While the reporting on South Sudan has generally focused on the political side of their independence vote, the economic factors, particularly market access, might be much more threatening.
The new state is either going to be dependent on continued trade links with the North, or, more likely, support from Kenya. Being landlocked in Africa, where corruption in rampant and cross border customs procedures are among the worst in the world, is a major drag on a country’s potential.
The country also faces significant food shortages. According to the attached article almost 47% of South Sudanese are under-nourished, they have no grain reserves, their agricultural infrastructure is pretty much non-existant and they are facing a large immigration in times of record high food prices. There seems to be an effort a foot to get the country’s agricultural system up and running, but that takes time, and this will almost surely be a problem in the first few years of independence (a problem accentuated by dodgy customs officials).
Texas in Africa points out that this might spill over into internal political problems:
After decades of war, a five-year transition/peace process that at several points seemed destined for failure, and a year-long push, tomorrow, Southern Sudanese will at long last vote in a referendum on whether to secede from the North. The outcome of the referendum is a foregone conclusion; there’s no question that the vast majority of Southern Sudanese will vote to go. The only surprise will be if the option to split garners less than 95% of the vote.
While John Prendergast, George Clooney, and other advocates who don’t speak a word of Arabic have been raising fears about violence for months (and are now embarking on silly plans to take satellite images of areas in which they believe genocide is likely, despite the fact that you can’t actually see that level of detail in satellite imagery), the likelihood that a genocide or war will break out immediately seems to me to be slim to none. As Stephen Chan notes in a discussion hosted by the Royal African Society, there are too many incentives for both sides to behave themselves – the oil needs to keep flowing for both sides to benefit, and the US and China aren’t likely to put up with any shenanigans. Also, al-Bashir seems to be willing to let the secession happen, despite pointing out to al-Jazeera that the South is going to be a bit of a mess in its initial independence period.
As Rob Crilly points out, al-Bashir is right. My real worry for this situation is not that war will break out between north and south – even over Abyei, which I think will eventually be allowed to vote on its own status – but rather than tensions within the South will be played out in the context of an extremely fragile state. Southern Sudan will immediately become one of the world’s poorest, weakest states – albeit one with oil – with a plethora of ethnic groups who don’t see eye-to-eye on everything. That’s rarely a recipe for stability. Add to that the resentment that may build up over the SPLM’s domination of politics within the South and there could be real problems.
We should learn a lesson from the Eastern European color revolutions. Independence is only the first step.