Earlier today, the Sudan Tribune released an excellent report on emerging schisms with Sudan’s armed forces (SAF). According to the report, approximately seven hundred officers–rank unspecified–presented to SAF senior leadership their displeasure with the prospect of mounting interstate conflict with South Sudan. Rumors of military defections abound, but news of intra-SAF discord rarely reaches the Western press. According to Andrew Natsios, who has repeatedly warned of the prospect of a military coup in Khartoum, Omar al-Bashir and his inner circle have viewed the decentralized deployment of military forces as an effective mechanism for the diffusion of political grievances:
The best way to prevent the military coup that Khartoum has long feared is to start a war to distract the officer corps, which has long been angry about the incompetence, abuse of power, and corruption of Bashir’s government…Bashir and his party have feared the return of (opposition leader Hassan al-)Turabi through a coup led by Islamist officers loyal to him. For years, Bashir has kept most of divisions of the Sudanese Armed Forces as far away from Khartoum as possible to avoid such a fate.
Unfortunately for Bashir and his colleagues, however, the flexibility of deployment opportunities appears to be on the wane. Despite the Sudanese vice president’s claims to the contrary, Juba is a ways away from the Sudan-South Sudan border (approximately 375 miles), particularly for Sudan’s overcommitted, under-resourced, and under-paid ground forces. SAF is currently conducting a three-front counterinsurgency campaign against the SPLM-N in Blue Nile and South Kordofan, as well as fragmented militia groups throughout Darfur, and appears to be trying to maintain a fragile “peace” in the disputed Abyei border region. Khartoum’s mobilization opportunities are shrinking; meanwhile, a once-convenient mechanism for political deescalation appears to be fading quickly.
And, if the seeds of intra-security force dissent weren’t sufficient, the Sudanese economy is rapidly spiraling into dire straits. If Khartoum is holding a low, off-suit pocket, its southern neighbors are poised for a straight flush–and boy, do they know it. Juba may have troubles mobilizing political will for human security and sustainable development, but their list of potential investors is extensive, and they’ve chosen a decisive diplomatic moment to take advantage of them. Kenya, in the midst of its own political turmoils, has agreed to the construction of a Lamu oil pipeline, providing South Sudan with a tangible, reliable alternative to Khartoum’s refineries and distribution networks. The North/South oil dispute, which the two states regrettably refused to negotiate prior to Juba’s secession, continues to mount, but, strapped for cash and fearful of a sustained oil production shutdown, Khartoum has little to offer its former annex.
The potential permanence of the cross-border stalemate is unclear–oil revenues account for more than half of Khartoum’s budget, and Bashir’s National Congress Party already operates in a fragile political context. If the NCP crumbles, it will likely be from intra-administrative, rather than broad societal opposition: for all of their talk, the SPLM-N and its fellow, but divided members of the newly-branded Kauda Alliance have proven operationally ineffective, as demonstrated by SAF’s looming encirclement of South Kordofan’s Kauda Valley; additionally, despite internal cleavages, the Sudanese regime has indicated its continued repressive capacity, arresting nonviolent protesters and student leaders throughout central Sudan. Dissenting voices have not achieved the uniform prominence of Sudan’s Garang years, where the South Sudanese leader projected a tangible, accessible vision for the country’s political transformation. The status quo is unraveling quickly; the Sudanese opposition’s ability to fill the NCP’s broadening gaps is insecure.
Update: Sudan expert Alex de Waal has published a must-read analysis of South Sudan’s oil production, aptly labeled the “doomsday machine.” In the piece, de Waal outlines the mutually damaging consequences of Juba’s oil production shutdown, with an emphasis on the shutdown’s impact on the South’s economy:
So South Sudan has set off its economic doomsday machine. The shutdown of wells is already beginning and within a week the oil companies will begin flushing the pipeline with water, so that the oil it contains doesn’t jam and turn into a 600-mile asphalt tube. After that, the best case would be six months’ work to reopen exports.
3 Responses to “on sudan: is this the tipping point?”