Starting from scratch in South Sudan. News Analysis by Paul J. Sullivan

There were celebrations all over South Sudan and amongst expat Southern Sudanese elsewhere on Saturday. A new country was born. New flags went up. There was lots of dancing and singing. Orators gave eloquent talks with great hopes attached.

Some leaders in South Sudan and elsewhere could see the storms already there and approaching. South Sudan is also one of the least developed, poorest, and least prepared places to become a country.

There have been battles in the Abiye region, a place whose borders have yet to be decided. The Nuba Mountains and other places in and near the south have had significant violence in recent months. Many of the outstanding issues amongst the tribes of the north and of the south are hardly resolved. Many of the outstanding issues amongst tribes in the south are also lingering, festering and brewing.

South Sudan is a country with a bare bones government that is lacking some of the most important capacity a country needs to function. Its legal, banking, educational, and other systems are mostly at the starting point. South Sudan has no hydropower capacity, yet it is the part of Sudan that has most of the water. South Sudan has a very backward agricultural system, yet the soil is excellent in many areas and, again, water is often plentiful in many part of the new country.

People are living off some of the lowest caloric intakes of any people on earth. Illiteracy is at startling levels for both men and women. Technical training in energy, water, food, transport and other systems is almost non-existent. The road system is mostly unpaved roads and in the rainy season they are muddy intractable messes.

One aid organization’s car was stuck in the mud for months last year. Transporting anything is a lesson in frustration and waste. If any proper agricultural and food system is to be started it needs to be connected with decent roads, storage places, warehouses, refrigeration networks, processing networks and more – all of which are pretty much non-existent or in such bad shape as to make all internal trade in the country a massive and expensive trek even for the simplest of goods.

South Sudan has almost all of the oil of Sudan, but the pipeline to sell it goes through the north. The South is thinking about building a pipeline through Kenya to export it in another direction, but that may cause a lot of tensions and possibly warfare with the north. The north and south have debts to settle and so many issues to resolve that the discussions could drag on for many years to come. Electricity generation and almost all economic and technical developments in the Sudan were previously focused on the north and mostly around Khartoum.

South Sudan was badly neglected by the north, and their people knew it. It was also ground down by many civil wars that saw millions died and displaced into horrific conditions. Most of the things that could have been done in South Sudan were stifled by war and other forms of national destruction both internal to the south and between the south and the north.

So now South Sudan has its chance to show its mettle. It needs a lot of it to survive the challenges it will face. It will be like climbing Everest without oxygen to bring South Sudan even to the economic and human development levels of its neighbor Kenya.

To get to a level of Egypt could take massive investments and a lot of help from expats and international and national aid agencies. NGOs and others could also add in their experience and good heartedness, well at least some of them.

Why is it important for the South Sudan to succeed? If it does not it could fall once again into the maelstrom of civil conflict, and this time it might just focus on the tribal differences in the south. Kenya, Uganda, Egypt, Darfur and north of Sudan, and many others could be negatively affected by any really bad outcomes in the south.

South Sudan is also the newest negotiator on the Nile waters. And its success or failure as a state could have great implications for the use of the Nile waters and for how any agreement on those Nile waters might come about and survive.

There could be massive refuge flows. Bad behavior might even take a stronger hold in the area.

After having worked on Sudan issues for many years and having worked on a major project related to the peace process and the referendum in Sudan recently, this morning had great meaning to me. I awoke with mixed feelings.

There is a lot to worry about for South Sudan. But there is also a lot of potential there.

This could be one of the greatest economic and human development projects in history – or it could be a disaster. I wish them well and hope that the lives of 9 million plus men, women and children now citizens in South Sudan will be much better in the future than they have been in the past.

This is also a great opportunity for the Arab world to help one of its neighbors and help build better relations in the region.

(Professor Paul J. Sullivan teaches at Georgetown University and at National Defense University. He can be reached at: [email protected])