Africa’s next big war?

BADLY drawn imperialist borders that cut across tribes or lumped too many diverse people unhappily together once fuelled much violence in Africa. Half a century after independence full-blown wars are much rarer, even if some borders still irritate. One of the last open wounds appeared to close on July 9th 2011, when the mainly Christian and animist south of Sudan seceded from the predominantly Muslim north. After decades of fighting that killed some 2m people, partition seemed to mark a success for both African and Western mediators.

Yet now that success is overshadowed by the threat of war. Over the past nine months the two Sudanese successor states were supposed to find a way to divide up such things as oil revenues, border posts and the rights of people living on one side of the border who wish to be citizens on the other. Both sides made outsized demands and engaged in extreme brinkmanship. New sparks flew when the south announced plans to build a pipeline to the Indian Ocean, through Kenya to the south-east, which would cut the north out of most of the oil trade. Militias, often proxies of the old rump state or the new southern one, attacked each other. International mediators, vital as brokers of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that paved the way for partition, stood aside, though Ethiopia and Egypt organised some talks and the UN proffered advice. Barack Obama last week made a stirring appeal for calm.

On balance, the north has been more obstructive than the south. For years it has repeatedly acted in bad faith, loth even to contemplate independence for the south. But more recently it is the south that has been reckless, sending its troops to capture the Heglig oilfield, which lies clearly to the north of the border. This has turned niggling animosity into a conventional battle for territory. The north recaptured its lost land on April 20th, killing hundreds in the process and bombing a market near the southern town of Bentiu on April 23rd (see article).

Negotiations have completely broken down. Both sides talk darkly of a “declaration of war”. This may be just more brinkmanship, but could tip everyone over the edge. Troops are massing on the border. The south, once a lot weaker in conventional terms, has bought a bazaar of arms, including tanks.

As well as causing untold misery in the Sudans, an all-out conflict could suck in other countries. Uganda's government has threatened to help South Sudan against the north, which it suspects of funding a Ugandan terror group, the Lord's Resistance Army. Other governments in the region are keenly aware that the Sudans sit on a fault-line between Muslims and Christians that cuts from east to west across the continent, reaching volatile Nigeria and beyond.

There be dragons

Common sense can and should prevail. Some northerners still want the south to fail as a state; it needs to be spelled out to them that, if this were to happen, the north would suffer badly too. The underlying question is financial: how much should the landlocked south pay the north for using its pipelines and export terminals on the Red Sea to export its oil? The north has been demanding a ludicrous price. But the Sudans need each other: the oil and the pipelines are both worthless by themselves. If the two countries could agree on a way to divide up the spoils, the rest should fall into place.

Outsiders can help break the deadlock. The United States can lean on the south to dissuade it from making foolish cross-border raids. At the same time, the West should make clear that it will lift sanctions currently imposed on the north because of its depredations in Darfur (a separate bloody conflict), but only if the north proves more willing to co-operate on every front, including the pipelines. The UN should also send peacekeepers as a buffer along the north-south border.

Most crucially, the Chinese should step forward. They are best placed of all to secure a lasting peace deal, for they alone have the contacts, the credibility and commercial interests on both sides. Once allies of the northerners, they are now just as close to the south. It was to Beijing that South Sudan's president, Salva Kiir, flew at the height of the most recent spat.

The Sudans were China's sixth-biggest source of oil imports in 2011. The fighting has snarled up production. Alive to their own interests, Chinese leaders have started to inch from their longstanding doctrine of non-interference in imbroglios in far-flung places. Keeping the peace in the Sudans could be a showcase of a new Chinese diplomacy—to the benefit of all.