There are two civil wars in Sudan; one of these is supposed to have come to a negotiated conclusion this week after 21 years of bloodletting; that is the one in the south, the one that actually erupted in 1955, ended in '71 [*], and erupted again in 1983. I believe that one can be described as the Shari'a War, since the proximate cause of it was the imposition of shari'a in all of Sudan by Pres. Nimeiri. The Darfur War is in some respects a return of a very old conflict; however, it is not a sectarian conflict, as the "Shari'a War" is.

Readers are likely to know that Sudan is an enormous country. It's roughly one quarter the land area of the USA. With a population of 38 million or so, it sounds like a sparsely populated country-only 15 people per square kilometer. But most of Sudan is uninhabitable; two-thirds of the population lives on 10% of the area, and that is in a little circle around Khartoum. More decisively, Sudan's water use is impacted; most of the population relies on exotic water, i.e., water from a distant aquifer. This may explain why insurgencies in the country tend to be so deadly despite the fact that the central government is so feeble. The preferred method of suppressing rebellions since ancient times seems to involve driving residents of the affected region away from water sources. This requires a small army, since the settlements in the Sudanese outback are smallish and desperately poor; but after the army passes through, the loss of life continues.

The rebellion in the South has actually smouldered since Sudanese independence (1953) from Egypt and the UK (actually, the UK; but Egypt retained nominal sovereignty over the country from the time of Muhammad Ali's conquest, c.1820; see here for Anglo-Egyptian rule). The process of Islamicization of the Sudan had begun centuries before, in the 12th century [*], when the Nubian empire's marginalized tribes converted to Islam and then gradually pushed inward until one of them, the Kashif, actually won control over the old empire. The Nubians are now themselves a minority of northeastern Sudan.

The "Arabicized" peoples of the Jezirah and the Funj (just a little southeast of Khartoum) were actually pastoral people who were influenced by Sufi orders who served as missionaries in the region [*]. The Sufi orders were members of the Maliki mahdhub (school of Islamic jurisprudence), who usually incorporated elements of local shamanism. After Egypt won control of the area, the pashas sought to modernize the practice of Islam by purging the Sufi orders and imposing the Hanifiya mahdhub. My guess is that this massive project, inflicted by a massively richer and more populous country on the diffuse society of Sudan, had the effect of elevating religion to a really absurd importance. It also tended to create new divisions in Sudan, in that you had people with different degrees of "Arabicization," either in the sense of being more like Egyptians, speaking a purer dialect of Arabic, or adhering to the Hanifiya mahdhub. In the West, the Darfur region or in Kordofan (between the Nile and Darfur) there are the Fur, who are emphatically Muslim, but not very Arabic at all. In the modern Republic of Sudan, the southern provinces were actually annexed by British administrators acting on behalf of the Egyptian khedive; these regions had no historical ties to Sudan.

After the British took over Egypt as well as Sudan (1882), the UK attempted to modernize Sudan and administer the South as a separate, cultural refuge. Administering the South was difficult because the colonial authorities felt that exposing the local tribes to outside influence would wipe out what remained of indigenous African culture. For centuries the Funj Sultanate, which ruled much of the area around Khartoum, had relied heavily on kidnapping people from central and southern regions and selling them to Egyptians; this was accompanied by Islamic proselytization, in which a particular tribe might embrace Islam and wage war against its neighbors to capture slaves for sale to the Funj slave markets. For this reason, the British also banned Islamic missionaries in the southern regions; but relied on several Christian religious associations to run schools. Northerners could not enter the south without special permission, and the language of administration in the south was English, rather than Arabic. As a result, the country became regionally polarized.

This was also a source of resentment since the Southerners who did graduate from the British schools were naturally preferred as civil servants-they spoke English and tended to favor the persistence of colonial rule. The northerners found themselves governed, sometimes officered, by people whom they were accustomed as regarding with disdain. During the years following independence, the southerners were fighting in large measure in reaction to the fact that they were suddenly exposed to competition with another population, sacked en masse from jobs, and of course the country had been plunged into confusion by the departure of most qualified officials.

However, the pain and suffering of Sudan was not so inevitable. After 1971, the war and the political gridlock in the North had utterly exasperated the electorate, and there was widespread support for moderation; and the southern regions were eager for a settlement after the massive displacement of their population (recall what I said above about the Sudanese method of suppressing revolts.) However, there was a character named Hassan al-Turabi (BBC, 1, 2; About; Human Rights Watch bio) who had exercised considerable influence in the capital since the mid-1960's. Al-Turabi is linked loosely to Usama bin Laden, and much more closely to Ayman al-Zawahiri, founder of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (which later merged with UbL's group). When Sayyid Qutb was imprisoned by the Nasser government in Egypt (prior to his execution), al-Turabi was his disciple and helped to gather his writings for transmittal to others. Later he was the leader of the Sudanese branch of the Islamic Brotherhood.

As an extremely powerful religious figure in Sudan, al-Turabi often collaborated, and was often targeted by the political authorities; most recently, this has included two temporary clashes with Umar Bashir, the current dictator of Sudan (since 1989). When Bashir's group took over the Sudan, al-Turabi was jailed; he later became the spiritual leader of the regime, then became speaker of Parliament, fell out with Bashir, was sacked and jailed, and has since been rehabilitated. In March 2004 he was arrested again.

Al-Turabi's role in Sudanese politics has been to act as an engine of Islamic radicalism; just as an engine converts chemical energy, or potential energy, into torque, so al-Turabi has successfully channeled every manner of discontent with several Sudanese regimes into militant drives against southerners.

Darfur (A History of Darfur)

Darfur is home to about one fifth of the Sudanese population [*]; it used to be a major sultanate that also ruled over neighboring Kordofan. In the 1820's, when Muhammad Ali conquered the Funj sultanate, Egypt also obtained Kordofan. Later, in the 1870's, Darfur fell under Egyptian control. Since that time, Darfur has drifted behind the rest of the country; possibly this is an inevitable result of the difficult communications between Western Sudan and the Nile basin.

Global Security: Tribal and ethnic conflicts are neither new nor uncommon. Incidents of both small and large scale conflicts are recorded as far back as 1939 and they generally arise from disputes over access to natural resources like range lands and water points as well as livestock trespassing (grazing on farm lands), closure of herd routes and cattle raiding. Larger conflicts normally emerge from tribal disputes, banditry and disputes with transnational migrating communities. The influx of modern small arms since the war in Chad has increased the loss of life during such conflicts and caused polarization on ethnic lines.

The pattern of conflict changed from low-intensity, small-scale outbreaks from the 1950s to the 1970s, to high-intensity, persistent and large-scale battles in the mid-1980s. The prolonged drought that began in 1983 drove nomadic Zaghawa and Arab groups southwards into the central Fur region of Jebel Marra. By the time of the 1989 peace conference, an estimated 5,000 Fur and 400 Arabs had been killed; tens of thousands had been displaced and 40,000 homes destroyed.

In 1990, Chadian President Idris Deby toppled his predecessor Hissein Habre in a coup. Deby, a Zaghawa, was given support and sanctuary by the Zaghawans - one of Darfur’s main ethnic groups - on the Sudanese side of the border.

Over five dozen people from the Four tribe were arrested and detained during July and August 2002, from the towns of Zalingei, Tour, and Nyartati and Golou in Jebel Mara province. None of the 66 people had been formally charged, but the Government has stated that those arrested are suspected of working to form an opposition group calling themselves the ‘Darfour Liberation Front’.

In mid-April a ceasefire was negotiated to deliver food aid to displaced people in Darfur.

A scrutiny of this report supplies a very nuanced anthropological view of the participants. The government of Sudan and its SPLA adversaries look rather inept, compensating for their mismanagement-alienating areas which they conquered militarily-by arming and training local tribal adversaries. On the other hand, when speculating as to why the government has taken up a war in Darfur, the author assumes agency I think is implausible; I suspect the Sudanese government mismanaged its efforts to restore order in a long-festering province, creating at the same time (a) resentment (because of the use of ethnic "Arab" militia who lacked discipline), and (b) pockets of control by rebels.

In any event, it seems the massive loss of life reflects major increases in stress on the land and water of the region; upheaval and displacement can now trigger famine among millions.

Sudan emerged as an independent state in 1953 with a large new annex, an area of nearly a million Km² and perhaps one third of the population. This huge additional area had never been part of Sudan before; the vast majority of people who lived there were not Muslim, and almost none of them spoke Arabic. The Sudanese nationalists did not have a clear idea of what to do with the region, certainly no plans that gave the slightest regard for their self-determination. This was also the case in Indonesia, and which became independent in 1950. Indonesia's internal political divisions have been palliated somewhat by the fact that most Javanese are not fundamentalists, and are content to allow the survival of other languages, cultures, and religions in the country, provided they do not attempt to secede. Also, while the Javanese have ferocious methods of suppression insurgencies, they don't include forcing the entire affected population to become refugees. So the death toll from sectarian strife in Indonesia is usually a few thousand killed in a typical uprising. In contrast, Sudan's uprisings usually involve comparatively small military units accompanied by gigantic death tolls.

Most countries are extremely hostile to the notion of ceding an incompatible part of their country; examples abound from all over the world, such as Imperial Russia annexing gigantic swathes of Central Europe in the time of Catherine the Great (map) and then struggling mightily to repress the local cultures of Poland, the Baltics, and the Crimea; or the efforts of the Third Republic of France to Gallicize its huge empire. In the case of Sudan, the core population was convinced of its spiritual duty to subordinate the south, not only for sectarian reasons, but to end imperialism. The main political tendency in Khartoum reasoned that either the kufr were liquidated (adopted Arabic and embraced Islam) or they would somehow be ruling over the entire country.

In order to illustrate what I mean by this, it is useful to use Hassan al-Turabi as the example of the main political tendency in Khartoum. He represents the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan.¹ In this interview, al-Turabi denies vehemently that his country discriminates by religion:

EIR: There have been accusations of religious discrimination in the Sudan. What is your response? TURABI: There is no consciousness of religious identity in any social association in this country. Color, or ethnic or religious identity, is not a factor of consciousness, let alone discrimination. At the legal level (I'm a lawyer myself), I challenge any lawyer in the world to tell me that there is legal discrimination in this country. I can't have a Friday off in any European country [...] I would like to know in what other country minorities, like the Christians in the country, who are only 5% [sic.], can reach up to the vice presidency, to speakers, to the house of parliament, ministers all over the country. In America, for example, if you are Catholic, it's very difficult for you to become President, and if you do, look at what happened to Kennedy. [sic.]

EIR: One reason why the West is suspicious is that Muslims use the term "jihad,'' holy war. TURABI: Jihad does not mean "holy war.'' The word "holy'' does not appear in the word, nor does "war.'' Jihad means literally "effort for effort.'' If the other commits an effort against you, you have to respond with an effort. It means also dialogue, by the way. If the effort is an argument, respond by another argument. If it is by aggression or force, respond; don't turn the other cheek. Of course, you can turn the other cheek if it is only personal, you can forgive. But if it is an effort to destroy Islam altogether, to undermine it, respond by force. Literally, it means this. It's comprehensive; it doesn't mean fighting only.

A curious twist has emerged with the Darfur Rebellion. Interior Minister Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein has declared that al-Turabi, who is still in jail, is affiliated with the rebellion in Darfur. One of al-Turabi's organs is the Popular Congress, which Hussein alleges is linked to the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). A spokesperson for the JEM has denied the allegation. Al-Turabi denied any link as well (al-Jazeera). The rebel main group is the Sudanese Liberation Movement, which has nothing to do with the venerable Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), which is the rebel group in Southern Sudan. These allegations seem astonishing in view of al-Turabi's long track record of Arab chauvinism. On the other hand, it is common for Funj-based political groups which are banned in Khartoum to join forces with rebel movements. (Sudan: Assessment of the Regime)