discovery
of oil.
The availability of
oil in Sudan would complicate the issue of sanctions.
Sudan's oil industry came of age at the end of the last
decade, when oil production surpassed local consumption,
at an estimated 20,000-30,000 barrels per day. The
country approaches the end of this decade producing half
a million barrels a day at four times the 1999 world
prices.
With countries like
China now dealing with Sudan, the continued absence of
the US only reduced American influence on the country.
And the possible
discovery of oil in Darfur would increase, not lower,
Sudan's growing influence. The well-intentioned Sudan
Divestment campaign, which has brought Darfur to the
fore of US debate, spells doom for future US influence
on the country.
This complicated
picture, coupled with dwindling US power, means that the
US must seek some kind of diplomacy with Sudan.
Source:
The Nation
(Nairobi), 3 June 2008
Badru Mulumba
Jr. was born in Jinja, formerly the industrial
center of eastern and central Africa, once famous for
bubbling multiculturalism, confounding quiet and
conspicuous greenery, and where the River Nile starts
its journey to the Mediterranean. Mulumba is currently
the Southern Sudan Correspondent for the Nation Media
Group, a Consulting Editor for a daily newspaper, and a
Stringer for IRIN and AFP. In addition, he belongs to
various alumni communities, including the Graduate
School of Journalism at Columbia University in the City
of New York, Africa Center for Strategic Studies (Uganda
Chapter), International House, Institute for Humane
Studies, U.S. International Visitors’ Program, Uganda
Habitat for Humanity and the World Bank Institute.
badru.mulumba@gmail.com
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Responses
THE ARGUMENT HERE MAKES LITTLE
SENSE. THE AUTHOR IS THINKING TRIBALLY. AMERICA'S
POLITICL PARTIES ARE NOT TRIBES.—Mackie
Maybe you are right. But I don't think so, entirely. The
author s a journalist. The
leaders in South Sudan are thinking regionally and they
are thinking anti-Khartoum and anti-Arab and anti-Islam,
and pro-Israel. There are more complexities involved
than you allow. And the South Sudan leaders might be
rather naive about American politics. Some believe
nevertheless there is a need to enlist the help of
African Americans in their efforts to break away from
the militarily oppressive Khartoum government.— Rudy
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Dear Rudy, I am actually in Southern Sudan.
Have been for about two years. . . . One would be
surprised if you interviewed ordinary people here about
what happened, including how the evangelicals, in fact,
tried to supply arms and were only disrupted by their
government. And I am not thinking tribally, because I
don't belong to any of the tribes here, which allows me
to look at issues in a more global sense.—Badru
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Rudy, Unfortunately his story posted on
your website needs to be taken seriously. I see Badru
daily. He is with The Citizen, published in Juba nd
Khartoum. I have a daily column in The Citizen on Pan-Africanism,
called 'From the Borderlands'. He mentions Loi in his
piece. Loi is a medical Doctor in Juba, who has a daily
column in the Sudan Tribune, published in
Khartoum Which is widely read in Sudan, if
slightly conservative.—Bankie
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posted 15 June
2008
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