Ever since its independence in 1956, Sudan has known peace for only eleven years, 1972 - 1983 following the peace accord signed in Addis Ababa between the North and the South. Millions have since been killed or displaced and starved while thousands have been maimed as a result of the civil war. What sparked the conflict and why has peace eluded this region?

Given the opposition of the Sudanese people to the council, the British Governor of Sudan was forced to seek approval from his government in Britain to discuss the future of Sudan as a united country comprising of North and Southern Sudan.

A conference which included northerners and southerners was convened in Juba in 1947 (The Juba conference).

The conference recommended that a legislative council should be formed with members drawn from the North and the South. It was also agreed that a plan for economic, administrative and educational development should be initiated in the South Sudan to enable the region to match the North.

In May 1952 the Northern political powers presented a proposal to the colonial authorities demanding for independence.

The colonial government convened the Cairo conference to discuss the proposal. The conference was attended exclusively by the Northern powers and adopted the 1952 agreement granting independence to Sudan as one country. However, out of the 800 administrative posts vacated by the British in 1953, the Northern politicians allotted a mere four posts to the southerners.

In August 1955, the Army Command in Khartoum decided to redeploy to Khartoum the Equatoria Battalion which was based in Torit to participate in the celebrations to mark the evacuation of the British troops.

The southern soldiers in the battalion mutinied and some 300 people mainly from the North were killed. The bloody incident led to a change of heart by the Northerners and they promised to reconsider the question of federalism after independence in January 1956.

Following the independence a special commission was established to draft the constitution. The commission comprised of 43 members but only three were from the South. It was not surprising therefore that the Commission voted against federalism and this led to the formation of Anyanya I in 1963.

On 16th March 1965 a round table conference was convened between the northerners and the southerners attended also by monitors from the African and Arab countries. The two parties failed to reach any conclusive understanding but agreed to form a joint commission of 12 members to draw the basis on which a comprehensive and complete understanding could be reached. The seventeen year conflict between the South and North was resolved in March 1972 after the Addis Ababa agreement between the Gaffer Mohammed Numeiri regime and the Southern Sudan Liberation Movement under the leadership of Joseph Lagu. This agreement guaranteed the integration of all the regions within one united Sudan, in which the Southern regional government could exercise executive powers with an independent Public Service Commission, and a Southern Peoples’ Regional Assembly with legislative powers established in Juba. This accord brought some stability and peace to the South.

From 1972 to 1982 when Southern Sudan became a sub-system of the Numeiri regime, a one party dictatorship spread in the whole country and emptied the substance of the agreement. Numeiri played the politicians against each other. He, for instance, without a substantial reason dissolved Abel Alier’s government in 1981 and appointed a caretaker government until June 1982 under General Gasrmalla Rasa to lay out strategies for the election and formation of a new government.

To ostensibly oversee the process of centralizing the Southern region government, Numeiri appointed General Lagu as the second vice president of Sudan instead of Abel Alar. This was a maneuver to play the southern Sudanese against each other. In the Presidential Decree No 1 of June 1983, he strengthened all the mechanisms in the preparation for the final dismantling and abrogation of the Addis Ababa Agreement.

South Sudan was divided into three regions namely Bar El ghazal, Equatoria and Upper Nile, all under the control of Khartoum. This unilateral action was followed by the imposition of Islamic Sharia laws through out the country in September 1983. Coupled with this other tragic policies along with the Sharia laws were introduced in Sudan the end result of which was deep political chaos and anarchy. The political crisis which gripped the Sudan in late 70s and early 80s had adverse repercussions.

The failure of the Juba government to address the political issues related to the Addis Ababa agreement resulted into several armed uprisings between 1972 and 1983. In due course Anyanya 2 was born in 1975 but the rest remained military incidents which did not create much political impact in Juba. The only single rebellion that influenced the political situation in Juba and Khartoum was that of mid 1983 which was by the battalions of 104 and 105, Bor, Ayod and Pibor. This rebellion heralded the outbreak of the present war and the formation of SPLM/A.

Among the issues that precipitated the war was the digging of the Jonglei canal which generated a lot of protest from the South in 1974, the provincial boarder dispute of 1980 in which Numeiri redrew the boundaries leaving the oil rich areas in Bantui and the mechanized agricultural lands to the Northern Upper Nile. The establishment of the oil refinery in Kosti instead of Bantiu in 1980 and the unprovoked and continuous biassed interference by Numeiri in the political and democratic process in the southern region also generated a lot of resentment.

During the four years of democratic government (1985- 89) many peace bridges were built. They included:

1. The Kokudan Declaration of March 1986 in Ethiopia between SPLA/M and the Democratic Alliance For Political Parties and Trade Unions.

2. Attempts by individual initiatives included the Umma Party initiative of June 1986, the African Parties of Sudan initiative of September 1987, the Sudanese Church Leaders initiative of December 1987 and the Harare talks of March 1988 between SPLA/M and some Government delegation.

3. Other attempts were made by the El Magarn / Garang in November 1988.

However, all the above attempts came to nought following the coup of 30th June1989. Initiatives made during the current regime include the meetings in Addis Ababa in August 1989, Nairobi in December 1990, Abuja 1 and 2 meetings in 1992 and 1993, respectively and another Nairobi meeting in 1993. There was also one agreement made under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in May 1994 which adopted the Declaration as the basis for negotiations between the Sudan Government and SPLM/A.

As a result of the Sudan Government’s refusal to sign the declarations of principle; the peace process stalled in September 1994. It resumed in July 1997 when the Government of Sudan accepted the declaration of the principle as the basis for negotiations but refused to ratify all its agenda.

The peace process continued in Nairobi in September 1997, on 28th October 1997, on 4th May 1998 and most recently in Addis Ababa on the 4th August 1998. The above mentioned steps have failed due to the following reasons:

o The lack of trust among the Sudanese people due to racial, religious and inequitable sharing of power and economic development held by different groups in Sudan.

o Lack of participation of all the parties in the Sudanese conflicts in peace talks process.

o The current regime seized power while people of Sudan had already made up their minds and chosen peace. A date for the meeting of all parties concerned was set for July 1989 to prepare for the Peace conference, the 18th of September 1989 was set for the Constitutional Conference while the National Islamic Front (NIF) chose the 30th June 1989 for their coup to blow the efforts of peace.

o The peace process has also been forced to fail because the current government has not been serious in seeking a negotiated solution. The NIF regime has firmly continued with Islamic ideology and tactics based on the principle of “Peace from within.” This has failed to provide a peaceful solution to the conflict in Sudan.

INSIDE:

Life in the Sudanese Refugee Camps in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Conditions in the War Torn Areas of Yei in Sudan

Plight of the Disabled in War Torn Areas of Sudan

Prisoners of war in the War Torn Areas of Yei

Repeated Attacks Make Adjumani Refugee Camp Insecure

The Role of Civil Society in Conflict Resolution

The Sudan Conflict: The Causes and the Attempts at Resolution

Famine Ravages South Sudan

A Standard of Achievement For all People to Aspire For Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The International Bill of Human Rights

SHRA ORGANISES A PERSONNEL TRAINING SEMINAR

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