VI.

History

From remote antiquity until relatively recent times the northern portion of the territory comprising modern Sudan formed part of the region known as Nubia. The history of Nilotic, or southern, Sudan before the 19th century is obscure. Egyptian penetration of Nubia began during the period of ancient Egypt's Old Kingdom (about 2575-2134 bc). By 1550 bc, when the 18th Dynasty was founded, Nubia had been reduced to the status of an Egyptian province. The region between the Nubian Desert and the Nile River contains numerous monuments, ruins, and other relics of the period of Egyptian dominance, which was ended by a Nubian revolt in the 8th century bc. A succession of independent kingdoms was subsequently established in Nubia. The most powerful of these, Makuria, a Christian state centered at Old Dunqulah and founded in the 6th century ad, endured until the early-14th-century invasion of the Egyptian Mamluks. Another, Alwa, its capital at Soba in the vicinity of present-day Khartoum, was overwhelmed in about 1500 by the Funj, black Muslims of uncertain origin, who established a sultanate at Sennar.

During the 16th century, the Funj emerged as a powerful Islamic state, and Sennar became one of the great cultural centers of Islam. Dissension among the leading Funj tribes vastly weakened the kingdom during the final years of the 18th century. In 1820 it was invaded by an Egyptian army. The ensuing war ended in 1822 with a complete victory for Egypt (at that time a province of the Ottoman Empire). The greater part of Nubia thereupon became an Egyptian province, known as the Egyptian Sudan. Turkish-Egyptian rule, which was marked by southward expansion of the province, endured for 60 years. Internal unrest, resulting from the slave trade and general administrative incompetence, mounted steadily during this period. Between 1877 and 1880, when British general and administrator Charles George Gordon served as governor of Egyptian Sudan, efforts were made to suppress the slave trade and other abuses.

A.

Mahdist Revolt

The anarchic state of affairs that developed after Gordon’s resignation culminated in 1882 in a revolution led by Muhammad Ahmad, who in 1881 had proclaimed himself the Mahdi, the person who, according to an Islamic tradition, would rid the world of evil. The rebels won successive victories, including the annihilation of an Egyptian army in November 1883 and the capture of Khartoum in January 1885. With the latter victory, in which Gordon was killed, the Mahdists won complete control over the province.

Conditions in Egyptian Sudan deteriorated under the rule of the Mahdi and of the caliph Abdullah al-Taashi, who succeeded the Mahdi in 1885. The caliph waged incessant war against the Nilotes, adding large sections of territory to Egyptian Sudan, and undertook various other military adventures, notably an abortive attempt to conquer Egypt in 1889. Economic and social chaos engulfed Sudan during the closing years of the caliph’s reign. Meanwhile, Egypt had become a virtual possession of Britain. In 1896 the British and Egyptian governments, alarmed at the spread of French influence in Nilotic Sudan, dispatched a joint military expedition against the caliph. This expedition, led by General Horatio Herbert Kitchener, routed the caliph’s forces at Omdurman on September 2, 1898. The Anglo-Egyptian victory brought about the complete collapse of the Mahdist movement. On January 19, 1899, the British and Egyptian governments concluded the agreement that provided for joint sovereignty in Sudan.

B.

British-Egyptian Sovereignty

Despite growing discontent among Egyptian nationalists, who demanded termination of British authority in Sudan, the Egyptian government concluded a treaty with Britain in 1936 that confirmed, among other things, the convention of 1899. Egyptian antagonism over the arrangement became especially acute following World War II (1939-1945). In 1946 the two nations began negotiations to revise the treaty of 1936. The Egyptian government demanded British withdrawal from Sudan, and the British proposed certain modifications of the existing regime. The negotiations between the two countries ended in deadlock.

On June 19, 1948, after consultations with certain Sudanese officials, the British governor-general in Sudan promulgated reforms purportedly calculated to give the Sudanese experience in self-government as a prerequisite to decisions concerning the ultimate political status of Sudan. The newly authorized legislative assembly was elected in November. Supporters of political groups advocating union with Egypt boycotted the election. In December 1950 the legislative assembly, dominated by groups favoring Sudanese independence, adopted a resolution asking Egypt and the United Kingdom to grant full self-government to Sudan in 1951.

During 1950 and 1951 the Egyptian government continued to demand British withdrawal from Sudan. The legislature denounced the joint sovereignty agreement and the 1936 treaty in October 1951, and it proclaimed Faruk I king of Egypt and Sudan. Anglo-Egyptian negotiations on the status of Sudan were resumed following the forced abdication of King Faruk in July 1952. On February 12, 1953, the two governments signed an agreement providing self-determination for Sudan within a three-year transitional period.

C.

Sudanization and Independence

In compliance with the provisions of the agreement, the first Sudanese parliamentary elections were held late in 1953. The pro-Egyptian National Unionist Party won a decisive victory. The first all-Sudanese government assumed office on January 9, 1954. Designated “Appointed Day,” the date marked the official beginning of the transitional period of “Sudanization,” a process of replacing all foreigners in responsible governmental and military posts by Sudanese.

The Sudanization program, which was completed in August 1955, accentuated the geographic and social differences between northern and southern Sudan. A mutiny of southern units of the Sudanese army broke out on August 19, and it was put down by government forces. On August 30 the parliament approved a measure stipulating that Sudan should determine its future status by means of a plebiscite. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom and Egypt agreed to withdraw their troops by November 12, 1955. On December 19 the Sudanese parliament, bypassing the projected plebiscite, declared Sudan an independent state.

The Republic of Sudan was formally established on January 1, 1956. Egypt and the United Kingdom immediately recognized the new nation. Sudan became a member of the Arab League on January 19 and of the United Nations on November 12.

D.

Abboud’s Rule

The first general parliamentary elections after Sudan attained independence were held on February 27, 1958. The Umma Party won a majority and formed a new government on March 20. It was overthrown on November 17 by Lieutenant General Ibrahim Abboud, the commander in chief of the armed forces. Abboud, reputedly an advocate of closer relations with Egypt, dismissed parliament, suspended the constitution, declared martial law, and established a cabinet with himself as prime minister.

In November 1964, President Abboud resigned. He was replaced by a supreme council of state. A revolt in southern Sudan that had begun under Abboud against domination by the Arab north continued as a civil war until March 1972, when the south was granted some autonomy. A shift toward a pro-Arab foreign policy was evident after the Arab-Israeli War of 1967 (see Six-Day War).

E.

Nimeiry’s Regime

In 1969 a group of radical army officers, led by Colonel (later Field Marshal) Gaafar Muhammad al-Nimeiry, seized power and set up a government under a revolutionary council. Political tension continued, however, and several coups were attempted. During this period Nimeiry, who became the first elected president of Sudan in 1972, consolidated his power. In early 1973 a new constitution was promulgated. Initially, Nimeiry turned to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and Libya for support, but after coup attempts (1976) allegedly backed by Libya and local Communists, he turned to Egypt, conservative Arab states, and the West for political and economic aid. Relations with the United States, disrupted by the murder of two American diplomats by Arab terrorists in Khartoum in 1973, were also repaired. Nimeiry was the only Arab leader to back Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat in his peace negotiations with Israel. Sadat’s assassination in 1981 left Sudan considerably more vulnerable to the enmity of Libya. The country’s stability was also threatened by a large influx of refugees from Eritrea, Uganda, and Chad, which seriously strained its resources.

President Nimeiry won reelection to a third term in April 1983. In September he issued a blanket pardon for some 13,000 prisoners and announced a revision of the penal code to accord with Islamic law (Sharia). Martial law, imposed in April 1984 in the wake of rising tensions with Libya, protests over food price increases, and opposition in the predominantly non-Muslim south to Islamization, remained in force until late September. Renewed unrest led in April 1985 to Nimeiry’s ouster in a bloodless military coup.

F.

Civil War

After a year of military rule, Sadiq al-Mahdi, the great grandson of Muhammad Ahmad, was elected prime minister in the first free election in 18 years. Voting was postponed in 37 southern constituencies, however, due to a guerrilla war led by southern rebels known as the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) against the Muslim Arab government. The newly elected assembly was to draft and approve a new constitution and to hold elections every four years. However, severe food shortages, guerrilla unrest, a mounting debt crisis, and other problems weakened the government’s power.

In June 1989 a military coup headed by Brigadier Omar Hassan al-Bashir toppled the Mahdi government. A state of emergency was imposed, and Sudan was ruled through a 15-member Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation. Conditions deteriorated in the early 1990s, as the Bashir regime suppressed political opposition and stepped up the war against non-Muslim rebels in the south. In 1993 Bashir took tentative steps toward multiparty democracy, including the dissolution of the military government, but the decision to retain most of his former ministers prompted many to perceive these changes as largely cosmetic.

In January 1994 about 100,000 refugees fled to Uganda when Sudanese troops led an offensive against the SPLA. In March safety zones were established for the transportation of provisions and relief workers to the war-torn south. Throughout 1994 mediators from the Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and Development (IGADD), consisting of representatives from Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Eritrea, attempted to negotiate a peace agreement between the Sudanese government and the SPLA. In September the negotiations resulted in the creation of the Supreme Council for Peace, an 89-member body with 38 representatives from the rebel-dominated south. In March 1995 former United States president Jimmy Carter moderated a two-month cease-fire in an effort to allow relief workers to treat cases of river blindness and guinea worm disease in the south. The SPLA resumed its attack in July.

In March 1996 Bashir and his supporters swept presidential and legislative elections. Hassan al-Turabi, the head of a powerful Islamic fundamentalist movement called the National Islamic Front and a national spiritual leader, was elected to the National Assembly and made speaker. In April Sudan faced international condemnation after evidence surfaced linking Bashir’s government with a June 1995 assassination attempt on Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia. In May 1996 the United Nations (UN) levied sanctions against Sudan for refusing to extradite to Ethiopia three suspects in the assassination attempt.

By the mid-1990s the SPLA, led by John Garang, a former officer in the Sudanese army, controlled most of southern Sudan and a number of important towns. In mid-1998 peace talks, the SPLA and the government tentatively agreed to accept an internationally supervised vote on self-determination in the south. However, no date was set for the vote, and the talks failed to produce a cease-fire. Peace talks continued through the 1990s, but they repeatedly stalled over major issues such as the government’s unwillingness to separate state and religion and disagreement over where the boundary between north and south would lie. Several temporary cease-fires were called during this time in support of the peace effort and to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid, including the delivery of food and vaccines, to the war-torn south.

In December 1999 a power struggle between Bashir and Turabi came to a head. Turabi attempted to pass constitutional amendments designed to reduce Bashir’s presidential powers by calling for the creation of the office of a prime minister, accountable to the National Assembly, and the removal of presidential control over the selection of state governors. In response to this threat to his authority, Bashir dismissed Turabi and declared a state of emergency, dissolving the National Assembly and suspending parts of the constitution.

Sudan’s main opposition parties boycotted December 2000 presidential and legislative elections, criticizing the ongoing state of emergency and the fact that voting would not be held in most southern constituencies. Bashir was reelected with 86.5 percent of the vote and his party, the National Congress Party, won 355 of the 360 seats in the National Assembly.

G.

Violence in Darfur

As the south grew more peaceful in the first years of the 21st century, violence flared in the western region of Darfur. In 2003 rebel groups in Darfur attacked government garrisons in the region. The Darfurian rebels demanded greater autonomy for Darfur and the settlement of many local grievances, especially over land rights. The government responded to the garrison attacks with a ferocious counterinsurgency campaign involving an Arab militia known as the Janjaweed as well as government troops. In the process, entire villages were destroyed and many civilians were brutally tortured, raped, and killed.

The government and Darfurian rebel groups signed a cease-fire in April 2004, but the violence soon resumed. In July 2004 the United Nations (UN) Security Council passed a resolution demanding that the Sudanese government disarm the Janjaweed militia or face the threat of punitive measures. However, the government denied sponsoring the militia, which continued to mount attacks in Darfur. In August the African Union (AU) began sending peacekeeping forces to Darfur. However, the AU mission, which eventually included 7,000 troops, proved unable to control the violence. The government of Sudan resisted international pressure to allow United Nations peacekeeping forces in Darfur.

The AU convened peace talks in 2006 that resulted in a detailed peace agreement in May. However, not all of the rebel groups signed the agreement, and a new round of fighting broke out in Darfur. Efforts to obtain a lasting peace agreement continued in 2007. In June 2007 AU and UN officials met with Sudanese government officials in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. The talks resulted in an agreement to allow a joint AU-UN peacekeeping force of about 20,000 provided that a majority of the troops were African. In July 2007 the UN Security Council authorized a force of about 26,000 peacekeepers to be deployed in Darfur, including the 7,000 AU forces already there.

Earlier, in 2005, the International Criminal Court (ICC) opened an investigation into war crimes committed in Darfur. The UN estimated that as a result of the conflict in Darfur more than 200,000 people, mostly civilians, died from violence, starvation, or disease. In addition, more than 2 million people crowded refugee camps in Darfur and neighboring border areas in Chad, creating a dire humanitarian crisis. International relief workers faced extreme difficulties reaching those in need due to the continuing violence and strict restrictions placed on their movements by the Sudanese government.

H.

Peace in the South

In January 2005 the Sudanese government and the SPLA signed a comprehensive peace agreement to end Sudan’s 21-year-long civil war. It was the longest-running conflict in Africa and claimed an estimated 1.5 million lives. The agreement outlined a six-year transitional period, during which southern Sudan would establish a separate administration and enjoy relative autonomy. The agreement established an interim national unity government with a power-sharing arrangement in which the National Congress Party would have a 52 percent share of power and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), the political wing of the SPLA, would have a 28 percent share. Opposition parties in the north would have a 14 percent share, and opposition parties in the south would make up the remaining 6 percent. Oil revenues would be divided evenly between the north and south, although most of Sudan’s oil is located in the south. According to the agreement, at the end of the six-year period the people of the south were to vote on whether or not to secede from Sudan.