Carter’s Lost Illusions

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter leads an international supervisory delegation watching over the referendum process in southern Sudan, while putting pressure on Khartoum, which is continuing to cooperate, to this day, with the U.S. administration that planned the secession of South from North Sudan.

Carter has described the South’s rosy dreams of supposed democracy, promised freedom and great awakening. These ideals will be overshadowed after the announcement of national independence; but former President Carter’s statement, which coincided with the launch of the first referendum yesterday, proclaimed these ideals which are the opposite of what were promoted in the past.

Carter’s vision of Southern Sudan will face disappointment when his illusions dissipate and he is faced with the hard facts of building a state from nothing. The expectations of southerners for immediate economic well-being, education and health care will not be achieved and nothing will be as good as they had hoped and as Carter had claimed. But the separation was attractive to Southerners, and when the deadline approached he had to realize their status before the fact in order to deal with the blueprint for Sudan and perhaps in order to fight for the new South, demanding help from America and others to build this nation “from scratch.”

There is no doubt that Carter and other Western politicians, current and former, will continue their proclamations, announcing that the long-awaited southern nation requires immediate aid from the West. It will continue to have problems with debt, currency and institutions, in its relations with its neighbors, and in wealth, races and ethnicities. These politicians will use these issues as a pretext for intervention throughout the region, drafting maps and building military bases. Thus, the inevitable has happened and the rosy dreams are gone with the wind.