His troops and tanks violently annexed Abyei, a flashpoint town on the contested border dividing northern and southern Sudan. Then he sent thousands of soldiers into two other volatile areas, Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan, while continuing a crippling blockade of the south, strangling it of food and fuel.
At the same time, renegade southern militias, widely believed to be armed by Mr. Bashir’s intelligence services, have stepped up their attacks, hitting army bases, snatching weapons and stretching southern troops thin as they scramble to meet all these threats, often hijacking United Nations vehicles to get to the battlefield.
But diplomats and analysts believe that, rather than trying to start a major conflict, Mr. Bashir may instead be playing out a carefully devised strategy meant to ensure just one thing: that when southern Sudan declares independence next month, his northern government controls as much oil as possible, or at least is richly compensated.
“Khartoum’s capture of Abyei and aggressive posturing on the eve of independence are, among other things, attempts to strengthen their negotiating hand and squeeze the South for as much as possible on oil, economic and border arrangements,” said Zach Vertin, an analyst for the International Crisis Group, which researches conflicts worldwide. In this high-stakes game, the tens of thousands of people who fled their homes during the takeover of Abyei and are now camped out under trees or plastic tarps along the border have become bargaining chips. Both north and south claim Abyei, and analysts say that Mr. Bashir would be willing to give Abyei to the south — and let the people go home — if he gets a good deal on other separation issues, namely the oil.
But life for the bargaining chips, meanwhile, has been miserable. For Mary Achol, it has meant eating leaves.
On a recent morning in the border town of Agok, Ms. Achol slumped in the meager shade of a thorn tree, her belly rumbling from the nearly toxic mix of wild plants she ingested, a baby sweating profusely in her arms. During the chaotic exodus out of Abyei, Ms. Achol lost two other children.
“Maybe they died of thirst, maybe they were eaten by lions,” she said. “I don’t have a lot of hope.”
Of course, there are many sticky issues on the table as Sudan prepares to split into two. But like many other divorces, Sudan’s seems to be about money, and both the northern and southern economies are desperately dependent on oil. While this means that oil is an obvious source of tension, it could also be the glue that holds the two Sudans together. The north has the pipelines and refineries, the south about 75 percent of the reserves, implying some degree of symbiosis.
Since last summer, the sides have been haggling over how to split the southern oil — or the money from it. Those close to the talks say they have hit an impasse, though they expect some deal to be struck before July 9 because no one wants to contemplate the possibility of a shutdown. Much of Sudan’s oil is so thick that the pipelines could get clogged, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, if the flow of oil is suddenly stopped, as the south has threatened to do if no agreement is reached.
This means now is the decisive moment for the oil talks, and diplomats say it is no coincidence that the north has suddenly increased the military pressure. “This is simply about getting the best economic deal possible,” said a Western diplomat in Sudan. “The north needs that oil.”
Publicly, northern officials deny any connection, citing a specific reason for each of their recent military maneuvers — for example, in Abyei, southern forces attacked a northern convoy right before the occupation. But privately, one leading member of Mr. Bashir’s National Congress Party acknowledged that this may be about leverage, at least the Abyei piece.
“If you say that both sides are trying to get a better negotiating position until the resolution of Abyei, then that is acceptable,” said the official, who asked not to be identified.
From Mr. Bashir’s standpoint, he needs to drive a hard bargain. There have been recent food riots in the north; many northerners are already grumbling about the south being allowed to split off; and Darfur is still a headache for him, with the rebels fighting on and the International Criminal Court accusing Mr. Bashir of genocide for the massacres there.
If he hopes to keep his job — which may be the only way of staying out of jail — Mr. Bashir needs to keep the northern economy afloat, which he cannot do without southern oil.
Sudan made its first major oil discoveries in the late 1970s. But soon the north-south civil war resumed, and vicious fighting between northern Arabs and southerners (who are mostly Christian and animist) rendered it impossible to develop a petroleum industry. The northern government eventually co-opted ethnic militias in the south to secure the oil fields and began exporting oil in 1999. Many of these same ethnic militias have recently re-emerged, just as the oil talks hit their final stretch.
“If you need proof these militias are connected to the north, just look how they maneuver,” said Garang Diing Akuong, the southern energy minister. Whenever the militias infiltrate from the north, he said, they bypass the oil installations, where there are obvious southern bases to hit, and go farther south. “These militias have been given instructions not to mess with the oil,” the minister said.
The north has denied any connection to the ethnic militias, whose forces are heavily armed and thought to number in the tens of thousands.
The south has flirted with the idea of building its own pipeline to Kenya’s coast, near the historic island of Lamu. But that would take at least three years, and with 93 percent of the southern government’s revenue derived from oil sales, the south probably cannot hang on that long. Analysts have said that the southern government, already racked by ethnic tensions and militia problems, would implode if soldiers stopped getting their paychecks.
Southern officials chafe at the idea of “sharing” their oil with Mr. Bashir’s government, preferring instead to pay a transit fee, which, according to oil analysts, is typically anywhere from a dollar per barrel to 25 percent. It seems the two sides are stuck on reaching a figure. Sudan currently produces around 500,000 barrels per day.
The south has also made it clear that it doesn’t want to risk its long-awaited independence by going to war, which means that the only way to lift the blockades and get people home may be to give Mr. Bashir what he wants.
“It all adds up to one marvelous strategy,” said the Western diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing diplomatic protocol. He added, “I don’t think a war’s going to break out. These are calculated risks, though sometimes calculations don’t work.”
Josh Kron contributed reporting from Juba, Sudan, and Isma’il Kushkush from Khartoum, Sudan.
