South Sudan in the United Nations - Outline Example

COUNTRY ANALYSIS – SOUTH SUDAN (Political Science) ID Number Presented of the School Location: Estimated Word Count: (1,447 of text only) Due on: November 27 , 2014 South Sudan – a brief backgrounder The country chosen for this paper for a political analysis is South Sudan. It is the newest and youngest member of the United Nations with a population of just a little over 11 million with English as its official language and its countrys capital at Juba. South Sudan gained political independence from its mother country of Sudan in July 9, 2011 after a referendum made early in January 2011 showed majority of the people wanted to secede from Sudan after decades of civil war resulting from systematic discrimination, neglect, and outright exploitation. It is a landlocked country in north-eastern Africa with most of the people belonging to the different tribes but many of them are not Muslims unlike that of Sudan itself. South Sudan had one of the longest civil wars in Africa starting from 1972 and ending in 2005 with a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). Much of the country is dependent on subsistence farming due to the ancient nomadic agriculture. Frankly speaking, the country has very few resources except oil but has plenty of challenges to tackle before it can make any significant progress. (186) Country Analysis Political situation – it is quite ironic how a young country like South Sudan which had just emerged from a long and protracted civil war is now again embroiled in another civil war that is being fought between two former political allies. Its current president Salva Kiir Mayardit has accused his former vice president and other accomplices of trying to stage a coup detat. President Kiir belongs to the Dinka ethnic tribe while his ex-deputy Mr. Riek Machar belongs to the Nuer tribe. The conflict has drawn outside forces from nearby Uganda who are helping government troops fight the rebels lead by Machar and other allied tribes. This new ensuing political instability due to a power struggle along ethnic lines has disrupted the development plans of the young country and has killed at least 10,000 from both sides with 400,000 who fled to neighboring countries while another 1 million people are displaced internally. The current conflict poses a serious risk to South Sudan and if allowed to linger, it can be the source of further political instability that weakens government institutions and possibly make it a failed state like Somalia where there is no central government. Although the people of the country had identified themselves as members of a group distinct from pre-partition Sudan as they are not Muslims but Christians and animists, the new government has so far failed in its mission and vision to implement a new unity based on a national identity (El-Nour, 2011:1). The ultimate question for the country to answer is how to build a new and viable state with a stable government and social institutions that can implement reforms and development plans. There is a tendency at present to monopolize power at the expense of other ethnic groups. The country basically started out its existence as a newly independent state like all the other new countries of the world and so it is up to its political power elites to set aside their narrow personal vested interests and work for the greater good of the country for the longer term. It is incumbent upon them forge a sense of national unity despite the 200-plus ethnic tribes that constitute its relatively small population. South Sudan has the human and necessary natural resources at its disposal but everything depends on how these inherent factors are utilized to achieve political stability and allow for social and economic foundations to grow stronger. At present, political loyalty is firstly through tribal affiliations and social relations. The real challenge for the leaders of the new nation is to govern effectively by inspiring their citizens to be united. However, internal cohesion is now difficult to achieve at the moment due to the on-going civil war as mentioned earlier which started only last December 2013 and has no resolution yet in sight. As a fledging nation, South Sudan has no extensive experience with local governance structures and institutions; the result is most of the country is governed by tribal leaders who can have conflicting and shifting loyalties. The new state had no prior experience in local civil infrastructure and the task is to transcend the tribalism mentality. Economic vulnerability – South Sudan is one country that is very highly dependent on its oil revenues. Up to 95% - 98% of the national budget of this country comes from oil exports as it has the third-largest oil reserves in the region of sub-Sahara Africa but this revenue source is being seriously threatened by a slump in world oil prices. The price of oil in world markets had fallen by a disastrous 32% in the last five months alone (from $115 to now only $78 per barrel) due to a glut from the excessive production of some oil-exporting countries including members of OPEC (Associated Press, 2014:1). This excess supply of oil is attributable also to the United States of America now a net exporter of about 3.5 million barrels per day from being an oil importer due to a new drilling technology called “fracking” that allowed it to extract oil from previously unreachable shale deposits using high-pressure water jets. Poverty is widespread in the country (50% of the population is below the poverty line) and it is dependent on imports for most foodstuffs and other necessities from neighboring countries of Kenya, Uganda, and Sudan. It is a landlocked country and as such has no access to a sea port and exports its oil through a pipeline passing through Sudan to a port on the Red Sea. It is therefore vulnerable if relations with Sudan deteriorate because building a new pipeline is expensive and requires a long lead time to finish (Central Intelligence Agency, 2014:1). Demographic profile – it is incredible how a sparsely populated country like South Sudan can have so many different tribes, about 200 in all. This multi-ethnic and multi-tribe diversity is a source and cause of great challenges for the countrys new leaders on how to unite and create a new national identity that should transcend and supplant their old tribal affiliations. Strong leadership, a visionary outlook, and political will are necessary elements to achieve a unity. A large proportion of the population is very young (16% is below five years old, 32% below ten years old, and 51% below eighteen years old) which poses the added requirements of giving this young population segment a quality education as illiteracy is high (World Bank, 2014:1). Many citizens of South Sudan are either Christians or clung to their old indigenous religious practices or traditional religions described as mostly animist although there are very few who are Muslims unlike that of the northern Sudan. Additionally, the major ethnic tribes are Dinka and Nuer together with the Bari, Azande, Shilluk, and almost 200 other tribal groups which makes South Sudan almost ungovernable if people do not adopt a common identity. In this country, majority of them are Africans but many of them are not of Arabic descent. In other words, South Sudanese are not intrinsically related to their northern neighbors of Sudan in terms of religion, ethnicity, and language (its official language is English) while that of Sudan is Arabic. Strictly speaking, there is little similarity between South Sudan and Sudan. (1,043) Conclusion and recommendations South Sudan faces so many challenges as a new nation and these problems are compounded by a new civil war which had delayed much-needed construction of civil works infrastructure in much of the country as public work projects were virtually non-existent before or were in the many decades of armed conflict had been totally destroyed. The country is dependent on oil revenues (almost 100% of export revenues come from oil alone) and makes it a fragile economy if global oil prices will decline further. The danger of becoming a failed state with no central government authority is very real if the economy deteriorates some more as the oil revenues are the sole source of the government budgetary allocations. Its fragility can be even worse if it becomes a collateral damage to the on-going “pump war” between the countries of the United States of America and Saudi Arabia against Iran and Russia (Friedman, 2014:1). It is necessary for the country to diversify its revenues away from oil and develop its natural resources such as gold, silver, copper, iron ore, zinc, diamonds, forest products like timber and hardwood, and development of tourism prospects such as big game safari. However, all these plans are dependent on ending a civil war that engulfed six of its ten provinces. (218) References Associated Press (2014) Lower oil prices loom as OPEC faces tough test. November 26 [on-line]. Available at: . [Accessed November 26, 2014]. Central Intelligence Agency (2014) Africa: South Sudan, The World Factbook. June 20 [on-line]. Available at: . [Accessed 25 November 2014]. El-Nour, K. T. (2011) South Sudan: Post-independence opportunities and challenges. August 01 [on-line]. Available at: . [Accessed November 26, 2014]. Friedman, T. L. (2014) A Pump War? The New York Times. October 14 [on-line]. Available at: . [Accessed November 26, 2014]. World Bank (2014) South Sudan Overview.” October 10 [on-line]. Available at: . [Accessed November 25, 2014]. Due: November 27, 2014 @ 5:34 a.m. Read More