Arab nations eye South Sudanese secession suspiciously (News Feature)

By dpa correspondents Jan 10, 2011, 15:22 GMT

Cairo - With Southern Sudanese secession appearing ever more likely, a host of other nations in the region are nervously eying what that might mean for their own unity.

The fear is of a domino effect, with other freedom-seeking groups taking South Sudan's move as a sign they should also break away. The worry is that, if left uncontrolled, the movement could leave the region populated by a string of weakened statelets.

The al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper in an editorial on Monday highlighted those fears.

'Without learning from past lessons, we might wake up soon to a series of civil wars and more calls for separation within states. Attacks by al-Qaeda in multi-ethnic countries aim for this. The development of southern Sudan deserves a serious Arab stance,' it wrote.

At the core, South Sudan's attempt to break away - results of the ongoing polls won't be known until February - is based on a perceived ethnic divide between the north and south. While there are exceptions, the north has traditionally tended toward strong Arab leanings and is mostly Muslim, while the animist south sees itself more as African and Christian.

The two sides engaged in a bloody civil war that only ended in 2005 with the promise that the south would have the option to break away.

Beyond Sudan, many African and Middle Eastern nations are amalgamations of an Arab population lumped together with other ethnicities. Most of those groupings are still holdovers from the days when European colonialists set boundaries.

That leaves a seemingly endless supply of groups who might try to strike off and form new nations - from Somaliland in Somalia to Western Sahara in Morocco.

In its editorial, the pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat argued that the rising tensions from Sudan to Iraq were signs that national leaders need to start taking seriously the concerns of minorities in their countries.

'Nations are not assassinated from the outside. Rather they are assassinated internally from oppression and a lack of understanding of the meaning of citizenship,' he wrote.

'From a refusal to accept difference and trying to erase certain characteristics by imposing one over the other. From discrimination and from vilifying pluralism by replacing it with one color or one idea,' he added, citing other reasons for possible breakups.

Ijlal Raafat, a political science professor at Cairo University, said Monday that the centrifugal dangers are real, particularly in the case of South Sudan in relation to Egypt.

'Any chaos in Sudan after the referendum due to unresolved conflicts would be extremely dangerous for Egypt as a neighbour,' he told the German Press Agency dpa.

'In addition, the further Islamization of northern Sudan, which is likely to take place under [Sudanese President Omar] al-Bashir after secession could spill over into Egypt.'

But there are signs that regional leaders are unlikely to take these arguments to heart.

Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa called Sudan one 'inseparable space' on Sunday as the independence referendum began.

'We must all work to protect the Sudanese community and encourage integration and cooperation between the north and south, which are part of the great, inseparable Sudanese space even if it becomes two separate states,' Moussa said.

But several countries in the Arab League, including Saudi Arabia and Libya, have spoken out against the division of Sudan, a member state.

Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi, at an Arab-African summit late last year, said the division of Sudan could spread like a 'contagious disease' and serve as a model for other African nations reeling from internal turmoil.

Meanwhile, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal has called the potential division of Sudan a 'dangerous move.'

And US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks suggest that Egyptian officials had pushed for a four to six year delay in Sudan's secession referendum to give the South more time to become viable as a potential state.

A cable from April 2009 quoted Egypt's intelligence chief Omar Suleiman as saying that 'Egypt does not want a divided Sudan.'

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