Abstract
This chapter investigates the means through which Sudanese governments outmanoeuvred rebels internationally throughout the 1960s and protected the country's reputation in Pan-Africanist and anti-imperialist circles. It argues that Sudan employed a strategy of deflective diplomacy that drew international attention away from the “Southern Problem” while addressing the pertinent areas of reputational damage. This deflection paradoxically placed Sudan in the international limelight as a paragon of Pan-Africanism, while concealing the “Problem” in plain sight. The chapter explores Sudan’s relations with African networks and organisations after the fall of the Abboud regime, specifically in the tenures of the most significant prime minister of the 1960s, Mohamed Mahgoub. It demonstrates that through personal networks, conference diplomacy and solidarity efforts, the government proved a formidable diplomatic opponent to the secessionist Southern rebels.
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Notes
- 1.
M. Mahgoub, Democracy on Trial: Reflections on Arab and African politics (London, 1974), p. 193.
- 2.
R. S. Kramer, R. A. Lobban Jr., C. Fluehr-Lobban (eds), Historical Dictionary of the Sudan (Metuchen, NJ, 1992), p. 388. Ezboni Mondiri Gwonzi, the other Southerner, served as the Minister of Communications in the post-October Revolution, caretaker government.
- 3.
It is important to note that some estimates approximate that by 1964, the Southern population in Khartoum reached a million people. E. O’ Ballance, Sudan: Civil War and Terrorism, 1956–99 (Basingstoke, 2000), p. 28.
- 4.
‘The Sudan: A red-hot winner?’, Africa Confidential, no. 25 (18 December 1964), p. 5.
- 5.
R. O. Collins, Civil Wars and Revolution in the Sudan: Essays on the Sudan, Southern Sudan and Darfur, 1962–2004 (Hollywood, 2005), p. 213. R. O. Collins, A History of Modern Sudan (Cambridge, 2008), p. 82.
- 6.
Mahgoub, Democracy on Trial, 193.
- 7.
It is unclear how the day came to acquire this name. It may have stemmed from the visual attire donned since ‘[r]ioting Southerners had black mourning ribbons on their chests and their banners had paintings of hangings and military planes attacking citizens.’ See ‘6 Die in Sudan Clashes’, Uganda Argus (8 December 1964), p. 1.
- 8.
For example: H. Smith, ‘10 Dead, 400 Hurt in Sudan Rioting: Hundreds reported Jailed in African-Arab Strife’, New York Times (8 December 1964), p. 4; ‘Sudan Torn by Violent Race Riots’, Northwest Arkansas Time (Fayetteville, Arkansas) (7 December 1964), p. 1; ‘Sudan Race Riot – 10 Die, 250 Hurt’, Evening Standard (7 December 1964); ‘Negro Mob Wrecks Cars in Sudan’, Evening Standard (7 December 1964); ‘10 Killed in Sudan Race Riots’, Evening Standard (7 December 1964); ‘Southerners “Spark Riot” – 6 Die in Sudan Clashes – Plane’s Delay Blamed’, Uganda Argus (8 December 1964); ‘Arab-Negro Riots Kill 14 in Sudan’, Daily American (8 December 1964); ‘Sudan Negroes Herded in Camp for Safety’, New York Herald Tribune (8 December 1964); D. Wilson, ‘Mboro’s Difficult Task’, The Guardian (8 December 1964), p. 1; ‘Probe Sudan – A Land Torn by Anger and Hate’, Sun (8 December 1964); ‘Racial Tensions High in Sudan’, Daily American (24 December 1964).
- 9.
W. J. Berridge, Civil Uprisings in Modern Sudan: The ‘Khartoum Springs’ of 1964 and 1985 (London, 2015), p. 219.
- 10.
On 16 July 1964, Thomas Gilligan, a New York Police Department Lieutenant, killed Jason Powell, an African-American teenager in a confrontation in a predominantly white neighbourhood in New York City. The incident sparked outrage in the predominantly African-American borough of Harlem, thus leading to six days of rioting. The crowds had violent confrontations with the police who fired thousands of bullets to disperse the angered citizens. In the aftermath, Gilligan was acquitted of all charges.
- 11.
Interview with Malik, conducted by Sebabatso Manoeli, Khartoum, 20 November 2015.
- 12.
Ibid.
- 13.
B. de Carvalho and I. B. Neumann (eds.), Small State Status Seeking: Norway’s quest for international standing (London, 2015), p. 2.
- 14.
Mahgoub, Democracy on Trial, p. 203. Emphasis added.
- 15.
‘Yemini Faction is Extended an Ultimatum’, News, The Times (9 December 1967), p. 8. Sudan played an active role in the Middle East’s confrontation of Israel, even prior to the Six-Day War. At the start of the war, Mahgoub announced that Sudanese soldiers would join Arab troops on the battlefield; however, they arrived after the war had ended. Nevertheless, Sudanese soldiers were involved in the 1000-day war of attrition that occurred from 1967 to 1970 along the Suez Canal. S. Carol, From Jerusalem to the Lion of Judah and Beyond: Israel’s Foreign Policy in East Africa (Bloomington, IN, 2012), p. 186.
- 16.
Mohamed Mahgoub gained a reputation as a renowned nationalist during the period leading up to independence while he was a radical member of the Graduate’s Congress in Sudan, a political organisation that represented Northern intellectuals. He had an illustrious career as a lawyer, advocate, judge and parliamentarian. T. Niblock, Class and Power in Sudan: The Dynamics of Sudanese Politics, 1898–1985 (Basingstoke, 1987), p. 66; P. Woodward, Condominium and Sudanese Nationalism (London, 1979), p. 83; C. Fluehr-Lobban, ‘Islamization in Sudan: A Critical Assessment’, in J. Voll (ed), Sudan: State and Society in Crisis (Bloomington, IN, 1991), pp. 78–79.
- 17.
Mahgoub, Democracy on Trial, p. 203.
- 18.
‘Sudan Faces its Elections’, Africa Confidential, no. 4 (16 February 1968), p. 7.
- 19.
Carvalho and Neumann, Small State, p. 2. Emphasis in original. For an example of the diplomatic dividends of image-crafting, see D. Scott, ‘China’s Public Diplomacy Rhetoric, 1990–2012: Pragmatic Image-Crafting’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 26/2 (2015), pp. 249–265.
- 20.
For more on credibility in international relations, see F. Harvey, ‘Fighting for Credibility: US Reputation Building in Asymmetric Conflicts from the Gulf War to Syria, 1991–2013’, Canadian Journal of Political Science, 48/3 (2015), pp. 503–530.
- 21.
H. Adi, M. Sherwood, G. Padmore, The 1945 Manchester Pan-African Congress revisited (London, 1995).
- 22.
‘League of Coloured Peoples’, in R. M. Juang, ed. Africa and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History (Santa Barbara, 2008), p. 682; A. S. Rush, Bonds of Empire: West Indians and Britishness from Victoria to Decolonization (Oxford, 2011), p. 108.
- 23.
Mahgoub, Democracy on Trial, p. 248.
- 24.
N. Slate, The Prism of Race: WEB Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, and The Colored World of Cedric Dover (New York, 2014), p. 108; ‘Richard Wright and the Coloured Wrighters’, Pan-Africa, 1 (August 1947), pp. 35–36.
- 25.
Ahmed Abushouk captures the intricacies of Egypt and Britain’s troubled relationship, and their impact on the Umma Party and others in: A. I. Abushouk, ‘The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan: From Collaboration Mechanism to Party Politics, 1898–1956’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 38/2 (2010), pp. 207–236.
- 26.
D. H. Johnson, ‘Document 223’, Sudan: British Documents on the End of Empire, Pt. 2 (London, 1998), pp. 56–58.
- 27.
Daly, Imperial Sudan, pp. 285–287.
- 28.
J. Hooker, Black Revolutionary: George Padmore’s Path From Communism to Pan-Africanism (New York, 1970), pp. 104, 108, 113.
- 29.
For example, see G. Padmore, ‘British Expatriates Given Notice To Quit Sudan By 1955: African Civil Servants To Head All Government Departments’, Accra Evening News (AEN) (5 June 1953); ‘Sudan Government Plan Complete Africanisation By 1956: Money Voted To Compensate Officials’, AEN (16 September 1954); ‘Sudanese Nationalists Want Complete Independence’, West African Pilot (6 December 1946); and ‘Strikes in Rhodesia and Sudan’, Ashanti Pioneer (19 May 1948); ‘The Sudanese Nationalists’, Public Opinion (7 June 1952).
- 30.
L. E. James, “What we put in black and white”: George Padmore and the Practice of anti-imperial politics’ (PhD thesis, London School of Economics, 2012), p. 164.
- 31.
James, “What we put in black and white”, p. 161.
- 32.
Ibid, p. 188.
- 33.
Ibid, pp. 235–240.
- 34.
G. Binaisa, ‘Organization of African Unity and Decolonization: Present and Future Trends’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 432 (1977), p. 58.
- 35.
POV, Season 19, Discussion Guide: Twelve Disciples of Nelson Mandela, A film by Thomas Allen Harris, www.pbs.org/pov, p. 15. http://pov-tc.pbs.org/pov/downloads/2006/pov-twelvedisciples-discussion-guide-color.pdf accessed on 9 September 2014.
- 36.
M. Uvarona, “On the Chemistry of Social Change”, The Moscow Times (20 July 2001), http://www.themoscowtimes.com/arts_n_ideas/article/on-the-chemistry-of-social-change/360038.html Accessed on 9 September 2014.
- 37.
‘Nelson Mandela’s statement from the dock at the opening of the defence case in the Rivonia Trial’, South African History Online, http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/nelson-mandelas-statement-dock-opening-defence-case-rivonia-trial
- 38.
Mahgoub, Democracy on Trial, p. 259.
- 39.
‘Sudan closes her sea and airports to South Africa and Portugal’, South African History Online, http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/sudan-closes-her-sea-and-airports-south-africa-and-portugal 10 August 2012.
- 40.
‘Report on the Activities’, January 1977, p. 5, Folder 72, Box 218, UK/Ireland Mission, ANC Liberation Archives (henceforth ANC Archives).
- 41.
Ibid, 264. ‘Organization of African Unity’, International Organization, 22/4 (1968), p. 1016.
- 42.
In November 1965, Rhodesia issued the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI), in which it stated that, although it was a self-governing British territory from 1923, it regarded itself a sovereign independent state. It precipitated a crisis in which the breakaway colony lacked international recognition as it did not allow for majority rule. Despite the global antipathy towards the minority rule in the country, British government did not act swiftly and some British politicians (especially from the Conservative Party) openly supported Rhodesia. Ibid, 1017. See Carl Peter Watts, ‘The Rhodesian Crisis in British and International Politics, 1964–1965’ (PhD, University of Birmingham, 2006). J. Barber, ‘The Impact of the Rhodesian Crisis on the Commonwealth’, Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies, 7/2 (July 1969), pp. 83–95. G. Barclay, ‘Friends in Salisbury: Australia and the Rhodesian Unilateral Declaration of Independence, 1965–72’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 20/1 (1983), pp. 38–49.
- 43.
Kramer, Lobban, Fluer-Lobban, Historical Dictionary of the Sudan, pp. 159–160.
- 44.
Mahgoub, Democracy on Trial, p. 262.
- 45.
Ibid.
- 46.
‘Organization of African Unity’, pp. 1017, 1023.
- 47.
‘The Sudan’s party politics’, Africa Confidential, no. 4 (19 February 1965), p. 5.
- 48.
Mahgoub, Democracy on Trial, p. 212.
- 49.
Ibid, p. 267.
- 50.
Ibid, p. 268. ‘Biafran war (1967–70)’, in D. Townson (ed), A Dictionary of Contemporary History. http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/tocnode.html?id=g9780631209379_chunk_g97806312093793_ss1-22 10 April 2017.
- 51.
ANO, Resistance, pp. 17, 26.
- 52.
‘International Conference in Support of the Peoples of Portuguese Colonies and Southern Africa in Khartoum, Jan 1969’, ‘Declaration of the International Conference in Support of the Peoples of the Portuguese Colonies and Southern Africa’, p. 1, 1393, MMS, Anti-Apartheid Movement Archive, Bodleian Library, Oxford (AAM).
- 53.
Other organisations in attendance include the Executive Secretariat of Tri-Continental, the World Federation of Democratic Youth and the International Democratic Women’s Federation. ‘First List of Arrivals’, 16 January 1969, 1393, MSS, AAM.
- 54.
Doc. No. 27/4, ‘Draft Agenda’, 1393, MSS, AAM.
- 55.
‘Second List of Participants’, 18 January 1969, 1393, MSS, AAM.
- 56.
Doc. No. 34/1/b, ‘Rules of Procedure’, 1393, MSS, AAM.
- 57.
‘Mobilization Committee’, p. 3, 1393, MSS, AAM.
- 58.
‘RS No (2) Political Committee, 1st Sub-Committee’, p. 2, 1393, MSS, AAM.
- 59.
‘Report on Apartheid – The World Must Act’, p. 8, 1393, MSS, AAM.
- 60.
‘Report presented by the Organization of the Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America’, p. 2, 1393, MSS, AAM.
- 61.
‘Declaration’ p. 3, 1393, MSS, AAM.
- 62.
‘Political Committee, 2nd Sub-Committee’, p. 4, 1393, MSS, AAM.
- 63.
Ibid.
- 64.
Kuyok, South Sudan, p. 570. He also later served in Nimeiri’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a diplomat.
- 65.
Ibid, p. 448.
- 66.
Ibid, p. 481.
- 67.
L. Wol Wol, “National Unity is sacrosanct”, Voice of Southern Sudan, 3 (15 March 1969), p. 2.
- 68.
Ibid.
- 69.
Ibid.
- 70.
Ibid.
- 71.
Ibid.
- 72.
‘Declaration of the International Conference in Support of the Peoples of the Portuguese Colonies and Southern Africa’, p. 1, 1393, MSS, AAM.
- 73.
Ibid.
- 74.
‘Report on Apartheid – The World Must Act’, p. 1, 1393, MSS, AAM.
- 75.
‘Address by Honorable Mr R. K. Khadilkar’, p. 1, 1393, MSS, AAM.
- 76.
‘Stay the Hands of the Murderers’, p. 2, 1393, MSS, AAM.
- 77.
‘Joint Statement of the Liberation Movements of Portuguese colonies and Southern Africa’, p. 1, 1393, MSS, AAM.
- 78.
‘Declaration’, p. 1, 1393, MSS, AAM. They also stood in solidarity with the Vietnamese struggle against American forces.
- 79.
‘General Declaration’, 1393, MSS, AAM.
- 80.
‘Resolution on the Second International Conference in Support of the Arab Peoples’, 1393, MSS, AAM.
- 81.
‘Report on Apartheid – The World Must Act’, p. 8, 1393, MSS, AAM.
- 82.
D. M. Wai, ‘African-Arab Relations: Interdependence or Misplaced Optimism?’ Journal of Modern African Studies, 21/2 (1983), p. 195.
- 83.
‘Background Paper on “Neo-Colonialism, Military Coups and African Liberation”’ by Jack Waddis, p. 2, 1393, MSS, AAM.
- 84.
In Lawrence Wol Wol’s letter to Milton Obote, written on behalf of SACD NU, in 1963, he suggested that secessionism in the South was a ‘noble cause’. He stated that ‘It is indeed of the noble task of the already liberated Africa[n] countries to help in the liberation of other African peoples who are still under the yoke of the foreigner who had until a few years ago trodden on us and compared us to animals. We are everywhere dedicated to the noble cause of lifting the African back to his dignity and human status.’ ‘Letter from Sudan African Closed Districts National Union to Milton Obote’, Voice of Southern Sudan, 1, 1, 1963, p. 3.
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Manoeli, S.C. (2019). ‘We Have No Harlem in Sudan’: Sudan’s Deflective Diplomacy. In: Sudan’s “Southern Problem”. African Histories and Modernities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28771-9_8
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