A Hat Tip To Bush

[jodywy]

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=577937&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EditorialRss+%28Editorial+RSS%29
Freedom: As South Sudan joyfully celebrated its independence from Sudan, President Obama hailed it as the fruit of partnership, togetherness, hope and unity. South Sudanese, however, hailed President Bush.

Proudly wearing the black cowboy hat given to him by President Bush, South Sudan's new president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, couldn't have made a stronger statement about who made his country's independence possible after 50 years of warfare.

"It was George Bush and the Christian fundamentalists who heard the cry of South Sudan," affirmed a South Sudanese man quoted by the Los Angeles Times.

But to hear the White House — in its official recognition of the new republic, as well as on the White House blog and in an op-ed published earlier this year, President Bush had nothing to do with this.

"Today is a reminder that after the darkness of war, the light of a new dawn is possible," wrote Obama, as if such events just .. . happen.

Fact is, these events didn't just happen.

In 2005, President Bush put South Sudan at the top of the U.S. foreign policy agenda. Knocking heads, he forced the murderous Islamofascist government of Sudan to negotiate with the South Sudan rebels, including their right to secede. That hard work led to today's result — and with it, the first chance South Sudan has ever had to break free of its oppression.

Obama made sure to thank the African Union, civil society groups and even Sudan itself. But recognition of President Bush was relegated to nothing more than a nameless "U.S. leadership" that "played a part." Christian groups that made it their cause were also ignored.

Subscribe to the IBD Editorials Podcast Weird, given that the New York Times reported crowds in the new capital, Juba, cheered Bush, and a man held a sign reading: "Thank you, President Bush."

Those are magnificent affirmations of President Bush's freedom agenda succeeding further.

If Obama can't give credit to Bush for this accomplishment, it's a sorry statement about his own leadership. The South Sudanese know differently — and thanked the real liberator of their new country.

 

[Steve]

A liberal would just say it is about oil... and blame Bush for not fixing Sudan..

Oil

The oilfields in the South have kept the region's economy alive during the past several decades. However, after South Sudan became an independent nation in July 2011, southern and northern negotiators were not immediately able to reach an agreement on how to split the revenue from these southern oilfields.[49] During the second period of autonomy from 2005 to 2011, the government of Sudan exacted 50 percent of the income from Southern Sudanese oil exports, as Southern Sudan was forced to rely on pipelines and refineries in the North, as well as the Red Sea seaport at Port Sudan. A similar arrangement is likely to continue during the independence era of South Sudan, with Northern negotiators reportedly pressing for a deal maintaining the 50–50 split of oil revenues and the South Sudanese holding out for more favorable terms.[50]

Due to a US blacklisting of Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism, American companies cannot legally purchase oil from South Sudan under any deal in which the Sudanese government receives a share of the revenue from a South Sudanese oil sale. As a result of the ban and the perceived unlikelihood of South Sudan exporting its oil via Kenya, US energy companies have little presence in South Sudanese oilfields. Most oilfields in South Sudan are owned by companies affiliated with the People's Republic of China, with Malaysia's Petronas and the Indian Oil and Natural Gas Corporation also controlling several areas of production

 

[Steve]

JUBA, South Sudan — Africa's newest nation is only 3 days old, but it already is facing a humanitarian crisis, with about 1,000 people a day crowding into this dusty capital straining under the population crush.

"We are witnessing an unprecedented acceleration in the number of people returning to the south," said Giovanni Bosco, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in South Sudan.

"This large number of people has put an additional strain on the limited resources and the limited capacity of public services in the south."

Since the end of two decades of civil war between the Arab north and the mostly black African south in 2005, more than 2 million people who fled the fighting have returned to the south.

Betty Achan Ogwaro, a member of the South Sudan Legislative Assembly, said the influx poses a grave risk because of a lack of jobs.

"The sources of livelihood is a problem," she said. "These people depend on aid, but that aid will not go on forever."

Barrie Walkley, the senior U.S. diplomat in Juba, added, "It is not the numbers, but the pace at which they are returning that is creating problems."

Every day, barges brimming with people and their belongings dock at the ramshackle port in this dusty capital of Africa's newest nation.

The Nile flows south to north, so a journey upriverfrom Khartoum can take as long as three weeks. But the prospect of an arduous voyage of more than 700 miles has not slowed the pace of southerners returning to their homeland.

Many returning south are buoyed by the hope of finding dignity, the one thing they say that eluded them during their years in the north, still officially known as Sudan, where they suffered religious and racial discrimination.

On a recent afternoon, a group newly arrived from the north sat under the mango trees that line the White Nile and watched boats loaded with onions that bounced gently on the river, a tributary of the Nile.

"We gave up jobs and a stable life in the hope of something better. Most of all, we crave respect," said Atok Deng, who returned with his young family.

Racial and religious tensions long divided Sudan, with mainly Arab Muslims in the north and black Africans in the south who embraced Christianity or traditional religions.

The new government itself is partly to blame for the population surge. Long before the nation was born Saturday, an interim government encouraged southerners to return home to vote in a referendum in January that set the region on the path to independence from Sudan.

More than 315,000 people have made the trip back since November.

"What's motivating them is euphoria for the new country and uncertainty about citizenship [in the north]," said a humanitarian worker who spoke on background. "Some also don't feel welcome in the north anymore."

The Sudanese National Assembly in Khartoum recently enacted a law that revoked Sudanese citizenship for southerners living in the north.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/11/south-sudan-facing-population-explosion/?page=3

it is an interesting story... the south, speaks English, and welcomes religious freedoms.. and has most of the oil... but has seen little of the revenue or progress..

the north demands adherence to Islam, forces schools to teach in Arabic and steals the south's oil..

why isn't this all over the news?