WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday urged South Sudan to manage well its oil windfall, warning the new country that such wealth could be a curse that holds back development.
"We know that it will either help your country finance its own path out of poverty, or you will fall prey to the natural resource curse," Clinton told a conference aimed at boosting international support for South Sudan.
That curse "will enrich a small elite, outside interests, corporations and countries, and leave your people hardly better off than when you started," the chief US diplomat said.
She held up oil-rich Norway, a key supporter of South Sudan, and diamond-rich Botswana as positive examples of nations that have successfully managed their natural resource wealth.
Clinton was speaking in the presence of South Sudan President Salva Kiir, during a conference organized in Washington by the United States, the European Union, and the African Union, among others.
South Sudan -- which emerged in July as an independent state from a referendum outlined in a 2005 agreement that ended two decades of civil war -- possesses on its territory most of the oil fields from the former united Sudan.
Clinton said that in spite of tensions, the future of Sudan and South Sudan are "inextricably linked." Oil from landlocked South Sudan must transit pipelines passing through its northern neighbor to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
The United States fears fighting along the border between Sudan and South Sudan could undermine implementation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ended a two-decade civil war and led to the south's independence in July.
Princeton Lyman, the US special envoy for Sudan, said Tuesday the fighting in Sudan's South Kordofan and Blue Nile states could be "a flashpoint" that hurts negotiations to share oil revenue and settle the disputed Abyei border area.
In South Kordofan and Blue Nile, Sudanese troops have for months been battling rebels aligned to South Sudan. In May, Sudanese troops overran disputed Abyei and have since refused to pull out.
At the same briefing on Tuesday, US Agency for International Development administrator Rajiv Shah said that the South Sudan leadership wants to use the conference to "lay out its vision" for economic development and humanitarian assistance.
It will seek the help of governments, the private sector and international organizations like the World Bank, he said.
It wants "private companies and investors (to) see the Republic of Southern Sudan as a place where they want to increase their investments, thereby enabling significant economic development and economic growth," Shah said.
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