It’s still dark outside when a single beating drum pulses into my sleep. It’s Independence Day – the two-year anniversary of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended two decades of warfare between the north and south. The drumming is followed by the familiar sound of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army doing its jogging chanting march through town. It is a show of solidarity, strength and pride. But, everyone wonders how long this peace will last.The peace agreement created a hybrid government – the Government of Sudan, based in Khartoum, remains the official ruling authority, but a separate Government of South Sudan was created. The latter rules the south with its own president and parliament (a Sudan visa is no good here; a separate travel pass is required by the SPLA), but is not autonomous. In three or four years (I’ve heard different accounts) the South Sudan people will vote on whether the south should secede. Southerners predict that their people will vote for the creation of their own nation. I wonder whether the powerful government of the north will allow the separation. If it doesn’t, surely war will begin anew. Both sides have killed and tortured unknown numbers. The government of the north is behind the ongoing genocide in Darfur that has left 300,000 dead and 2 million displaced. It has planes, bombs and killers on camels at its disposal. The SPLA is not as rich with modern weaponry, but it is scrappy and brutal, previously having kidnapped young boys to serve as soldiers.
The civil war began over religion (the north is largely Muslim; the south, Christian and animist), but now oil is the fuel of fights. The south is resource-rich, with 80% of the country’s oil reserves; the north is not. Yet, with the official government based in the north, the oil of the south is for the north’s taking. Most of the investment money pouring in from around the world never leaves Khartoum and the north. Khartoum will continue extracting as much oil as it can from this part of the country before the referendum. I can’t help but wonder why the two sides can’t cement peace into place if they managed to forge a long-term agreement in 2005. The truth is that the peace agreement was forced into place with intense international pressure.
But on this Independence Day holiday, there is no sign of the north. The SPLA marches in formation, guns at the soldiers’ side. A small troupe follows, carrying homemade banners praising the peace agreement. Women cheer them on with their traditional undulating scream of joy that I so love. Throngs of citizens and their bicycles line the perimeter of Freedom Square. Long, repetitive, windy speeches are made by politicians and rulers. In the midst of the celebration, I board a United Nations plane for IMC’s post in Yambio, the capital of Western Equatoria state. I look through the propeller plane’s scratched window at the assembled mass below. Indeed, it is peaceful.
