Founders of the Original Sudanese Tragedy

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If we review the key stations in modern Sudanese history, we find a rich background for understanding the current tragedy. There is an exceptional fragmentation, multi-level, and an extraordinary inability to narrow that fragmentation through a state that gradually transforms society into a national political group.

Chronologically, British rule played a foundational role in two ways: it unified that vast geographical area administratively in September 1898 after defeating the Mahdists, thus exaggerating unity in defiance of the colonial reputation for being entirely fragmentary. On the other hand, its unification of Sudan was marred by disintegration that already fueled a huge disparity. Britain followed a 'Southern Policy' that limited the influence of the Arab Muslim north on the south and encouraged Christian missionary work there. However, after World War II, with British preparations to withdraw from the colonies, no 'Southern Policy' was implemented, and a simple principle of integration with the north was adopted. This was met by the southerners, in 1955, with their first armed rebellion that opened the first civil war.

However, the larger roles in the tragedy were played by Sudanese leaders who could have, over decades of independence, narrowed the disparity, whether in its original form or through the British addition. But what happened was the exact opposite, with the most notable atrocities committed by army generals due to their quick impatience with the stagnation of political processes, equating a reachable salvation with an increasingly inflated self.

The first of these was Ibrahim Abboud. In 1956, the country gained independence with its Muslim north, which was advanced in education and administrative connections, and its traditionally backward south, which embraced Christianity and a few local religions. However, independence implicitly expressed a settlement between two northern currents that divided the independence movement: the Mahdi represented by local nationalism expressed by the 'Umma Party', and the Khatmi calling for union with Egypt represented by the 'National Unionist Party'.

Between the North and South, and between Mahdiyya and Khatmiyya, politics appeared to be a difficult task in Sudan. Thus, two years after independence, Abboud devised the illusory solution of a military coup that kept him in power until 1964.

The second was Jaafar Nimeiri, who executed his coup in 1969, benefiting from the turmoil and confusion of political life. The 'October Revolution' that toppled Abboud established a civilian rule with unstable coalition governments, due to the weak consensus regarding the South, the constitution, and the relationship between religion and the state. However, in 1972, Nimeiri reached the Addis Ababa Agreement with the southerners, which the hasty believed ended the civil war. In 1977, there was the 'national reconciliation' with the united opposition, which Nimeiri wanted to be a complete and absolute integration of the opponents into his regime.

The latter's authoritarian tendencies accelerated: in 1983, he canceled the Addis Ababa Agreement and imposed Islamic Sharia laws, leading to the outbreak of the second civil war in the South. The groundwork for Sharia was laid by significant measures, the most important of which was appointing the Islamic leader Hassan al-Turabi as Attorney General in 1979, which indicated leniency towards the infiltration of Islamists into the state apparatus and its bureaucracy.

Those who thought there were solid ideological and political loyalties were surprised that the officer who began his career as a Nasserist and ally of the communists turned away from Nasserism after Nasser's death, and eliminated the largest Arab communist parties following Hashim al-Atta's coup in 1971.

The third, the longest-lasting and most devastating for the country, was Omar al-Bashir, supported by the 'Islamic Front' and its leader al-Turabi. He also benefited from the failures of a civilian rule that lasted only three years, which was the last parliamentary experience in the country. In 1989, al-Bashir staged a coup to remain in power for thirty years, during which Osama bin Laden was hosted in Sudan. Instead of solving the problem of the South, the problem of the West worsened, leading to the outbreak of the Darfur war in 2003. While al-Bashir acknowledged the South's right to self-determination, which led to its independence in 2011, he focused on the war in the West and expanded its scope and violations to the extent that the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against him in 2009.

Like Nimiri before him, Bashir rebelled in the late 1990s against his mentor Al-Turabi, dismissing him from his position and then arresting him, declaring that the sky of Islamists cannot accommodate two stars.

In 2019, the 'military council' ousted Bashir after popular protests triggered by an economic collapse. Since then, there have been several attempts at a 'democratic transition' that have not materialized. What occurred was an explosion of bloody conflict in 2023. Just as the war against the south was tinged with racial motives, the same was repeated in the war against the west led by the 'Rapid Support Forces,' which branched off from the notorious 'Janjaweed,' ironically created by Bashir's regime in 2013.

The major war that erupted in 2023 and is still ongoing has resulted in the displacement of about 9 million Sudanese within their country and the flight of around 4 million abroad. The death toll from this war and the resulting fatalities ranges between 60,000 and 150,000, knowing that many deaths have gone unrecorded due to the inaccessibility of their remote areas.

Quoted from 'Asharq Al-Awsat'