'South Sudan Won't Rely Solely On Oil', Says Ambassador Osman

Ambassador Sitona Abdalla Osman of the Republic of South Sudan. She is the envoy to Germany in Western Europe., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

‘South Sudan Won’t Rely Solely On Oil’

SATURDAY, 16 MARCH 2013 00:00 ANDREW IRO OKUNGBOWA SATURDAY MAGAZINE - SATURDAY MAGAZINE

Ambassador Sitona Abdalla Osman, the Republic of South Sudan’s envoy to Germany, is big in stature but she carries herself well. Swift on her feet, she is witty and very intelligent. A trained Physiotherapist- turned-political activist, she spent most of her life working for the political Movement of South Sudan long before the country gained independence from Sudan last year. In the old Sudan, she served as political officer, adviser, director and secretary for women and child welfare. Now, she is very passionate about the future of her new country. Down to earth and in a hurry to fulfil her mandate, Ambassador Osman manned her country’s stand at the just- concluded International Travel and Tourism Trade Exhibition (ITB Berlin) where ANDREW IRO OKUNGBOWA spoke with her on different issues bordering on the development and future of South Sudan.

WHAT were the reactions of your host country and other ambassadors like you when you resumed here as an ambassador of the newest country in the world?

I was well received at the airport till I arrived at my hotel and until I presented my credentials. The Germans really showed that they respected our country because when we first gained our independence, they were the first country to recognise us after Sudan had formally done so. Thereafter, they opened up office in our capital, Juba, at ambassadorial level.

Then, the African ambassadors, especially the dean who is from Togo, received me warmly. The dean gave me good advice and a lot of information that I really need and which I am working with till today. He is very humble and at any time you request information from him, he gives it readily.

And of course, my colleagues from the Arab countries also assisted and demonstrated that they really want to help us move ahead. They are happy about our independence and we are very comfortable with that.

What are the challenges you face representing a new country as an ambassador?

The challenges are enormous but the priority for us is to attract investors to our country because we need developers to assist us with our developmental efforts. But you know, the Germans are a bit slow in their decision making process because they want to ensure that everything is in place.

But one thing is that Angela Merkel made it clear from day one when she recognised us that she would treat us – Republic of Sudan and Sudan – equally following the peaceful resolution of all outstanding issues between the two countries. On January 29 this year, a business conference between the two countries for German investors was organised and it was very successful and since then, we have a lot of investors going to our country from German.

The other challenge that we have is infrastructure because we don’t have everything ready for the investors. So we are looking at our road networks, telecommunications, water and electricity among others. The other challenges have to do with the outstanding issues between the two countries. For instance, the oil matter is there.

We are now negotiating on opening the oil pipelines but the security issues are affecting the decision on this and we are waiting to see how Sudan resolves the security matter with the rebels in the north by our borders. We can’t disarm them because we are already separated from them. They are the ones to deal with them and settle them as stated in the peace deal between us.

So this is the issue and it is a real challenge. Also, we have the challenge of schools, especially because we have children from all over the world due to the war. Some from East Africa with East Africa curriculum; some from Sudan itself with it Arabic curriculum, and all over the place like that with different curriculums.

Now, we are developing our curriculum, so this is a challenge for us. Another challenge is that in the constitution, the official language is English but we have a lot of people who were living and working in Sudan where the language is Arabic and to make that transition for them is a bit difficult. We have so many challenges actually but we are trying to see how we can solve them one after the other and we are working hard on them.

How did your people receive you here and how are you dealing with the issue of integrating them into the new nation?

Before the independence, we had many South Sudanese who were living here and became German citizens but after independence, majority of them have gone back to the country and it is a good development that many of our citizens all over the world are going back home to help build the new nation.

I was well received here and all over the world, people of South Sudan are happy about the independence because this is what everybody had dreamt of all their lives since 1965 that we should have independence.

The people who are now grown up are the policy makers and when they were kids, they never had peace because they fought all their lives. But now they are very happy that there is independence. So many of them have had to go back.

For the ones who are still here, we hold meetings with them, inform them of happenings back home and we exchange ideas on how we should move on, both here and home.

Is there presently issue of conflict of identity among your people?

We don’t have that conflict but what we do have, and which is the immediate challenge, is that most of the people here are German citizens and our constitution allows for dual citizenship because the people recognised that a lot of us have been outside the country as a result of the struggle over the years.

Now, what is the issue here? The issue is that many of the people who want to go back need to hand over their German passports before going and when they have to do that, the problem is that we don’t issue passports here, which means that they have to travel home with their household members to get their passports done and that is very expensive to do right now.

But since we don’t have the mandate yet to issue passports here, what we have resolved to do is to try to collate the statistics of those who want the passports, then send it back home to the ministry to send officials here to issue them with the national identity cards and passports.

Another issue in this respect that we have been battling with has to do with some of the people from other African countries who, before now, had claimed to be citizens of South Sudan. This is an issue that the immigration here have raised and from time to time, bring some of the people here for us to identify and authenticate their true nationalities as to whether they are South Sudanese as claimed by them.

Also, there is the issue of the people who are really South Sudanese but don’t have any paper and so they can’t travel because since they have not become full citizens of Germany. They give them what is called a stay permit, which is stamped on their passports. It was in their former Sudanese passports and now all Sudanese passports have been cancelled so it is a problem for them because if you don’t have the new Sudanese passport, you can’t afford to travel to South Sudan because you are still like a refugee. So we are trying also to deal with this. There are also some people who can’t travel because of health issues and if you don’t go back home, you can’t get the new passport.

How far has your country gone in it the journey to true nationhood within the short period of independence?

We have been trying to make our journey easy by comparing our lives and the development in our country before independence. Before 2005, for instance, there was nothing in Juba, but from 2005 we started to develop our country. If you go there now you would see a good number of infrastructures and the difference is very huge.

And what is our problem? Our problem is our people; their aspirations are very high. You know, it is easy to destroy but to build is very difficult. To build infrastructure requires a huge amount of money and to convince investors to build for you a road takes quite a lot.

We can say that we are the fastest growing country now – working on housing, roads, telecommunication, energy and many more. So, I think our journey started well but we do have our challenges.

Any assistance from foreign countries and international donor agencies?

Yes, there are. China, Malaysia and Japan are doing well and German investors are there too. We are doing well in terms of investment from the international community. Africa, the most important, is there, working very hard for us to make progress. Nigeria was the first country to call for peaceful negotiation and to lead the way towards achieving it.

That was why when I saw the Director General (Otunba Olusegun Runsewe) of your tourism body here, I went to him to say thank you because if not for your country, we would not be here today. Now we have accomplished the peaceful negotiation and they are all still working towards us accomplishing the comprehensive peaceful negotiation and development, which is very important.

Now, your country has oil. Is your government just going to rely on that or move on to diversify your economy to avoid the mistake other oil-rich countries have made by depending on oil alone?

We are learning a big lesson even now from the Khartoum government because when they had the oil money, they didn’t develop the other sectors and now they are feeling bad. So, we are learning from that and learning from Nigeria as well because I know what is happening in Nigeria.

So, because of that, we have to diversify our economy, especially after we closed the oil pipelines and we said that it is good that the oil has been closed so that we can look at the other sectors. I am very happy that we are developing other sectors and because of that, we are now depending on agriculture because all our lives, we have always depended on agriculture. Now we have started all over again because last year, everybody went to his/her own town to farm. Because of that, they gave them Fridays to Sundays to go and farm.

How are you addressing the issue of religion now?

We are very, very stable now because of what we had faced and suffered from. We don’t have any problem whatsoever with religion now. We all live as one. For instance, in my family, I am a Christian while my sister is a Muslim and we all live as one and it is the same in some other households.

We have said that we don’t want any problem about religion and so we have separated religion from the state. The state is to govern while the people go about their religion the way they feel like because you can have a church here and a mosque there side by side if the people so wish.