JUBA, Sudan (Reuters) – South Sudan’s vote on independence is a morale boost for separatists in other parts of Africa, but the continent’s leaders are unlikely to embrace it as a precedent to be followed elsewhere.
Southern Sudanese vote today in a referendum on independence, the culmination of a 2005 peace deal that ended Africa’s longest civil war. That conflict killed 2 million people and destabilised neighbours across much of the continent.
From Somalia to Cameroon to Western Sahara — and other parts of Sudan itself — rebel movements are closely watching the vote as proof that self-determination can be won.
Borders that were often arbitrarily drawn by colonial powers have left Africa facing a long history of regional rebellions. The continent’s governments have collectively resisted most efforts to redraw the map.
The last major change in Africa’s borders — when Ethiopia and Eritrea split in 1993 after a long guerrilla war — was accepted at the time as a one-off exception. Sudan’s situation is viewed by other African states as equally exceptional.
Western powers are also loath to support separatism on the continent for fear of spreading conflict, and are likely to support the idea that South Sudan’s solution is unique.
“Today there are no other movements in Africa with the history, local following and international support comparable to that of southern Sudan,” the Washington-based United States Institute of Peace said in a report.
‘Great inspiration’
Pro-independence movements across the continent have lined up to praise the referendum and cite it as a model to follow.
“The Sudanese model should be followed by both the Polisario and Morocco,” said Mohamed Beissat, minister delegate in the self-proclaimed government of Western Sahara, where a group called the Polisario Front is fighting Moroccan rule.
“[Morocco’s] King Mohamed VI should be inspired by the courage of (Sudanese President Omar Hassan) al-Bashir,” he said.
Nfor Ngala Nfor, vice chairman of the Southern Cameroon National Council, which seeks independence on behalf of the mainly English-speaking minority there, said: “To the SCNC and southern Cameroonian people at home and abroad, the southern Sudan Referendum … is an eye opener and great inspiration”.
Somaliland, a region of Somalia that has declared independence and ruled itself for two decades, sees the referendum as a model for how to win international legitimacy, said its minister for foreign affairs, Mohamed Abdillahi.
“The question for Somaliland is to get recognition. I think if south Sudan gets recognition through this referendum, I hope that will open the way for Somaliland.”
Other independence movements are seeking self-rule elsewhere on the continent, from Ethiopia to Angola — and even in other parts of Sudan itself, such as Darfur.
Neighbours’
blessing
Other African states have bestowed their blessing on the Sudan referendum as a way to end the civil war. But that is a far cry from endorsing the general principle of allowing borders to be redrawn.
“This is the most broadly endorsed, broadly guaranteed agreement on the continent. It … was brokered by an African body and endorsed by the African Union,” said International Crisis Group think tank analyst Zach Vertin.
“Other regions and political forces may seek to use partition as an opportunity to alter the balance of power in a post-referendum North. But there will certainly be little interest in Khartoum in entertaining any secessionist inclinations from Darfur or anywhere else,” he added.