See No Evil

The Secretary of State was asked recently about what the cretin in chief would be remembered for, and confidently pointed to the two-year-old agreement between Sudan North and Sudan South. Huh? The world out there that the administration was never expecting to deal with has this irritating habit of going its own way. At the moment, the South has rejected the proposed agreement, which in 2011 is supposed to be culminated by a vote either to split up or to become two autonomous members of one nation. The expectation was that the cooperation in the meantime would lead to good relationships and eventual unity. Leader al-Bashir has never shown the impartiality that he had promised in dealings with the south.

Under the peace agreement , Abyei, which has a huge oil field, can vote in 2011 on whether to be part of the north or the south. But Bashir has rejected the findings of a boundary commission and has refused to allow the creation of a local government, convincing the local population that war will break out again in the territory. Winter faulted the administration for failing to publicly pressure Khartoum on this critical issue.

In a way, it's not surprising that the administration would be ignorant of the fact that the agreement it's vaunting is unravelling rapidly. The claims of the White House that it's war on Iraq is going to have to keep on going until they find the pony probably takes up all the attention span they possess. And when they do look at Sudan, they're probably awfully distracted by the genocide in Darfur. And Darfur is a lot easier to say than Abyei anyway. But letting their attention be distracted makes that not so estimable Sudanese leader President Omar Hassan al-Bashir pretty confident that he's going to have his own way. It has so far kept any restraints from being exercised by the U.S. on his very one-sided rule.

A major factor in the dispute is that Bashir has always been openly desirous of a totally Muslim state, that observes the Sharia law. Much of the south is not Muslim, but Christian and animist. No more than we trust the word of our administration after so many instances of its' being false, do the southern Sudanese trust the northern regime to show respect for their rights, their wellbeing, or their agreement.

In February 2005 an attack without provocation was experienced in the Akobo area, and a condemnation of it issued by south Sudan's government. Reparations and apologies have still not been received for that attack.

The Sudanese North has long defended its unleashing of violent gangs on the Darfur region with citing the 'rebellion' of the Darfur's people. That the people had much to rebel against does not enter into those arguments. The south does not gain confidence in Sudanese leadership by what it observes in that region, or by what has been done in its own.

A lack of diplomacy and good intentions seem to characterize much of what the South Sudan leaders see when they look to the west as well.