Southern Sudan faces major challenges as independence looms (Feature)

By Matt Richmond Feb 15, 2011, 11:34 GMT

Juba, Sudan - Southern Sudan is only months away from becoming the world's newest nation after its people voted overwhelmingly to break from the north, ending an association marked by decades of civil war.

Yet while the Southern Sudanese themselves are bursting with optimism as the promised land approaches, the government of the fledgling nation faces massive challenges.

It must provide rule of law in an ethnically-divided region awash with small arms, bring development to one of the poorest places on Earth and handle the unrealistic expectations of a population expecting an immediate improvement in living standards.

'We will have to make a change, so that after two years there is a difference between now and then,' southern president Salva Kiir told reporters at a ceremony to start paving on the south's first highway.

Even before independence, issues need to be thrashed out with the north, although President Omar al-Bashir has accepted the south's decision to secede, calming fears of a return to the 1983-2005 civil war that claimed over two million lives.

The two sides are promising swift negotiations to resolve outstanding issues, such as the border demarcation, which currently leaves much of Sudan's oil in the south, and the sharing of revenues from the precious commodity, which is piped through the north to an export facility on the Red Sea.

Also pressing is the future of Abyei, a restive disputed border region that has been the scene of violence between the southern Ngok Dinka tribe and the north's nomadic Misseriya tribe.

The Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), which rules the south, has promised an agreement by the end of March.

'Now we are negotiating as two distinct countries,' said Gabriel Changson Chang, a member of the committee negotiating financial issues with the north. 'Because of that our negotiations should be guided by mutual interests between north and south.'

While concern over renewed war with the north has faded, internal security has proven a major problem since the referendum.

Clashes amongst joint security forces stationed near the border were followed by attacks led by former general George Athor, claiming more than 150 lives. There are also other rebel movements and new reports of banditry and violent cattle raids every week.

The southern government already spends most of its money on security - about one-third of the budget went to the Sudan People's Liberation Army and the growing police service in 2010.

The army has yet to use overwhelming force against any of the rebellions and Kiir offered an amnesty to the rebels before the referendum, showing the government is at least willing to peacefully resolve such problems.

According to Chang, who is also the Minister of Culture and a leading opposition figure, Southern Sudan will only achieve stability if the opposition is included in the government.

'That is why in the Middle East or North Africa there are so many uprisings, simply because of one-party rule, one-party domination,' he said.

So far, the SPLM has not excelled in that field.

Opposition parties and civil society groups were angry when they were not included in a committee set up to change the constitution drafted in 2005 for a unified Sudan. Chang was the sole opposition figure appointed to the committee, and he quickly withdrew in protest.

The row over the constitution gives an idea of how contentious the next few months and years are likely to be. A transitional government, likely very similar to the current one, will be established, followed by the drawing up of a permanent constitution and elections.

The SPLM is the dominant party, but it is run by one ethnic group, the Dinka, and the south is too diverse for one tribe to dominate.

The political wrangling in the capital, Juba, means little to the faraway breeding grounds of rebellion. In remote areas of Jonglei, Upper Nile State and Unity State, people have little affinity for the government in Juba and have yet to see any development.

Speedy development will be important to keep such people happy, but the population is showing signs of unrealistic expectations.

'Our people believe that Southern Sudan can change overnight. I don't agree with that, those are wild ideas,' Kiir said recently.

Southern Sudan is the size of France, yet has only a few dozen kilometres of tarmac roads and displays appalling health, education and poverty indicators - as can be expected from an underdeveloped nation still recovering from a long war.

But getting the message that development takes time across to people eager for a better life is not easy.

'After independence, they'll call all us soldiers to Juba (the southern capital) and give each of us a house and a new car,' said one former southern soldier.

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