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The Road to Peace in Sudan

The road to peace in sudanPeace in Sudan has proven to be a challenging goal. Sudan has been fraught with violence from the beginning. British and Egyptian forces relinquished Sudan in 1956. With imperialistically-sanctioned divisions between the north and south and little institutional direction, the new nation was immediately thrown into confusion and instability. The first military coup occurred two years after independence. Since then, peace in Sudan has been an abstract concept that the nation desperately needs but has only seen intermittently.

Conflict after Conflict

Economically, Sudan has been heavily reliant on oil since the discovery of oil fields in what is now South Sudan. The country began exporting oil in 1999. Ultimately, Sudan secured the industry’s overwhelming importance in the accumulation of the country’s revenue. In 2011, oil exports accounted for 98 percent of the revenue for the southern government. The discovery of oil has had a longstanding effect on tensions between the north and south, specifically, regarding who controls the trade and reaps the subsequent benefits. Although oil reserves are abundant in the south, the north established the refineries and trade hubs.

Frustrations over the regions’ codependency have manifested in intense fighting between the north and south.  Conflicts over the small, oil-rich region of Abyei in 2002 is a good example. The oil industry has remained at the core of the lack of peace in Sudan because of its role in perpetuating regional struggles.

South Sudan

The conflict between northern and southern Sudan was not brought upon merely by oil. For more than 50 years, South Sudan was overwhelmed with civil wars, experiencing only brief periods of peace. The first civil war began in this region in 1962. Unfortunately, conflict is still prevalent in the country today. This decades-old conflict now consists of unending violence and countless accounts of human rights violations. The U.N. reported events taking place in the country such as ethnic and sexual violence, which may amount to be war crimes. These circumstances serve as a consistent threat to solidarity or reconciliation in Sudan.

The Sudanese civil war was largely due to colonizer-enforced divisions between northern Muslims, southern Christians and Animists. In fact, former president Omar al-Bashir was responsible for the unrelenting assault on the lives of southern Sudanese. For 30 years, Sudan was under the control of Omar al-Bashir, who ruled ruthlessly as a pro-Arab dictator in continuous oppression and violations of human rights. Beginning in February of 2003, he brutally ordered the systematic killings at Darfur, a region in western Sudan.

Anti-government groups accused the al-Bashir administration of neglect. Subsequently, an onslaught of ethnic cleansing ensued, displacing more than 3 million people and taking the lives of over 400,000. The conflict ended only when South Sudan was at last granted independence through a referendum obtaining the backing of 99 percent of voters in 2011. However, the longstanding friction between the north and south still plagues the two countries today.

Glimpses of Peace and Hope

There have been many attempts to end conflict and strife in order to protect the lives of Sudanese directly affected by the ongoing violence perpetrated by dictatorship, neglect and oppression. The U.N. Security Council intervened in 2003, in order to provide humanitarian relief in an attempt to stabilize the region. For example, in Darfur, it created the United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) in 2007, which allows for current, ongoing facilitation of peace talks between rebel groups and the government of Sudan. UNAMID has allowed for peacekeeping operations to provide mediation to conflicting groups and aid to civilians affected by continuing violence.

A breath of fresh air came in 2005 when the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in a historic resolution to lead the country on a road to development and stability. This was the start of a hopeful understanding between conflicting groups in Sudan to invest in the distribution of resources in order to begin bettering the lives of its people. Most recently, in 2019, the Transitional Government of Sudan and Darfur armed forces signed a peace agreement in an effort to express both sides’ willingness to establish peace in Sudan.

Sudan is seemingly seesawing between one conflict and another. Where peace is established or agreements are reached in one area, violence ensues elsewhere. Protests are not uncommon, but the people of Sudan are fighting for democracy and to bring attention to the necessity of elections and a civilian-led government. Peace in Sudan is not an impossible task. With the combined determination of international organizations and internal efforts to establish inclusive institutions, Sudan has hope of bringing itself out of its violent past.

– Jessica Ball
Photo: Flickr

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10 Facts About the Sudan Genocide

10 Facts About the Sudan Genocide
The grave human rights abuses and mass slaughter in Darfur, West Sudan between 2003-2008 was the first genocide of the 21st century. The Sudanese government and the Janjaweed (government-funded and armed Arab militias) targeted civilians, burned villages and committed many more atrocities. Below are 10 facts about the Sudan genocide.

10 Facts About the Sudan Genocide

  1. The long term causes of the Sudan genocide stem from the two prolonged civil wars between the North, that promoted Arabisation and a Middle-Eastern culture, and the South, that preferred an African identity and culture. The First Sudanese Civil War began in 1955 and ended in 1972 with a peace treaty. Eventually, unsettled issues reignited into the Second Sudanese Civil War in 1983 and lasted until 2005, however. Both civil wars occurred due to the southern Sudanese rebels’ demands for regional autonomy and the northern Sudanese government’s refusal to grant it.
  2. The direct cause of the genocide during the Second Sudanese Civil War revolves around allegations that the government armed and funded the Janjaweed against non-Arabs. This supposedly led to the southern rebel groups, the Sudan Liberian Army and the Justice and Equality Movement, attacking a Sudanese Air Force base in Darfur in 2003. The government countered with widespread violent campaigns targeting non-Arabs and southern Sudanese civilians, which turned into genocidal campaigns.
  3. The United Nations estimated that the attacks killed at least 300,000 people and led to the displacement of 2.6 million people. Of that number, 200,000 fled and found refuge in Chad, which neighbors Sudan to the west. Most of the internally displaced people (IDP) settled in the Darfur region, which counts 66 camps. According to a UN report, the lack of law enforcement and judicial institutions in these areas generated human rights violations and abuses, including sexual violence and criminal acts of vulnerable IDPs.
  4. The government and militia conducted “ethnic cleansing” campaigns, committing massive atrocities. They targeted women and girls, deliberately using rape and sexual violence to terrorize the population, perpetuate its displacement and increase their exposure to HIV/AIDS. The government and militia conducted ‘scorched-earth campaigns’ where they burned hundreds of villages and destroyed infrastructures such as water sources and crops, resulting in the dramatic famine. These acts are all war crimes that still prevent IDPs from returning to their homes.
  5. In 2005, the International Criminal Court (ICC) opened investigations regarding the alleged genocide and crimes against humanity in Sudan, which produced several cases that are still under investigation due to the lack of cooperation from the Sudanese government. The ICC dealt with the genocide in Darfur, the first genocide it worked on and the first time the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) referred to the ICC.
  6. A military coup in April 2019 overthrew the former President of Sudan, Omar Al Bashir, allowing the country to secure justice and address the wrongs committed between 2003-2008. Indeed, the prosecutor of the ICC, Fatou Bensouda, urges the UN Security Council to extend the UNAMID’s peacekeeping mission to 12 months and the new government of Sudan to transfer Omar Al Bashir and two other war criminals to the ICC.
  7. Omar Al Bashir was the first sitting President that the ICC wanted (it issued the first arrest warrant in March 2009 and the second in July 2010) and the first example of the ICC incriminating a person for the crime of genocide. However, the ICC still cannot move forward with the trial until Omar Al Bashir receives arrest and becomes present at the ICC (in The Hague).
  8. The UNSC created and sent the peacekeeping force UNAMID (composed of the United Nations and the African Union) to Darfur in 2007, which operates to this day. The mission deployed almost 4,000 military personnel to protect civilians threatened by violence, especially in displacement areas and on the border with Chad. In addition, UNAMID facilitated humanitarian assistance by protecting and helping in the transportation of aid to isolated areas and providing security for humanitarian workers. The UN decided to extend the mandate of the UNAMID until October 31, 2019.
  9. Although the fighting stopped, there is still a crisis in Sudan; the UN estimates that 5.7 million people in Sudan require humanitarian support and can barely meet their basic food needs. There are many NGOs actively working to provide aid, such as Water for South Sudan, that works to ensure access to clean water to rural and remote areas, and the Red Cross, that provides medical care across the country due to its collapsed public health care system. Despite these efforts, there is still an unmet funding requirement of 46 percent in humanitarian aid as of 2018.
  10. In September 2019, a new government established with a power-sharing agreement between the military, civilian representatives and protest groups. According to Human Rights Watch, Sudan’s new government should ensure justice and accountability for past abuses. Moreover, the constitutional charter (signed in Aug. 2019) entails major legal and institutional reforms, focused on holding the perpetrators accountable for the crimes committed under al-Bashir’s rule, as well as eliminating government repression and ongoing gender discrimination.

These are just 10 facts about the Sudan Genocide which are essential to understanding the current events happening in Sudan. Despite the peak of violence in Sudan in 2019 which killed hundreds of protestors, the country finally has a new government and it seems willing to right the wrongs committed during the genocide. The new prime minister Abdullah Adam Hamdok expressed in front of the UN in September 2019: “The ‘great revolution’ of Sudan has succeeded and the Government and people and will now rebuild and restore the values of human coexistence and social cohesion in the country as they try and turn the page on three decades of abhorrent oppression, discrimination and warfare.”

– Andrea Duleux
Photo: Flickr

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Ten Facts on the War in Darfur

10 Facts on the War in Darfur
The war in Darfur, a region in Sudan, has been the reason for mass slaughter and rape of Darfuri men, women and children; what the U.S. has labeled a genocide. The war in Darfur has been called the worst humanitarian crisis of the century and its effects are still seen today, specifically the displacement of Darfurians into neighboring countries.

10 Facts about the War in Darfur:

  1. Darfur is a region in Western Sudan, the largest country in Africa, that encompasses an area roughly the size of Texas. Darfur had a pre-conflict population of about six million people.
  2. The killings began in 2003 and continue today as the first genocide of the 21st century.
  3. Following independence from Britain in 1956, Sudan suffered two civil wars between the North and South that lasted for 21 years. Though both sides signed a peace deal that ended the conflict in 2005, they failed to consider the effect it had on Darfur, which remained underdeveloped and racially divided.
  4. In 2003, two rebel groups, Sudan Liberation Army/Movement (SLA/M) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), started a rebellion against the Sudanese government. They demanded an end to the oppression of Darfur’s non-Arabic population and economic marginalization.
  5. Sudanese President Al-Bashir responded by giving governmental support and money to Islamic militias, also known as the Janjaweed — or ‘Devils on Horseback’ in Arabic — to combat the rebels and civilians in Darfur instead of sending the military to intervene.
  6. The attacks have led to the deaths of at least 300,000 people and the displacement of more than 2.5 million others.
  7. In 2009, Al Bashir became the first sitting president to be indicted by the International Criminal Court for directing a campaign of mass killing, rape and pillage against civilians in Darfur.
  8. Around 3.2 million people in Darfur, about half the population, rely on humanitarian aid for food, healthcare, clean water and countless other services, according to the U.N.
  9. In 2007, the U.N. Security Council authorized the A.U.-U.N. Hybrid Operation in Darfur, known as UNAMID, with a mandate to protect civilians. They have deployed more than 18,000 troops and police, but resources are still overstretched.
  10. As of Nov. 3 this year, UNAMID welcomed a unilateral six-month truce by two armed groups and are waiting on Abdul Wahid El Nur, the leader of the Sudan Liberation Army, to make a similar declaration.

Much has been done to help resolve the ongoing conflict in Darfur by the U.N., A.U., N.A.T.O. and the U.S., but hundreds of thousands of displaced Darfurians are still in the necessity of aid. The six-month cessation of hostilities could be the first step towards peace in the region.

– Mayan Derhy

Photo: Flickr