On January 1 1956, after various nationalist movements and negotiations between the British and the Egyptians. Sudanese leaders declared the creation of an independent republic of Sudan. Although the democratic victory may sound a great achievement in many cases, one cannot say the same in the case of Sudan, for since its independence Sudan has been embroiled in Civil wars. However, on July 9 2011, people gathered at the Mausoleum of a famous leader Jhon Garang in the capital Juba to celebrate the creation of South Sudan, through a referendum where 98% of votes were in the favour of the creation of the new state. But why did the people living in the South felt the need to secede from Sudan? What are the reasons that led to the creation of the new state? Has the creation of South Sudan brought about peace and stability in the region? How can the international community contribute towards peace in the region? These are some of the questions that will be explained in the article.
In order to understand the event of the creation of South Sudan, the history of Sudan since its independence has to be deeply understood. As mentioned above, ever since independence Sudan has been embroiled in civil wars. But the conflict between the North and South did not initiate post Sudanese independence but in fact it erupted just before it. During colonial rule, the British treated the Northern and Southern regions of Sudan as two separate entities. Creating a feeling of a separate identity than that of North, the Southerners who were mainly Christians prompted the war stating the fact that they had been promised and then later denied the right to govern themselves. Their fight was against the rule by the North and the imposition of Arabic culture and language. The first civil war ended in 1972 with the signing of the Addis-Ababa Agreement, that was negotiated between the rebels of the South known as Anyanya and the Sudanese government. This transformed Sudan into an asymmetrical federation where Southerners not only held positions in the Central government but also enjoyed a degree of autonomy.
President Jaafar al-Nimieri who came into power in 1969 first as a military dictator and then later as an elected President in the early 1980’s changed his policy in two ways. First, Sudan would henceforth be ruled by Sharia law and second is that he abolished the elected members of assembly from the South and divided the region in three separate provinces. Instability increased due to this until Nimieri was overthrown in 1985 which was followed by a period of civilian rule where soon again in June 1989 we saw another coup where the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) led by Omar Bashir seized power. Omar Bashirs rule was like that of a typical authoritarian leader, such as imprisonment of political opposition, suppression of media, dissolution of Judiciary, etc. Although given the history of Coups in Sudan, Bashir ruled for 30 years, that was mainly because of his strategy known as ‘coup proofing’. Through this strategy he surrounded himself with various subordinate factions, all of which were loyal to him but none of them individually possessed the resources to overthrow him. Under Bashir the economy of Sudan further worsened, and his implementation of the Sharia law further bridged the gap between the North and the South, this led to an increase in rebel activity in Sudan. In response to the increased rebel activity, Bashir ordered the Sudanese armed forces to quash the rebels.
For the cause of South Sudan, the SPLM/A was led by their leader Jhon Garang. Since the centre of political power was in Northern Sudan development mostly occurred in the northern region as compared to the South. The South, which was majorly non-Arab Muslim, felt the aggressive oppression of the North. Garang was in clear opposition of the policies of the Northern based central Government in the South. Although Garang’s vision for Sudan was a United secular Sudan where the South would have equal opportunities for growth and development as with the North, this created a division among the Southern rebels as there were certain other SPLA leaders such as Riek Machar who supported the idea of a completely independent South Sudan. This created a lot of infighting among the Southern rebel forces, much of the infighting ended only in April 1995 through a series of ceasefire agreements between Garang and Machar. The North often used the infighting among the Southerners to their advantage to keep them divided.
In 2003 certain rebel groups in the Darfur region of Sudan started revolting against the central government of Sudan since the non-Arab population of Sudan felt oppressed by the government of Sudan. In order to stop this rebellion Bashir started providing monetary assets and weapons to Arab militias in the region to stop the uprising. These militias came to be known as ‘Janjaweed’. Janjaweed militias were very brutal and committed a series of human right violations, one of the worst kinds known to humanity. Following this in 2009 International Criminal Court of Justice issued a warrant on Omar Bashir for his alleged war crimes. Finally, the civil war ended on January 9, 2005 when the SPLM/A and the Government of Sudan signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). Multilateral negotiations for the CPA were hosted by Norway, Great Britain, Italy and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), although US negotiations took the lead in shaping much of the agreement’s terms.
The CPA provided for a new national constitution and new measures for sharing of powers, distribution of wealth and the security in the country. Through the CPA offices of the state were distributed between the signatories and an agreement was made on the sharing of oil revenues. The CPA also stated that a referendum would be held in 6 years for the independence of the region of South Sudan, which ultimately led South Sudan to declare Independence on 9 July 2011. But did the independence of South Sudan bring about peace in the region? This has been further explained in the next article.
