Now that peace has come to South Sudan
By Paul Ejime
DAKAR, Senegal, July 11, 2005 (PANA) — Ex-rebel leader Colonel John
Garang’s joining of the Khartoum government as Vice-
President Saturday under a historic peace deal that
ended two decades of civil war in the south of Africa’s
largest country, opens a new vista in Sudan’s chequered
political history.
For a people who have suffered economic want and
severe shortage of the world’s major common trading
currencies, the war-ravaged region, measuring about
650,000 square kilometres could be poised for its
brightest economic era yet, depending on what the key
actors make of the comprehensive peace agreement
Like most African countries, Sudan boasts numerous
ethnic groups. But unlike most States, it has had two
distinct divisions: the north, which is largely Arab
and Muslim, and the south, of predominantly black
Nilotic peoples, some of whom are adherents of
indigenous faiths while others are Christians.
Another unique historical feature is that Sudan was
ruled by Britain and Khartoum’s Arab neighbour under
the Anglo-Egyptian condominium of 1899-1955.
Britain finally 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, paving the way for Sudan
to proclaim its independence 1 January 1956.
But this was to be followed by two short-lived
civilian coalition governments before a coup in
November 1958 brought in a military regime under
Ibrahim Abbud that governed through the Supreme
Council of the Armed Forces.
Abbud’s government was accused of trying to Arabise
the south, and in 1964 expelled all western
missionaries from the country.
Northern repression of the south led to open civil
war in the mid-1960s and the emergence 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 and in the
1965 elections, Muhammad Ahmad Mahjub became Prime
Minister, succeeded in June 1966 by Sadiq al Mahdi.
In the 1968 elections, however, 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 Nimeiri staged a coup and set up the
Revolutionary Command Council (RCC). In July 1971, a
short-lived pro-communist military coup occurred, but
Nimeiri quickly regained control, and was elected to
a six-year term as president, abolishing the RCC.
Meanwhile in the south, Joseph Lagu, a Christian, had
united several opposition elements under the Southern
Sudan Liberation Movement and in March 1972, the
southern resistance movement concluded an agreement
with the Nimeiri regime at Addis Ababa, and a
ceasefire 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.
But despite this dissent, Nimeiri was re-elected for
another six-year term in 1977.
His abolition of the Southern Regional Assembly in
June 1983, gave birth to the Sudan People’s
Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the Sudan People’s
Liberation Army (SPLA).
Garang used the two movements, which later merged
into SPLA/M, to launch his separatist rebellion that
saw him moving to the south from Khartoum.
Following his imposition of Muslim Sharia law
throughout the country, Nimeiri was toppled in a
military coup led by Lieutenant General Abd ar Rahman
Siwar adh Dhahab in 1985.
In March 1986, the government and the SPLM called for
a Sudan free from “discrimination and disparity” and
the repeal of the Sharia code.
Sadiq al Mahdi formed what proved to be a weak
coalition government following the April 1986
elections, but his failure to end the civil war in
the south or improve the economic and famine
situations led to his overthrow in June 1989 by then
Colonel Omar Hassan Ahmad al Bashir, the incumbent
president, who later took on the rank of army
general.
Twenty-one years of the bloody war between the
Khartoum government and the separatists in the south
killed at least 1.5 million people, and left the
region in ruins.
The protracted peace process were initiated by
regional member States of the then Inter-Governmental
Authority on Drought and Development (IGADD) during
their summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1994 (the
group later changed its name to the Inter-
Governmental Authority on Development, IGAD).
On 20 May 1994, the Khartoum government and the
SPLM/A signed the Declaration of Principles (DoP) as
a framework of negotiations, which identified the key
issues in the conflict as:
Right to self-determination for the south Sudan,
separation of state and religion, system of
governance during an interim period, sharing of
resources, and security arrangements.
IGAD later appointed special envoys from Ethiopia,
Eritrea and Uganda with Kenya as the chair on the
tottering peace negotiations and a secretariat for
the IGAD Peace Process was then set up in Nairobi,
Kenya.
Later representatives from Italy, Norway, UK, US, the
African Union (AU) and UN joined in the process as
observers with Sudan’s first-vice president Ali Osman
Taha, leading the government’s team, while Garang led
the SPLM/A delegation.
It was only on 26 May 2004 that the parties reached
agreements on the substantive issues of the conflict
and solution clustered under the IGAD six protocols.
These included the Agreement on Security
Arrangements, Wealth Sharing, Power Sharing, Conflict
areas of Southern Kordofan/Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile
States, and Abyei.
This was in addition to a Cessation of Hostilities,
which proved a strong catalyst to the peace process
culminating in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in
Nairobi on 9 January.
A power and wealth-sharing government is to be formed
in August as part of the peace deal that also
prescribes a referendum after six years in the south,
to decide if it wants to join the north in a united
Sudan or become an independent entity.
While the end of the war in the south has brought
relief to a war-tired country, the implementation of
the power and wealth-sharing accord, in the face of
Sudan’s newfound oil wealth, is not going to be easy.
Also, peace in the south is only part of the story, because
another separatist war, which erupted in February 2003,
is still raging in the western region of Darfur, after
claiming 180,000 people and displacing two million others.
For the entire country to enjoy peace, and especially for
the peace process to endure in the south, all stakeholders
in the vast country – government, opposition, civil society,
including faith-based organisations, and the population at
large – must strive to end the battle over the three Rs – race,
religion and resources – fuelling Sudan’s conflicts.