The UNSC and the AU Move to Settle the Sudans’ Conflict

After months of basically fruitless negotiations between Sudan and South Sudan following the latter’s independence from the former last July, the countries have recently been flirting with a return to war. South Sudan’s seizure of the Heglig oil field from Sudan (now under Sudanese control once more, production at Heglig has apparently resumed) and Sudan’s bombing campaigns inside South Sudanese territory have caused worldwide concern. This week, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and the African Union (AU), working in tandem, moved to settle the conflict, the UN by means of threats and the AU with a plan for peace.

Bloomberg on the UNSC:

The United Nations Security Council warned Sudan and South Sudan to halt fighting and settle their differences on splitting revenue from South Sudan’s oil reserves within three months or face possible sanctions.

The 15-member council unanimously passed a resolution today calling for withdrawal of all forces from disputed territories, an end to air raids by the north and a negotiated solution to the issue of payments by South Sudan for shipping oil to Port Sudan in the north.

The resolution reinforces a peace plan outlined by the African Union and comes two weeks after troops from the South withdrew from the disputed oil-producing Heglig region. Support for the resolution came from China, a major buyer of Sudan’s oil, and Russia, which both generally oppose sanctions.

That the UNSC’s resolution applies to South Sudan as well as to Sudan symbolizes for me how much international sympathy South Sudan has lost during the present conflict, although when South Sudan occupied Heglig, the international community’s reaction was complex.

Read the text of the UNSC resolution here.

VOA on the AU:

The African Union says Sudan has accepted an AU roadmap for halting violence and resolving issues with neighboring South Sudan.
[…]
The roadmap gives the two countries 90 days to settle their issues or face binding international arbitration. The AU said South Sudan accepted the plan earlier this week.

Now we will see how threats and plans from the outside affect the reality on the ground. That the UNSC and the AU are working together improves the odds of peace, it seems to me, as does the fact that the AU has been able to get buy-in, at least in speech, from both sides.