The civil war which started in 1963, was a limited local conflict in its first decade up to 1972. Its second decade was one of cold peace up to 1982. Its third decade was that of a regional conflict. However, from the mid nineties up to this day, it raged into a full scale national civil war with continent wide repercussions.

The wounds it caused in terms of a million plus dead, hundreds of thousands disabled, three million displaced, a million plus refugees and the destruction of the social and material infra-structure in many parts of the country is a chamber of horrors. The country’s economy was in the eve of independence viable, producing enough to satisfy national consumption and to pay for the national imports. The internal financial balance realised enough surplus to finance a programme of moderate development. The external balance was in favour of the Sudan producing a healthy reserve. Income per capita was $ 550, which equals $3700 in 1998 Dollars. The Sudanese pound was $3.3 compared to its dismal current value of 0.04 of a cent.

All economic indicators about the Sudanese economy have registered staggering negative figures. The internal budget deficit sustained by losses in revenue due to a continuous fall in production, and due to huge extra expenditure to finance the extended civil war, and to pay for numerous security organisations continued to rise through out the “salvation” decade.

The government continued to cover these huge deficits by borrowing and printing more currency. Consequently, the volume of money, which was 17 billion pounds in 1989, has shot up to 1600 billion Sudanese pounds in 1998. The external balance which was $700 million Dollars deficit, sustained deficits of about $2billion per annum through out the decade. They were financed by dollar purchases from the black market, and expatriation of the gold possessions of Sudanese society.

One of the economic legacies of the second despotic Regime in Sudan (1969-85) is the elimination of the Sudanese budget surplus which resulted in making development dependent on external aid which came from the west, the East and the Gulf. The regime benefited from $1.5 billion obtained by the democratic predecessor and disbursed during the despotic regime. Humanitarian aid from the various foreign sources actually increased despite the ungratefulness of the regime.

Therefore, development in the Sudan came to a standstill. Inflation continued to rise in treble figures, so that prices rose on the average about 4000% during the decade. Incomes, on the other hand, rose by an average of 500%.

Another legacy of the second despotism (1969-85) is the external debt, which was $8 billions at the time, and grew through arrears and accumulated interest to become $20 billions today. As a direct result of these developments, living conditions have become intolerable, employees have seen their pay shrink to about 3% of their necessary expenditures, and the percentage of the population living below the poverty line climbed to 95%. Consequently, large numbers of Sudanese citizens left the country by legal and illegal means to seek economic asylum. This is only one of the reasons for the unprecedented Sudanese citizen flight from Home. The “Salvation” regime had established an oppressive Police State, which treated all citizens who do not support it as the enemies of God and the Nation. To sustain its aggressive military policies, the Khartoum regime gave top priority to military expenditure on the official armed forces, plus six more para-military organisations. Further, the regime encouraged the formation of tribal militias numbering now fifteen.

To support the Police State, the regime went beyond the official Police Establishment. It formed five extra-Police security organisations to wage war against the civilian population. In response to this oppression, the civilians victims have resorted to armed resistance. All political parties and regional political formations have established their own armies. The Sudanese peoples Liberation Army, which was formed in 1982, has grown in numbers and combat commitment, to stand up to the enhanced military aggressions of the regime. Henceforth, the regime declared that its war effort is a JIHAD war in which the warriors had only two options: to vanquish the infidel enemy or to die in martyrdom. All opposition to the regime has acquired a military dimension to resist it.

As a result of these developments, there are now four military combat areas in the Sudan: In the South, the West, the North East and the South East. The coercive machine had not cowed the civilian population down. Their valor was “rewarded” with cruel punishments. That is how the record of human rights abuse in Sudan is so dismal: 8 condemnations by the UN Commission of Human Rights.

From its inception, the Khartoum regime saw itself as a vanguard of Islamicist assertion. Therefore, its regional and international policies were closely linked with the forces of militant Islam.

Regionally, the regime supported the JIHAD organisation in Eritrea, the Oromo Liberation Front and other Ethiopian dissident groups, the Lords Resistance Army in Uganda (arguing that there is a similarity between them by reason of a common religious zeal), and numerous militant Islamicist groups, in East Africa, West Africa and the Horn of Africa.

Internationally, the regime’s policies identified it with all the perpetrators of the radical Islamist agenda, namely, the Iranian regime’s policies of militant Islamic assertion in the pre-Khatimi phase, the Iraqi regime’s Islamicist pretences when the BA’THIST regime decided to identify with Islamic slogans, and the whole wide numerous violent organisations, which decided to adopt terrorist policies to advance their causes. The regime’s expansionist policies went further. It formed the so-called Islamic and Arabic people’s Congress, as a forum for international intervention.

These developments made the Sudan a virtual minefield of violence. The Sudan became a regional and international nursery for the culture of violence. Sudanese society paid the price. There are today, about 5 million refugees in Africa excluding the African refugees outside Africa, who have grown in numbers in the last decade.

The number of displaced people in Africa today is staggering plus or minus 15 million. The Sudan alone account for three million refugees in Africa and other parts of the World!. It accounts also for five million displaced people. One reason why the Sudan has been chosen as venue for the OAU ministerial conference in 1998, in spite of the prohibiting Security Council Resolutions, is the questionable distinction of the Sudan, being involved with a huge number of refugees and displaced persons.

By any standards, the Sudan today is Venue to the worst humanitarian tragedy in the World.

INSIDE:

Why Sudan is a Virtual Minefield of Violence

Children in Armed Conflict

Life in the Kakuma Refugee Camp

SHRA Personnel Seminar

Rights of Sudanese Women in Limbo

Prospects for Education of Sudanese Refugees in the Balance

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The Sudan Monitor is published by:

The Sudan Human Rights Association (SHRA)
Katwe Road
(Behind Capco Petrol Station)
P.O Box 7327 Kampala
Tel: +256 (41) 250586
Fax: + 256 (41) 250586