by JOHN CHERIAN
The turning point in Sudan came in the 1970s when the military ruler, General Jaffar Nimeiry, suddenly introduced Islamic law at a time when the South was enjoying autonomy for the first time. The waters were further muddied in the late 1980s when Khartoum decreed that strict Sharia laws were to be implemented. Though the laws were applicable only in the North, it sent the wrong message to the mainly Christian and animist South.
John Garang, who had emerged as the undisputed leader of the South in the 1980s, had at one time rejected separation saying that the goal was to convert Sudan into a secular and socialist state. But after the collapse of the socialist bloc and the overthrow of his ally President Mengistu Haile Merriam of Ethiopia, Garang changed course and became an ally of the West. If he had not died in a helicopter crash soon after the signing of the CPA, he would have become the President of the new state that will come into being in June 2011. His former deputy, Salva Kiir, will be the new President of South Sudan.
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The Barack Obama administration seems to be very happy with the outcome. According to an Egyptian scholar on Sudan, Hani Raslan of the Al Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, the U.S. “is dead-set on seeing the emergence of an independent state of Southern Sudan to achieve political aims on the African continent”. He told the IPS news agency that the U.S. insistence on independence for the South had more to do with its geopolitical ambitions. Raslan pointed out that in the final days of the Bush administration, the U.S. had set up the Africa Command (Africom). The central component of this command will be a large military base. This base is likely to come up in South Sudan. The U.S. had acted as the midwife in the birth of Kosovo in 2008. Today Kosovo hosts the biggest U.S. military base in the Balkans.
As a reward for Khartoum’s accommodative stance, senior U.S. State Department officials have hinted that Sudan will be dropped from the list of states supporting terrorism, and sanctions on it will be lifted for allowing a peaceful secession.
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