A referendum on independence for south Sudan on Sunday raises tough questions about the legitimacy of Africa’s colonial borders and sets a precedent for existing secessionist movements, analysts said.
“There is an uneasiness in Africa towards this independence because it breaks with a tradition [of borders being inviolable] and because it seems to be taking place under US pressure,” said Roland Marchal, a Sudan specialist and senior researcher at the Institute of Political Sciences in Paris.
“This is seen as if it were a Berlin II, with the colonial powers carving up Africa again,” he said, referring to the 1885 Berlin Conference, where European powers divided and colonized Africa among themselves.
PHOTO: REUTERS
A peace accord in 2005 between the mostly Arab Muslim north and the largely Christian African south ended a 22-year civil war in Sudan, with an agreement that southerners could vote for independence after six years.
Southerners are widely expected to opt for independence in Sunday’s plebiscite, splitting Africa’s largest country in two, and shaking the perceived permanence of the national boundaries that Africa inherited from its colonial past.
Newly independent states across the continent collaborated in 1963 to form the Organization of African Unity — later becoming the African Union — which pledged to defend the territorial integrity of member states, whose borders had been drawn up by the European powers at Berlin.
“South Sudan is undeniably a precedent,” said Rene Otayek, a researcher at the Center for Black African Studies at Bordeaux’s Institute of Political Science.
“There has never been a referendum in an African country that allows a part of the population, a specific region, to decide whether it wants to stay within the framework of a unitary state or if it wants to break away,” Otayek said.
Eritrea voted for independence from Ethiopia in 1993 following a 30-year war. However, unlike south Sudan, it had already existed as a separate state, albeit under Italian colonial rule and annexed by its southern neighbor in 1962.
“What adds to the singularity of the situation in Sudan is the international consensus on the referendum and on the pledge to respect the results of the referendum by all the parties,” Otayek said.
Marchal agreed that domestic and international recognition of south Sudan’s vote is key.
“The referendum is taking place within the rules of international law, with the consent of the capital and with international observers monitoring its credibility,” he said.
“But in terms of perception, that shows it is possible to achieve secession. And since it is possible, it may be worth fighting for,” he said.
Other regions or movements in Africa demanding some form of autonomy include Morocco’s Western Sahara region, the oil-rich northern Angolan province of Cabinda, the Tuareg nomads in northern Mali and Niger, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s former breakaway province of Katanga and Casamance in southern Senegal.
“I am not sure south Sudan will have an immediate impact on other long-standing separatist conflicts like in Angola’s Cabinda province ... or the [rebel] factions in Casamance,” said Alex Vines, head of the Africa program at the London-based think tank Chatham House.
“If it goes wrong and conflict breaks out efforts at devolution ... may slow down,” he added.
Within Sudan itself, the referendum could also change the balance of power between the warring parties in the war-torn western region of Darfur, where recent months have witnessed heavy fighting between rebel groups and the army.
Darfur’s most active group, the Justice and Equality Movement, said in August that it would demand self-determination if its nearly eight-year conflict with the government continued.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
SUPERFAN: The Japanese PM played keyboard in a Deep Purple tribute band in middle school and then switched to drums at university, she told the British rock band Legendary British rock band Deep Purple yesterday made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan as they returned to the nation they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer, and a fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favorite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi said in English to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, presenting him with a set of made-in-Japan
RSS