History

The history of Sudan is marked by influences (military and cultural) on Sudan from neighbouring areas (for example, Egypt, Arabian Peninsula, Ethiopia, Congo, Chad) and world powers (e.g. United Kingdom and United States). The territory of Sudan combines the lands of several ancient kingdoms, including Nubia, Dafur and three Kushite kingdoms.

Pre-19th Century History

Three ancient kings of the Kushite kingdoms existed consecutively in northern Sudan. This region was also known as Nubia and Meroë, and these civilisations flourished mainly along the Nile River from the first to the sixth cataracts. The kingdoms were influenced by, and in turn influenced Pharaonic Egypt. In ancient times, Nubia was ruled by Egypt from 1500 BC to around 1000 BC when the Napatan Dynasty was founded under Alara and regained independence for the kingdom of Kush. Borders, however, fluctuated greatly.

Much of the region was converted to Coptic Christianity during the third and fourth centuries AD. Islam was introduced in 640 AD with an influx of Muslim Arabs who had conquered Egypt, although the Christian Kingdoms of Nubia managed to persist until the 15th Century.

An important kingdom in Nubia was the Makuria, which reached its height in the 8th-9th centuries, and was of the Melkite Christian faith, unlike its Coptic neighbours, Nobatia and Alodia. A merchant class of Arabs became economically dominant in feudal Sudan.

[During the 1500s, the people known as the Funj conquered much of Sudan, establishing the Kingdom of Sinnar. By the time the kingdom was conquered by Egypt in 1820, the government was substantially weakened by a series of succession arguments and coups within the royal family.

Egyptian and British Rule

In 1820, Northern Sudan came under Egyptian rule when Mehemet Ali, the Ottoman viceroy of Egypt, sent armies led by his son Ismail Pasha and Mahommed Bey to conquer eastern Sudan. This colonial system was resented by the Sudanese people, due to the heavy taxes it imposed and clumsy attempts to end the slave trade. In the 1870's, a Muslim cleric, Muhammad Ahmad, proclaimed himself Mahdi, the promised redeemer of Islamic world and led an open revolt against the Egyptians. His followers took on the name 'Ansars' (the followers), which they continue to use today and are associated with the single largest political grouping, the Umma Party, led at one time by the descendant of the Mahdi, Sadiq al Mahdi. Muhammad Ahmad's movement overwhelmed the Egyptian troops sent against him and they gained control of large portions of Sudan.

By this time, the Egyptian government had passed under British control, and in 1883, 8,000 Egyptian troops under the command of a retired British Colonel, William Hicks were sent to quell the revolt. However, Hicks' force was surrounded and destroyed near El Obeid and Hicks perished in the fighting.

After this, the British government resolved to quit Sudan, and in 1884 sent General Charles George Gordon to Khartoum to organise the evacuation of foreigners. Gordon, however, refused to abandon the town and was soon besieged. The British sent a relief column under sir Garnet Wolseley to rescue him. After defeating the Mahdists at Abu Klea, the column arrived within sight of Khartoum, only to find they were too late: the city had fallen two days earlier and Gordon ,the garrison and thousands of the inhabitants of Khartoum had been massacred. These events temporarily ended British/Egyptian involvement in Sudan which passed completely under the control of the Mahdists.

The Mahdi died soon after his victory in 1885, and was succeeded by the Khalifa Abdallahi ibn Muhammad who proved to be an able, albeit ruthless ruler of the Mahdiyah, the Mahdist State.

In the 1890s, in the context of the Scramble for Africa, the British sought to regain control of Sudan. Lord Kitchener led military campaigns from 1896-98, culminating in the Battle of Omdurman. An agreement was reached in 1899 establishing Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, under which Sudan was run by a governor-general appointed by Egypt with British consent. In reality, Sudan was a colony of Great Britain.

From 1924, until independence in 1956, the British had a policy of running Sudan as two essentially separate colonies, the south and the north.

European Colonialism

In 1892, a Belgian expedition claimed portions of southern Sudan that became known as the Lado Enclave. The Lado Enclave was officially part of the Belgian Congo. An 1896 agreement between the United Kingdom and Belgium saw the enclave turned over to the British after the death of King Léopold II in 1910.

At the same time, the French claimed several areas: Bahr el Ghazal, and the Western Upper Nile up to Fashoda. By 1896 they had a firm administrative hold on these areas and they planned on annexing them to French West Africa. An international conflict known as the Fashoda incident developed between France and the United Kingdom over these areas, and in 1899 France agreed to cede the area to the UK.

From 1898, the United Kingdom and Egypt administered all of present day Sudan, but northern and southern Sudan were administered as separate colonies. In the very early 1920s, the British passed the Closed Districts Ordinances, which stipulated that passports were required for travel between the two zones, permits were required to conduct business in the other zone, and totally separate administrations.

In the south, English, Dinka, Bari, Nuer, Latuko, Shilluk, Azande and Pari (Lafon) were official languages, while in the north Arabic and English were used as official languages. Islam was discouraged in the south, where Christian missionaries were permitted to work. Colonial governors of south Sudan attended colonial conferences in East Africa, not Khartoum, and the British hoped to add south Sudan to their East African colonies.

Most of the British focus was on developing the economy and infrastructure of the north. Southern political arrangements were left largely as they had been prior to the arrival of the British.

In order to establish their authority in the north, the British promoted the power of Sayyid Ali al-Mirghani, head of the Khatmiyya sect and Sayyid Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi, head of the Ansar sect. The Ansar sect essentially became the Umma party, and Khatmiyya became the Democratic Unionist Party (Sudan).

In 1943, the British began preparing the north for self-rule, establishing a North Sudan Advisory Council to advise on the governance of the six North Sudan provinces: comprising of Khartoum, Kordofan, Darfur, and Eastern, Northern and Blue Nile provinces.

Then in 1946, the British colonial authority reversed its policy and decided to integrate north and south Sudan under one government. South Sudanese authorities were informed at the Juba Conference of 1947 that they would now be governed by a common administrative authority with the north. From 1948, 13 delegates, picked by the British authorities represented the south on the Sudan Legislative Assembly.

Many southerners felt betrayed by the British because they were largely excluded from the new government. The language of the new government was Arabic, but the bureaucrats and politicians from southern Sudan had, for the most part, been trained in English. Of the 800 new governmental positions vacated by the British in 1953, only 4 were given to southerners.

Independence

The first real independence attempt was made in 1924 by a group of Sudanese military officers known as The White Flag Association. The group was led by Ali Abdullatif and Abdul Fadil Almazzen. The attempt was ultimately defeated by the assassination of the founders.

In February 1953, the United Kingdom and Egypt concluded an agreement providing for Sudanese self-government and self-determination. The transitional period toward independence began with the inauguration of the first parliament in 1954. With the consent of the British and Egyptian Governments, Sudan achieved independence on 1 January 1956, under a provisional constitution. In a special ceremony held at the People's Palace, the British and Egyptian flags were brought down and the new Sudanese flag, composed of green, blue and yellow stripes, was raised in their place.

However, the Arab-led Khartoum government reneged on promises to southerners to create a federal system, which led to a mutiny by southern army officers that sparked 17 years of civil war. In the early period of the war, hundreds of northern bureaucrats, teachers and other officials serving in the south were massacred.

1955-1972: First Sudanese Civil War

The year before independence, a civil war began between Northern and Southern Sudan. The Southerners, anticipating independence, feared the new nation would be dominated by the North.

Historically, the north of Sudan had closer ties with Egypt and was predominantly Arab and Muslim while the south was predominantly black, with a mixture of Christianity and Animism. These divisions had been further emphasised by the British policy of ruling the North and South under separate administrations.

From 1924 on it was illegal for people living above the 10th parallel to go further south and for people below the 8th parallel to go further north. The law was ostensibly enacted to prevent the spread of malaria and other tropical diseases that had ravaged British troops, as well as to prevent Northern Sudanese from raiding Southern tribes for slaves. The result was increased isolation between the already distinct north and south and arguably laid the seeds of conflict in the years to come.

The resulting conflict, known as the First Sudanese Civil War, lasted from 1955 to 1972 and was heavily influenced by support from Islamic jihadists seeking to expand Salafist Arabic fundamentalism. Five hundred thousand people, of which only one in five was considered an armed combatant, were killed in the seventeen year war and hundreds of thousands more were forced to leave their homes.

Mediation between the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the All African Conference of Churches (AACC), both of which spent years building up trust with the two combatants, eventually led to the Addis Ababa Agreement of March 1972 ending the conflict. In exchange for ending their armed uprising, southerners were granted a single southern administrative region with various defined powers.

However, the Addis Ababa Agreement proved to be only temporary respite. Perceived infringements by the north led to increased unrest in the south starting in the mid-1970s, leading to the 1983 army mutiny that sparked the Second Sudanese Civil War.

1969-1985: The Nimeiri Era

On May 25, 1969, several young officers, calling themselves the Free Officers Movement, seized power in Sudan, thus bringing about the Nimeiri era in the history of Sudan. At the conspiracy's core were nine officers led by Colonel Jaafar an Nimeiri, who had been implicated in plots against the previous regime.

Nimeiri's coup pre-empted plots by other groups, most of which involved army factions supported by the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP), Arab nationalists or conservative religious groups. He justified the coup on the grounds that civilian politicians had paralyzed the decision-making process, had failed to deal with the country's economic and regional problems and had left Sudan without a permanent constitution.

The coup leaders, joined by Awadallah, the former chief justice who had been privy to the coup, constituted themselves as the ten-member Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), which possessed collective executive authority under Nimeiri's chairmanship. On assuming control, the RCC proclaimed the establishment of a "democratic republic" dedicated to advancing independent "Sudanese socialism". The RCC's first acts included the suspension of the Transitional Constitution, the abolition of all government institutions, and the banning of political parties. The RCC also nationalized many industries, businesses and banks.

Disputes between Marxist and non-Marxist elements within the ruling military coalition resulted in a briefly successful coup in July 1971, led by the Sudanese Communist Party. Several days later, anti-communist military elements restored Nimeiry to power. A provisional constitution, published in August 1971, described Sudan as a "socialist democracy" and provided for a presidential form of government to replace the RCC. A plebiscite the following month elected Nimeiri to a six-year term as president.

In 1976, the Ansars mounted a bloody but unsuccessful coup attempt. In July 1977, President Nimeiry met with Ansar leader Sadiq al-Mahdi, opening the way for reconciliation. Hundreds of political prisoners were released, and in August 1977a general amnesty was announced for all opponents of Nimeiry's government.

1983-2005: Second Sudanese Civil War

In 1983, the civil war was reignited following President Gaafar Nimeiry's decision to circumvent the Addis Ababa Agreement by declaring his intention to transform Sudan into a Muslim Arab state, divided the south into three regions and instituting Shari?a law. This was controversial even among Muslim groups. After questioning Nimeiry's credentials to Islamicize Sudan's society, Ansar leader Sadiq al-Mahdi was placed under house arrest.

On 26 April 1983, President Nimeiry declared a state of emergency, in part to ensure that Shari?a was applied more broadly. Most constitutionally guaranteed rights were suspended. In the north, emergency courts, later known as "decisive justice courts", were established, with summary jurisdiction over criminal cases. Amputations for theft and public lashings for alcohol possession were common during the state of emergency. Southerners and other non-Muslims living in the north were also subjected to these punishments. These events, and other longstanding grievances, in part led to a resumption of the civil war.

The Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) was founded in 1983 as a southern-based mainly non-Arabic rebel group, fighting against the central government and attempting to establish an independent Southern Sudan under its leadership. Its leader was John Garang.

In September 1984, President Nimeiry announced the end of the state of emergency and dismantled the emergency courts but soon promulgated a new judiciary act, which continued many of the practices of the emergency courts. Despite Nimeiry's public assurances that the rights of non-Muslims would be respected, southerners and other non-Muslims remained deeply suspicious.

Early 1985 saw serious shortages of fuel and bread in Khartoum, a growing insurgency in the south, drought and famine, and an increasingly difficult refugee burden. In early April, during Nimeiry's absence from the country, massive demonstrations, first triggered by price increases on bread and other staples, broke out in Khartoum.

On 6 April, senior military officers led by Gen. Abdul Rahman Suwar ad-Dahhab mounted a coup. Among the first acts of the new government was to suspend the 1983 constitution, rescind the decree declaring Sudan's intent to become an Islamic state, and disband Nimeiry's Sudan Socialist Union. However, the "September laws" instituting Shari?a law were not suspended. A 15-member transitional military council was named, chaired by Gen. Suwar ad-Dahhab. In consultation with an informal conference of political parties, unions, and professional organisations known as the "Gathering", the council appointed an interim civilian cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Dr. Al-Jazuli Daf'allah.

Elections were held in April 1986, and a transitional military council turned over power to a civilian government as promised. The government, headed by Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi of the Umma Party, consisted of a coalition of the Umma, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) (formerly the National Unionist Party, NUP), the National Islamic Front (Hassan al-Turabi's NIF) and several southern parties. This coalition dissolved and reformed several times over the next few years, with Sadiq al-Mahdi and his Umma party always in a central role.

In May 1986, the Sadiq al-Mahdi government began peace negotiations with the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), led by Col. John Garang. In that year the SPLA and a number of Sudanese political parties met in Ethiopia and agreed to the "Koka Dam" declaration, which called for abolishing Islamic law and convening a constitutional conference. In 1988, the SPLA and the DUP agreed on a peace plan calling for the abolition of military pacts with Egypt and Libya, freezing of Islamic law, an end to the state of emergency, and a cease-fire. A constitutional conference would then be convened.

During this period, the civil war intensified in lethality and the economy continued to deteriorate. When prices of basic goods were increased in 1988, riots ensued, and the price increases were cancelled. When Sadiq al-Mahdi refused to approve a peace plan reached by the DUP and the SPLA in November 1988, the DUP left the government. The new government consisted essentially of the Umma and the Islamic fundamentalist NIF.

In February 1989, the army presented Sadiq with an ultimatum: he could move toward peace or be thrown out. He formed a new government with the DUP and approved the SPLA/DUP agreement. A constitutional conference was tentatively planned for September 1989.

On 30 June 1989, however, military officers under then-Col. Omar Hassan al-Bashir, with NIF instigation and support, replaced the government with the Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation (RCC), a junta comprised of 15 military officers (reduced to 12 in 1991) assisted by a civilian cabinet. General al-Bashir became president and chief of state, prime minister and chief of the armed forces.

The new military government banned trade unions, political parties, and other "non-religious" institutions. 78,000 members of the army, police and civil administration were purged in order to reshape the government.

In March 1991, a new penal code, the Criminal Act of 1991, instituted harsh punishments nationwide, including amputations and stoning. Although the southern states are officially exempt from these Islamic prohibitions and penalties, the 1991 act provides for a possible future application of Islamic Law (Shari?a) in the south. In 1993, the government transferred all non-Muslim judges from the south to the north, replacing them with Muslim judges. The introduction of Public Order Police to enforce Shari?a law resulted in the arrest and treatment under Shari?a law of southerners and other non-Muslims living in the north.

Peace talks between the southern rebels and the government made substantial progress in 2003 and early 2004. The peace was consolidated with the official signing by both sides of the Nairobi Comprehensive Peace Agreement 9 January 2005, granting Southern Sudan autonomy for six years, to be followed by a referendum about independence. It created a co-vice president position and allowed the north and south to split oil equally, but also left both the North's and South's armies in place. John Garang, the south's elected co-vice president died in a helicopter crash on August 1, 2005, three weeks after being sworn in. This resulted in riots, but the peace was eventually able to continue.

The United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) was established under UN Security Council Resolution 1590 of March 24, 2005. Its mandate is to support implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, and to perform functions relating to humanitarian assistance, and protection and promotion of human rights.

After Effects of the Civil War

The attempted genocide went on for more than twenty years, including the use of Sukhoi sorties, Tupolev bombers and napalm to devastating effect on villages and tribal rebels alike. The war displaced more than 4 million southerners; some fleeing into southern cities, such as Juba; others trekking as far north as Khartoum and even into Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Egypt, and other neighbouring countries. These people were unable to grow food or earn money to feed themselves, and malnutrition and starvation became widespread, leading to the 1998 Sudan famine. Approximately 500,000 Sudanese are believed to have fled the country. Slave trading also grew in the social chaos of the war, with some observers, including the U.S. government, alleging that the Sudanese government has actively encouraged Sudanese slave trading. The lack of investment during this time, particularly in the south, meant a generation lost access to basic health services, education and jobs.

2003 - Present: Darfur Conflict

Just as the long civil war was reaching a resolution, a new rebellion in the western region of Darfur began. On 26 February 2003, a group calling itself the Darfur Liberation Front (DLF) publicly claimed credit for an attack on Golo, the headquarters of Jebel Marra District. On 25 March, the rebels seized the garrison town of Tine along the Chadian border, seizing large quantities of supplies and arms. Despite a threat by President Omar al-Bashir to "unleash" the army, the military had little in reserve. The army was already deployed both to the south, where the Second Sudanese Civil War was drawing to an end, and the east, where rebels sponsored by Eritrea were threatening the newly constructed pipeline from the central oilfields to Port Sudan. The rebel tactic of hit-and-run raids using Toyota Land Cruisers to speed across the semi-desert region proved almost impossible for the army, untrained in desert operations, to counter. However, its aerial bombardment of rebel positions on the mountain was devastating.

At 5:30 am on 25 April 2003, a joint Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and JEM force in 33 Land Cruisers entered al-Fashir and attacked the sleeping garrison. In the next four hours, four Antonov bombers and helicopter gunships, according to the government, (seven according to the rebels) were destroyed on the ground, 75 soldiers, pilots and technicians were killed and 32 were captured, including the commander of the air base, a Major General.

On September 9, 2004 the United States Secretary of State Colin Powell termed the Darfur conflict as a "genocide", acknowledging it as one of the worst humanitarian crises of the 21st century. There have been reports that the Janjaweed have been launching raids, bombings, and attacks on villages, killing civilians based on ethnicity, raping women, stealing land, goods and herds of livestock. So far, over 2 million civilians have been displaced and the death toll is variously estimated at 200,000 to 400,000 killed.

On May 5, 2006, the Sudanese government and Darfur's largest rebel group the SLM (Sudan Liberation Movement) signed the Darfur Peace Agreement, which aimed at ending the three-year long conflict. The agreement specified the disarmament of the janjaweed and the disbandment of the rebel forces, and aimed at establishing a temporal government in which the rebels could take part. The agreement, which was brokered by the African Union, however, was not signed by all of the rebel groups.

Since the agreement was signed, however, there still have been reports of wide-spread violence throughout the region. A new rebel group has emerged called the "National Redemption Front" (which is made up of the 4 main rebel groups who refused to sign the May peace agreement). Recently, both the Sudanese government and government-sponsored militias have launched large offensives against the rebel groups, resulting in more deaths and more displacements. Clashes among the rebel groups have also contributed to the violence. Recent fighting along the Chad border has left hundreds of soldiers and rebel forces dead and nearly a quarter of a million refugees cut from aid. In addition, villages have been continuously bombed and more civilians have been killed. UNICEF recently reported that around 80 infants die each day in Darfur as a result of malnutrition.

Chad-Sudan Conflict

The Chad-Sudan conflict officially started on December 23, 2005, when the government of Chad declared a state of war with Sudan and called for the citizens of Chad to mobilise themselves against the "common enemy," which the Chadian government sees as the Rally for Democracy and Liberty (RDL) militants, Chadian rebels backed by the Sudanese government, and Sudanese militiamen. The government of Chad claims that the militants attacked villages and towns in eastern Chad, stealing cattle, murdering citizens, and burning houses. Over 200,000 refugees from the Darfur region of northwestern Sudan currently claim asylum in eastern Chad. Chadian president Idriss Déby accuses Sudanese President Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir of trying to "destabilize our country, to drive our people into misery, to create disorder and export the war from Darfur to Chad".

The incident prompting the declaration of war was an attack on the Chadian town of Adré near the Sudanese border that led to the deaths of either one hundred rebels (as most news sources reported) or three hundred rebels. The Sudanese government was blamed for the attack, which was the second in the region in three days, but Sudanese foreign ministry spokesman Jamal Mohammed Ibrahim denied any Sudanese involvement.

On February 8, 2006 the Tripoli Agreement was signed, which brought a cease to the conflict for approximately two months. However, after a rebel assault on the Chadian capital, N'Djamena, Chad broke off all relations with Sudan, effectively nullifying the agreement and has threatened to expel refugees from the Darfur region.