Independentistas

Went along today to experience my first pro-independence protest in Barcelona, which was being held to coincide with the meeting take place between French president Emmanuel Macron and Pedro Sánchez in the city.

As I opined in yesterday’s blog entry, a slightly daft and rather unnecessary move to hold it here – giving the pro-independence movement the perfect platform to make their voice heard.

I turned up about fifteen minutes before the protest was set to start, and was a bit disappointed by the turnout – perhaps the cold had kept the less hardened independentistas away.

But then, after a quick coffee and a delayed breakfast, I returned to the streets to see that the numbers had really built – clearly indicating that the campaign for secession is still very much a going concern.

Only damage that I saw from the protests was a smashed traffic light, though some media report that there were a few scuffles with police after the peaceful protestors had dispersed.

That’s the only observations I have time for today.

I will pontificate about the future of the independence movement in a subsequent blog entry, but I have too many other things going on for now.

Just to say that the turnout, from what I saw, was decent.

Macron, Sánchez and the Catalan independence movement

French President Emmanuel Macron is due to visit Barcelona this week, to meet with Spanish premier Pedro Sánchez – and the region’s pro-independence movement doesn’t like this.

The meeting is a continuation of an ongoing dialogue between the two leaders to talk about, among other things, a gas pipeline under the Pyrenees (which the French don’t consider terribly important, but which Spain and Portugal say is vital for the ongoing energy security of the continent).

But why is it being held in Barcelona?

The answer from Sánchez’s communications office: that the central purpose of the meeting is to talk about a gas pipeline between Barcelona and Marsalla, so therefore it makes sense to host the meeting in the city where construction will commence.

However the Catalan independence movement see more nefarious intent: it is the start of an election year for Spain and the government very much wants to send a clear signal to the electorate that Barcelona’s independence movement is dead and buried.

And they are not going to let Madrid get away with this. On Thursday morning, just outside where the meeting is taking place, three major groups – the Council of the Republic, the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and Òmnium Cultural – will be holding a joint protest.

“[We believe that] the Spanish government are having the meeting [here] in order to certify that the Catalan process has died, so we will take to the streets to show that it is very much alive,” Dolors Feliu, president of the ANC, told me last week when I met with her at the ANC offices in the centre of Madrid.

Could the meeting have taken place in another city outside of Catalunya? Absolutely.

Would it have been better for it to have done so? Almost certainly.

To be fair, even since 2017 the central government has been playing games with the Catalan independence movement – and many of these games have been quite effective.

They have launched a “dialogue” with the Catalonian government in an attempt to build bridges with the independence movement and help move things forward from the constitutional crisis that erupted in 2017, when then-president Carles Puigdemont unilaterally (and, incidentally, quite illegally) declared independence for the region.

But as far as I can tell – and clearly is what Dolors Feliu thinks – can tell, this dialogue has made little difference apart from to divide the independence movement cleanly in two, which is quite possibly what Sánchez intended. Whilst Catalonia’s politicians are happy to continue talking with Madrid, Feliu and the ANC wants no part of this.

“It’s true that the Government of Catalonia has tried to make some sort of dialogue, but Pedro Sánchez’s government has shown this dialogue to be fake and not true,” says Feliu. “There view is always: we don’t want an independence movement in Catalonia and we want the dialogue to break the independence movement. I think that people of Catalonia are starting to see this now.”

It feels as if meeting Macron in Barcelona is simply another part of this smoke-and-mirrors game that Sánchez is playing.

And, with his electoral prospects being squeezed by both the right and the left at the moment, he knows that he must play these games well. One of his main rivals on the left – his deputy Yolanda Díaz – was in Barcelona over the weekend, dishing out generous helpings of sympathy upon the independence movement, and suggesting that the grievances in the region are something that really do need to be taken seriously.

Since the right-wing People’s Party (PP), led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo, is likely to seek to smash the Barcelona independence movement at every opportunity, Catalan voters are more likely to cosey over to whatever socialist candidate they feel offers a more credible hotline to Madrid.

Sánchez needs to make his “dialogue” with Catalonia more convincing.

Inviting another head of state here is not the way to do so.

Separating Sudan

Independence for Sudan has been something of an ordeal. It took 55 years and led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands. But despite this what both North and South Sudan has won is special. What a ridiculous notion combing the two countries was. Thanks for that, Churchill (*). But good on you for defeating Hitler.

What I didn’t fully appreciate, until a few days ago, was just how much of a stir “uniting” the two countries in our Sudan book would cause.

It has been suggesting to me that certain people close to the Khartoum government aren’t all that enamoured with our guidebook – not because it isn’t pretty good, but because we took the decision to cover both North and South Sudan as two independent nation states. This is why, in some circles, ourguidebook has not been doing quite as well as we expected.

In the foreward to our guidebook, I took every step to wish both North and South Sudan well in their respective futures, acknowledging (which many people do not) that the North was becoming a new country as well.

This is what I said:

“There are challenges ahead. Not only for the newly-independent South, but also for the North, which has itself become a brand new country.

There is a whiff of optimism in the air, though. Both the South and the North buzz with a fresh sense of ambition and opportunity, and a realisation that anything has suddenly become possible.

We would like to dedicate this edition of the book to the memories of those that have struggled so hard for the future that now lies ahead of both countries, and express our sincere hope that the countries’ leaders make the most of it.”

Pretty spot on, I felt.

So why on Earth is our decision to combine the two countries in a single volume (for pragmatic reasons more than anything else: South Sudan is not yet ready for a guidebook of its own) hitting sales. That seems startlingly unfair.

A little like, perhaps, British and Egyptian colonialists deciding that the two colonies should be a single entity when granted independence in 1956, with all the needless bloodshed that entailed.

Juba. Khartoum. For God’s sake, grow up.

* Winston Churchill was influential in pushing for North and South unity, even though it wasn’t ultimately his decision.

Five past midnight

My plane was to leave from Khartoum at just five minutes after South Sudan was to officially gain its independence. This had a personal sort of symbolism with the way my life has become so caught up with the evolution of Sudan in recent years. Unfortunately, the plane was delayed by almost 45 minutes. I hope that was not symbolic also.

Like so many of the things that colonialist Britain came up with, tying the North and South together was a daft idea. For decades, they had been run as two completely separate colonies, with northerners and southerners kept apart as much as possible. Then, at the 11th hour – Juba Conference 1947 – some smart-arse politician (British) had the cunning idea of throwing the two countries in together and seeing what would happen.

The rest, as they say, is history.

So it is great that the South has finally gained independence from the North, and I wish the countries (both the North and the South) well in their future endeavours. I have never before found a country that is quite so captivating, quite so enchanting, quite so endearing as Sudan. Both the Norh and the South.

But signing a document declaring secession was the easy part. The greatest challenges, for both the North and the South, lie ahead.

For the impoverished South, the challenge, of course, is how do you build a new nation state from scratch. I’m sure that the United Nations, which is considering launching a peace-keeping mission in the South, will do everything they possibly can to try and screw the process up.

The South needs lots of aid – proper aid that really helps, not artificial aid that makes do-gooders feel better about themselves and enriches those who work for them.

The South needs hospitals, schools, proper institutions. It badly needs democracy. Let’s not forget that the South is essentially a one-party state and, not wanting to pre-judge future democratic elections, does have some autocratic tendencies. Power rests with a small educated elite. In the countryside, squabbling tribal leaders jostle for power and influence, often resorting to violence to achieve their aims. The world should not forget what has happened to other newly-born countries in Africa, and not assume that members of the SPLM, most of whom fought in the country’s civil war, are above clinging to power in the same way that President Omar al-Bashir has done in the North.

North Sudan faces its own problems, which have not been fully appreciated by those living there. It will take some time for the political, economic and psychological effects of losing the South to be felt. But the impact will be great. A recent article in the Citizen – a South-leaning newspaper – suggests that the North will lose 20% of its population, 25% of its territory and 35% of its financial resources.

It is this last loss that is likely to cause the greatest pain, and I fail to see how, in the short term at least, Khartoum can replenish this lost income. They have taken some steps to do so – the other week Bashir was over in Beijing, seeking new investment – but such steps have become too slow in coming.

The psychological damage of losing a quarter of the country will also be big. There are many, many northerners that believed in the slogan that the National People’s Congress (NPC) kept trotting out: “Unity in diversity”. And the failure of this policy to be realised is starting to smart.

As the effects of the South’s independence start to be felt in Khartoum, it is Bashir that will suffer. Already, members of his party are privately holding him responsible for giving up the South too easily. No one really wanted a return to war, but there is a belief that Khartoum should have had the resources at its disposal to properly control its vast and diverse land. To be bullied into submission by foreigners, let alone America, is too much for many in the NPC to take.

And the party is starting to fracture. I was asked at a party the other day how I saw things playing out in Sudan. I think it is extremely unlikely that there will be a revolution Arab Spring-style. There were some murmurings at the beginning of the year, but a few clumsily-wielded police batons put this to rest. The reasons that there will not be an Arab Spring revolution in North Sudan are complicated and worthy of a separate blog entry. One key reason is the lack of a significant middle class, which led the revolutions elsewhere, but this is not the only story.

The revolution, therefore, will not come from the people. It will come from within the NCP.

Yesterday, from the roof of the place I have been staying, I watched an admirably-long procession of cars, waving the Sudanese flag, amble past, honking their horns and making one hell of a racket Sudanese-style.

These were northerners showing solidarity with the South and sharing in the celebrations. I wonder how long it takes for such feelings of celebrations to turn into a sense of tragedy, loss and introspection.

Speaking to the party

President Omar al-Bashir must be quite unhappy with the way that things are going in his country at the moment. In almost exactly two weeks – in fact on the very day that I fly home – Sudan is finally going to separate, after decades of terrible bloodshed and war.

There are quite a few things that still need to be sorted out. Thankfully, the country has a six-month transitional period in which to do this, although, this being Sudan, I fear that six months might not be long enough to do everything that needs to be done.

One of the things that does need to be resolved is whether Southerners and Northerners will be able to freely hop between the two countries (not that they can really be stopped, I might add, given that the new border between South and North Sudan is going to be the longest in the whole of Africa).

Southerners would quite like the freedom to move between the two countries, and perhaps have the option of taking up residency in the North should they so choose.

But here al-Bashir has been displaying something of his ire, and said there is absolutely no question of this happening. The Southerners wanted independence. They have been given it. Now they should get the hell out of the North.

Look at what’s happening in Kadugli, where Northern forces are targeting those that they deem to still have loyalties with the South.

Shortly after the resounding, and inevitable, “YES!” vote was announced to the world, al-Bashir responded by getting up and announcing that, now he was free of those accursed Southern heathens, there would be a fresh imposition of Sharia law in the North.

Under the terms of the 2005 Comprehensive  Peace Agreement (CPA), non-Muslims were theoretically exempt from Sharia. But now it looks like al-Bashir wants to bring it back.

Rhetoric, however, is often very different from reality.

When the South goes, Khartoum is expected to lose three quarters of its oil revenue. That’s a pretty hefty chunk, and it clearly needs to be replaced with something. And that something cannot possibly be a strict interpretation of Sharia law.

What the country needs is investment – masses and masses of investment. Without this investment, al-Bashir’s days will certainly be numbered. The regime may survive, but al-Bashir will not be forgiven for giving away the south and with it the economic prosperity that has made the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) such a durable regime.

In fact, I can’t right now see how Khartoum is going to manage to replace all its lost revenue, at least in the near-term. Already, it seems, certain Chinese oil companies are taking steps towards relocating down South.

I predicted at the start of this year that a vote for independence would spell the end for al-Bashir. At the time, I thought he could even be pushed out by the end of the year. Now I think it will a little take longer.

But he will still go and it is the vote for independence that will be the nail in his coffin: there are people within his party that will never forgive him cow-towing to the Americans and giving away the South, especially as Washington is still umming-and-arring about the possibility of lifting sanctions (which, to be fair, is a step that should have been taken a long time ago).

So when al-Bashir speaks of the re-instatement of hard-line Sharia law, he’s not talking to the people of the North or acting in anger against those Southerners that dared to vote for independence. He is, in fact, talking to those hard-liners in his party that are starting to think more-and-more that a post-Bashir Sudan might not actually be a bad idea.

It is, essentially, nothing more than a survival tactic.

George who?

Sometimes, paragraphs in newspapers just leap out of you and stick in your mind.

Here’s one from an article in the New York times, which isn’t doing a terribly bad job of covreing the referendum:

“Who is that man talking?” a Sudanese journalist asked, gesturing to a white man with a group of reporters around him. When told it was George Clooney, a movie star, the Sudanese journalist looked confused and walked away.

That says it all, really.

(For anyone that wants a somewhat longer explanation of what I’m getting at, check out this blog post from The Telegraph. Who does this Hollywood star think he is?)

Balkanising Sudan

Like many independent nations in Africa, Sudan should never have been joined together as a single entity. Blame the British.

The minutes of the 1947 Juba Conference, which effectively laid the groundwork for the country’s independence, cheerfully refer to the southern tribes as “backward”, unable to fend for themselves without being linked into a larger block.

Here is a typical passage: “The sooner Southern and Northern Sudanese come together and work together, the sooner they will coalesce and cooperate in the advancement of their country. The belief is sincerely and genuinely held by many Northern Sudanese, and they hope that by including Southern Sudanese in the future Assembly, the process of unification will be hastened. I am confident that their recommendations are based on the very highest motives, and think they do not seek opportunities to exploit backward tribes in the South.”

Although the tendency to condescendingly refer to tribes in Africa as “backward” died away with flared trousers, one can’t help feeling that something from the Juba Conference still holds true today. Namely the fear that the South will be unable to survive on its own.

Decades of war, which mainly occurred in the South, and exploitation by Khartoum, has left the region in desperate poverty. Its hospitals are substandard – anyone that can afford to seeks treatment in Nairobi. Only a fraction of roads are paved. Social services are funded almost exclusively by outsiders – the government is unable to provide decent education and other basic services for its people. As for the judiciary and the police force, both are skeletal at best.

But this is not to say that it is not right for South Sudan now, finally, to separate. Tomorrow (Sunday), southerners go to the polls to vote for this option. And it is almost unthinkable that they won’t vote overwhelmingly for secession. In fact, predictions are that the referendum will be so massive that it will be unriggable.

The danger is that people in other countries – such as Nigeria – now seem to be looking at what is happening in Sudan, and think that they might also follow suit.

This is being termed the Balkanisation effect, whereby African countries artificially welded together by the colonial powers, break apart into numerous tribal fiefdoms. Some say that the Democratic of Congo would be a perfect candidate for this, too.

Whilst I would be the first to agree that the artificial division of African countries has inflicted intolerable suffering and war on the continent, unwinding the nation states would almost certainly be painful and might not even, in the long run, be for the best.

As anyone that has even been to the country will tell you, Sudan is unique in many ways. Southern rebels fought the government in Khartoum for decades to be free and independent nation. Millions of people were slaughtered, on both sides.

Such a protracted post-colonial war for independence has not happened in other African countries. There have been other grisly wars, true, but the characteristics of these have been different, and they have not been about fighting for independence. In many countries – Rwanda being the perfect example – divisions have been allowed to heal through the course of improved governance. Not with separation.

Pushing other countries to break up would almost certainly resort to a protracted power struggle between Africa’s big men, as they try to grab as much of the wealth as possible. Were the DRC ever to split, expect a hellish war to be fought over the spoils that lie beneath the ground of the eastern provinces. And not just by the warlords of the DRC. Rwandans, Ugandans and Burundians would probably join in, too.

We don’t want another Sudan. This separation between north and south is to make sure there isn’t one.

Holding their breath

There are two ways that Sudan can go. Separation or resumption of civil war. There is no middle way.

I have reached this conclusion after spending a week in Juba, speaking to the locals here, many of whom are fixated on a single date: January 9, 2011.

This is when the people of South Sudan will get the chance to vote on whether or not to break away from the south. The UN is said to be pushing for a postponement of the vote, believing that logistically things are not going to be ready, but one businessman who owned a car hire company told me that would be a mistake.

“People want independence and they want it now,” he said. “No one in any position of power could possibly suggest that the vote should be postponed.”

I cannot see the vote on January 9 – or, if it is postponed, later that year – being anything other than a resounding “YES!” Almost everyone in South Sudan wants independence from the north. It is what they have spent most of the past 50 years fighting over. It is what has been the cause of so much bloodshed. It is what John Garang, still much revered here (I went to his memorial shrine the other day), spent his life fighting for.

No one could possibly think, after so much spilled blood, that the south should still be linked to Khartoum. Southerners want to find their own way now.

Today, I spent many tiring hours wondering around hotels, in order to update our guidebook. What I discovered is that hotels here are changing. Whilst, two years ago, they were all prefabricated huts, container rooms, tukuls and tents (and many still are), a number of hotels are starting to make the switchover to more permanent concrete structures.

The previous, more temporary buildings were created by investors into the region – Kenyans, Ugandans, Eritreans and Indians mainly – so that, in periods of intense fighting, Juba could be dismantled almost instaneously.

This was a time of war. And investors, drawn by the aid money sloshing around, didn’t want to take any risks.

Now, though, Juba is starting to feel like a proper city. It is taking on an air of permanence.

That suggests people don’t think that war will return, and that South Sudan will indeed get its independence.

Citizens here are holding their breath. If their expectations are not met, then conflict almost certainly will return.