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eleven. at. the end of the lead. lead to the republic. hello and welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle after decades of conflict and war south sudan is set to become an independent state on july ninth as the world anticipates this event there are lingering questions surrounding the viability of this new oil rich country as south sudan failed even before it's established allegedly. led.

to cross-talk the future of south sudan i'm joined by my guest in washington jonathan clements. he's the director of the sudan program at the united states institute of peace john campbell he's the ralph bunche senior fellow for african policy studies at the council on foreign relations and he is an african political analyst all right gentlemen this is cross talk that means cross talk rules in effect and you can jump in anytime you want need i'd like to go to you first in washington and looking at the future of south sudan and will have its independence in a few hours is it mission impossible or is it already mission failed. oh it's neither of those those i don't think those are. possible outcomes of course everything is in the air it depends on what happens we'd be more on the grounds on what important fact is do believe she had been silenced the people and government of not want to become known that ensued on the people of southern sudan the international

community and of cause the neighboring african countries so there are a lot of factors i actually think the future are in south sudan and while it is not problem free is is much more positive than i have seen in the media have a number of important i said go in for them but a lot of their reporting has been on the difficulties which is right but we mustn't forget that the important things go in for them international goodwill they have a lot overall you know they're not on the small fairchild on the north and people most important go for if you look at the referendum the people voted this is something that people really want and where there is a will there is there is a way ok mr ambassador john campbell if i can go to you i'll repeat my question is that mission impossible mission failed already because as we already heard there's a lot of ifs out there and i'd like to point out this is seems to be a very important foreign policy objective of the united states a lot of money has been poured into this endeavor what are your thoughts on. it is

certainly not mission impossible. it is however a challenging mission. a number of the very important issues between south sudan and sudan and the khartoum government still need to be worked through for example only about eighty percent of the border has been delineated then there is the question of how the oil revenue is going to be shared what arrangements there are going to be for export in the oil most of which goes out through port sudan which is in the north and then there is the nationality question what do you do about people from the south who live in the north and vice versa these are important issues left over from the comprehensive peace agreement that have not yet been resolved and then there is the question of the south sudan's own

institutional development one of the things we have seen is that in countries which have enormous amounts of oil there are it is heavy institutional stress how in other words do you make best use of the oil revenue and prevent it from a sensually going into the pockets of a few corrupt individuals look at the region i'd like to bring in jonathan here i mean we've heard a lot it looks like this is a new state built on a lot of hope is that is that. a pointer much cold water on the future of this new country. it is built on a lot of hope ninety eight percent or more of south sudanese voted to secede and that was a legitimate ninety eight percent that's almost unanimous which is really a remarkable thing it will be a state boring week but i don't think it will be a state or it failed i think that's unfair to the south sudanese but the challenge is that a massive campbell talks about are real and i will add one more which is that there

are real ethnic divides within the south and there are perceptions that the southern government and the southern leadership are dominated by a few ethnic groups and that's something that the southern people will have to deal with early on that kind of ethnic division has been very problematic in other parts of africa. and i go to you i mean in helping south sudan develop its institutions it looks like the military and security here the lion's share of foreign aid the united states state department is one hundred million dollars a year at the expense of everything else infrastructure wise and we're talking about one of the poorest places on the planet is that a wise move. well i think it's a. good sign and just time to move to begin with i mean no two guys my michael guess and i are all in washington and so we have our fingers now on how sudan policy gets me and i think people have been rightly worried about the war in their

domain eighteen new you. know in the sudan and we're in for the last few days president bashir has made a lot of very worrying statements and there is a law on the border and i would be and in southern kordofan so yes you have to look at the security apart everything that has been said i agree totally with because of the especially the challenges our warriors and ethnicity we have to help the sudan southern sudanese the u.s. and others who care how to help them to build institutions and incidentally i think if you stress democracy you will of wired world people wrongly called the oil case it is not a case what is necessary is once you have oil you are to build strong institutions to do with the oil the united states is well endowed with or iow it doesn't corrupt their their country as much as people assume for other places so i do think yes the focus on military and security may seem skewed but that is their

fair stared now their hardware begins there at one side today it comes and the country's independent people should not say everything is done and go and particularly people like me are pleased and people in the united staes who do put pressure on what the u.s. or to do we have our work cut out for us to pressure the u.s. government to build the i'm very institutions i think i share the concern in your question that you shouldn't be against military only well let's talk about the military here if i go to the impasse or human rights watch and amnesty international are very concerned about the funding of the military in the south because they know. soldiers have been responsible for grave human rights abuses including unlawful killings of civilians and looting and destruction of civilian property i mean again i mean is this such a is this a good time for independence if you have you have militias and security forces that are not very disciplined to be polite the security situation is

extraordinarily difficult. it's very easy in the euphoria leading up to the end to end dependence today it's very easy to simply put aside the fact that there is active fighting going on and i would be in south kordofan there there are claims by various ethnic groups of. north north sudan sensually trying to destroy them as independent entities in other words south sudan has to have at this stage a robust security establishment all of that said it is perfectly true that in south sudan as elsewhere in africa the behavior and the training of the military is not necessarily what we would like it also makes the training of military all the

more important and it's interesting jonathan if i go to you i mean it's an interesting mix here i mean the united states has been spending enormous money amount of money on the security situation there and as it was pointed out in this program there's a heck of a lot of oil there i think there's an estimated six billion barrels of oil on the ground underground i mean so you have a very large security force of a lot of oil that it could make speakers why would the security forces be more interested in revenues. well it's important to keep in mind that the southern army of the sudan people's liberation army is the largest employer in south sudan by far this is going to be a country with very little employment opportunity now the s.p.l. a is too large everybody recognizes that and there are a lot of soldiers in there who should probably be demobilized but it's very difficult for the southern government to do that because there are few outearn of the arabs in terms of employment for any demobilized soldiers and there's a chance that any immobilize soldier is my revolt or join some of the current

rebellions in the south so that's really a sensitive issue for the southern leadership i think the south is actually rather unified around their oil and they're certainly unified around keeping as much of the oil and keeping as much of the profits as they can but there is certainly speculation about corruption in the oil sector and speculation that the army has been involved in that i mean if i go to you you see a possible future for south sudan like maybe like nigeria because of the oil. number one i hope not number two i don't really think it because i think of cause they'll be overlaps they'll be they'll be singing larry trees but i think for me the differences will be essential because if nothing else we have the example of nigeria to to to look out and to try to avoid the things that got them in trouble and so and i must emphasize again i think the good is making sure that we build

democratic institutions they callin you that michael panel is i've mentioned i'll correct in the give them the right emphasis jobs they don't mean ones of the army and their dominance of the s.p.l. and the ethnic issues but i think we do have the example of i got a problem areas in africa the sound in sudanese people in the government how can watch but they do need international help and international assistance and imus also are that i'm on the hopeful side and not not in and i mean sense because you know we are in washington washington here celebrated july fourth over two hundred years of the end dependence if you cast your mind back it looked like a very impossible mission when when those patriots declare independence and so when people feel strongly about it they can take on the challenges i do think will not find time to talk on on the rule of khartoum and president bashir here because with

all of the internal challenges on the instant down i do think are you would you say sadly as we as we are asked to be returned from a break after the break we'll continue our discussion once again state the. state. listen. live . limitation

free liquidation free. for charges free the arrangement three. three. free. plug in video for your media project a free media dock r.t. dot com. live. the latest in science and technology from the lives of the future are covered. we can. welcome back to talk about remind you we're talking about the birth of another sit

down. take. a mr mesereau like to go to you know when it was mentioned right before winter break what about the north north sudan as it will be and their attitude towards the new country to the south can they make or break the possibility of a sovereign state a state that can actually take care of itself air with all that oil by the way but nonetheless what cards today played a make or break the new country. well. they certainly have the potential if for example you have full scale warfare breaking out between south sudan sudan and the north the emergence of south sudan will become infinitely more complicated i note that according to the press this morning by sheer will be in juba for the the end dependence day celebrations i hope that is correct because ever since

the comprehensive peace agreements were signed the north has dragged its feet. on the process by sheer himself openly and publicly except the end dependence of south sudan but bashir has an opposition he has an opposition in khartoum there are others in khartoum who are not happy hour all about south sudan becoming independent not least because of the oil there is a kind of mantra that you can sometimes here in khartoum to the effect of that bashir has lost south sudan bushehr has failed to end the crisis in darfur and the sheers approach to the opposition in khartoum. is repressive so bashir is not a totally independent actor nor this ok jonathan what do you think about that i

mean will it within north seize all this oil and i could point out i mean right now the oil does go through the north for exports so i mean there is some kind of interdependence already built into this relationship be irrespective of attitudes political attitudes about the independence of the new state. and this is why the oil is actually a positive factor in terms of north-south relations in some ways because there is such mutual dependence between the north in the south in order for both of them to get their oil revenue the south gets about ninety eight percent of its revenue from oil almost all of their revenue comes from oil the north the numbers are a little fuzzy but probably something in the neighborhood of sixty percent of their revenue comes from oil they both need it they can't afford to live without it despite some of the heated rhetoric that we're seeing and so the fact that almost all the oil about eighty percent of it comes out of the ground in the south but then goes through pipelines in the north and refineries in the north means that

they have to work out a deal on oil they can't afford to do anything else and so i think there will be a deal on oil probably not by saturday july ninth but they have agreed to keep talking and i think that mutual dependence does act as a brake on a return to full scale civil war which i don't think is likely i do think it's likely that we're going to see some of this violence around the north-south border for some time to come near you go ahead you want to jump in there. yes i wanted to i think the ambassador is very right i mean going on things right about the ambassador made the point of president bashir in the north not be dependent and i think that is totally true you shared flight on the five he had been see he saw the. decision of the south to break away he has sent seed but then he was seen beginning last week and since he came by he's been very beleaguered what i want to say is not that far northern. china china's relationship by sheer which

also would bring in their rule of the united states i mean we all know president obama. wants an africa and he's interested in africa from two of those missus. this is obama was yes in south africa and so i hope that behind the scenes president obama is talking to the chinese because there are an important influence on. sudan's especially the north because the our land is problem by companies from three countries the major one being chinese company it is a lot is sold to china in order of by she has come from china so i hope the u.s. is talking to china so that the play a constructive role because you're nothing to it is right the are. dealt with properly conry buz the friction between the two countries because unlike you said yes they both need is no income be

a positive factor and you say mr ambassador i'm going to you know i did during celebrations on saturday. in the new country there could be a lot of dignitaries there i think colin powell is going to be there the current u.s. u.s. representative the united nations susan rice is going to be there and a lot of other dignitaries is it all about oil i mean if it were any other if there were no oil there do you think a lot of dignitaries would be showing up. yes yes i think there would be a lot of dignitaries showing up because yes oil is important but what is also important is that this marks the air of a conflict which has gone on for almost a generation. i mean the warfare between between the north and the south has marred africa for for more than twenty years and i want to take this opportunity though to jump in with respect to the mutual

dependence of the south and the north on each other and with a particular focus on oil it's perfectly true yes indeed they're mutually dependent the question becomes whether the leadership of the two and here i would particularly focus on whether the leadership of the two recognize that fact and are willing to take that reality into account as they develop their policies that's what we're going to have to watch over the over the next several weeks. to share concern about the belligerence of comments that bashir has been making over over the past week or so i will be watching with a great deal of interest about what he actually says on independence day and the day after when you think about that jonathan in meaning if there if we have by

sheer is not so secure is a lot of people made that might think he is i mean he can have a lot of trouble he's going to have to start saying the right things irrespective if it's against his own country's best interest because we've been talking about this interdependence i mean if it no one gets any money if the poor boy isn't pumped out of the country so i mean what kind of what kind of variables is he could have to deal with to get to maintain his power base but it's still accept that a new country has come into being. well when we talk about him saying the right things it depends what audience he's talking to and the right things for the international audience can be very different than the right things for mastic northern sudanese audience the message that president bush here in the n.c.p. leadership are trying to send right now within the north is that we are in control and that there aren't going to be any more breakaways like what we're seeing in southern sudan and this i think explains to some extent the violence that we're currently seeing in southern kordofan state and the efforts to disarm some troops

in southern kordofan state in the north who are aligned with the south and that of course has been a rather violent process to go back to oil as well i think it's important not to overemphasize the importance of oil in sudan it's a medium level producer about four hundred ninety thousand barrels a day doesn't make it a big for a global producer and for the u.s. oil is actually not that important because the u.s. doesn't consume any sudanese oil because of the sanctions that the u.s. has on sudan so this has as much to do with history and bloodshed that ambassador campbell was talking about as the oil it's not just an oil story if i go to look you know what kind of precedent is being spread here. even regions within south sudan start breaking apart or even the north seeing seeing the state of the north start collapsing if once we see bashir with every move he makes one way or another it could destabilize the north as well we've been focusing

a lot on the south what about the north yes that is absolutely true and he said yeah i hope it doesn't happen i mean the ambassador was right there was me on for a long time but i would say if you've been further you know i'm from done i'm going to begin to plan a nine hundred fifty seven so down actually became independent. and the attention is. also fighting actually you can see this. and so the nine hundred fifty six so the conflict has actually been there for more than fifty years so this is the brick of the south and the and in ninety eight percent for the referendum to me tells me that this was a special case and that i hope it hasn't spread to other parts of sudan and on the in sudan trying to break up i mean there's even some talk among some of the other had made groups that were in southern sudan i don't want to put too much of a fine point on it back people always talk about breaking away i think we should be

the exception rather than the rule and i hope it doesn't happen in other parts of. beyond whom it depends on how the government governs the country if people feel that the wishes and grievances i take into our count india listen to me even if their problems are known song deal steve which. allows as in the short time left to give some thought to places like darfur and of cause and there sanctions the u.s. as it is known in sudan was mentioned but again i think washington if it is creative this ratio of the lymon it is creative those pressure points and actually be used not just on by shear but also on the position and also read those in other areas like darfur to make sure that there are no more breaks because i think that's a general rule i don't like to see brick arms in africa for that matter it

benefits political ambitions political people more than ordinary citizens but in their case on silence and i think it's the assertion that proves the rule ok jonathan i'm going to give you the last word the program what is the future of south sudan in thirty seconds. i think the biggest challenge in south sudan is for the south sudanese to define themselves and to define what it means to be south sudanese for a long time what has held southerners together is getting to this referendum getting to this end and also the common enemy that they see in the north it's now time to get beyond that and to define what it means to be a member of this very new brand new country of south sudan ok that's a very good point in the program are many thanks to my guest today in washington thanks to our viewers for watching us you darkie see you next time and remember crosstalk.

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