Did Israel Stage Air Strike in Sudan?

Was Israel behind an air strike near the Sudanese city of Port Sudan on Tuesday? The attack destroyed a vehicle and killed two men; according to Al Arabiya one of the men was an Islamist figure believed to be engaged in arms smuggling to Hamas in Gaza.

Sudan has accused Israel, and the Israelis are of course refusing to confirm it was their strike, but not denying it either. The Sudanese reportedly prohibited reporters from visiting the site.

Israel is known to believe that Sudan is looking the other way as Hamas smuggles arms to Gaza; the arms, possibly originating in Iran, are landed on the Red Sea coast to avoid their passing through the Suez Canal.

Back in early 2009 Sudan claimed that mysterious aircraft had attacked a convoy of vehicles in the Red Sea region. Though not confirming that attack either, then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that Israel would strike at the infrastructure of terror wherever it could.

http://mideasti.blogspot.com/2009/03/sudan-convoy-strike-story.html

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Salva Kiir's Black Stetson

The man who is about to become, by all estimates, the President of Africa's newest nation, dismantling an Arab state in the process, rarely appears in public without his trademark black cowboy hat. Salva Kiir Mawardit, the President of Southern Sudan and First Vice President of Sudan, whose region recently held its week-long referendum on secession and which, by unofficial reports to date, may have voted by 90% or more to leave Sudan, wears the hat indoors as well as out, even when meeting the UN Secretary-General, above left. In my post last month on the Khartoum Summit I identified him in the picture as "the one in the cool hat," but didn't explain. As we approach the actual secession, it may be time.

Now, not everybody can pull off the cowboy hat image. Ronald Reagan made it work (right), but he'd played cowboys in the movies, and for Lyndon Johnson it came naturally. Calvin Coolidge (left), on the other hand, left something to be desired, though it's not as embarrassing as the rather famous one of him in a full Sioux headdress. Part of it is the 1920s suit: rather like when Richard Nixon showed up on the beach in a suit, tie, and leather shoes, it just doesn't quite work. Either go all the way, or don't try. (I can't pull off a Stetson myself: too short and fat. I can do justice to a kufiyyeh, a baseball cap, and certain other hats, but not the Stetson.)

Salva Kiir, on the other hand, makes it work, even with a business suit. I think it helps he's a Dinka, and they tend to be tall. I once saw the late Manute Bol ("the Dinka dunker") in a restaurant when he was playing for the Washington Bullets (now Wizards), and he was the tallest human I've ever seen at over seven feet. Height helps pull off a Stetson,though I don't think Salva Kiir has that kind of height. (Reagan and LBJ of course were both tall as well. I have no clue about Coolidge.)

By most accounts, the black stetson, or at least his first one, was a gift of President George W. Bush at a meeting with Sudanese leaders back in 2006. Some say the last official hatless portrait may be this one (left) from that 2006 meeting. In any event, by the time he met with Bush next, in 2007, he was wearing the black stetson even inside the Oval Office, as the next picture shows. He obviously likes the hat, which has become his trademark.

Now, Salva Kiir faced a major problem when he took over the Sudan People's Liberation Movement in the wake of the death of SPLM leader John Garang in a helicopter crash in 2005. Garang had a rather curious resume for a liberation movement leader (BA from Grinnell College in Iowa, Ph.D. in agricultural economics from Iowa State, did some military training at Fort Benning), but also had enormous charisma; southern Sudanese always referred to him as "Doctor John." When Garang died, there were divisi0ns in the SPLM which Khartoum was delighted to encourage. Salva Kiir lacked the charisma of his predecessor. I suspect that the hat is part of his attempt to give himself a clear image.

Oh, and despite the George W. Bush connection, and some neocons' efforts (especially on the Christian right) to claim credit for secession, Kiir has other hats, not all of them from Republicans. Here's Senator John Kerry offering him a Stetson (surely not from Massachusetts?).

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While We Were Otherwise Occupied . . .

Something like 12 out of my last 14 posts have dealt with Tunisia. Over the three day holiday weekend I kept right on blogging. In the meantime, off in the margins:

1. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon, whose investigation has been hovering like a Sword of Damocles over the country for months, actually submitted its indictments yesterday.
2. For the first time in the post-colonial era, a major part of an Arab country is about to secede, with unforeseen results.
3. The Labor Party's man in the Israeli coalition, Ehud Barak, is quitting the Labor Party and starting his own.

That's not even all of it. Stay tuned. I'll keep going but actually have to do the day job some on Tuesday now that we're back.

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Southern Sudan Has A Clear Choice on its Ballots, a Harder Choice for a New Name

The Sudan referendum is Sunday, and virtually everyone, North and South, expects southern secession. The ballot is about as simple as it can be, for a country with limited literacy: a single hand for separation, clasped hands for unity, along with the words in Arabic and English:


The real question is not the referendum results, but what follows.

And here's an interesting question: What will the new country choose to call itself? "Southern Sudan" and "New Sudan" have been suggested, but they seem derivative and will lead to confusion with the country they have left. North and South Korea both insist on being Korea, as the former North and South Vietnam, East and West Germany, and North and South Yemen did on being Vietnamese and German and Yemeni (with perhaps an asterisk on the last of these), but they were distinct nations divided by history, ideology, and war: the whole point is that Southern Sudanese have never felt an affinity with the Arab North, and thus would perhaps prefer a distinct identity. (Since "Sudan" is Arabic for "country of the blacks," some might claim the South has a better claim to it, but they are unlikely to want to use an Arabic name which, in its origins, was at least a bit dismissive.)

"Nile Republic" or something similar has been bounced around for years, but might raise objections from all the other Nilotic states. Only the White Nile runs through the South. The link above notes the problems of naming created by FYROM — "the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" — since Greece claims to own the name "Macedonia" by itself. Anything evoking the Nile might lead to similar complaints. "Upper Nile Republic" might work. "White Nile Republic" might have unfortunate connotations.

"Cush" or "Kush" has been floating around, too, and might work as a historical evocation if you remember that, for example, Ghana and Mali aren't in the exact locations of the ancient states of those names either. Equatoria is a historical name for parts of the deep south, but not all of the new state, though it's been suggested. This blogpost suggests Anyidi and even Juwama, the latter a combination of the first letters of the provincial capitals, which seems pretty obscure.

When the US declared its independence there was disagreement about what the country should be called, but the Declaration of Independence, perhaps without intending to, had been headed "The UNANIMOUS DECLARATION of the thirteen united STATES OF AMERICA," which, despite the lower case "united," had a ring to it.

For now I'll call it the New Kid on the Block, but as soon as they figure out the name, that'll be fine.

Whatever they call themselves, they've fought a long time, and I'm not sure they're quite there yet, but I wish them well.

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The Year That Was/The Year That's Coming

As Husni Mubarak leads the way for Obama and the rest of us into 2011, let's glance back at the key points of 2010, the year in which Al-Ahram taught us with the above photo what an "expressive" photo was: what we'd previously thought of as "faked."

They had an "expressive" election, too.

The historian in me resists doing the "biggest story of 2010" sort of wrap-up, since I think you need longer perspective to know what really mattered, They say that when China's Zhou Enlai was asked his opinion of the French Revolution, he said "It's too soon to tell." A useful perspective.

Brian Whitaker chose Tunisia. The Jerusalem Post suggests Stuxnet. Either might turn out to be true, or as evanescent as all the stories you've forgotten about from last winter. Both are pretty recent. The simmering tensions in Lebanon over the STL could blow both off our radar screens in 2011,or might themselves prove overblown.

I do have a candidate for silliest story of the year: the Miss USA is a Hizbullah mole story that riled the far right briefly, until they focused on the "Ground Zero Mosque" that isn't a mosaue and isn't at Ground Zero.

Looking ahead, certainly one of the big stories of 2011 will be which Mubarak Egyptians will be asked to vote for in the fall. The illnesses of senior Saudis may be moving us towards a major transition there, too.

But the one looming story that I've shied away from could be the real bombshell lurking in the wings: the January 9 referendum on independenced in southern Sudan. The secession of southern Sudan — which seems inevitable unless they have Egyptian or Tunisian election observers — is going to shake the region and the Arab world. There's an African precedent (Eritrea from Ethiopia) but not an Arab one, and Egypt is concerned about the Nile. This is the powder keg no one wants to notice even as the fuse burns. Let's hope everyone's really going to respect the results. You believe that, don't you?

Yeah, me neither. Happy New Year.

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Again, Mauritania Gets No Respect: President is Unperson of Khartoum Summit

Yesterday, Presidents Husni Mubarak of Egypt, Leader of the Revolution Qadhafi of Libya, and President Muhammad Ould ‘Abd al-‘Aziz of Mauritania, met in Khartoum with President ‘Umar al-Bashir of Sudan and his First Vice President (for now), Salva Kiir of southern Sudan, which will vote January 9 on whether to secede. They all promised to respect the results. (We'll see.)

But two key Egyptian papers' differing coverage struck me as interesting. Al-Ahram, government mouthpiece but also the paper of record, mentioned them all and shows them all (link is in Arabic):


Salva Kiir is the one wearing the cool hat.

But Al-Masry al-Youm, an independent and usually a better paper for actual news, reports a four-way summit as if it's between Mubarak, Qadhafi, Bashir, and Salva Kiir. (Article is in Arabic.) Their English page does the same and adds insult to injury by cropping the photo to exclude not only the Mauritanian but Salva Kiir as well:


(Note I'm dependent on the websites for now; the hard copy might be different.) Oddly, both Arabic articles call it a four-way summit in their headlines, but from one you'd assume they mean the four Presidents, and from the other three Presidents and a Vice President.

Now, General Ould ‘Abd al-‘Aziz is no hero of mine; he came to power in a coup and is no great democrat. But he's a fellow Arab head of state: why has he disappeared down the memory hole? I'm sure that a great many Egyptians are not even aware that Mauritania is an Arab country, and few think its leader ranks with Mubarak or Qadhafi. But to make him an unperson in the story? To ignore him completely?

I fear Mauritania, far from the experience of most eastern Arabs, is easily forgotten. Once my wife and I attended a reception for Arab military attaches. The Mauritanian attache was in a corner by himself, so we chatted him up. He was pleased we both knew where his country even was, though neither of us had been there. But clearly Mauritania gets no respect. (Except from Qadhafi, whose attentions are not always welcome.) Why the Mauritanian President was there is of course another question (I suspect Qadhafi is part of the answer), but even if he was a fifth wheel at the summit, at least acknowledge he was there.

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Thoughts on Sudan on South Carolina Secession Day

It is purely up to the southern Sudanese whether they choose, on January 9, to secede from Sudan in a referendum set up under the Sudan peace agreement. Egyptians are very nervous: right now the Nile waters issue sees a neat balance between Sudan and Egypt on one side, which think the present arrangements for sharing the Nile are fine, and Ethiopia and Uganda, which want to change it. An independent southern Sudan would probably side with the up-River states, though, so the Egyptians are worried, So are many Arab states that worry about the idea of non-Arab regions seceding, under UN auspices, from Arab states. (Others might get ideas.) Add oil to the mix (Sudan's oil is partly in Abyei, and no agreement has been reached over whether Abyei belongs to the north or south) and it's a volatile situation.

We'll be talking more about this as January 9 approaches, but my excuse for posting on it today? Civil War buffs and natives of the Palmetto State will know that 150 years ago today, on December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first southern state to secede from the United States, beginning the inexorable slide into Civil War.

Most white South Carolinians either supported secession or stayed quiet (in the upcountry where there were few slaves, there were Unionists: I had a Georgia mountaineer ancestor who fought for the Union*), but one South Carolinian who didn't was ex-Congressman James L. Petigru, who, when his state seceded, famously said, "South Carolina is too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum."

[*Said ancestor was a Methodist preacher (Northern Methodist no less) so proud of his Union service he later headed one of only two Grand Army of the Republic posts in Georgia. It was the William Tecumseh Sherman post. In Georgia this is known as chutzpah.]

I am not prejudging the choice of the southern Sudanese; that's for them to decide. It's just the date that inspired the reflection.

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ICG on Sudan Referendum

This blog hasn't devoted much time to the approaching referendum in Sudan on January 9, and the real probability of a separation of the southern Sudan likely to follow it. Unless various major issues of citizenship, water, and control of the Abyei region are resolved by then, the dangers of conflict or even civil war cannot be completely excluded. As the referendum approaches, there's growing apprehension in neighboring Arab countries about the first potential secession in the region since Eritrea left Ethiopia.

I'll be watching the issue more closely as the deadline approaches, but the International Crisis Group has just released a report on the issue which can serve as a good backgrounder and analysis, including a look at potential scenarios. The summary is here; the full report in PDF is here; the first link also has links for French and Arabic versions.

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Abyei Dispute Threatening Sudan Solution

A Sudanese government statement that it will be impossible to hold a planned referendum in the Abyei region by January 9 could jeopardize what had looked like a peaceful separation of southern Sudan from the rest of the country as the end point of the country's peace process. The South holds a referendum on the same day and is generally expected to opt for full independence. Abyei, which is on the border between north and south, is supposed to hold a separate referendum on which way it, and its oilfields, would go.

Lately there have been many statements of concern coming from Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and from the recent Arab/African summit in Libya, raising alarm about the possibility of southern secession. Some point to the conflict-ridden history of Eritrea and Ethiopia since Eritrean independence, the only successful secession from a state based on inherited colonial-era borders.

Should the referendum not come off in time, or Abyei not be settled before southern secession, the possibility of a resumption of warfare seems likely.

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