By Andrew L. Ruva
Sudan needs to be able to function as an independent entity and as a member of the world community this is difficult with the given political, economic, religious, and cultural differences within the country, Sudan’s situation is very unpredictable and the large size of its territory hinders the circulation of information.
The former colonial master of Sudan was Great Britain, which administrated the country from 1882 and later with the Egyptians until independent in 1956. During this time when the British ruled the country, they were aware of geographical, political, historical, and cultural differences between north and south Sudan so they devised two separate administrations to run the north and south separately. In 1920, the ruling master passed a policy of Closed Districts Ordinances, which allowed the north traders to have passports or permits to travel to southern Sudan to conducted trade. Finally, in 1928, language became as an issue, and the north Sudanese adopted Arabic as their official language, but the southern which has so many tribal languages rejected Arabic and chose to adopt English as their principal language to conduct business in the south. Also, the use of tribal language was permitted. In 1943 after the end of World War II when most colonial countries gained independence from their masters, the British established a six man advisory council for the Northern Province in an effort to prepare the inhabitants for self rule. These councils were authorized to advise the Anglo condominium authority on how to administer policies. Instead of creating the same advisory council for south in 1946, a conference was held in Khartoum, the capital, which only the northern advisory council attended to lay out the plan of how the country would be administered after the British left. The plan was laid with backing of the Arab country of Egypt who favored the northern Arab elite to rule the whole of Sudan. The southern administrations were not invited to attend the conference as they had heard the outcome of the conference plan was to hand over the south to the northern Arab elites. The south was betrayed by the British, the conference outcome provoked a bitter reaction and then in 1947 the British called a conference in the southern capital, Juba, to inform the southerners about the inevitable event which was unfolding; that they were entrusting the welfare of the Sudan in the hands of the northern Arab elites. Then the British forcefully hand picked thirteen delegates to represent the southern area in the Legislature Assembly in 1948, but as the British troops left they handed the Sudanese their independence on January 1, 1956. The southern people felt that the independence of Sudan meant nothing rather just a change of colonial masters from old to new. So this miscalculated mistake made by the colonial masters is still haunting Sudan even to this day. On November 17 1958 a bloodless coup took place; it was lead by General Ibrahim Abboud to topple the newly formed government. He ruled the country militarily.
Just shortly after independence the southern people felt let down and took up arms to wage the never ending struggle against the newly form independent central government this was the beginning of the Sudan civil war. In 1962 the southern people formed the Anya Nya movement to wage a guerrilla style war against the government forces. The government forces continued on to launch a major military offensive against the rebel camps deep in their jungle hide out.
However, in 1972 both sides signed a peace agreement in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; this agreement allowed the south to have an antonymous government so there were eleven years of relative peace until September 1983 when the General Numeiry imposed what he termed as the “September law,” which is an Islamic rule of law called Sharia Law stating that any crime will be judged according to Islamic law. This incident created a huge out cry among the southern people to go back to armed struggle because they viewed the imposing of Islamic law on the country as Arab and Islamic domination of their lives. In 1983 the second phase of the civil war began, but this time the war took on a new face when new and highly sophisticated weapons were coming to use. The war was now termed as a religious war so the Khartoum government was assisted financially and militarily by Arab nations’ many Arabs countries during their conducting of five daily prayers at their mosques the Imam would urge the jihadist to go to fight a holy war in Sudan. The southern people on the other hand were left high and dry and at the mercy of the Jihadists and with no one to turn to for assistance. They generated their own means to finance the war effort by using resources at their control, such mining of gold and diamonds and then using these funds to buy weapons on the black market. The civil war displaced four million people and two million people died. In 2005 a peace agreement was signed between the southern rebels and the central government. The south is once again guaranteed self rule until a referendum in 2011 to vote either choose separation or unity. But with the character of the Islamic regime in Khartoum the road to the 2011 referendum seems uncertain, with the government always undermining the newly formed antonymous government of southern Sudan by employing terrorist groups to create instability in the south. Sudan is also one of the leading terrorist sponsoring countries beside Iran the providing territories with training camps and financial support. In 1992, the country had provided safe haven for the world’s most wanted man Osama Bin laden until 1998, when the United States administration under President Clinton carried out a strike on a Pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum which United States suspected of manufacturing chemical weapons. In 2004, another war broke out in Darfur, a region in the western part of Sudan. The government is accused of recruiting Janjaweed militias from Arab tribes to suppress the African minority tribes. The government even took part in carrying out a joint attack with the Janjaweed, targeting civilians. According to the Coalition for International Justice the war has claimed 400,000 lives and 2.5million; displaced it has created the worst humanitarians crisis every.
The genocidal war in Darfur is still an on going crisis whose end is not yet in sight. Many world leaders are very reluctant to pressure the regime in Khartoum because some of them have huge investments in the oil industry especially the Chinese the leaders in oil exploration. Also Russia and China are also two of the largest arms supplier to Sudan. So when the United States and Great Britain try to impose sanctions on the Sudanese government, the Russians and the Chinese threaten to veto them. When the situation worsened African Union (AU) troops were deployed to protect the civilians, but these AU forces are lacking equipment and financial resources to carry out their mission numerous times the AU forces have been attacked and their movements restrict by the government, so the are sitting ducks. The United States have called for UN forces to be deployed instead of AU force but the Khartoum regime has refused and threatened to wage holy war against the UN forces if they are deployed to Sudan.
In addiction, there is a war being fought in the eastern part of the country. The rebels there are fighting for self rule because they feel that their region is neglected by the government. The eastern rebels are being backed by the Eritrean government. The Sudanese government has accused Eritrea of supporting the ethnic uprising in the east so that the states of Kassala, which the Numeiry regime traded for the south eastern part of Sudan with Ethiopia because he feared rebel control.
The economic situation in Sudan is a very complicated issue. This is partly due to the cause of most conflict in the country because the regions that have ethnic uprising often feel that their regions have been neglected by the central government which they perceive is dominated by a few religious Arabs elites. The government is also exploiting local resources and then spending these funds only around Khartoum to build up their ideological Islamic states on the continent of African resembling the Iranian style ruling states and leaving the indigenous people to live as second class citizens in their own country. So mismanagement of funds is big problem, no one has financial accountability because the government is being run militarily or like a community business because a coup could happen at any given time. The Arab elites and the Imam see the government not doing enough to separate Islam or suppressing other the local indigenous tribes.
Sudan is believed to be the bread basket for both Africa and the Middle East. It has a tropical rain forest climate in the south and very rich fertile soil suitable for agriculture between the White Nile and the Blue Nile. It is also the cross roads were both African and Middle Eastern culture clashes. It is both rich in resources and in crises. As for right now no one knows a complete an accurate population census of Sudan because three censuses were conducted so far, but none of them has reached the south due to the on going civil war. A number of people have also fled the country to neighboring countries to seek refuge from the war. Because of the civil war, most of the displaced people rely heavily on humanitarian food aid provided by the United Nation. The UN receives its fund from the donor member countries in the UN charter.
Sudan has two disputed territories; one is in the southern part of the country along the border with Kenya, the Ilemi Triangle. Kenya is claiming the territory as theirs, but according to the international demarcation line, it is a territory of Sudan however, due to the never ending civil war, Sudanese administration has not discussed the issue with Kenya authority.
The other one is Halaib Triangle; it is located in the north in a part of the 1899 Treaty boundary along the 22nd Parallel; both Sudan and Egypt have claimed the territory as theirs, but according to the international boundary line it is indicated as a Sudanese territory. Both countries have had a military presence and later withdrew their military in the 1990s. The Egyptians have invested large sums of financial resources to improve the area but there is much violence between the pastoralist Sudanese citizens and their Egyptian counterparts over water and grazing rights.
Sudan, the largest country in the continent of Africa also has the largest problems. The crises in Sudan are just a glimpse of how difficult it is for Africans to get over past mistakes by their colonial masters and later just left with these unsolved problems. These unsolved mistakes are still haunting Sudan to this day. Sudan is both rich in resources and in troubles; one could say it that if the resources are invested into better civil institutions, rather than into military build up to suppress its own civilians, then there could be better hope for Sudan’s future; but it is impossible to predict which road Sudan will choose in 2011 vote for referendum. if things progress the way they are with the genocidal war going in the western region of Darfur and the rebel insurgents in the eastern part of the country. The southern rebels are eyeing on 2011 referendum vote to decide to either be part of United Sudan or vote for an independent South Sudan. The future of Sudan as a united country is hard to predict Sudan is going through a dark tunnel with a glimpse of light on the other end. The referendum vote in 2011 will be the end result; it could result in Sudan being divided into two countries; but let’s wait to see it is too early to predict.
CIA- the World Fact book Sudan as February 2007
https://cia.gov/cia//publications/factbook/geos/su.html
Sudan: country studies- Federal Research Division Library of Congress Data as June
1991 lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/sdtoc.html
Info pleases Sudan: History, Geography, Government, and Culture. As of January 2007 www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107996.html
African studies center Sudan www.africa.upenn.edu/Country_Specific/Sudan.html
Atlapedia online http://www.atlapedia.com/online/countries/sudan.htm
Ann Mosely Lesch. The Sudan—Contested
National Identities. Editor Mark Tessler. Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press 1998
Sudan: Religions, People, and Language lexicorient.com/e.o/sudan_4.htm
Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/.
General Education in the Sudan: www.dur.ac.uk/justin.willis/Education.htm
Sudan Educational system Overview: from the early foundation to it modern root. education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1432/Sudan-EDUCATIONAL-SYSTEM-OVERVIEW.html
Sudan Country analysis briefs www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/sudan.html
SOUTH SUDAN: A HISTORY OF POLITICAL DOMINATION - A CASE OF
SELF-DETERMINATION by Dr. Riek Machar Teny-Dhurgon
Chairman and Commander-in-Chief, SSIM/A.
http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Hornet/sd_machar.html
Sudan needs to be able to function as an independent entity and as a member of the world community this is difficult with the given political, economic, religious, and cultural differences within the country, Sudan’s situation is very unpredictable and the large size of its territory hinders the circulation of information.
The former colonial master of Sudan was Great Britain, which administrated the country from 1882 and later with the Egyptians until independent in 1956. During this time when the British ruled the country, they were aware of geographical, political, historical, and cultural differences between north and south Sudan so they devised two separate administrations to run the north and south separately. In 1920, the ruling master passed a policy of Closed Districts Ordinances, which allowed the north traders to have passports or permits to travel to southern Sudan to conducted trade. Finally, in 1928, language became as an issue, and the north Sudanese adopted Arabic as their official language, but the southern which has so many tribal languages rejected Arabic and chose to adopt English as their principal language to conduct business in the south. Also, the use of tribal language was permitted. In 1943 after the end of World War II when most colonial countries gained independence from their masters, the British established a six man advisory council for the Northern Province in an effort to prepare the inhabitants for self rule. These councils were authorized to advise the Anglo condominium authority on how to administer policies. Instead of creating the same advisory council for south in 1946, a conference was held in Khartoum, the capital, which only the northern advisory council attended to lay out the plan of how the country would be administered after the British left. The plan was laid with backing of the Arab country of Egypt who favored the northern Arab elite to rule the whole of Sudan. The southern administrations were not invited to attend the conference as they had heard the outcome of the conference plan was to hand over the south to the northern Arab elites. The south was betrayed by the British, the conference outcome provoked a bitter reaction and then in 1947 the British called a conference in the southern capital, Juba, to inform the southerners about the inevitable event which was unfolding; that they were entrusting the welfare of the Sudan in the hands of the northern Arab elites. Then the British forcefully hand picked thirteen delegates to represent the southern area in the Legislature Assembly in 1948, but as the British troops left they handed the Sudanese their independence on January 1, 1956. The southern people felt that the independence of Sudan meant nothing rather just a change of colonial masters from old to new. So this miscalculated mistake made by the colonial masters is still haunting Sudan even to this day. On November 17 1958 a bloodless coup took place; it was lead by General Ibrahim Abboud to topple the newly formed government. He ruled the country militarily.
Just shortly after independence the southern people felt let down and took up arms to wage the never ending struggle against the newly form independent central government this was the beginning of the Sudan civil war. In 1962 the southern people formed the Anya Nya movement to wage a guerrilla style war against the government forces. The government forces continued on to launch a major military offensive against the rebel camps deep in their jungle hide out.
However, in 1972 both sides signed a peace agreement in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; this agreement allowed the south to have an antonymous government so there were eleven years of relative peace until September 1983 when the General Numeiry imposed what he termed as the “September law,” which is an Islamic rule of law called Sharia Law stating that any crime will be judged according to Islamic law. This incident created a huge out cry among the southern people to go back to armed struggle because they viewed the imposing of Islamic law on the country as Arab and Islamic domination of their lives. In 1983 the second phase of the civil war began, but this time the war took on a new face when new and highly sophisticated weapons were coming to use. The war was now termed as a religious war so the Khartoum government was assisted financially and militarily by Arab nations’ many Arabs countries during their conducting of five daily prayers at their mosques the Imam would urge the jihadist to go to fight a holy war in Sudan. The southern people on the other hand were left high and dry and at the mercy of the Jihadists and with no one to turn to for assistance. They generated their own means to finance the war effort by using resources at their control, such mining of gold and diamonds and then using these funds to buy weapons on the black market. The civil war displaced four million people and two million people died. In 2005 a peace agreement was signed between the southern rebels and the central government. The south is once again guaranteed self rule until a referendum in 2011 to vote either choose separation or unity. But with the character of the Islamic regime in Khartoum the road to the 2011 referendum seems uncertain, with the government always undermining the newly formed antonymous government of southern Sudan by employing terrorist groups to create instability in the south. Sudan is also one of the leading terrorist sponsoring countries beside Iran the providing territories with training camps and financial support. In 1992, the country had provided safe haven for the world’s most wanted man Osama Bin laden until 1998, when the United States administration under President Clinton carried out a strike on a Pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum which United States suspected of manufacturing chemical weapons. In 2004, another war broke out in Darfur, a region in the western part of Sudan. The government is accused of recruiting Janjaweed militias from Arab tribes to suppress the African minority tribes. The government even took part in carrying out a joint attack with the Janjaweed, targeting civilians. According to the Coalition for International Justice the war has claimed 400,000 lives and 2.5million; displaced it has created the worst humanitarians crisis every.
The genocidal war in Darfur is still an on going crisis whose end is not yet in sight. Many world leaders are very reluctant to pressure the regime in Khartoum because some of them have huge investments in the oil industry especially the Chinese the leaders in oil exploration. Also Russia and China are also two of the largest arms supplier to Sudan. So when the United States and Great Britain try to impose sanctions on the Sudanese government, the Russians and the Chinese threaten to veto them. When the situation worsened African Union (AU) troops were deployed to protect the civilians, but these AU forces are lacking equipment and financial resources to carry out their mission numerous times the AU forces have been attacked and their movements restrict by the government, so the are sitting ducks. The United States have called for UN forces to be deployed instead of AU force but the Khartoum regime has refused and threatened to wage holy war against the UN forces if they are deployed to Sudan.
In addiction, there is a war being fought in the eastern part of the country. The rebels there are fighting for self rule because they feel that their region is neglected by the government. The eastern rebels are being backed by the Eritrean government. The Sudanese government has accused Eritrea of supporting the ethnic uprising in the east so that the states of Kassala, which the Numeiry regime traded for the south eastern part of Sudan with Ethiopia because he feared rebel control.
The economic situation in Sudan is a very complicated issue. This is partly due to the cause of most conflict in the country because the regions that have ethnic uprising often feel that their regions have been neglected by the central government which they perceive is dominated by a few religious Arabs elites. The government is also exploiting local resources and then spending these funds only around Khartoum to build up their ideological Islamic states on the continent of African resembling the Iranian style ruling states and leaving the indigenous people to live as second class citizens in their own country. So mismanagement of funds is big problem, no one has financial accountability because the government is being run militarily or like a community business because a coup could happen at any given time. The Arab elites and the Imam see the government not doing enough to separate Islam or suppressing other the local indigenous tribes.
Sudan is believed to be the bread basket for both Africa and the Middle East. It has a tropical rain forest climate in the south and very rich fertile soil suitable for agriculture between the White Nile and the Blue Nile. It is also the cross roads were both African and Middle Eastern culture clashes. It is both rich in resources and in crises. As for right now no one knows a complete an accurate population census of Sudan because three censuses were conducted so far, but none of them has reached the south due to the on going civil war. A number of people have also fled the country to neighboring countries to seek refuge from the war. Because of the civil war, most of the displaced people rely heavily on humanitarian food aid provided by the United Nation. The UN receives its fund from the donor member countries in the UN charter.
Sudan has two disputed territories; one is in the southern part of the country along the border with Kenya, the Ilemi Triangle. Kenya is claiming the territory as theirs, but according to the international demarcation line, it is a territory of Sudan however, due to the never ending civil war, Sudanese administration has not discussed the issue with Kenya authority.
The other one is Halaib Triangle; it is located in the north in a part of the 1899 Treaty boundary along the 22nd Parallel; both Sudan and Egypt have claimed the territory as theirs, but according to the international boundary line it is indicated as a Sudanese territory. Both countries have had a military presence and later withdrew their military in the 1990s. The Egyptians have invested large sums of financial resources to improve the area but there is much violence between the pastoralist Sudanese citizens and their Egyptian counterparts over water and grazing rights.
Sudan, the largest country in the continent of Africa also has the largest problems. The crises in Sudan are just a glimpse of how difficult it is for Africans to get over past mistakes by their colonial masters and later just left with these unsolved problems. These unsolved mistakes are still haunting Sudan to this day. Sudan is both rich in resources and in troubles; one could say it that if the resources are invested into better civil institutions, rather than into military build up to suppress its own civilians, then there could be better hope for Sudan’s future; but it is impossible to predict which road Sudan will choose in 2011 vote for referendum. if things progress the way they are with the genocidal war going in the western region of Darfur and the rebel insurgents in the eastern part of the country. The southern rebels are eyeing on 2011 referendum vote to decide to either be part of United Sudan or vote for an independent South Sudan. The future of Sudan as a united country is hard to predict Sudan is going through a dark tunnel with a glimpse of light on the other end. The referendum vote in 2011 will be the end result; it could result in Sudan being divided into two countries; but let’s wait to see it is too early to predict.
CIA- the World Fact book Sudan as February 2007
https://cia.gov/cia//publications/factbook/geos/su.html
Sudan: country studies- Federal Research Division Library of Congress Data as June
1991 lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/sdtoc.html
Info pleases Sudan: History, Geography, Government, and Culture. As of January 2007 www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107996.html
African studies center Sudan www.africa.upenn.edu/Country_Specific/Sudan.html
Atlapedia online http://www.atlapedia.com/online/countries/sudan.htm
Ann Mosely Lesch. The Sudan—Contested
National Identities. Editor Mark Tessler. Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press 1998
Sudan: Religions, People, and Language lexicorient.com/e.o/sudan_4.htm
Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/.
General Education in the Sudan: www.dur.ac.uk/justin.willis/Education.htm
Sudan Educational system Overview: from the early foundation to it modern root. education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1432/Sudan-EDUCATIONAL-SYSTEM-OVERVIEW.html
Sudan Country analysis briefs www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/sudan.html
SOUTH SUDAN: A HISTORY OF POLITICAL DOMINATION - A CASE OF
SELF-DETERMINATION by Dr. Riek Machar Teny-Dhurgon
Chairman and Commander-in-Chief, SSIM/A.
http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Hornet/sd_machar.html
