Freedom from Islamists?
Stratfor Dispatch: Southern Sudan's Independence Day
July 7, 2011 | 2003 GMT
STRATFOR analyst Mark Schroeder explains why Sudan and Southern Sudan will remain dependent on each other even after they split July 9.
On July 9 the Government of Southern Sudan will declare its independence from the rest of Sudan and Juba will become the capital Southern Sudan, the world’s newest state. The big question following Southern Sudan’s independence will be: what will be the state of the relationship between Southern Sudan and Sudan? Will it be a state of conflict, will it be a state of competition, something in between? Our analysis at STRATFOR is that these two countries, come July 9, will still primarily be dependent on each other. It will coerce these two states into a degree of cooperation as opposed to a degree of conflict.
After many years of conflict and civil war and negotiations, Southern Sudan will achieve its independence and this comes at the conclusion of a comprehensive peace agreement that was reached back in 2005. Now, these two countries still have a lot of hard work ahead. And the primary issues, or the fundamental issues that the two need to negotiate and have not been resolved, are in the areas of revenue sharing over the countries’ oil resources, as well as in debt that Sudan has incurred as a single country to this point. And there has been plenty of talk of those subjects, plenty of discussions to this point, but no resolutions.
Now in terms of oil, the country produces approximately 500,000 barrels of oil per day, most of it being exported to countries such as China. About three-quarters of the oil that is pumped from Sudan actually comes from southern Sudan. So come July 9, Southern Sudan will want to declare that it has sovereign ownership over those oil fields as opposed to Sudan, the government in the north. On the other hand, Juba and Khartoum still need to cooperate extensively due to the single fact that there’s only one way to get that oil to market as of right now, and that is through pipelines that travel territory in northern Sudan. And so, in the short term, Khartoum still holds some significant leverage in its dealings with the new state of Southern Sudan. It might have to go down the road of a model where Khartoum only receives transit fees paid to it from Juba after Juba receives payment for the oil that it sells to its customers elsewhere. But as it stands, those negotiations are not resolved and will only resume after July 9.
Relations between Southern Sudan and Sudan will certainly be difficult and fraught with tension. Sudan will still maintain a robust security presence north of the border of the soon-to-be independent Republic of Southern Sudan, and this robust military presence will be to ensure that Sudan doesn’t lose any additional territory such as the autonomous region of Abyei, or lands in southern Kordofan or in the Darfur regions – other regions that are also contested by subnational actors in that country. Southern Sudan will receive diplomatic support to underwrite some of its government activities, you know, paying a few bills of civil servants in the ministries sitting in Juba, perhaps building a few clinics and hospitals and roads. But when it comes down to actually building a new state, and coming up with sovereign resources to establish a viable independent state, Juba needs control over those oil resources to do that. Until such time that Juba can have an alternative pipeline infrastructure, Juba needs to cooperate with Khartoum and the two are dependent on the continuation of that singular resource that writes the budgets for the two countries.
Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, STRATFOR cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.
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