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Sudan
INTRODUCTION
SUDAN, LIKE MANY AFRICAN COUNTRIES, consists of numerous ethnic
groups. Unlike most states, however, Sudan has two distinct divisions:
the north, which is largely Arab and Muslim, and the south, which
consists predominantly of black Nilotic peoples, some of whom
are members of indigenous faiths and others who are Christians.
British policy during the Anglo-Egyptian condominium (1899-1955)
intensified the rift because Britain established separate administrations
for the two areas and forbade northerners to enter the south.
In the 1990s, many southerners continued to fear being ruled by
northerners, who lacked familiarity with their beliefs and ethnic
traditions and sought to impose northern institutions on them.
Given its proximity to Egypt and the centrality of the Nile River
that both countries share, it is not surprising that historically
Egypt has influenced Sudan significantly especially the northern
part of the country. Ancient Cush, located in present-day northern
Sudan, was strongly influenced by Egypt for about 1,000 years
beginning ca. 2700 B.C. Although the Hyksos kings of Egypt temporarily
broke off contact, Cush subsequently was incorporated into Egypt's
New Kingdom as a province about 1570 B.C. and remained under Egyptian
control until about 1100 B.C. In a move that reversed the pattern
of Egyptian dominance, a Cushite king conquered Upper Egypt in
730 B.C.; in 590 B.C., however, the Cushite capital was sacked
by the Egyptians and the court moved farther south along the Nile
to Meroe.
By the sixth century A.D., Meroe had broken up into three kingdoms
collectively referred to as Nubia. The people of Nubia adopted
Christianity and were ministered to largely by Egyptian clergy.
The kingdoms reached their peak in the ninth and tenth centuries.
Prior to the coming of Islam, the people had contact with the
Arabs primarily in the form of trade. Sudan became known as a
source of ivory, gold, gems, aromatic gum, and cattle, all products
that were transported to markets in Egypt and Arabia. Following
the Muslim conquest of the area, in 1276 the Mamluk rulers of
Egypt gave Nubia to a Muslim overlord. The Nubians themselves
converted to Islam only gradually; a majority of them remained
Christian until the fifteenth or sixteenth century. During the
sixteenth century, the Muslim religious brotherhoods spread through
northern Nubia, and the Ottoman Empire exerted its jurisdiction
through military leaders whose rule endured for three centuries.
In 1820 Muhammad Ali, who ruled Egypt on behalf of the Ottomans,
sent 4,000 troops to Sudan to clear the area of Mamluks. The invasion
resulted in Ottoman-Egyptian rule of Sudan from 1821 to 1885;
the rule was accompanied by the introduction of secular courts
and a large bureaucracy. The 1880s saw the rise of the Mahdist
movement, consisting of disciples of Muhammad Ahmad ibn as Sayyid
Abd Allah, a Sudanese who proclaimed himself the Mahdi or "guided
one," and launched a jihad against the Ottoman rulers. Britain
perceived the Mahdists as a threat to stability in the region
and sent first Charles George Gordon and then Herbert Kitchener
to Sudan to assert British control. The British conquest led to
the establishment of the Anglo-Egyptian condominium and, initially,
to military rule of Sudan, followed by civilian administration.
Britain largely ignored southern Sudan until after World War I,
leaving Western missionary societies to establish schools and
medical facilities in the area.
After World War I, Sudanese nationalism, which favored either
independence or union with Egypt, gathered popular support. Recognizing
the inevitable, Britain signed a self-determination agreement
with Sudan in 1952, followed by the Anglo-Egyptian accord in 1953
that set up a three-year transition period to self-government.
Sudan proclaimed its independence January 1, 1956. The country
had two short-lived civilian coalition governments before a coup
in November 1958 brought in a military regime under Ibrahim Abbud
and a collective body known as the Supreme Council of the Armed
Forces. Abbud's government sought to arabize the south and in
1964 expelled all western missionaries. Northern repression of
the south led to open civil war in the mid-1960s and the rise
of various southern resistance groups, the most powerful of which
was the Anya Nya guerrillas, who sought autonomy. Civilian rule
returned to Sudan between 1964 and 1969, and political parties
reappeared. In the 1965 elections, Muhammad Ahmad Mahjub became
prime minister, succeeded in June 1966 by Sadiq al Mahdi, a descendant
of the Mahdi. In the 1968 elections, no party had a clear majority,
and a coalition government took office under Mahjub as prime minister.
In May 1969, the Free Officers' Movement led by Jaafar an Nimeiri
staged a coup and established the Revolutionary Command Council
(RCC). In July 1971, a short-lived procommunist military coup
occurred, but Nimeiri quickly regained control, was elected to
a six-year term as president, and abolished the RCC. Meanwhile
in the south, Joseph Lagu, a Christian, had united several opposition
elements under the Southern Sudan Liberation Movement. In March
1972, the southern resistance movement concluded an agreement
with the Nimeiri regime at Addis Ababa, and a cease- fire followed.
A Constituent Assembly was created in August 1972 to draft a constitution
at a time when the growing opposition to military rule was reflected
in strikes and student unrest. Despite this dissent, Nimeiri was
reelected for another six-year term in 1977.
During the early stages of his new term, Nimeiri worked toward
reconciliation with the south. As the south became stronger, however,
he considered it a threat to his regime; and in June 1983, after
abolishing the Southern Regional Assembly, he redivided the southern
region into its three historic provinces. The Sudanese People's
Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the Sudanese People's Liberation
Army (SPLA), founded in 1983, opposed this division. They intensified
their opposition following the imposition of Muslim sharia law
throughout the country. In early 1985, while Nimeiri was returning
from a visit to the United States, a general strike occurred that
the government could not quell, followed by a successful military
coup led by Lieutenant General Abd ar Rahman Siwar adh Dhahab.
A Transitional Military Council was created, but the government
proved incapable of establishing a national political consensus
or of dealing with the deteriorating economic situation and the
famine threatening southern and western Sudan. In March 1986,
in the Koka Dam Declaration, the government and the SPLM called
for a Sudan free from "discrimination and disparity" and the repeal
of the sharia.
Sadiq al Mahdi formed what proved to be a weak coalition government
following the April 1986 elections. An agreement with the SPLM
was signed by Sadiq al Mahdi's coalition partners at Addis Ababa
in November 1988; the agreement called for a cease- fire and freezing
the application of the sharia. Sadiq al Mahdi's failure to end
the civil war in the south or improve the economic and famine
situations led to the overthrow of the government at the end of
June 1989 by Colonel Umar Hassan Ahmad al Bashir.
Sudan's economic straits reflected its position as Africa's largest
nation geographically, but one possessed of large areas of desert
and semidesert east and west of the Nile and in the south the
world's largest swamp, As Sudd, which led to tropical rain forests
in the southernmost area. As a result, although the Nile itself
with its tributaries--the Blue Nile and the White Nile, which
joined at Khartoum--constituted a vital communications link for
the country and a source of water for agriculture, the cultivable
area of Sudan was somewhat limited. Moreover, in years of drought
the agriculturally productive sector declines appreciably, causing
the likelihood of severe famine.
In accordance with the focal role played by the Nile, about one-third
of Sudan's 1990 estimated population of 25 million lived around
Khartoum and in Al Awsat State. The latter included the rich agricultural
region of Al Jazirah, south of Khartoum between the Blue Nile
and the White Nile. Although only one-fifth of the population
lived in urban areas, two-thirds of the total population resided
within 300 kilometers of Khartoum. About 600 ethnic groups speaking
around 400 languages were represented. Arabic was the official
language of the country, with English spoken widely in the south.
Ethnic statistics for the 1990s were lacking, but in 1983 Arabs
constituted about two-fifths of the total population, representing
the majority in the north where the next largest group was the
Nile Nubians. Much of the remainder of Sudan's population consisted
of non-Muslim Nilotic peoples living in southern Sudan or in the
hilly areas west of the Blue Nile or near the Ethiopian border.
Among the largest of these ethnic groups were the Dinka and the
Nuer, followed by the Shilluk. Many of these groups migrated with
their herds, seeking areas of rainfall, and therefore it was difficult
to establish their numbers accurately.
In the early 1990s, agriculture and livestock raising provided
the major sources of livelihood for about four-fifths of the population.
Wherever possible, Nile waters were used for irrigation, and the
government has sponsored a number of irrigation projects. Commercial
crops such as cotton, peanuts, sugarcane, sorghum, and sesame
were grown, and gum arabic was obtained from trees. Most of these
products along with livestock destined primarily for Saudi Arabia
also represented Sudan's major exports.
Manufacturing concentrated on food-processing enterprises and
textiles, as well as some import substitution industries such
as cement, chemicals, and fertilizers. Industry, however, contributed
less than one-tenth to gross domestic product ( GDP-- see Glossary)
in the early 1990s, in comparison with agriculture's more than
three-tenths contribution. Sudan was among the world's poorest
countries according to the World Bank (see Glossary), with an
annual per capita income of US$310 in FY ( fiscal year--see Glossary)
1991.
Several factors accounted for the relative economic insignificance
of the industrial sector. Historically, during the colonial period,
Britain had discouraged industrialization, preferring to keep
Sudan as a source of raw materials and a market for British manufactured
goods. Following independence, a paucity of development programs
as well as better employment opportunities in the Persian Gulf
states have contributed to a shortage of skilled workers. In the
early 1990s, Sudan also had limited energy sources--only small
amounts of petroleum in the south between Kurdufan State and Bahr
al Ghazal State and a few dams producing hydroelectric power.
In addition, transportation facilities; were limited; there existed
only a sketchy network of railroads and roads, many of the latter
being impassable in the rainy season. Inland waterways could also
be difficult to use because of low water, cataracts, or swamps.
The lack of a good transportation network hindered not only the
marketing of produce and consumer goods but also the processing
of such minerals as gold, chrome, asbestos, gypsum, mica, and
uranium. The lack of capital accumulation also limited financial
resources and necessitated funding by the government, which itself
had inadequate revenues. Some northern Sudanese hoped that the
rise of Islamic banks might result in more capital being invested
in private industrial development, especially after the World
Bank refused to extend further loans to the country.
Sudan's problems with the World Bank occurred initially in 1984.
The World Bank cited Sudan's large external debt--in June 1992
the debt was about US$15.3 billion, of which approximately two-thirds
represented payment arrears--and its failure to take steps to
restructure its economy as reasons for denying credit. The large
debt resulted primarily from the nationalization of major sectors
of the economy in the 1970s and the use of funds borrowed from
abroad to finance enterprises with low productivity. The government
needed to use its revenues to meet the losses of these enterprises.
In addition, the civil war, the prolonged drought, widespread
malnutrition, famine, and the hundreds of thousands of refugees
further sapped the economy.
Not until June 1990 did the government act to reform the economy
by instituting a three-year (FY 1991-93) National Economic Salvation
Program. The program aimed to reduce the budget deficit, privatize
nationalized enterprises, heighten the role of the private sector,
and remove controls on prices, profits, and exports. In October
1991, other steps toward economic reform included devaluing the
official exchange rate from LSd4.5 to LSd15 (for value of the
Sudanese pound--see Glossary) to the United States dollar and
reducing subsidies on sugar and petroleum products. In February
1992, in a further liberalization of the economy, all price controls
were removed and official exchange rates devalued to LSd90 to
the United States dollar. Officials hoped that these measures
would not cause the inflation rate, which was about 115 percent
per year as of March 1992, to worsen. In a further move designed
to curb inflation, Sudan instituted a new currency, the dinar,
worth ten Sudanese pounds, in May 1992.
Although the World Bank refused to authorize new loans for Sudan,
in July 1991 the Bank granted Sudan US$16 million for the Emergency
Drought Recovery Project. In addition, in the spring of 1992 Sudan
received an agricultural credit of US$42 million from the African
Development Bank and some bilateral aid from Iran and Libya. Like
the World Bank, the United States and the European Community had
suspended loans to Sudan but had provided some humanitarian assistance;
the value of United States humanitarian aid in 1991 was estimated
to exceed US$150 million. Nevertheless, the drought, the famine,
and the massive influx into the north of refugees from the south
as a result of the civil war caused the country's already precarious
economy to deteriorate further and complicated the government's
ability to rule.
Since the military coup of June 30, 1989, the constitution had
been suspended, political parties banned, and the legislative
assembly dissolved. For practical purposes, in mid-1992 Bashir
made political decisions in his capacity as president or head
of state, prime minister, commander in chief, and chairman of
the legislative body created by the 1989 coup, the Revolutionary
Command Council for National Salvation (RCC-NS). The RCC-NS consisted
of fifteen members who had carried out the coup along with Bashir.
Several members had ties to the National Islamic Front (NIF),
the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist (sometimes
seen as fundamentalist) activist group.
Although political parties were illegal under the Bashir government,
the NIF represented the equivalent of a party. The nature of the
relationship between Bashir and the NIF was not clear. Some well
informed Western observers considered Bashir to be a tool of the
NIF in spreading its Islamist programs and its strong advocacy
of the imposition of the sharia. Other observers believed that
Bashir was using the NIF for his own purposes. The leading figure
in the NIF was Hassan Abd Allah at Turabi, an Oxford-educated
Muslim religious scholar and lawyer, who strongly advocated the
spread of Islamism in the Muslim world. As Turabi was ending his
tour of the United States and Ottawa in late May in the spring
of 1992, he was attacked in Canada by a Sudanese opponent of the
NIF and was seriously injured. Whereas by late July Turabi had
resumed meetings with government and Islamic officials and speeches
to Muslim groups in Khartoum and in London, the effects of his
impaired health on the NIF, the RCC- NS, and the political scene
were uncertain in mid-August.
In addition to their legislative functions, members of the RCC-NS
shared with Bashir and members of the Council of Ministers functions
traditionally associated with the executive branch, such as heading
government ministries. The Council of Ministers included civilians
as well as military officers and in practice was subordinate to
the RCC-NS. In April 1991, probably in response to growing criticism
of its authoritarian rule, the RCC- NS convened a constitutional
conference. However, major opposition groups boycotted the conference.
As on previous occasions, the principal intractable problem proved
to be the inability of Muslims and non-Muslims to agree on the
role of Islamic law as the basis of the legal system at both the
national and local levels.
Another vexing problem historically was the relationship of regional
and local governmental bodies to the national government. The
Nimeiri regime had created a pyramidal structure with councils
at various levels. The councils were theoretically elective, but
in practice the only legal party at the time, the Sudan Socialist
Union, dominated them. In February 1991, the RCC- NS introduced
a federal structure, creating nine states that resembled the nine
provinces of Sudan's colonial and early independence years. The
states were subdivided into provinces and local government areas,
with officials at all levels appointed by the RCC-NS. Although
the governors of the three southern states were southerners, power
lay in the hands of the deputy governors who were Muslim members
of the NIF and who controlled finance, trade, and cooperatives.
Below them the most important ministerial posts in the southern
states also were held by Muslims, including the post of minister
of education, culture, youth, guidance, and information.
In a further step, in mid-February 1992, Bashir announced the
formation of an appointed 300-member Transitional National Assembly
to include all RCC-NS members, federal cabinet ministers, and
state governors. Bashir also indicated in March that beginning
in May popular conferences based on religious values would be
held in the north and in "secure areas" of the south to elect
chairmen and members of such conferences. The election process
would create a "general mobilization of all political institutions."
Although the agendas for conferences over the succeeding ten-year
period would be based on national issues set by the head of state
and local issues raised by the governors, the government touted
the process as one that would "fulfill the revolution's promise
to hand over full power to the people." The proposed conference
committees were somewhat reminiscent of the popular committees
established by the Popular Defence Act of October 1989. Initially,
these popular committees had the function of overseeing rationing,
but their mandated was broadened to include powers such as arresting
enemies of the state.
The control exerted by the RCC-NS over various parts of the country
varied. For example, western Sudan, especially Darfur, enjoyed
considerable autonomy, which at times approached anarchy, as a
result of the various armed ethnic groups and the refugee population
that existed within it. The situation was even more confused in
the south, where until 1991 the government had controlled the
major centers and the SPLM occupied the smaller towns and rural
areas. The government launched a military campaign in 1991-92
that succeeded in recapturing many military posts that had served
as SPLM and SPLA strongholds. The government's success resulted
in part from the acquisition of substantial military equipment
financed by Iran, including weapons and aircraft bought from China.
Another reason for the successes of the government forces was
the split that occurred in August 1991 within the SPLA between
Garang's Torit faction (mainly Dinka from southern Al Istiwai)
and the Nasir group (mainly Nuer and other non-Dinka from northern
Al Istiwai). The two groups launched military attacks against
each other, thereby not only destroying their common front against
the government but also killing numerous civilians. The Nasir
group had defected from the main SPLA body and tried unsuccessfully
to overthrow John Garang over human rights violations, Garang's
authoritarian leadership style, and his favoritism toward his
ethnic group, the Dinka. Abortive peace talks with representatives
of both groups as well as the government were held in Abuja, Nigeria,
in May and early June 1992. (In December 1989 former United States
president Jimmy Carter had attempted without success to mediate
peace talks between the government and the SPLA.) The Torit faction
sought a secular state and an end to the sharia; the Nasir group
wanted self-determination or independence for southern Sudan.
During the talks, both groups agreed to push for self-determination,
but when the government rejected this proposal, they decided instead
to discuss Nigeria's power-sharing plan.
A major basis of southern dissidence was strong opposition to
the imposition of the sharia--the SPLA had vowed not to lay down
its arms until the sharia was abrogated. The other source of concern
was the fear of northern pressures to arabize the education system
(the Bashir regime had declared Arabic the language of instruction
in the south in early 1992), government offices, and society in
general. These fears had led to the civil war, which, with a respite
between 1972 and 1983, had been ongoing since 1955.
The Bashir government's need for assistance in pursuing the war
in the south determined to a large degree Sudan's foreign policy
in the 1990s. Bashir recognized that the measures taken in the
south, which outside observers termed human rights abuses, had
alienated the West. Historically, the West had been the source
of major financial support for Sudan. Furthermore, Sudan's siding
with Iraq in the 1991 Persian Gulf War had antagonized Saudi Arabia
and Kuwait, principal donors for Sudan's military and economic
needs in the preceding several decades.
Bashir therefore turned to Iran, especially for military aid,
and, to a lesser extent, to Libya. Iranian president Ali Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani visited Sudan in December 1991, accompanied
by several cabinet ministers. The visit led to an Iranian promise
of military and economic assistance. Details of the reported aid
varied, but in July 1992, in addition to the provision of 1 million
tons of oil annually for military and civil consumption, aid was
thought to include the financing of Sudanese weapons and aircraft
purchases from China in the amount of at least US$300 million.
Some accounts alleged that 3,000 Iranian soldiers had also arrived
in January 1992 to engage in the war in the south and that Iran
had been granted use of Port Sudan facilities and permission to
establish a communications monitoring station in the area; these
reports were not verified as of mid-August 1992, however.
The only other country with which Sudan had close relations in
the early 1990s was Libya. Following an economic agreement the
two countries signed in July 1990, head of state Muammar al Qadhafi
paid an official visit to Khartoum in October. Bashir paid a return
visit to Libya in November 1991. Libyan officials arrived in Khartoum
for talks on unity, primarily economic unity, in January 1992.
While the government was cultivating relations with Iran and
Libya, the SPLM and SPLA were seeking other sources of aid in
Africa. They had lost their major source of support when the government
of Mengistu Haile Mariam in Ethiopia was overthrown in May 1991.
The SPLM and SPLA subsequently sought help from Kenya, Uganda,
and several other African countries, thereby creating tensions
between those nations and the Bashir regime. Furthermore, Sudan's
relations with Egypt had soured in 1991 as a result of the Bashir
government's failure to support Egypt's position in the Persian
Gulf War. One manifestation of the deteriorating relations occurred
in April 1992 when Sudan became involved in a border confrontation
with Egypt. The disagreement resulted from an oil concession Sudan
had granted to a subsidiary of Canada's International Petroleum
Corporation for exploration of a 38,400-square-kilometer area
onshore and offshore near Halaib on the Red Sea coast, an area
also claimed by Egypt.
In the matter of determining Sudan's foreign policy as well as
domestic policy, the military had played a major role since independence.
Initially, the military was seen as being free from specific ethnic
or religious identification and thus in a position to accomplish
what civilians could not, namely to resolve economic problems
and to bring peace to the south. Such hopes proved futile, however.
The growing civil war in the south from 1955-72 and again from
1983 to the present, as well as the rising strength of the SPLA
and the SPLM posed tremendous problems for the military and for
the internal security forces. The civil war was extremely costly;
according to one Sudanese government estimate, it cost approximately
US$1 million per day. Furthermore, it disrupted the economy--Bashir
stated in February 1992 that the loss of oil revenues alone since
1986 amounted to more than US$6 billion. In addition, based on
United States Department of State estimates in late 1991, war
had displaced as many as 4.5 million Sudanese.
To counter the SPLA, the government armed various non-Arab southern
ethnic groups as militias as early as 1985. In addition, in October
1989 the Bashir government created a new paramilitary body, the
Popular Defence Forces (PDF) to promote the Islamist aims of the
government and the NIF. Although the Bashir regime prominently
featured the PDF's participation in the 1991-92 campaign in the
south, informed observers believed their role lacked military
significance.
In view of the ongoing civil war, internal security was a major
concern of the Bashir regime, which reportedly had been the object
of coup attempts in 1990, 1991, and 1992. In this regard, the
government faced problems on several fronts. There was the outright
dissidence or rebellion of several southern ethnic groups. There
was also the creation in January 1991 of an opposition abroad
in the form of a government in exile. This body, called the National
Democratic Alliance, was headed by Lieutenant General Fathi Ahmad
Ali, formerly commander of the armed forces under Sadiq al Mahdi.
There also was increasing opposition in the north on the part
of those who favored a secular state, including professional persons,
trade union leaders, and other modernizers. Such persons opposed
the application of Islamic hudud punishments, the growing
restrictions on the activities and dress of women, and the increasing
authoritarianism of the government as reflected, for example,
in the repression of criticism through censorship, imprisonment,
and death sentences. On a wider scale, members of the public in
the north staged protests in February 1992 against the price increases
on staples after price supports were removed.
As a result of the repressive measures taken by the government
and the actions of armed government militias in the south as well
as retaliatory measures of the SPLA forces, the human rights group
Africa Watch estimated that at least 500,000 civilian deaths had
occurred between 1986 and the end of 1989. The overall number
of deaths between 1983 and mid-1992 was far greater, an outcome
not only of the civil war, but also of the famine and drought
in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In late 1989, the government,
which has considered famine relief efforts a political football,
ended its cooperation with relief efforts from abroad because
it feared such measures were strengthening southern resistance.
The pressure of world public opinion, however, obliged Sudan to
allow relief efforts to resume in 1990.
The United Nations (UN) World Food Programme (WFP) had initiated
Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) in March 1989, which had delivered
more than 110,000 tons of food aid to southern Sudan before it
was obliged by renewed hostilities to close down operations in
October 1989. OLS II was launched in late March 1990, via the
UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross, to bring
in food flights via Kenya and Uganda. In the spring of 1990, WFP
indicated it was helping 4.2 million people in Sudan: 1.8 million
refugees in Khartoum; 1.4 million people in rural areas of the
south; 600,000 who had sought refuge in southern towns; and 400,000
in the "transition zone" in Darfur and Kurdufan, between the north
and the south.
In addition to these sources of suffering, the government, beginning
in the 1980s, had undertaken campaigns to destroy the Dinka and
the Fur and Zaghawa ethnic groups in Darfur. As of 1991 the Bashir
regime was also using armed militias to undertake depopulation
campaigns against the Nuba in southern Kurdufan. Moreover, the
government had to deal with the return in 1991 of Sudanese citizens
who had been working in Iraq and Kuwait; according to estimates
of the International Labour Organisation, such persons numbered
at least 150,000. Finally, during late November 1991 and early
1992, the government forcibly uprooted more than 400,000 non-Arab
southern squatters, who had created shanty towns in the outskirts
of Khartoum, and transported them to the desert about fifty kilometers
away, creating an international outcry.
In summary, in August 1992 the Bashir government found itself
in a very difficult position. Although the country's economic
problems had begun to be addressed, the economic situation remained
critical. At the peace negotiations in Abuja, slight progress
had been made toward ending the civil war in the south, but the
central concerns about imposition of the sharia and arabization
had not been resolved. Moreover, the regime appeared to be facing
growing dissension, not only in the south but from elements in
the north as well. These considerations raised serious questions
about the stability of the Bashir government.
August 14, 1992
Helen Chapin Metz
Data as of June 1991
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