History of North, South Sudan conflict

By David Ochami

On Sunday, the people of South Sudan will vote to secede or stay united with North Sudan in fulfillment of the requirements of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in Nairobi on January 9, 2005.

Below are some of most frequently asked questions about the historical origins of the past and current conflicts that culminated in the signing of the CPA

What is the reason behind the war that ended in the CPA?

The root causes of the Sudanese conflict can be summarised as follows: Historically, it has been the culture of domination by the North ‘Islamic-Arab’, which some historians say begun in 1760 with enslavement of majority black Sudanese (Afro-Sudanese) comprising at least 80 per cent of the population, according to SPLM, but about 60 per cent by the census results at Independence.

This was later extended (cemented) on the economic level when fertile and rich South became a major cash crop producer. Southerners, historically, resented what they considered, exclusively, management and exploitation of the economy by the North.

When the British colonised the Sudan in the 1880s, they proclaimed an end to slavery but failed to advance the interests of the Southerners or blunt Arab dominance despite ruling the entire country.

As decolonisation of the African continent began, the British entered a joint rule of the Sudan through the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium Rule between 1952 till Independence on New Year’s Day, 1956.

Southern leaders opposed the decolonisation strategy leading to the Condominium Rule at the historic Juba Conference in 1947, sowing the first seeds of calls for the right to self-determination.

Some historians argue that British policies entrenched the cultural, racial, religious and regional differences between North and South Sudan without doing anything to secure the future of the vulnerable South in the event of Independence in one country. The Condominium Rule was considered a ploy to hand over power at Independence to the North and Egypt.

This prolonged domination begun the policies of the government in Khartoum, which marginalised the whole Sudan and concentrated power, the economy and military in a Northern clique.

Besides this control, successive ruling dynasties in the North have declared Sudan an Arab-Islamic state, adding the dimension of an identity crisis in Sudan’s troubled modern history.

2: Historically when did armed conflict between North and South begin?

It begun with the Torit (in South Sudan) Mutiny of 1955, when Southern battalions rebelled as Independence approached. The rebellion often called Anya Nya I was officially launched in 1956 as a struggle against the centre between Independence upto 1972, with the signing of the Addis Ababa Agreement (AAA) under mediation of the late Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie. Joseph Lagu and Abel Alier are the Southern leaders who signed the AAA on behalf of the South.

Following the signing of the Agreement, Anya Nya I fighters disbanded with some, including Garang, joining the national army. AAA gave the South some autonomy with its parliament.

3 When was the SPLM formed?

SPLM was formed in 1983 at the start of the second war also known as Anya Nya II when Southern battalions at Bor in South Sudan rebelled against policies of former Sudanese despot Jaa’far Numeiri who abrogated the AAA and declared Islamic law across the country. The nucleus of the rebellion was at Bor and involved battalions who refused to deploy in Northern Sudan at the abrogation of the AAA.

4 Did Southern Sudanese and the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement always want to secede?

The Anya Nya I movement clearly called for the right to self-determination of the South. However, the SPLM and its military wing the Sudan Peoples Libreration Army (SPLA) called for the birth of a new Sudan based on equality and justice for all Sudanese including other oppressed groups such as the Nuba Mountains tribes (of Southern Kordofan), the Funj (of Funj Kingdom of Blue Nile) and the Beja of Eastern Sudan among others all joined along side the SPLM/A in the fight to liberate the whole Sudan and put in place the New Sudan on a new political dispensation and basis of equality.

During the 1983-2005 war, SPLM/A occupied parts of North Sudan where these groups live and under the CPA some of these regions have the right to determine their future in the North and South.

5 Did these conflicts between North and South always lead to war and when did the South first pick up arms to fight?

The two Sudanese civil wars of Anya Nya I (1956-1972) and the latter one of SPLM/A (1983-2005) were all armed military liberation movements.

6 Have there been any previous attempts to find a negotiated settlement in the past apart from the CPA?

Yes, the CPA was based on the Nairobi brokered Declaration of Principles (DoP), which set out a more detailed and written document for the first time in the Sudanese conflict/ history.

However, there were previous attempts in 1991 and 1992 respectively known as Abuja 1 and Abuja 2 respectively mediated or called for by the former Nigerian president Ibrahim Babangida, which were very useful too as they begun ‘exposing’ the conflict in the Sudan.

6 What led to the collapse of the Addis Ababa Agreement?

From 1975 onwards Numeiri became Pan Arabist and opposed to the AAA. Besides ideological influences from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and islamist ideologue Hassan Abdallah al Turabi, some scholars alleged the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 also encouraged his disregard for the AAA.

It has also been argued that the discovery of oil in the South caused Numeiri to want to topple the AAA. No sooner had these discoveries been made than he began to orchestrate unilateral development projects on the Nile in the South without the concurrence of Southern partners.

Before discarding the AAA, Numeiri, famously declared that the Addis Ababa Agreement was ‘neither the Quran nor the Bible’ and tore it to pieces. But the AAA, unlike the CPA, was also consigned to doom from the start for, critically absent in the Addis Ababa Agreement was the provision for Security Arrangements (as in the CPA) or security guarantees for the South to protect itself from the North in case of aggression or abrogation as was done by Numeiri.

7 Why is Northern Sudan opposed to separation?

The South is endowed with more than two thirds of Sudan’s natural resources: oil, agriculture (very fertile and massive lands), timber, cattle, animal husbandry and fisheries, gold, uranium. The only oil fields in the geographical North are around the disputed Abyei and war-torn Western Darfur.

The Nile waters cut across the Sudan via the South from Ethiopia (Blue Nile) and Uganda/Kenya the White Nile from Lake Victoria. This is also a major fear of both the North and more so by the Egyptians.

When the South attains independence the quest for equitable Nile waters share by the Nile basin countries including the new state will increase.

SPLM has told Egypt that it shall not, aggressively, interfere with the Nile waters’ flow and will openly address common use.