Sudan's Oil Crisis is Only Bashir's First Problem
Blood on the White Nile
Article Summary and Author Biography
In an attempt to one-up Khartoum, the newly independent South Sudan has twisted its oil spigot closed. But a shuttered oil sector is just the beginning of Omar al-Bashir's problems: Juba sees him as weak, a new alliance of fighters in the east is plotting to overthrow him, and Sudan's economy is in tatters.
ANDREW S. NATSIOS is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, and Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, and the author of Sudan, South Sudan, and Darfur: What Everyone Needs to Know. From October 2006 to 2007, he was U.S. Envoy to Sudan.
Postscript
Violence in Sudan's disputed region of Abyei threatens to unravel the fragile peace gained from January's secession vote in the south. Before full-scale war erupts, Washington must press Khartoum for restraint and reform -- and fast.
Video
Nicholas Kristof on the instability and violence against Nubans in the Southern Kordofan region of Sudan.
A painting of the White Nile River by Mitch Cope. (UMHealthSystem / flickr)
On July 9, 2011, the Republic of South Sudan became the world's newest country. After a referendum in which 98 percent of voters favored independence, some 30 heads of state celebrated the nation's independence. Together with the crown prince of Norway, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, and the political leadership of the North, the officials affirmed collective acceptance of South Sudan's sovereignty. And the international community breathed a sigh of relief, as the vote, which was mandated by the 2005 peace agreement between the North and South, was meant to bring the 55-year conflict to an end.
But the referendum and the South's formal declaration of independence have not produced a lasting peace, yet. Despite the mediation of former South African President Thabo Mbeki, negotiations before independence (and since) left several unresolved issues to fester: How much the South would pay to transport oil through the North, where the actual border would lie (especially the status of the disputed region of Abyei), debt sharing, and what the citizenship status of South Sudanese remaining in the North, and vice versa, would be. In addition to tension surrounding these questions, a wider opposition that includes the three major Darfur rebel movements, the Northern arm of the Southern political movement, is growing. It is making this moment all the more precarious for Khartoum. In fact, the tangle of contestations and conflicts across the country marks the most serious challenge to the survival of Omar al-Bashir's Islamist government since it usurped power more than two decades ago...
