By Simon Johnson. This post comprises the first two paragraphs of a column that appeared on the NYT.com’s Economix blog on Thursday, December 26, 2013. To read the full post, click here.
The news from Juba is very bad. South Sudan is in the throes of political conflict and serious fighting, with several hundred people reported dead and more injured, that has the potential to become civil war. Unless cooler heads prevail, the situation in the capital Juba, Bor (the capital of Jonglei state, about 125 miles to the north of Juba), Bentiu (capital of Unity state, which has a lot of oil) and elsewhere could spiral out of control.
The outside world needs to get serious about preventing the escalation of this conflict; we can do this by applying appropriate economic pressure to all the military forces involved and by enduring that oil revenues are not used to fuel the conflict. This will require China, India, France and the United States to cooperate closely and in ways that may not come naturally.
To read the rest of this post, click on this link to NYT.com’s Economix blog: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/26/preventing-civil-war-in-south-sudan/?_r=0
