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Sudan
SOUTHERN AND WESTERN SUDAN
Southern Sudan
The three southern provinces of Al Istiwai, Bahr al Ghazal, and
Aali an Nil were centers of opposition to Khartoum's authority
since before independence. The first rebellion began in 1955 as
a mutiny of southern troops who believed that the departure of
the British would be followed by northern efforts to force arabization
and Islamization on their region. The antigovernment movement
gathered momentum after Sudan's independence in 1956 with the
formation of opposition elements. The harsh treatment of southern
civilians by northern armed forces and police caused a number
of better educated southerners who served in government posts
or were teachers to go into exile. Ultimately, in February 1962,
many of these persons formed the Sudan Africa Closed Districts
National Union. In April 1963, the group changed its name to the
Sudan African National Union (SANU) and advocated outright independence
for southern Sudan. Meanwhile, numerous less-educated southern
males, many of whom had been junior civil servants or former members
of the Equatoria Corps, sought refuge in the bush and formed guerrilla
bands, the Anya Nya, which began activities in 1963 (see Civil
Warfare in the South; Paramilitary Groups , ch. 5). As the Anya
Nya developed into an effective military force, it gradually succeeded
in expelling central government officials from an increasing number
of southern districts. In 1971, by which time Anya Nya controlled
most rural areas, its military leaders formed a political organization,
the Southern Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM).
The Nimeiri regime recognized that the escalating civil strife
in the south was a debilitating drain on the country's resources
and a serious impediment to Sudan's economic development. In 1971
Nimeiri agreed to negotiate a compromise with the SSLM. Several
sessions of mediated discussions culminated in peace negotiations
in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in February and March 1972. Under the
provisions of the Addis Ababa accords, the central government
and the SSLM agreed to a ceasefire , and Khartoum recognized the
regional autonomy of the three southern provinces. After signing
the accord, Nimeiri issued a decree for the establishment of a
Southern Regional Assembly. The assembly's members were elected
in multiparty elections, the first of which was held in 1973,
with a second election five years later. Throughout the 1970s,
the Nimeiri government observed the Addis Ababa accords fairly
faithfully, and the south's relative political freedom contrasted
sharply with the authoritarian rule in the rest of the country.
The Addis Ababa accords eventually were undermined by the same
factors that had fueled southern rebellion in the 1960s: fears
that the north was determined to force arabization and Islamization
upon the south. These fears were revived, beginning in the late
1970s, by the increasing influence of the Muslim Brotherhood over
central government policies. In 1981 Nimeiri virtually abrogated
the Addis Ababa accords by dissolving the Southern Regional Assembly.
In addition to these major political developments, the general
economic stagnation of the south, which by the early 1980s was
plagued with high inflation, lack of employment opportunities,
and severe shortages of basic goods, tended to reinforce southern
suspicions of Khartoum.
After Nimeiri appointed Muslim Brotherhood leader Turabi as attorney
general in November 1981, southern confidence in the central government's
motives eroded rapidly. A mutiny among about 1,000 southern troops
in February 1983 stimulated attacks on government property and
forces throughout the region. By August a former colonel in the
Sudanese army, John Garang, had been instrumental in forming the
Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM). When Nimeiri imposed
the sharia on the whole country one month later, further inflaming
attitudes among non-Muslims in the south, the SPLM rebellion,
coordinated by its newly formed military arm, the Sudanese People's
Liberation Army (SPLA) turned into a full-scale civil war (see
The Sudanese People's Liberation Army , ch. 5). The intensification
of fighting throughout 1984, and the SPLA's general success in
expelling government forces from most rural districts and some
towns were important factors contributing to Nimeiri's overthrow
in 1985.
Unlike its predecessor, the SSLM, the SPLM sought, not secession
from Sudan, but a solution based on a secular, democratic, and
federal political system. Because one of the first acts of the
transitional military government that overthrew Nimeiri was to
suspend enforcement of the September Laws, Garang and other SPLM
leaders initially were optimistic about resolving their grievances
with Khartoum. The SPLM thus agreed to participate in negotiations
with central government representatives and leaders of northern
political parties. In 1986 SPLM leaders and several northern politicians
met at Ethiopia's Koka Dam, where they signed an important declaration
stating their common commitment to democracy. Nevertheless, the
primary issue separating the SPLM from the northern parties--the
role of the sharia--remained unresolved. Sadiq al Mahdi, whom
Nimeiri had imprisoned for his criticism of the manner in which
the 1983 laws had been implemented, as prime minister became reluctant
to abrogate the sharia as the SPLM demanded.
Muhammad Uthman al Mirghani, head of the Democratic Unionist
Party (DUP) and spiritual leader of the Khatmiyyah religious order,
was one of the few northern politicians who recognized that ending
the civil war and compromising on the issue of the sharia were
inseparable. In November and December 1988, he met with Garang
in Ethiopia and reached a tentative agreement that involved major
government concessions with respect to the sharia. This agreement
received the backing of many northern groups that wanted an end
to the debilitating civil war. The NIF, however, strongly opposed
the agreement and exerted considerable pressures on the Sadiq
al Mahdi government to reject it.
Sadiq al Mahdi's temporizing on the Mirghani-Garang agreement
sparked demonstrations in Khartoum by various labor unions and
professional associations. Military officers who opposed continuation
of the fighting in the south intervened in February 1989 to demand
that the government seriously negotiate an end to the civil war.
The military's memorandum to the cabinet provoked a political
crisis that led Sadiq al Mahdi to form a new coalition government
without NIF participation. This National Salvation government
was dedicated to compromise with the SPLM on the basis of the
Mirghani-Garang agreement. Accordingly, it set up a special committee
of legal experts to draft legislation for the repeal of the September
Laws.
The June 1989 coup made the Mirghani-Garang agreement a moot
issue. Although the RCC-NS declared a unilateral cease-fire and
announced its determination to settle the conflict in the south
peacefully, its Islamic policies tended to alienate further, rather
than to conciliate, the SPLM. Garang announced that the SPLA would
continue the struggle but insisted that the SPLM was prepared
to discuss a resolution of the civil war provided the government
agreed not to enforce the sharia. Garang sent SPLM representatives
to Ethiopia in August 1989 and to Kenya in December to discuss
the war with RCC-NS representatives, but these meetings produced
no results. The RCC-NS adopted the position that there could be
no preconditions for peace talks. Consequently, the war continued,
with the SPLA forces generally prevailing in military clashes
with army contingents, especially in Al Istiwai, where support
for the SPLM initially had been weak. In mid-1991 the government
still held several important southern towns, including the largest
cities of Juba and Yei in Al Istiwai, but they were besieged by
the SPLA and could be resupplied only by air.
Data as of June 1991
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