“To every action there
is always opposed an equal reaction," Isaac Newton
The above words seem to be
very true in the Sudanese political scene.
Two days ago, I wrote in this
space on the issue of regularizing the status of southerners in the north,
calling on the relevant authorities to deal prudently with this issue in order
to ensure the safety of the northern citizens in the South because the extreme
procedures could leave negative impact on the northerners in the South and as
it said, “To every action there is always and opposite and equal reaction”.
I mentioned there that Juba
assumed the moral high-ground by reaffirming that the South would grant
citizenship to northerners living in the South, and I concluded that the
decision stipulates that “southerners in the North would be subject to all the
laws regulating the presence of “foreigners” in the country” would lead to a
reaction from the other side and unfortunately that is what actually happened.
South Sudan's minister of
interior, General Alison Manani Magaya, was quoted yesterday as describing the
decision taken by Khartoum
as unilateral. However, he said that South Sudan would now have to respond in
kind and give Sudanese nationals in South Sudan
the same status, confirming what we had already concluded.
Although citizenship is just
one of many issues being negotiated by the two countries in Addis Ababa under the
African Union mediation, the issue of citizenship has been a contentious item
in the post-independence negotiations between north and south Sudan, and now as
a result of Khartoum ‘action and Juba's reaction the two ruling parties in
Sudan and South Sudan have dashed any hope for resolving the said issue and the
only vulnerable victims are those citizens who will be directly affected by
such hasty and uncalculated decisions.
“Too many
problem-solving sessions become battlegrounds where decisions are made based on
power rather than intelligence”.
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