Southern Sudan is one of the least developed and most war-damaged region in the world and in 2011 voters will take a decision with far-reaching consequences for the peace and development of the whole country and its nine neighbouring countries, many of them prone to conflicts. The decision will be taken through a referendum that gives Southern voters a choice between independent statehood and continued unity with the government in Khartoum. The referendum date is a deadline, marking the end of six years of transitions that were tabled by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).
The CPA is a 2005 deal between the Southern-based former rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) –largely based in North Sudan. The CPA ended two decades of war between the North and the South with a view to distribute the wealth and power in order to make Sudan a freer and fairer place. It set up an autonomous government in the South with its own army, financed from Southern oil revenues which are shared between the two parties. In the referendum, Southern citizens will pass their own judgment on these arrangements. The SPLM is formally committed to the unity of Sudan, but its most senior leaders are voicing a preference for secession as the referendum deadline nears. The SPLM has focused political energy on securing a procedural law that will ensure a favourable referendum – and both parties spent nearly all of 2009 deadlocked on the content of that law. This has stalled progress on complex processes, including the demarcation of the troubled, populous and oil-rich 2,100 km border that are needed for the referendum to take place.

The long war that started in the South inspired other conflicts in Northern peripheries neglected or abused by Sudan’s powerful centre. Darfur and three areas along the troubled and populous border between North and South Sudan (Abyei, Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan) all have referendums or consultations aimed at letting them pass judgment on Sudan’s unstable political order. And the NCP and SPLM will both face their first credible electoral test in April 2010. All these processes are supposed to answer the wider problem of self-determination in Sudan – whether the Sudanese state represents the interests of all Sudan’s peoples, or only those of the elites in the powerful rich centre and their clients.
So processes that were intended to help Sudanese people determine their own future freely now run the risk of perpetuating violence. But they must be completed in time, because the big deadline of the Southern referendum cannot be altered without enormous risks. The widespread Southern perception that the central government has failed to take the opportunity to transform itself has strengthened the hand of SPLM leaderships favouring secession – and many of them privately express the opinion that any attempt to postpone the referendum will be a cause for war. In order to avoid this risk, and secure their interests, Sudan’s elites are likely to manage the run-up to the referendum through high-level, last-minute deals. Such deals are possible: both parties need each other to maintain oil revenues; the NCP wants the legitimacy that an election and a peaceful transition could provide; and the SPLM wants the referendum to happen.

But both parties have a history of bad faith and delay in negotiations. This means that vital and complex questions about what comes after the referendum are postponed – and extremists on both sides will be tempted into unilateral measures that could make instability more widespread. If Southern Sudan chooses unity in January 2011, its army needs to be integrated with that of the central government within 90 days – a daunting task, given that the two armies now confront each other along the length of the border. If it chooses secession, an independent state will be born as soon as the vote is announced. But independence is more than secession. Independence cannot happen without a whole range of agreements on loaded questions. Assets need to be divided – oil revenues, water, national infrastructure and other assets. Nationality needs to be defined. Any new currency will need to come into circulation at a price that is sensitive to the interests of many different economic groups.

A new US policy on Sudan, announced in October 2009, balances the need for an end to violence in Darfur with the need to avert a violent ending to the CPA. US engagement is welcome, but the fact that so much of Sudan’s future will be decided at the highest level may spread the politics of exclusion into the post-referendum period. US mediation may mean that Sudan is not seeking to redefine itself through engagement with its peoples or its neighbours, but is looking to the superpower to set out a solution. US engagement is not enough – other actors including the United Nations, the African Union and other regional bodies, Arab and European supporters of the CPA, and countries with large investments in Sudan should also support Sudan as it negotiates its big decisions and deadlines. Regional bodies have a role in promoting local and national dialogue that will mitigate the exclusionary politics of the moment. The UN has made enormous investments in peace-keeping and mediation in Sudan: it needs to show that it can help limit violence, encourage dialogue and protect Sudan’s long-suffering citizens in the critical year ahead.

(Excerpts from a recently published Chatham House report’s executive summary)