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Show Page 10 The Ogden Valley news Volume XIV Issue XV May 1, 2007 A History of Power Politics in Darfur and Southern Sudan By Shanna Francis Ogden Valley News Note: This is Part I in a three part series. Sudan is Africa’s largest nation, and home to over 41 million people with about 6 million living among several dozen tribes within an area about the size of Texas—the Darfur region, which, today is embroiled in conflict. While often represented as ethnic or religious, this conflict has more to do with an internal struggle for power where religion, race, culture, linguistics, and historical diversity are primarily used to draw boundaries between conflicting power-seeking actors and the political support they provoke. Sixty-five percent of Sudan’s population practices Islam, the official state religion. While there are many tribes that jostle for power within the area, historically there has been a long running war between Sudan’s north and south which has religious undertones with the Islamic Arab-dominated government fighting southern Christian and animist African rebels over political power, oil, and, to some extent, religion. But the current battle, often viewed as a religious conflict, and named the longest running civil war in the world today, has relatively little to do with religion. Military regimes favoring Islamic-oriented governments have dominated national politics in Sudan since its independence on January 1, 1956 from Britain and Egypt’s 56 year long rule. Under Anglo-Egyptian condominium, or joint rule between 1899 and 1955, the northern and southern regions of the state now called Sudan were administered separately. While the northern part of the country received a profusion of economic development capital from Egypt, the south suffered near total neglect which led to a severe economic and political imbalance between the two regions which became blatantly apparent at the time Sudan announced its independence. The north was able to profit from this imbalance and seize the reins of political authority. Since then, the southern Sudanese people have been fighting for human rights and equality, and, now, for what they see as their “inalienable right to selfdetermination,” or self rule under the name of South Sudan (Teny-Dhurgon). Historically, the area called Sudan today, consisted of kingdoms and tribal communities under the rule of empire without specific delineated borders. In 1821 the region fell under Turko-Egyptian rule as part of the Ottoman Empire’s expansionist ambitions. Like other areas under foreign rule, under Turko-Egyptian authority, the region was exploited for its economic commodities, including, primarily, slaves, gold, ivory, and timber. The Turko-Egyptians and northern Sudanese became allies executing raids against the region of southern Sudan for slaves. The result was the loss of millions of southern Sudanese people who were taken into slavery in the Arab and new World (Teny-Dhurgon). In 1898, the Sudan was re-conquered by joint British and Egyptian forces resulting in the signing of the Condominium Agreement between the British and Egyptians to administer Sudan within its current boundaries. After the Condominium Agreement, the British extended its presence in northern Sudan by creating administrative and political structures for what was called North Sudan as a means of preparing the northern region for self-rule. In 1943, the North Sudan Advisory Council Ordinance was enacted, which applied to all six North Sudan provinces: Khartoum, Kordofan, Darfur, Eastern, Northern and Blue Nile provinces. The council, whose members were all from North Sudan, was empowered to advise the condominium authority on how to administer North Sudan in specific areas of administration. The ordinance had no bearing on southern Sudan, which was considered a separate colony (Ibid). Instead of setting up a separate council for the southern region of Sudan, the resolutions of an administrative conference held in Khartoum in 1946 called for the colonization of South Sudan by the North. This rupture in vision of national Sudanese identity that pitted a northern Islamic, Arabic understanding of Sudanese identity against a southern Sudan that considered themselves primarily as African and Christian animists, flamed tensions in the region and provoked resentment from the southern Sudanese people who rebelled against plans by northern power brokers to unify the north and south into a newly independent country. Since 1955, the country has experienced two prolonged civil wars with only about 11 years of peace, which occurred between 1972 and 1983. After the north and south finally signed a peace accord in 1972 known as the Addis Abab Agreement, which granted regional autonomy to the south and ended the first civil war, Sudan President Jaafar Nimeiri compromised the treaty in 1983 by implementing Sharia, or Islamic law, into the southern region of Sudan which set off a new round of fighting. The country once again became embroiled in civil war. The second war and famine-related effects resulted in the displacement of more than 4 million people and more than 2 million deaths over a period of two decades (CIA World Factbook). Sharia continued under various legal Sudanese leaders until a nearly successful peace agreement between democraticallyelected Prime Minister Sadiq al Mahdi and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/ Army (SPLM/A) in 1989, which may have repealed the evasive Islamic law. But a successful military coup thwarted the peace attempt and brought to power LieutenantGeneral Omar Hassan al Bashir and the National Islamic Front (NIF) which pursued an aggressive agenda to create a comprehensive Islamic state where the Arabic language and Islam would dominate. Sharia was also implemented as part of the Sudanese legal code. Historically, Sudan’s conflicts have been rooted in northern economic, political, and social domination of the largely non-Muslim, non-Arab southern Sudanese. With the signing of several accords, a final peace treaty was signed in Naivasha, Kenya called the Naivasha peace treaty, or Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which formally ended the war between the Khartoum government and the SPLM/A. It was signed in January 2005 giving the southern rebels autonomy for six years; thereafter, a referendum for independence is to be scheduled in 2009 providing free and air elections. On July 9, 2005, SPLM Chairman John Garang was sworn in as 1st Vice-President, but still, little real change in Sudan has occurred. A report written by the International Crisis Group states, “The peace deal poses a real threat to many groups associated with the National Congress Party (NCP) regime, which signed the CPA under some duress both to deflect international pressure over Darfur and to strengthen its domestic power base by securing a partnership with the SPLM. Most members recognize the free and fair elections required in 2009 would likely remove them from power. Many also fear the self-determination referendum will produce an independent South, thus costing Khartoum much of its oil and other mineral wealth. There are signs the NCP seeks to undercut implementation through its use of the militias (the South Sudan Defense Forces, SSDF), bribery, and through the tactics of divide and rule. It actively encourages hostility between southern groups, with the hope that intra-south fighting will prove sufficiently destabilizing that the referendum can be postponed indefinitely without its being blamed (International Crisis Group).” The latest conflict, which broke out in the western region of Darfur in 2003, has kept DARFUR cont. on page 17 |