Deep-Seated Historical and Socioeconomic Grievances

Abstract

The north-south conflict in Sudan started in 1955, a year before the country’s political independence from Britain. The resulting civil war raged from 1955 to 1972, when an accord, the Addis Ababa Agreement, was signed between the southern Sudanese rebels and the Sudanese government under Ja’far Numeiry. An 11-year peaceful interlude followed the signing of the accord. Fighting erupted again in 1983. This Sudanese conflict has been portrayed largely as a struggle between Islam and Christianity. From this perspective, the conflict is explained as a consequence of Islamic fundamentalist governments in Khartoum seeking to impose their faith on Christian southerners by the introduction of the Islamic sharia (law). This chapter contends that this view, together with one that views the conflict as essentially an Arab-African racial conflict, constitutes an oversimplification of the otherwise complex north-south political conflict in Sudan. The chapter argues and seeks to demonstrate that the roots of the conflict lie in deeply felt grievances on the part of the southern Sudanese coupled with the intransigence of both colonial and postcolonial governments in Khartoum. Resolution of the conflict—as is the case with most grievance-driven conflicts whether they manifest themselves as ethnic, religious, racial, or ethnoregional—lies in squarely addressing the root causes of the grievances that drive such conflicts.