Historical Background of Sudan.

Sudan, the largest country in Africa, bordering nine countries, has been at war within itself for 30 of its 40 years of independence, that is, 17 years of the Anyanya war (1955-1972 and 13 years of the present war waged by the SPLA from 1983 to the present. This is too much suffering and misery for any country and for any people to go through. Obviously something must be very wrong for a human community to subject itself to generations of war! It is necessary to look deep into “what went wrong” in order to find viable solutions to the Sudanese conflict. To do this, it is necessary to present a brief historical background of the Sudan and to identity the Problem of Sudan.

The present Republic of the Sudan got its name from the word “Bilaad-el-sud” which in Arabic means “the Country of the Blacks”. In the Bible times, Sudan was known as “Cush”, and there are many references to it in the Bible. The 25th Egyptian dynasty (750-654 BC) was a Sudanese dynasty, when the Sudanese ruled over Egypt and beyond. This was the time of famous Sudanese kings, like “Piankhy” and his son, “Tirhakah”. They were known by their subjects as the “powerful jet black rulers” admired for their fairness and justice, and equally known for their courage and successful military expeditions.

One such military expedition into Palestine by a Sudanese general involved one million Sudanese troops, and is recorded well in the Book of 2 Chronicles Chapter 14 verses 8-10 the Good News Bible:

” King Asa (had an army of 300,000 men from Judah, armed with shelds and sprears, and 280,000 men from Benjamin armed with shields and bows. All of them were brave, well trained men. A Sudanese named Zerah invaded Judah with an army of one million men and three hundred chariots and advanced as far as Mareshah. Asa went to fight him, and both sides took up their positions at Zephathah Valley near Mareshah.”

In about 450 AD, Christianity entered Northern Sudan and the Christian Kingdoms of Nubia, Merowe, Mekuria, Soba and Alwa flourished for about 1,000 years. The Arab and Islamic invasion of the Sudan started in about 700 AD, and this was resisted by the Sudanese Christian Kingdoms up to 1505 AD, when the last Kingdoms were thus superseded by Sudanese Islamic Kingdom such as the Fung Sultanate in the East and the Isalmic Sultanate of Darfur in the West.

The second wave of Islamic expansion in the Sudan was the Turko-Egyptian invasion mainly in the form of military slave expeditins from 1820. This was a cruel period of the inhumanity slavery and the slave trade, when the Turko-Egyptian forces combined with Northern Sudanese Arab slave traders to conduct raids into Southern Sudan for what they called “black gold” (slaves), “white gold” (ivory) and “yellow gold” (real gold).

The slave trade continued under Turko-Egyptian rule up to 1881, when an indigenous uprising led by Mohammed Ahmed, who called himself the “Mahdi” (Messiah) defeated and killed General Gordon and overran Khartoum. The Mahdist State (1881-1897) was established and slave hunting was greatly intensified with devastating consequences to the civil population, especially in Southern Sudan where whole trives were completely decimated.

The rampant slave trade in the Sudan and the humiliation of the defeat and death of General Gordon compelled the British and Egyptians to send a combined force, under Lord Kitchner, to re-conquer the Sudan. The Mahdist forces were defeated at the end of 1897, and thus was established the so called condominium rule, known as the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1898-1956) which in reality was British colonial rule.

During the 58 years of Anglo-Egyptian administration, both Northern Sudan and Southern Sudan were administered separately as two different entities under the Governor General. This was similar to the case of Rhodesia, where Northern Rhodesia Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, although administered from Salisbury under one Prime Minister, yet each of the three territories was granted the right to self-determination, resulting in the emergence of the three independent states of Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi. This experience was ushered in political stability in this region. In fact, the emerging political and economic realities are indicating a movement towards a better unity, that is, unity in diversity.

In addition, the British introduced the concept of the “Closed Districts” which included Southern Sudan, Nuba Mountains of Southern Kordofan and the Fung areas of Southern Blue Nile. The intention of British rule was to close off these areas from the North to protect the indigenous African populations of these areas from the vagaries of the Arab slave traders and from Islamization and Arabisation.

The Northern Sudan was thus ruled as a colonial territory along Islamic/Arab lines with its future and cultural orientation towards Egypt and the Arab World, while Southern Sudan was ruled as an African colonial territory where African culture, language and Christianity were all encouraged to flourish in exclusion of anything Arab or Islamic, and with its future and cultural orientation towards Africa. Indeed pass permits were required for travel between the North and South (and other Closed Districts).

However in 1947, the British abruptly reversed their policy of “Closed Districts” and separate futures for North and Southern Sudan, and instead decided that the South and North would become independent as one country. The failure of the colonial authorities to allow the people of the “Closed Districts” to exercise their right to self-determination is one of the main factors that contributed to the first civil war in the Sudan (1955-1972) Indeed when Southern units in the (colonial) Sudan Defence Force learned of the impending independence of the Sudan as one country under Northern domination, these units rebelled in August 1995 in Torit, four months before independence (January 1, 1956) and that was the beginning of the first war!

The avowed aim of first civial war was “independence of Southern Sudan” and it was led by the Southern Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM) and its military wing the “Anyanaya” guerrilla army. Generally, Southerners felt that what happened at independence was a mere replacement of one set of colonial masters for another and of a worst type, and thus the Anyanya called for full independence of Southern Sudan. This war was successfully resolved by the Addis Ababa Peace Agreement of 1972, which was meditated by Emperor Haille Selassie of Ethiopia, the All African Council of Churches and six African countries. But the was high it is estimated that between 750,000 and 1,500,000 Southern Sudanese died in the Anyanya war.

The Addis Ababa Agreement granted Southern Sudan regional autonomy, with its own legislature, executive and judiciary, worked out interim security arrangements by which 6,000 Anyanya guerrillas were absorbed in the national and another 4,000 in the Police and Prisons services. Relative peae lasted for 10 years, although this was punctuated by instances of isolated mutinies by disgruntled former Anyanya soldiers and a growing realisation by most Southerners that the peace would not last. Thus while North worked to undermine the Addis Ababa agreement, Southerners prepared for war.

The Addis Ababa Agreement failed to satisfy the aspirations of the peoples of the “Closed Districts” as the agreement neither put them in the centre of power in parity with the North nor did it allow them the right of self-determination. At the same the North continued with its project of Islamization and Arabization of the country, and thus President Numeiri started a process of eroding whatever gains Southerners achieved in the Addis Ababa Agreement, and finally abrogated the Agreement altogether in June 1983 when he divided the South into three separate mini-Regions. Worst still President Numeirie attempted to annex the newly discovered oil fields in the South to the North, and proceeded in September 1983 to establish Islamic Sharia as the supreme law of the Land.

Numeiri’s abrogation of the Addis Ababa agreement and Southern frustration and dissatisfaction with it, coupled with the increased pace of Islamization and Arabization of the South, led to the outbreak of hostilities. On May 16th 1983, the Sudanese Army attacked one of its own units of the former Anyanya guerrillas absorbed in the national army, Battalions 105 and 104 that were stationed in Bor and Ayod respectively on the accusation that these units had rebelled or were about to rebel. This incident led to the formation the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLM/SPLA), as these units took to the bush and were subsequently joined by students, intellectuals, government officials and the peasantry, and the SPLM/SPLA has been leading the struggle since then to the present.