The Factors Behind the War
Please report broken links to Lynn Robertson (Lrobertson@dioswva.org).
The Factors Behind the War
There are several factors behind the war in the Sudan. However, I will deal with two major factors in this paper: historical and religious factors. I will start by laying out historical events, which resulted in mutual mistrust and suspicion. Confidence has been fundamentally shaken between Africans and Arabs in the Sudan due to experience rooted in history.
North and South Sudan were not one country and knew nothing or little about each other even when Mohammed Ali invaded North Sudan in 1821. When Turko-Egyptian officials arrived in the 19th century, they were joined by Arab traders inside Sudan, and began the slave trade among other things. Slavery flourished in African areas of the Southern Blue Nile, Nuba Mountains and South Sudan between 1821 and the end of the first quarter of the 20th century. This activity slowed down when British arrived. The take over of Anglo-Egyptian Condominium mark different turn on the situation. The British came in to stop the slavery, which subsided into a small scale business. South Sudan was declared as “Closed District” in 1920s. Though it continued (with some isolated cases today), it could not be compare to those days when about 12,000 slaves could be sold in Egypt annually.
The invasion of South Sudan by foreigners may be grouped into three waves: the invasion by Turko-Egyptian, 1839-1884, the Mahdiyya, 1885-1898 and the Anglo-Egyptian Condominiums, 1890-1955. The legacy left behind in the south, by both Turko-Egyptians and Mahdiyya governments, was slavery. The legacy of the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium was shortsighted southern policy.
The relationship mentioned above does not mean South Sudan and North Sudan were one country. North and South Sudan were administered separately from 1842 to 1946 when they were abruptly put together as one country. In 1944, the then Civil Secretary, Sir Douglas Newbold announced his plans for the future of South Sudan that “our obvious duty to them (Southerners) therefore is to push ahead as far as we can with economic and educational development so that these people can be equipped to stand up for themselves in the future where their lot be eventually cast with the Northern Sudan or East Africa.” But unfortunately he didn’t live to see his plans executed. In 1946 his successor, Sir James Robertson, changed the policy put forward by his predecessor. He developed his own policy which led to South Sudan being part of North Sudan.
At the threshold of independence, North Sudanese politicians made a pledge of a federal system of government between the north and the south if southerners would join and vote for the independence of Sudan from the British. Trusting in the sanctity of that pledge, southerners voted for independence. But the northern politicians went back on their word, and instead they worked hard to promulgate an Islamic constitution for an Islamic state.
In 1955 and 1965, two incidents of equal attitude took place. In August 1955, southern Sudanese soldiers mutinied in the south; killing northern Sudanese (Arabs) soldiers and civilians in cold blood. Ten years later, in July 1965, Arab soldiers killed many innocent civilians (African) in several towns in South Sudan in cold blood.
The Addis Ababa Agreement, which granted self-rule for the South and ended the first civil war, was dishonored by northern politicians. They claimed that the accord was not “Bible or Quran.” That abrogation brought the current war. The current war has been destructive. If it were reported on like the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, or the tsunami in Asia, the world would be shocked:
- More than 2.5 million people are believed to have died;
- More than 4 million have been internally displaced;
- More than 2 million are refugees in foreign countries.