Narrative Jiu-Jitsu

Manoeli, Sebabatso C.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-28771-9_10

Sebabatso C. Manoeli⁴

Part of the book series: African Histories and Modernities ((AHAM))

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Abstract

The chapter reveals how the Nimeiri administration’s reputational upper hand waned, and how the new Southern-led Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and Army (SPLM/A) gained a measure of international legitimacy in the 1980s. It argues that this was due to a confluence of three factors: Sudan’s diplomatic and discursive failures, Ethiopia’s diplomatic and material support and the SPLM’s narrative innovations. In particular, through a close examination of the SPLM’s Manifesto, the chapter argues that the SPLM’s new narrative reconfigured the discursive terrain of the “Southern Problem”. Moreover, it enabled the Movement to construct a progressive and credible image abroad to the very audiences the Sudanese government relinquished.

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Notes

1.
After a meeting at Port Said with Saddiq al-Mahdi and the Muslim Brothers leader Hassan al-Turabi in 1977, Nimeiri pursued a more religiously inclined political line as it became politically expedient for him to do so. Nimieri appointed Turabi to serve as attorney general and offered other prominent Islamists positions in the judiciary as well as in the Sudanese Socialist Union. For the in-depth study of the politicisation of Islam during this period, see: G. Warburg, ‘Mahdism and Islamism in Sudan’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 27/ 2 (1995), pp. 219–236.
2.
J. Leach, War and Politics in Sudan: Cultural Identities and the Challenges of the Peace Process (London, 2013), pp. 163–164.
3.
E. N. Wakoson, ‘The Politics of Southern self-government 1972–83’, in M. W. Daly and A. A. Sikainga (ed), Civil War in the Sudan, pp. 27–50.
4.
Johnson, The Root Causes, p. 59.
5.
L. Aalen, ‘Ethiopian state support to insurgency in Southern Sudan from 1962 to 1983: local, regional and global connections’, Journal of Eastern African Studies, 8/ 4 (2014), p. 632
6.
Johnson, The Root Causes, p. 59.
7.
D. H. Johnson, ‘The Sudan People’s Liberation Army and the Problem of Factionalism’, in C. Clapham (ed), African Guerrillas (Oxford, 1998), p. 57.
8.
G. Prunier, From Peace to War: The Southern Sudan, 1972–1984 (Hull, 1986).
9.
D. Johnson and G. Prunier, ‘The Foundation and Expansion of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army’, in M. W. Daly and A. A. Sikainga (eds.) Civil War in the Sudan (London, 1993), pp. 120–121.
10.
T. Teklu, J. von Braum, E. Zaki, ‘Drought and Famine Relationships in Sudan: Policy Implications’, Research Report 88, International Food Policy Research Institute, 1991. J. O’Brien, ‘Sowing the seeds of famine: the political economy of food deficits in Sudan’, Review of African Political Economy, 12/ 33, (1985) pp. 23–32.
11.
LeRiche and Arnold, South Sudan, pp. 61–62, 256. A. Madut Arop, Sudan’s Painful Road to Peace: A Full Story of the Founding and Development of the SPLM/SPLA, (2006), p. 26. Johnson. The Root Causes, pp. 59–62.
12.
R. R. Krebs, ‘How Dominant Narratives Rise and Fall: Military Conflict, Politics, and the Cold War Consensus’, International Organization, 69/4 (2015): 840.
13.
R. R. Krebs, ‘Tell Me a Story: FDR, Narrative, and the Making of the Second World War’, Security Studies, 24/1 (2015): 168.
14.
‘June–July 1983: Report No. 3 on the Current Political Situation in Southern Sudan’, G. Muortat-Mayen, Chairman of the Anyanya Patriotic Front, 4 August 1983, Allison Papers, SAD 803/6/6-7.
15.
Embassy of the Republic of Sudan, Sudan News Letter, no. 3 (19 August 1987), p. 3.
16.
Embassy of the Republic of Sudan, ‘African Summit in Sudan’, Sudan News Letter, no. 1 (1 July 1987), p. 1.
17.
Embassy of the Republic of Sudan, Sudan News Letter, no. 6 (7 Jan 1988), p. 5.
18.
M. LeRiche and M. Arnold, South Sudan: From Revolution to Independence (London, 2012) p. 67.
19.
Embassy of the Republic of Sudan, Sudan News Letter, no. 2 (15 July 1987), p. 1.
20.
D. Johnson, ‘The Nuer Civil War’, in, Maj-Britt Johannsen and Niels Kastfelt (eds.), Sudanese Society in the Context of Civil War (Copenhagen, 2001), p. 6. Johnson highlights the militarisation of ethnicity that occurred as a result of the conflict between the SPLA and Anya-Nya II (pp. 4–8).
21.
S. E. Hutchinson, ‘A Curse from God? Religious and political dimensions of the post-1991 rise of ethnic violence in South Sudan’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 39/2 (2001), p. 311.
22.
Johnson, ‘The (SPLA)’, p. 61.
23.
Johnson, ‘The (SPLA)’, p. 58.
24.
Ibid, p. 60.
25.
Woodward, The Horn of Africa, p. 179.
26.
Johnson, ‘The (SPLA)’, p. 60.
27.
‘Working Paper’, 5 Jan, 1991, p. 1, Campaign File 627, Government of Ethiopia Ministry of Defence Archives (henceforth MOD).
28.
To illustrate the influence the Ethiopian government had on the SPLM, a senior member of the Movement, Commander Kerubino Bol, appealed to Mengistu when he wanted recourse for Garang’s domineering leadership style. Upon hearing the accusation, Mengistu alerted Garang of the act of insubordination, and Garang swiftly arrested and detained Kerubino Bol from 1987 until 1992. Johnson, ‘The (SPLA)’, p. 60. Johnson, The Root Causes, 92. J. Rone, ‘Behind the Red Line: Political Repression in Sudan’, Human Rights Watch (1996), pp. 318–319.
29.
For more details of the specific military campaigns, see: Johnson, ‘The (SPLA)’, p. 58, and M. A. Kuol, Administration of Justice in the (SPLA/M) Liberated Areas: Court Cases in War Torn Southern Sudan (Oxford, 1997); and K. Fukui and J. Markakis, Ethnicity and Conflict in the Horn of Africa (London, 1994).
30.
Sudan Democratic Gazette, no. 15 (August 1991), p. 5.
31.
Letter from Osman to GHQS, 23 Nov. 1987, Campaign File 428, MOD.
32.
Sudan Democratic Gazette, no. 14 (July 1991), p. 3.
33.
F. Halliday, ‘The Arc of Crisis and the New Cold War’, MERIP Reports, No. 100/101, (1981), pp. 14–25.
34.
Westad, The Global Cold War, p. 251.
35.
See: R. Yordanov, The Soviet Union and the Horn of Africa during the Cold War: Between ideology and pragmatism (Lanham, 2016); R. Patman, The Soviet Union in the Horn of Africa: The diplomacy of intervention and disengagement (Cambridge, 2009); D. Korn, Ethiopia, the United States and the Soviet Union (London, 1986).
36.
P. Woodward, The Horn of Africa: Politics and international relations (London, 2002), p. 142. For example, David Kinsella shows that in November 1987 alone, ‘the two countries signed another arms agreement, this one for $2 billion worth of equipment over four years’. D.T. Kinsella, ‘In the Shadow of Giants: Superpower arms transfers and Third World conflict during the Cold War’ (Ph.D. thesis, Yale University, 1993), p. 211.
37.
Woodward, Horn of Africa, 142.
38.
Letter from Thunder to Fire, 24 Dec. 1987, Campaign File 428, MOD. Also see: Woodward, Horn of Africa, p. 123.
39.
J. Rone, Children in Sudan: Slaves, Street Children and Child Soldiers (Human Rights Watch/Africa Human Rights Watch, 1995) pp. 69–71.
40.
O. A. El Nazir and G. D. Desai, Kenana Kingdom of Green Gold: Grand Multinational Venture in the Desert of Sudan (London, 2001), p. 48.
41.
Ibid, p. 18, 84–85.
42.
Zambia’s African nationalist Kenneth Kaunda was a close associate of Rowland. See: K. Good, ‘Zambia and the Liberation of South Africa’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 25/3 (1987), pp. 525–526; M. Larmer, ‘Chronicle of a Coup Foretold: Valentine Musakanya and the 1980 coup attempt in Zambia’, Journal of African History, 51 (2010), p. 398. Rowland also supported Joshua Nkomo of the Zimbabwe African Patriotic Front as well as the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). K. Eriksen, ‘Zambia: Class formation and détente’, Review of African Political Economy, 4/9 (1977), p. 25. For Lonrho’s involvement in Mozambique in the 1980s, see: M. A. Pitcher, ‘Recreating colonialism or restructuring the state? Privatisation and politics in Mozambique’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 22/ 1 (1996), pp. 49–74.
43.
Johnson, The Root Causes, p. 46.
44.
Ibid, p. 85.
45.
Interview with Wol (pseudonym), conducted by Sebabatso Manoeli, Durham, 7 Nov. 2014. Interview with Dr John Gai Yoh, conducted by Sebabatso Manoeli, Telephonically, 2 July 2013. Durham. Johnson, Root Causes, pp. 95, 120.
46.
Interview with Wol.
47.
Sudan Democratic Gazette, no. 8, January 1991, p. 3.
48.
Egypt-Sudanese relations soured a few months after Omar al-Bashir took power in June 1989, when Bashir’s regime harboured Egyptian Islamic fundamentalist Omer Abdel Rahman. S. M. Makinda, ‘Islamisation and Politics in Sudan’, Australian Journal of Political Science, 28/1 (1993), p. 131. M. Burr and R. O. Collins, Revolutionary Sudan: Hasan Al-Turabi and the Islamist State, 1989–2000 (Leiden, 2003).
49.
Sudan Democratic Gazette, no. 3 (August 1990), pp. 4–7.
50.
Madut-Arop, Sudan’s Painful Road, pp. 67–74.
51.
P. Wël, ‘Editorial Introduction’, in P. Wël (ed), The Genius of Dr. John Garang: The essential writings and speeches of the late SPLM/A’s leader, Dr. John Garang de Mabior, Vol. 1 (Kongor, South Sudan, 2013), p. 1.
52.
Ibid, p. 2.
53.
‘John Garang De Mabior: A Background Note’, Horn of Africa, 8/1 (1985), p. 72. M. LeRiche, ‘John Garang DeMabior’, in H. Louis Gates Jr., and E. Akyeampong (eds), Dictionary of African Biography (New York, 2012).
54.
W. Reno, Warfare in Independent Africa (Cambridge, 2011), p. 7.
55.
P. Roessler and H. Verhoeven, Why Comrades Go to War: Liberation Politics and the Outbreak of Africa’s Deadliest Conflict (London, 2016), p. 38.
56.
H. Campbell, ‘The Impact of Walter Rodney and Progressive Scholars on the Dar es Salaam School’, Social and Economic Studies, 40/2 (1991), pp. 99–135.
57.
Hutchinson, ‘“A Curse from God?”’, p. 311.
58.
Garang, ‘Memorandum No. 5’, p. 1, Campaign File 70, MOD.
59.
Ibid.
60.
Garang, ‘Annex to Memorandum No. 5’, p. 2, Campaign File 70, MOD.
61.
Garang, ‘Memorandum No. 5’, p. 6, Campaign File 70, MOD.
62.
J. M. Alley, ‘Southern Sudanese women and children: the saddest victims of the Sudanese conflict’, The Sudan Newsletter, 4/3 (1994). Pax Sudani Network, ‘Rampant Raids and Cases of Slavery’, Sudan, 3/3 (1993), p. 37. The movement also established a key English-language publication, the SPLM/SPLA Update, which ran from 1992 to 2004 and was disseminated throughout East Africa free of charge. It is unclear what became of the Arabic periodicals. C. Tounsel, ‘“God will crown us”: The Construction of Religious Nationalism in Southern Sudan, 1898–2011’, (Ph.D. thesis, University of Michigan, 2015), pp. 348, 359.
63.
Madut-Arop, Sudan’s Painful Road to Peace, p. 103. Radio SPLA was located in the suburb of Naru in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
64.
Woodward, Horn of Africa, p. 123. M. A. M. Guarak, Integration and Fragmentation of the Sudan: An African Renaissance (Bloomington, 2011), p. 284
65.
Sudan Democratic Gazette, No. 14, July 1991, p. 2.
66.
Quoted taken from Madut-Arop, Sudan’s Painful Road to Peace, p. 104.
67.
Sudan Democratic Gazette, No. 5, October 1990, p. 5.
68.
Ibid.
69.
J. Abadi, ‘Israel and Sudan: The Saga of an Enigmatic Relationship’, Middle Eastern Studies, 35 (1999) p. 32.
70.
Garang, ‘Annex to Memorandum No. 5’, p. 2, Campaign, 70, MOD.
71.
Rolandsen, Guerrilla Government, p. 29. The PMHC was abolished in 1993.
72.
‘L. Akol, ‘Why Garang Must Go Now’, July 1991’, in P. Wël, The Genius of Dr. John Garang: Letters and radio messages of the late SPLM/A’s Leader, Dr. John Garang de Mabior, Vol. 2 (Kongor, 2012), pp. 139–140.
73.
L. Akol, SPLM/SPLA: inside an African revolution (Khartoum, 2001), p. 210.
74.
L. Baissa, ‘Stated Position of the Rebels’, Horn of Africa, 8/1 (1985), pp. 39–46. L. Baissa, ‘Involvement of Ethiopia and Libya’, Horn of Africa, 8/ 1 (1985), p. 56.
75.
‘Stated Position of the Rebels’, Horn of Africa, 8/ 1 (1985), p. 39.
76.
For instance, the SPLM increasingly embraced a secessionist political agenda in the 1990s, a position that was marginalised in the 1980s.
77.
P.T. Mkandawire, and C.C. Soludo, Our continent, our future: African perspectives on structural adjustment. (Dakar, 1999). J. Herbst, ‘The Structural Adjustment of Politics in Africa’, World Development 18, 7 (1990), 949–958.
78.
SPLM, Manifesto (Addis Ababa, 1983), p. 2.
79.
F. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York, 1963). J. P. Sharp, ‘Geopolitics at the margins? Reconsidering genealogies of critical geopolitics’, Political Geography, 37 (2013), p. 26. W. Rodney, ‘Contemporary Political Trends in the English Speaking Caribbean’, The Black Scholar, 7/1 (1975), p. 15–21. W. Rodney, ‘Black Scholar Interviews: Walter Rodney’, The Black Scholar, 6/3 (1974), pp. 40, 42. M. Bedasse, ‘A Pan-African Imagined Community: Anti-Colonialism, Rastafarians and Post-Colonial Tanzania, 1961–1992’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Miami, 2010), pp. 33, 88.
80.
For example, see, SPLM, Manifesto, pp. 4, 7.
81.
Ibid, p. 1.
82.
Johnson, Root Causes, p. 63.
83.
Rolandsen, Guerrilla Government, p. 27.
84.
LeRiche and Arnold, South Sudan, p. 260, note 25.
85.
Ibid, p. 4.
86.
E. Thomas, South Sudan: A Slow Liberation (London, 2015), pp. 115–116. A. Idris, Identity, Citizenship, and Violence in Two Sudans: Reimagining a Common Future (New York, 2013), p. 97.
87.
SPLM, Manifesto, pp. 4–5.
88.
Ibid, p. 1.
89.
Ibid, p. 5.
90.
Ibid.
91.
Ibid, pp. 7–8.
92.
Ibid, p. 8.
93.
Ibid, pp. 8–9.
94.
Ibid, p. 13.
95.
Ibid, pp. 13–14.
96.
Ibid, pp. 16–17.
97.
Ibid, p. 17.
98.
Ibid, p. 17.
99.
Ibid, p. 25.
100.
‘An Excerpt from Captain John Garang’s 1972 Letter to Gen. Joseph Lagu of Anyanya One, January 24, 1972’, in Wël, The Genius of Dr. John Garang, p. 20.
101.
L. A. Deng, The Power of Creative Reasoning: The Ideas and Vision of John Garang (Bloomington, IN, 2013) p. 114.
102.
‘An Excerpt from Captain John Garang’s 1972 Letter’, p. 20.
103.
Ibid, p. 20.
104.
Ibid, p. 21.
105.
Ibid, pp. 20–21.
106.
Ibid, p. 21.
107.
Ibid, p. 26.
108.
‘Notes for HE Vice President George Bush of the United States of America’, Joseph Lagu, 6 March 1985, SAD 803/6/49–51.
109.
‘August–October 1983: Report Number 4 on the Current Political Situation in South Sudan’, G. Muortat-Mayen, Chairman of the Anyanya Patriotic Front, 31 October 1983, p. 9, Allison Papers, SAD 803/6/8-16.
110.
Ibid.
111.
R. R. Krebs, ‘How Dominant Narratives Rise and Fall: Military Conflict, Politics, and the Cold War Consensus’, International Organization, 69/4 (2015): 840.
112.
Krebs and Jackson, ‘Twisting Tongues and Twisting Arms’, 44–45.
113.
Krebs, ‘How Dominant Narratives Rise and Fall’, 840.

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Manoeli, S.C. (2019). Narrative Jiu-Jitsu. In: Sudan’s “Southern Problem”. African Histories and Modernities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28771-9_10

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28771-9_10
Published: 05 December 2019
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
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