Negotiating Advice: Overcoming Mutual Myth Perceptions Between Juba And Khartoum.

Why should  we both think about  the Republic of Sudan and the Republic of South Sudan  negotiations when,  for the last  five years, the two parties, but  now the two countries’ dealings whether open, or  secret, direct or indirect, have been mired  in futility?

In all this interactions, one side has usually felt itself cheated, deceived or disappointed and has blamed the other   for this failure. Even promising moves, such as Abyei, border demarcation and other issues have led nowhere and ended with one side telling itself.” Well we tried, but they are so (stubborn, deceitful, duplicitous and so on) that we could never reach agreement”.

In such an atmosphere, it will be difficult to apply the negotiating advice and the lessons from the past five years. For how does one negotiate with someone who is not even willing or does  so only  to deceive  or humiliate?

Hard as it may be negotiating with the Republic of Sudan is still worth doing. After  five  years of CPA  implementations  of interrupted  SPLM- NCP hostility, some South Sudanese negotiators  led by, Pagan Amum  argue  that the rulers  of Khartoum  are so  evil, irrational  and mendacious  that there is nothing  to gain from  negotiations except  more sterile  rhetoric,  absurd  accusations,  and blatant, untruths. In this view, the Republic of Sudan today is the equivalent  of  Assad  regime of Syria, and  negotiating  with  it ignores  its  true nature  and will only  give it a legitimacy it does not deserve  over our resources  like oil.

These negotiators  claim that  the only way is for the regime change  or that, at a minimum, Sudan  must  change  its behaviour,  that is, do  all that  we demand of it, before  any kind of discourse  can begin. In this analysis, the regime in Khartoum is beyond the pale. It is  so  brutal, benighted, and  paranoid  that  there is no  point  in opening  a dialogue  unless  its subject  is the terms of Sudan’s surrender.

The problem  with this  view,  regarding  Sudan as a manifestation  of pure evil, is  that it is  likely  to  become a self-filling  prophecy. When we approach the Sudanese negotiators (or any counterpart in a negotiation)  as though they  are, the wicked  beings described  above, they will quickly perceive  how we look at them adapt  their tactics accordingly. If we approach Sudanese as irrational and dissimulating cheats, they are quite likely both to perceive and then to fulfil our expectations.

This dark and absolutist view of Bashir regime which gave us right to independence also ignores the possibilities that negotiating, although it will not change the nature of the Sudan Republic. Could be one method of changing what has been in the five years of North and South relations of mutual grievance, hostility and suspicion into something more productive.

During that period, mutual recrimination, name calling, finger pointing, posture and sermonizing  have had  few  results. My point is that the Republic of South Sudan should be talking to the Republic   of the Sudan not because the Republic  of Sudan is friendly  and democratic or because talking is easy  or even likely  to produce immediate and positive results. The two Republics should be talking  because both sides  will find significant  common interests in doing so. Talking to Khartoum is hard  and disagreeable  as it might be is likely  to be more productive than  continuing  almost six years of noisy  and  sometimes violent confrontation. We should have no illusions.

Negotiations with the Republic of Sudan are unlikely in short run to have the kind of positive    outcomes  we might  wish for. Republic of Sudan is not going to change its behaviour immediately   and stop all of its misdeeds  in the area of oil, Abyei issue and border demarcations and so on. Yet  serious engagements  even with  a government  we dislike and mistrust, we  may  discover areas of common  interest,  that lurk  behind  walls of hostility  and suspicious.

Finally,  the good news  is that  it is  possible  to negotiate  with the Republic of Sudan counterparts, although  the process may be  painstaking and the path may be circuitous  and full of set-backs and apparent  detours. The bad news is that major progress in negotiations with the Sudan will likely be accompanied by real or apparent crises, either instigated from within or externally imposed. Periods of crisis may mark a major point in negotiations, or they mark the beginning of a downward spiral of failure  and instability for the countries.

Chuol  Wan

chuolwan@yahoo.ca

0955437837