Sudan and South Sudan
Recent Conflict
Sudan has been beset by conflict. Two rounds of civil war between north and south have cost the lives of 1.5 million people, and the continuing conflict in Darfur has driven two million people from their homes and killed more than 200,000.
Sudan gained independence from both Britain and Egypt in 1956, but the country was already facing conflict as a result of religious and cultural differences in the north and south. Traditionally, the northern part of Sudan has been tied to Egypt due to its Arab and Muslim culture, while the southern part of the country is comprised of Christians and Animists. During the British occupation of the country, the two areas of Sudan were governed by separate British administrations and people were confined to the area of the country that they lived in.
This policy prevented a mixing of the cultures, and when the southern area of Sudan learned about the independence agreement, Sudanese army officers rebelled and started a civil war in order to protect the south from domination by the north. This civil war lasted from 1955 until 1972, when a peace agreement was brokered that allowed the south to retain much of its autonomy. This meant, however, that the south was still under control of the Islamic-oriented, military regimes that had ruled the north since independence.
When the president of the country imposed Islamic law on the south in 1983, civil war erupted once more. Due to warfare and famine, this conflict resulted in the death of two million people and the displacement of four million more. A Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was reached in 2005, although the region is still unstable and the peace agreement is fragile. The CPA paved the way for a referendum to be held in January 2011 on the secession of Southern Sudan.
The tragedy of Darfur began in 2003 as the growing tensions between the mostly black African farmers and Arab herders reached crisis point in competition for land. Rebel groups, who felt they had been alienated and left out of the CPA, began demanding proportional political representation and equitable access to the country’s economic resources such as oil. In retaliation, the Sudanese government began arming local militias called ‘Janjaweed’ to attack villages belonging primarily to the Fur, Zaghawa and Massalit tribes, who the government accused of supporting rebel groups. Since then, the government has sponsored a violent, orchestrated campaign to cleanse Darfur of its African tribes.
Darfur is described as the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. Since 2003, at least 300,000 people have been killed in Darfur, and more than 2.7 million have been displaced. The Darfur humanitarian operation is the largest in the world, employing over 17,000 aid workers at a cost of more than US$1 billion (A$1.2 billion).
On Wednesday, 4 March 2009, the Sudanese President, Omar al-Bashir, was issued an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The ICC has accused him of masterminding the deaths in Darfur, including five counts of crimes against humanity. This rarely evoked judicial mechanism should provide a means to hold heads of state accountable for mass atrocities, as accountability has been a glaring omission inhibiting the long-term success of peace and conflict resolution. Al-Bashir denies the charges and is now removing all international aid groups from Darfur leaving 2.7 million people without essential aid. Al-Bashir won the Presidential election in 2010, amidst accusations of electoral fraud.
In January 2011, the people of the south of Sudan voted overwhelmingly to separate from the north. Unfortunately, the lead-up to the July 9 independence of southern Sudan has been violent, with unresolved conflicts in a number of parts of the country, split for decades over religion, ethnicity and natural resources, threatening to mar the process.
On May 21, the Sudanese government in Khartoum and its allied militias drove 100,000 people in the disputed Abyei region from their homes in a effort to lay claim to the area before the South’s secession.
According to the United Nations, 73,000 people have fled violence in South Kordofan — a northern oil state that borders the south — after more than two weeks of fighting in June between the northern army and southern-aligned troops. Fighting broke out on June 5 and has escalated to include artillery and warplanes as the north has tried to crush what it calls an armed rebellion.
