WATCH LIVE STREAM HERE: https://youtu.be/1BPzeNSGsdI

Carles Puigdemont, exiled former Catalan leader and mastermind of the controversial 2017 independence referendum joins us for an hour at the Frontline Cub to explain the Catalan crisis and answer press and audience questions.

Just over two months ago over a million Catalonians took to the streets of Barcelona calling for independence and the release of their imprisoned separatist leaders. 

Nine leading separatist politicians have been in Spanish prisons for twelve months and they face trial in the new year on charges of rebellion and sedition. 

The prosecution is asking for prison sentences of up to 25 years. This week, four of these prisoners announced that they were starting a hunger strike to draw attention to their plight. 

Those Catalans separatist leaders who are not awaiting trial in the Spanish courts are living in exile in Scotland, Belgium and Switzerland. 

The Madrid Government has remained opposed to a binding self-determination referendum, and has so far declined to negotiate over the fate of the political prisoners. 

The entire independence movement is now rethinking its strategy as Spain’s new socialist government makes cautious offers of limited talks. Perhaps there is greater hope for a solution to the crisis.

In this timely visit to London we will ask Carles Puigdemont what he thinks the future holds for Catalonia.

photograph courtesy of Thierry Ehrmann via Creative Commons

  Watch the video stream of In Conversation: Carles Puigdemont

With the independence referendum of Iraqi Kurdistan set for 26th September 2017, The Frontline Club will be hosting a film screening of No Friends But the Mountains along with a Q&A with the makers of the film to discuss the possible outcomes.

No Friends But the Mountains is an insightful personal tale from Kae Bahar, a Kurdish asylum seeker who explains how many wars and the ever growing refugee exodus from the Middle East are fuelling the call for an independent Kurdistan.

Kae himself endured torture under the regime of Saddam Hussein and was forced into exile in 1980. 35 years on, Kae returns to Iraq to win first hand insights into the war against ISIS and explore whether independence in the Kurdish region could become a reality. Along his way he meets Ezidi Kurds who escaped the 2014 ISIS massacre in Sinjar and ended up in Iraqi refugee camps or in Germany.  He also interviews those who are still fighting on the frontline – the Peshmerga and the PKK.

In exile, Kae dreamt about Kurdish independence during all his life and with this film he wants to conduct a reality check back in his homeland. Are the 6-7 million people who are living in the Kurdish region of Iraq also keen on independence? Or could there be a more nuanced attitude to dealing with the real-politik of the region? Kae is also asking how best to prevent further conflicts and more refugee dramas.

Watch the trailer here: https://vimeo.com/230207480

Speakers

Kae Bahar (via Skype): Presenter

Kae is UK based, Kurdish writer and documentary filmmaker. Over the past 25 years he has been producing and presenting films with broadcasters such as BBC, Channel 4 and Al Jazeera. In 2015, Kae’s novel Letters from a Kurd  was published to great acclaim.

Claudio von Planta: Director

Claudio von Planta is a Swiss freelance documentary filmmaker who started his career in 1985 with reports about the Afghan resistance against the Soviet Occupation. From 1990 onwards Claudio worked on many TV news features and longer current affairs programmes for all the main UK broadcasters. In 1996 Claudio filmed a Gwynne Roberts report for Channel 4 Dispatches where they tracked down Bin Laden in Afghanistan. The same year he also shot KARZAN’S BROTHERS for BBC Inside Story, his first Kurdish film with Kae Bahar where they documented the smuggling of Kurds from Iraq to the UK. Ever since Kae and Claudio continued to produce films about the fate of the Kurds.

John McCarthy: Narrator

John McCarthy is a writer and broadcaster.  On his first foreign assignment, to Lebanon in 1986, he was abducted by Islamic Fundamentalists and held hostage for over five years. This experience was explored in the book Some Other Rainbow (co-written with Jill Morrell). His other books are Between Extremes (with Brian Keenan), A Ghost Upon Your Path: An Irish Journey, You Can’t Hide the Sun: A Journey through Palestine. Alongside his writing John has worked in television for the BBC, ITV, Sky Arts and Al Jazeera, and on radio for the BBC World Service and Radio 4. In 2014 John presented a documentary for Radio 4 ‘Kurdistan: A State of Uncertainty’. He was awarded the CBE in 1992 and is a Patron of the charity Freedom From Torture.

Tom Hardie-Forsyth: Recent Senior Advisor to Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)

Tom Hardie-Forsyth is the recently retired Senior Advisor, Capacity Building to the Prime Minister’s Office, Kurdistan Regional Government, Erbil Iraq, a post he has held since 2005. He remains the Senior Advisor to the KRG UK Representative Office, and a team member of the Genocide Memory Project.

We Were Rebels tells the story of Agel, a former child soldier who returns to South Sudan to help build his country. The film accompanies him over a period of two years – from South Sudan gaining its independence in 2011 to the renewed outbreak of civil war in December 2013.

As a child soldier, Agel was taught to kill and lost almost all of his male relatives to violence. Later he managed to flee via Kenya to Australia, where he became a professional basketball player and returned to South Sudan a free man. As the captain of the national basketball team, he coaches his fellow teammates through their very first international match against Uganda. The conflicts within the team bear a striking resemblance to the political problems festering across the country.

Directed by Katharina von Schroeder and Florian Schewe
Duration: 92′
Year: 2014

Turkey’s prime minister Racep Tayyip Erdogan will win next month’s presidential elections and become the country’s first directly elected president, according to a panel of experts assembled at the Frontline Club on 22 July 2014.

The Frontline Club event was chaired by Murat Nisancioglu, the head of Turkish Service at BBC Global News and brought together Alexander Christie-Miller, an Istanbul-based freelance journalist and Turkey correspondent for Newsweek, The Times and Christian Science Monitor; Fadi Hakura, associate fellow at Chatham House; Sir David Reddaway, British ambassador to Turkey between 2009 and January 2014; and Karabekir Akkoyunlu, who recently completed a PhD about political change in Iran and Turkey at LSE.

The consensus of the panel was that Erdogan would win a convincing victory at the coming polls.

From left: Murat Nisancioglu, Karabekir Akkoyunlu, Sir David Reddaway, Alexander Christie-Miller and Fadi Hakura debate the prospects for Turkey’s forthcoming presidential poll. Photo by Richard Nield

“The elections are taking place at a critical time for Turkey, at a time of heightened socio-political tensions, and yet despite this fact it’s almost a dull election,” said Akkoyunlu.

“There’s very little excitement even compared to the local elections [earlier this year]. Perhaps it’s because the main opposition candidate hasn’t excited an opposition base. But probably the main reason is that Erdogan will prevail – the question is whether he wins in the first or the second round.”

According to Reddaway, Erdogan and the party machine of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) made him a likely winner in the first round.

“Whether you like them or not they’re an extremely effective organisation and Erdogan is a formidable leader,” he said.

Erdogan continues to dominate Turkish politics even after the crackdown on protestors demonstrating against the closure of Gezi Park in late May and early June 2013, resulted in up to 8,000 casualties and at least eight deaths and tarnished the reputation of his government irrevocably.

His reputation has even survived his spectacular mishandling of the Soma mining disaster in May.

“You couldn’t conceive of a government handling a crisis worse in PR terms,” said Christie-Miller. “It’s a measure of how Erdogan and his government is effectively bullet-proof.”

Erdogan has given a voice to a segment of Turkish society that had felt unrepresented, said Christie-Miller, and he has also delivered economic advances.

“The government is still perceived to be doing a very good job on the economy,” he said. “Compared to 10 or 11 years ago, Turks are much better off.”

But although Erdogan’s electoral success is assured, there may be tougher times ahead for Turkey, according to the panel.

Damaged brand

Erdogan’s domestic failings, coupled with the turn of external events, have already had an impact on Turkey’s standing overseas.

In 2011, the government was championing a policy of ‘zero problems’ with its neighbours, and Turkey was being held up as a possible model for regime changes in Tunisia and Egypt. But Egypt’s counter-revolution, the Gezi Park protests and Turkey’s powerlessness to influence the Syria crisis has meant that this is little more than a memory.

“It was an admirable aspiration, but you couldn’t pick a more difficult neighbourhood to have zero problems with,” said Reddaway. “The Turkish brand has taken a huge knock because of Gezi, and not being Arabs is a huge impediment. To be an active leader of the region was never going to work for a non-Arab country.”

“Each time Turkey has been held up as role model it has failed,” said Akkoyunlu. “There was popular support for Erdogan in the region, but with the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood and the turning of the tide in Syria that has pretty much lost its tinge.

“Since 2011 with the Arab Spring and [events] in Turkey, something changed. I would call it hubris. There was a feeling that its rise was unstoppable, but events really pulled the rug away and brought us to where we are now.”

Deteriorating media freedom

Media freedom is also being eroded, said Christie-Miller.

“It’s going to get worse. In recent months the government has passed several laws curtailing internet freedom and which indirectly affect media freedom,” he said. “The Turkish government doesn’t mind having a media criticising it, it just doesn’t want a media criticising it on certain issues.

“It is able to maintain the impression that it has a free press, but the freedom to carry out independent reporting is dramatically decreasing.”

Party political representation in the media in the run-up to elections has also been heavily biased towards the government.

“In the run-up to the local and general elections the amount of space and time dedicated to the ruling party was 89% in the local elections, with 11% for the other three parties,” said Akkoyunlu. “This time just two minutes [of air time] has been given to the main opposition party and no time at all for the pro-Kurdish opposition.”

Economy crucial

Reddaway warned that the economy will remain crucial to Erdogan’s success.

“The economy is the key to the AKP’s success,” he said. “It has to be careful not to alienate foreign investors and drive Turkish investment out of the country.”

But the economy may not be plain sailing in the coming years.

“Turkey has had growth of 5.2% a year which is relatively easy because it has moved from a low income to a middle income country,” said. Hakura. “But to go from middle income to high income is a whole different dimension. In the past 30 years only five countries [have done this] and they are all from Southeast Asia.

“Turkey has entered a long period of economic stagnation with 2–4% growth, which is quite slow for the current phase of Turkey’s development.”

Erdogan’s legacy

Asked how he would advise the government of Turkey, Reddaway warned that the dominance of Erdogan and the AKP, which is expected to continue in the general elections in 2015, is itself something that the president apparent must guard against.

“One of the problems of successful politicians is that if you’ve won a series of elections it becomes harder and harder for people to give you advice you don’t want to hear.

“I would appeal to his sense of history. As we go towards 2023 [the 100-year anniversary of Turkey’s independence], I would want Erdogan to install a model that means that the baby doesn’t get chucked out with the bathwater when the AKP runs out of steam as it eventually will.”

Watch and listen back here:

As news of the build-up of Russian forces in Crimea dominated the headlines, a distinguished panel convened at the Frontline Club on 5 March for a First Wednesday event examining the current crisis in Ukraine. The insightful discussion, chaired by Paddy O’Connell of BBC 4’s Broadcasting House, largely focused on Russian motivation for intervening in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin’s specific agenda, the extent of Western complicity, and forecasts for the political future of the state.

L-R Paddy O’Connell, Olexiy Solohubenko, Timothy Garton Ash, Richard Sakwa and Anne Applebaum

Richard Sakwa, professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent, and author of works on contemporary Russian politics, kicked off the discussion by arguing that Russian intervention in Ukraine, in the form of military presence, demonstrates a pointed and valid guarding of its interests in the region:

“Putin is responding to a long-term simmering…. The concern that Russia has had is significant… it is a major power with geopolitical concerns.”

Timothy Garton Ash, historian, political writer, and professor of European Studies at the University of Oxford, denounced Russian efforts to “protect their interests”, recalling an earlier meeting with Putin in which he had declared Russia’s “right and duty” to protect all Russian speakers regardless of their citizenship. Garton Ash disputed this logic:

“All international order and respect for sovereignty would break down if the mother country had a right to protect all language speakers in other countries.”

Anne Applebaum, columnist for the Washington Post and Slate and the director of the Transitions Forum at the Legatum Institute in London, commented on Putin’s central role in manoeuvring the crisis:

“Putin has put himself very much at the centre of this in the last couple of days…and one of the things that has emerged from what he said is that this is very much a domestic issue in Russia. Russia sees the West as some kind of opposite… and feels the need to create an ideology which is anti-Western…. What he really fears is not so much the events in Kiev, but the kind of language we heard in Kiev – ‘anti-corruption, ‘democracy’, ‘rule of law’, ‘freedom of speech’.”

Olexiy Solohubenko, news and deployments editor at BBC Global News and former head and of the Ukrainian Service, agreed, adding that “Putin…in his mentality, doesn’t really accept Ukraine as a state”, and that his actions should be understood within the context of his view of Ukraine as an “artificial construct”. Solohubenko then dismissed tendencies to overcomplicate Putin’s motivations in the region:

“He wanted to pull Ukraine away from Europe – it is not going to happen. He wanted to stem nationalism in Ukraine – he is achieving the opposite. He is radicalising a lot of Russian public opinion.”

The question of Western involvement, and possible complicity, in the current situation in Ukraine was raised. Applebaum responded:

“There has been a stream of efforts to have a good relationship with Russia, that go back twenty years… (which) has almost always ended in disaster… Russia is unable to recognise the countries on its borders… as sovereign and independent states.”

Garton Ash remarked on the West’s cavalier attitude with regard to intervening in other countries without proper international legitimacy, which he admitted could be seen as a contributing factor, but ultimately denied that Europe should shoulder the blame for the crisis:

“The last place in which this crisis was manufactured is the West. Because the problem with the West is that it has done so pathetically little in, and for, Ukraine ever since its independence.”

An audience member commented in agreement with regards to the West’s past failure to act to a sufficient extent in Ukraine. O’Connell enquired as to how the West could positively aid Ukraine in the future; Applebaum responded:

“The most positive thing the West could do is to help Ukraine get out of this cycle of corruption, of cronyism, of poor rule of law, of a weak court system, of bad policing… the best the Ukrainians can do for themselves right now is to fix their economy… and construct institutions that will give the country a more positive future.”

Garton Ash agreed that the Ukrainian government must shoulder the majority of the responsibility for the resolution of the crisis, suggesting that it clearly verbalise its absolute commitment towards all Ukrainian citizens, namely Russian speakers and Crimean tartars. He added that, on the condition of Ukraine adhering to certain democratic principles, the West should welcome the state into its “union of sovereign, democratic countries.”

An audience member, originally from Ukraine, commented on the overshadowing in the Western media of the “popular revolution” in Ukraine by the Russian military invasion.

Applebaum offered a response:

“That was the purpose… to distract attention, to undermine the situation, to change the story… it is now up to Ukrainians to use the energy of that revolution to rebuild their political institutions… The role of the West is assistance, aid, conversation, but not dictation on how to rule.”

Sakwa was in agreement, yet stressed the importance of Russian involvement in the resolution process:

“Ukraine has to have a civilised relationship with its Eastern neighbour… Putin in many ways does reflect the complexity, the angst, the identity issues, of Russia itself… That’s why we need to bring Russia in, and Putin in. Not as a problem, but as the solution.”

The final parts of the discussion saw a focus on Ukraine’s future, with Solohubenko emphasising the mass disillusionment of Ukrainians with their current leaders, and pointing towards two opposition leaders with the potential to command popular support – Vitali Klitschko and Petro Poroshenko.

Solohubenko closed the discussion by highlighting the threat of bloodshed in Ukraine at the hands of Russian military, after which “de-escalation will be almost impossible.”

Garton Ash echoed this sentiment, and commented that if bloodshed is avoided:

“There is a real chance that future history books will see this as a decisive moment in consolidating the independence of Ukraine… one day Putin will go and Russia will think better of where it wants to be. Part of that conversion will be who lost Ukraine. Part of the answer will be Vladimir Putin.”

Watch and listen to the full discussion below:

On Monday 10 February, the Frontline Club hosted a BBC Storyville Preview screening of Coach Zoran and His African Tigers, an at once inspiring and saddening tale of the exploits and frustrations of the national football team of the world’s youngest nation, South Sudan.

The film tells the story of Zoran Djordjevic, the Serbian who in June 2012 took on the challenge of becoming the coach of a team that a year after it won independence on 9 July 2011 was yet to play its first international.

Within a few weeks, this had changed, and on 10 July, South Sudan hosted its first international friendly, a 2-2 draw with Uganda.

Coach Zoran congratulates the scorer of South Sudan’s first ever goal in international football. Photo Richard Nield

But this was just the start of the challenge for coach Zoran, who had ambitions to take the team first to the Council for East & Central Africa Football Association (Cecafa) regional tournament in December 2012 and then to the World Cup in Rio de Janeiro in 2014.

Directed by Sam Benstead and edited by James Gold, Coach Zoran and His African Tigers reveals just how much of a challenge the itinerant Serbian coach had taken on. A passionate and determined man, Djordjevic faces the challenge of coaching in a country that lacks the will and the means to provide the support he demands, bringing him frequently into headlong battles with the head of the national Football Association.

Sam Benstead, director of Coach Zoran and His African Tigers (centre), with editor James Gold (right) and chairman Nick Fraser (left)

As Djordjevic tries desperately to access the Cecafa tournament, he must hurdle bureaucratic obstacles ranging from the unexplained absence of the sports minister to a lack of essential equipment.

In one memorable scene, after protracted negotiations with government officials, the team is finally granted access to the national stadium in Juba to train ahead of the Cecafa tournament, only to find the goalposts are on the other side of town.

Almost miraculously, and down to the sheer bloody-mindedness of Djordjevic, the team makes it to Cecafa, only to find on the way back that there aren’t enough tickets for the whole team to return. Djordjevic himself is stranded in Uganda for several days.

After a string of defeats, though, the FA finally loses patience with Djordjevic, and his dream of World Cup glory is over.

After the screening, Benstead cast light on the sometimes difficult, often eccentric, but always passionate character of Djordjevic.

“I met Zoran in a shipping container,” said Benstead. “He’d given me his CV, which was 62-pages long. When we met he tested me on it.”

Through all his clashes with the football administration and the government in South Sudan, Djordjevic remains determined throughout.

“He had extraordinary ambition for the football team,” says Benstead. “He wanted to take them to the World Cup. He had this win or die attitude that was quite inspiring.”

Summing up the difference between Djordjevic’s attitude to his players and the bureaucracy with which he had to contend, Benstead said:

“He loves the players and they love him. He hates the officials and they hate him.”

Coach Zoran and His African Tigers is the story of South Sudan’s football team, but is also the story of the new nation itself.

A story of the inspiring determination of individuals to prevail over seemingly unsurmountable barriers. And a story of the tragedy that, as the nation tears itself apart with war once more, many of those barriers refuse to go away.

BBC Storyville will broadcast Coach Zoran and His African Tigers on Thursday 27 February at 10PM on BBC4.

https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/first-wednesday-south-sudan

Fighting continues as delegations from South Sudan’s warring factions meet for talks in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The country, which gained its independence in July 2011, has seen at least 1,000 killed and 180,000 displaced since mid-December.

We will be joined by a panel of experts, journalists and aid workers to give you an up-to-date picture of what is happening on the ground and an insight into the divisions and tensions that have caused the conflict.

As fighting between supporters of President Salva Kiir and sacked deputy Riek Machar continue, we ask what the future holds for the world’s youngest country.

Chaired by Lindsey Hilsum, international editor at Channel 4 News and author of Sandstorm; Libya in the Time of Revolution.

The panel:

Heather Pagano joined Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in 2008 and is currently the Regional Information Officer for East and Central Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. She has a special interest in South Sudan and recently returned from Juba.

James Copnall was the BBC correspondent for Sudan and South Sudan from 2009-12.. He is author of A Poisonous Thorn in Our Hearts: Sudan and South Sudan’s Bitter and Incomplete Divorce which will be published in March 2014. He has just returned from Juba.

Mukesh Kapila, CBE is professor of Global Health and Humanitarian Affairs at the University of Manchester. Previously he was Under Secretary General at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan.

Thomas Mawan Muortat, is a South Sudan political analyst, with an interest in development, democracy and peace issues. He has lived in the UK since 1984, and has travelled back and forth to South Sudan since 2008.

On 31 May, the Frontline Club hosted a screening of State Builders, a unique film documenting the immense challenges faced by the new state of South Sudan, which became the world’s newest nation on 9 July 2011.

Directed by Florence Martin-Kessler and Anne Poiret, the film gives a penetrating insight into what was happening behind the scenes as the 193rd UN member came into being, after almost 50 years of civil war.

Anne Poiret and Florence Martin-Kessler

The product of two years’ work and four three-week-long trips to South Sudan, State Builders benefits from unprecedented access to vice president Riek Machar and the then Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, Lise Grande.  In the Q&A session that followed the screening, Poiret explained:

“Most of the access was through Lise Grande. We had full access to her diary and she let us film everything, as long as there were no objections from others – which didn’t happen.”

However keeping track of Riek Machar was more of a challenge, Poiret continued:

“Each time we went to Juba it was a guess whether Riek was in town. We lost a giant amount of time waiting for him.”

Access to senior officials in South Sudan is notoriously difficult, and for its insight into the negotiations between the government and the UN – and the private thoughts of Machar – State Builders deserves a great deal of credit.

The film’s focus is on the immensity of the challenge faced by South Sudan in the months before and after independence.

Director Florence Martin-Kessler

Under the Khartoum regime, which won independence from the UK in 1956, the south of Sudan was completely neglected, meaning that when it was created South Sudan not only lacked an institutional framework, but had barely any paved roads and little industry.

“The only industry they have is a brewery,” said Martin-Kessler, referring to the SAB Miller-owned producer of the local beer, White Bull.

In one of the film’s opening scenes, Machar is greeted by one South Sudanese woman who pays homage to him in song, celebrating the imminent achievement of independence with the line “South Sudan will have it’s own telephone code, it’s own flag.”

The scene’s inclusion was an example of the gentle ironic humour that help to give viewers of State Builders some respite from the seriousness of the many issues faced by the new country. But it also makes the point that for a population that has suffered decades of poverty and war, these symbols of independence matter more than any notion of governance or development. This is something that makes the UN’s state building challenge all the more difficult.

“There has never been a state building exercise as difficult as this in the twentieth century,” said Grande, in one of a stream of media-focused soundbites from the UN deputy that were a running theme through the film. “It will take a generation.”

Machar, who featured both in official meetings and in more intimate moments around the dinner table, said that the new country needs to mobilise not less than $500bn in five years:

“We need an international airport, roads, rail, river transport and ports, pipelines, refineries, agriculture, and a new city.”

In one government building, a model of the country’s proposed new capital was on display. The government has chosen a site for the new capital, at Ramshiel in the centre of the country, but such grandiose dreams remain a long way from being realised.

For the time being, more basic needs have to be met. “A 15-year-old girl has more chance of dying in childbirth than graduating from school,” says Grande in one scene.

The film sheds light on just how challenging the UN state building mission is in South Sudan. “Everything we hoped for didn’t make it,” Grande says at one meeting of the organisation’s objectives prior to independence. “There’s not even an agreement on how to go forward.”

Director Anne Poiret

In one moving scene, a South Sudanese disporan, who has left his job as a professor in Los Angeles to take charge of building South Sudan’s national archive, sifts through piles of decaying papers several feet high.“This is our national memory,” he says sadly, “Being eaten by insects.”

The UN operation in the country is huge, with almost 10,000 people there. However, both the government and the UN’s enormous South Sudan mission have been heavily criticised for not being as effective as they should.

The government, meanwhile, is often characterised as nothing more than a patronage network. In Juba, the pre-fabricated government offices buildings often stand empty and ministers complain that their staff just don’t turn up to work.

Martin-Kessler and Poiret, though, say that the reality is not so straightforward. Kessler:

“The population is very cynical about the UN. They expect a lot, and they think they deserve it. The government also criticises the UN, but at the same time they use their resources.

“There are almost 10,000 people in the UN mission, spending about $1bn a year, so of course there’s wastage.”

Poiret dispelled the notion that government officials don’t work, saying that a lot goes on behind the scenes:

“Some people at the UN despise South Sudan’s officials and I think it’s a mistake, because they’re very good at what they do, and at getting what they want. Government officials do work. It may not be in the office, but they work in their hotels in the evenings.”

As the country approaches its second birthday on 9 July, the UN must decide what to include in its new mandate, which is renewed on an annual basis. Martin-Kessler commented:

“It will be interesting to see what’s in the mandate. A lot depends on the international community – whether they shrink the mission – which is very possible. It will say a lot about the perils ahead.”

Either way, for a country that is so poorly developed in every respect, the challenges will continue to be immense.

[vimeo clip_id=”45198204″ width=”400″ height=”225″]

After a 50-year civil war, the Republic of South Sudan became the world’s newest nation on 9 July 2011. The day of its independence, the United Nations’ 193rd member had a flag, a national anthem, a capital, and its first president. The UN’s professional Nation Builders – veterans of Kosovo and East Timor – are now at work in South Sudan with a 19-point road map that has a price-tag in the billions of dollars.

Filmmakers Florence Martin-Kessler and Anne Poiret chronicle the first year of independence in which the first foundations of this fledgling democracy are laid. State Builders closely follows the main players in this process; Lise Grande, deputy head of the UN in South Sudan and Riek Machar, former guerrilla chief and newly appointed Vice President, as they attempt to shape the young democracy.

Much remains to be decided and built: the borders need to be set, a constitution drafted, an army and judicial system established, revenues from oil production and income tax perceived. Both the stakes and the expectations are high.

Directed by Florence Martin-Kessler and Anne Poiret
Duration: 75′
Year: 2013

https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/focus-on-sudan-what-does/s-w2jPO

Salva Kir is to lead South Sudan into independence on the 9 July after a landslide referendum earlier this year where 99% of the South voted to secede from the North. But with relations still tense over disputed border regions of Abyei and the surrounding area, what does the future hold for North and South alike?

With Northern Sudan’s President Omar al Bashir wanted by the ICC for war crimes and the vast majorities of NGO’s being based in the south, will the North even recognize its legitimacy? Will this be the real start of peace, or will it merely be the start of another land grab explosion by the North?

Analysts fear that the South will become a failed state before it has even had a chance at success. With little to no public services and foreign aid being the main source of food, the South stands in a precarious position and faces an up hill struggle.

Join us at the Frontline club with a panel of experts to discuss what the future holds for North and South Sudan – will this be the start of peaceful beginnings and economic prosperity for both? Or will fraught relations win out again?

Chaired by Richard Dowden, director of the Royal African Society. He was Africa editor of The Independent from 1986 to 1994 before being appointed Diplomatic Editor, and then joining The Economist as their Africa Editor. Author of Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles.

With:

Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4 News’ International Editor.

Dr Ahmed Al-Shahi, Research Fellow and Co-founder of the Sudan Programme at St Antony’s College, Oxford University.

Natznet Tesfay, head of Africa Forecasting at Exclusive Analysis Ltd. Prior to joining Exclusive Analysis she worked in the field of urban development, consulting for municipal governments in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. 

Mohamed Abdalla Ali Eltom, Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy of the Republic of Sudan in London.

Picture credit: fieldreports