BADLY drawn imperialist borders that cut across tribes or lumped too many diverse people unhappily together once fuelled much violence in Africa. Half a century after independence full-blown wars are much rarer, even if some borders still irritate. One of the last open wounds appeared to close on July 9th 2011, when the mainly Christian and animist south of Sudan seceded from the predominantly Muslim north. After decades of fighting that killed some 2m people, partition seemed to mark a success for both African and Western mediators.
Yet now that success is overshadowed by the threat of war. Over the past nine months the two Sudanese successor states were supposed to find a way to divide up such things as oil revenues, border posts and the rights of people living on one side of the border who wish to be citizens on the other. Both sides made outsized demands and engaged in extreme brinkmanship. New sparks flew when the south announced plans to build a pipeline to the Indian Ocean, through Kenya to the south-east, which would cut the north out of most of the oil trade. Militias, often proxies of the old rump state or the new southern one, attacked each other. International mediators, vital as brokers of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that paved the way for partition, stood aside, though Ethiopia and Egypt organised some talks and the UN proffered advice. Barack Obama last week made a stirring appeal for calm.
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