Like ignorance, simplification may be bliss, but it can also be hazardous, and Sudan’s story is a haunting testimony of that. Since its foundation as a nation with clearly defined political borders, Sudan was never taken seriously.
Even during its most tragic wars and famines, Sudan’s plight evoked little sympathy from anyone. Those who opted to get involved often did so for the wrong reasons, endangering the country’s stability even further. In the last 21 years, the Sudan tragedy has worsened by the day, overwhelmed with it millions of hungry, homeless and desperate victims.
Now that Africa’s longest running war has officially ended with the signing of the Naivasha Protocols in Nairobi on Jan. 9, one can only hope that like war, peace in southern Sudan will endure.
The signing of the momentous accord was accompanied by the almost therapeutic celebrations in which most Sudanese took part. It was a refreshing pause to follow every move of traditional Sudanese dancers bringing an upbeat spirit to the ever-gloomy television news bulletins.
Sudan’s Vice President Ali Osman Taha, along with the chairman of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), John Garang, brought an end to the decades-long war, with a simple handshake and a smile. The mood was certainly optimistic. But will it last?
Wars and conflicts don’t just happen in a vacuum, nor does peace. To achieve peace and maintain it, the roots of the conflict must be scrutinized, grappled with and settled for good.
Sudan’s present borders were defined by European colonial powers. In 1885, signatories of the Berlin Conference agreed to grant Sudan its current look, naturally not to maintain a political and cultural unity, but to maintain control over one of the most resourceful and rich entities in their colonial sphere. That was the original oversimplification, which proved disastrous. Sudan was untamable and valiantly fought back. In response, a few years later, in 1889, a joint British-Egyptian military campaign encroached on Sudan’s borders, seizing control over the north and sparking a fierce rebellion in the south.
In 1955, Sudan experienced its first full-fledged civil war. By most accounts, it was the British who funded the Anya-Nya war in the south. The intent was pure and simple: Divide and conquer.
It was this war that set the stage for the current conflict. Moreover, the war harvested uncountable lives, half a million according to some moderate estimates. It was an early warning of how easy it was to spark a war in Sudan and how difficult it would be to suppress it.
The independence of 1956 was a national victory for Sudan, for Africa and for national movements everywhere. But on the ground, economically it produced nil. Sudan’s infrastructure, battered by war and discord, remained stagnant at best. Foreign meddling and internal fragmentation thwarted the country’s early democratic experience. Hence, Sudan fell hostage to army generals in the 1969 military coup of Jaafar Nimeiri. In 1972, the war stopped, only to pick up again in 1975. In parallel, the economy sustained its downslide, driving large areas to the brink of starvation.
Sudan’s racial and tribal diversity, like its varied natural resources, could have been a blessing. Instead, this diversity continues to be the source of much of its vulnerabilities. Regrettably, post-independence, self-seeking governments in Khartoum did little to cater to the cultural and religious needs of its non-Muslim inhabitants.
The “Islamization” of Sudan, including the south, was the brainchild of Nimeiri. This was a declaration of war on the southern Christian and animist region. Nimeiri’s successors, Sadiq El-Mahdi and Omar El-Bashir, although differing in their style, were strong adherents to the Shariah doctrine, thus fueling one of the main factors behind the civil war.
In reality, Sudan’s war on itself, which began in 1955, never fully came to an end, despite periods of relative calm. The Anya-Nya movement, which aspired full secession, was swapped by Garang’s SPLM, which claimed to fight for a united, secular Sudan. Yet despite the high cost of the conflict — 2 million dead and 4 million refugees — the response was largely mute. “Business as usual” was the unspoken motto in much of the Arab world, aside from both tacit and overt backing for the Sudanese government.
Meanwhile, Israel funneled arms to various factions in the south, with the hope of gaining ground in the strategically situated country. The US interest in the conflict sprung at a later stage with the discovery of large oil reserves. France too was brought into the mix for various economic interests.
The racist notion that the “black continent’s” conflicts are perpetual and mindless and therefore compel no response, might in part explain the crippling indifference to the war in the south. It could also explain much of the crude oversimplification of the conflict: Muslims vs. Christians, north vs. south, and more recently in Darfur, Arabs vs. Africans.
The Naivasha Protocols might’ve temporarily resolved some of the grievances of the southern rebels. But many challenges remain. Two of the country’s top opposition parties in the north (the Ummah and Democratic Unionist parties) resolved not to participate in the newly devised government, which will incorporate Garang as a first deputy. Many southerners are still distrustful of the government’s “real” motives in signing the accord. Furthermore, the humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan is escalating by the day. The crisis in Darfur is worsening.
And to top it off, according to Leslie Lefkow of Human Rights Watch, there is a major “flaw” in the agreement. “There are no provisions for any kind of justice mechanism in the north-south peace accord — no truth commission or compensation for the many victims,” she wrote in the Guardian.
One can only hope that the six-year transition period stipulated by the agreement is not a temporary calm before the resumption of Sudan’s devastating storm.
To ensure a lasting peace, there must be a process of racial integration and national reconciliation.
Let us not be condemned to repeat the same indiscretion once again; if war in Sudan was imprudently oversimplified, then we must take peace seriously.
— Ramzy Baroud is a veteran Arab-American journalist. A regular columnist in many English and Arabic publications, he is editor in chief of PalestineChronicle.com and is a program producer at Aljazeera Satellite Television.
