South Kordofan and the Blue Nile: wars by second intention
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By Magdi El Gizouli
September 20, 2011 — Amidst the war enthusiasm that clouded the
reception of Malik Agar’s rebellion in the Blue Nile, the complement
of Abd al-Aziz al-Hilu’s operations in South Kordofan, little if any
attention was paid to the concrete situation in the two states and its
immediate backdrop. Rather, Sudan’s irredeemable ‘lovers’, addicted to
the pornography of bloodshed, whipped up the excitement to a degree
whereby the uninitiated in Sudan affairs concluded that an arc of
rebellions was soon to force the ruling National Congress Party (NCP)
into submission, the missing ingredient being international cover.
John Prendergast, ever the warmonger, contributed his standard
suggestion, US military intervention. In a policy document released
this September by his Enough Project Prendergast argued for “tangible
political, logistical and financial support for the Sudanese parties
and non-governmental organisations pressing for democracy”; imposition
of a “no-fly zone” over Darfur, South Kordofan and the Blue Nile or
the “destruction of the [government’s] offensive aerial assets”.
Prendergast acknowledged that the policy line he is advocating, namely
a Western-backed armed takeover, had “the potential to lead to more
conflict in the short term” as in Libya. That, he claimed, was the
lesser evil compared to “the status quo of a dictatorship at war with
its own people”. The heavily burdened ‘white man’ cited the Ivory
Coast and Libya as instances of successful [military] interventions to
protect civilians. In the Sudan of the Prendergastian will once the
NATO bombs hit the ground and the armed contenders of the NCP regime
storm victorious into Khartoum ‘real’ democracy and justice will
blossom unhindered, an outcome that is supposedly guaranteed by the
inevitable dictate of history.
>From the above my personal favourite is this last doctrinaire twist,
the inevitable paradise born out of the destruction of war. Ali Osman
Mohamed Taha, the First Vice President restored, had something similar
to say when addressing the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) deployed in
al-Damazin, the capital of the Blue Nile, on 17 September. “Peace and
justice will only be achieved when the enemy is totally defeated” he
claimed, and “the loci of treason are destroyed”. “Soldiers of Allah,
set out to fulfil your holy mission, we tell you. Your national duty
is to subjugate the enemy and clear the state of the traitors”
bellowed the NCP negotiator of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement
(CPA).
It was President Bashir, the military officer, who at least made a
reference to the concrete situation that led to the resurgence of
warfare in the Blue Nile. Explaining the position of his government on
5 September to the leaders of the political parties in Khartoum, or to
be precise to those who agreed to attend the event, the President
argued at length that the former governor of the Blue Nile, Malik
Agar, and before him the candidate for the gubernatorial post in South
Kordofan, Abd al-Aziz al-Hilu, had opted for war once it was clear
that the outcome of the popular consultation processes in the two
states would not be in their favour. No wonder Khartoum was pleased
when the Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told reporters in
Khartoum on 16 September that the resolution of the conflict with the
Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in North Sudan (SPLM-N) lies in the
framework of a united Sudan and one national army. The SPLM proper,
now the ruling party in the independent South Sudan, was a uniquely
successful political-military machine, paralleled in the post-colonial
Sudan only by the Islamic Movement and its contemporary embodiment in
power, the NCP. The key to this success was Chairman John Garang’s
recognition that ‘separatism’ as a declared aim was the Achilles heel
of the Southern Sudanese agitation for empowerment in the
post-colonial order, peaceful and armed alike. Garang reinvented the
cause of Southern Sudan in the 1983 manifesto of the SPLA/M, its
founding document. Through the switch from separation of Southern
Sudan to a united ‘New Sudan’ the Chairman was able to extend the
South Sudanese insurgency into the definitive territory of North
Sudan, namely South Kordofan, the Southern Blue Nile, and in the
mid-1990’s his forces even threatened Kassala in East Sudan. The
SPLA/M famously attempted in 1990 ignite an offshoot of its rebellion
in Darfur through the agency of Daoud Yahia Bolad, a former Islamist
student leader in Khartoum University turned SPLA rebel. Although the
excursion into Darfur at the time was a grand failure it certainly
left a seed that delivered in 2003 with the rebellion of the Sudan
Liberation Movement/Army (SLA/M) under the leadership of Abd al-Wahid
al-Nur and Mini Minawi. By and large the Northern ‘marginalized’, whom
Garang recruited for his war against Khartoum, kept their part of the
bargain. They followed him faithfully and provided him with badly
needed support during the momentous and bloody 1991 split in the
SPLA/M. Naturally enough the SPLA combatants from South Kordofan and
the Blue Nile sided with Garang the unionist against Riek Machar and
Lam Akol who demanded dropping the New Sudan agenda for the cause of
Southern Sudanese independence.
While the share of the SPLA forces in South Kordofan and the Blue Nile
in war was decisive their share in peace was by all means petty. The
2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) secured the right of
self-determination for South Sudan through a referendum; the two
Northern battle-zones of the North-South civil war however had to make
do with a hastily devised arrangement that goes by the name ‘popular
consultation’. The CPA protocol on the resolution of conflict in South
Kordofan and the Blue Nile defined the process as “a democratic right
and mechanism to ascertain the views of the people” of the two states
on the CPA “through their respective democratically elected
legislatures”. Per protocol the legislatures of the two states “shall
each establish a Parliamentary Assessment and Evaluation Commission to
assess and evaluate the implementation of the agreement in each
State”. The two commissions were supposed to submit their reports to
the legislatures of the two states by the fourth year of the signing
of the CPA. Likewise the Presidency shall establish an independent
commission to evaluate the implementation of the agreement in each of
the two States.” This commission shall submit its final reports to the
National Government and to the Governments of the two States which
shall then take the measures necessary to ensure the faithful
implementation of the agreement and rectify any shortcomings. The crux
of the matter is then this. The legislature of any of the two states
has two options, either to endorse the CPA protocol which then becomes
the final settlement of the conflict in the state, or “decide to
rectify, within the framework of the agreement, any shortcoming in the
constitutional, political and administrative arrangements of the
agreement”. In this case the legislature “can engage in negotiations
with the National Government with the view of rectifying these
shortcomings”.
Over the fate of the SPLA troops in the two states the CPA Agreement
on Security Arrangements during the Interim Period ruled supreme.
Without prejudice to the latter the SAF retained the right to amass
troops in the two states as it sees fit, the only restriction being
sanction of the Presidency. Apart from the contingents in the
catastrophic Joint Integrated Units (JIUs) the SPLA forces deployed in
South Kordofan and the Blue Nile were obliged to withdraw south of the
1956 border between North and South Sudan as soon as the JIUs were
formed and on the ground. The Government of South Sudan (GoSS) was
under explicit obligation to absorb the demobilised Southern Sudanese
serving in the SAF in South Sudan. The Northern Sudanese SPLA, whether
in South Kordofan, the Blue Nile or otherwise, on the other hand were
essentially ignored. In his 5 September account of the confrontations
in the Blue Nile the Minister of Defence, Abd al-Rahim Mohamed
Hussain, divided the Blue Nile SPLA troops into three categories,
those serving in the SPLA component of the JIUs, those referred to as
the SPLA proper outside the JIUs, and those still in the service of
the SPLA in the independent South Sudan. From a CPA perspective none
of the three have a formally legitimate ground to maintain their arms
in (North) Sudan after the secession of South Sudan.
Only the referendum and the declaration of South Sudanese independence
took place on time. Every other date of the CPA was subject to the
procrastination and the manoeuvring of the two parties, the SPLM and
the NCP. The population census initially planned for July 2007 took
place in April 2008, and the elections originally envisioned in
March/April 2009 were eventually held in April 2010. In South
Kordofan, the SPLM rejected the census results and the elections in
the state were postponed to April 2011. The popular consultation
processes, the outcome of which would determine the fate of the local
SPLM in the two states, depended essentially on the composition of the
state legislatures. In the Blue Nile, where the elections did take
place in April 2010, the SPLM’s Malik Agar managed to win the
gubernatorial post while the NCP secured a safe majority in the state
legislature allowing it effectively to dictate the outcome of the
popular consultation process. When the elections were finally
conducted in South Kordofan in May 2011 the NCP’s incumbent Ahmed
Haroun won the gubernatorial post with less than a 2% margin over his
former deputy, the SPLM’s candidate Abd al-Aziz Adam al-Hilu. In the
legislature, the NCP scored 33 seats to the SPLM’s 21 thereby
achieving the necessary margin to guarantee its control over the
popular consultation process. By then the results of the Southern
Sudan referendum were already out. War in South Kordofan reignited in
June 2011, a few weeks before South Sudan was officially declared an
independent state. The SPLM in South Kordofan, orphaned in the rump
(North) Sudan contested the outcome of the May 2011 elections, but did
not start fighting until it became clear that the SAF was determined
to force the disarmament of its combatants. Malik Agar, who until then
maintained a declared commitment to peace, signed off the popular
consultation processes as dead. He told the press early last August
that the post-secession composition of the national government, the
presidency and the council of states, precluded the success of the
processes. The SPLM-N, left to fend for itself since the SPLM proper
opted for the secession exit, and a minority in the state legislatures
of South Kordofan and the Blue Nile, was obviously in a bind.
Politically, the NCP was effectively free to steer the popular
consultation processes to its convenience; and militarily, the SPLA
troops in South Kordofan and the Blue Nile were besieged by the SAF
intent on their disarmament. The CPA had backfired.
The only serious attempt to salvage the situation was the 28 June
Framework Agreement signed in Addis Ababa between the NCP Deputy
Chairman, Nafie Ali Nafie, and the SPLM-N Chairman, Malik Agar. The
agreement granted the SPLM-N political recognition but provided for
the disarmament of its troops in South Kordofan and the Blue Nile over
a negotiated time period. The SPLM-N celebrated the agreement. It had
all the necessary components to evolve into a minor CPA, namely
international mediation, de facto tolerance of the existence of two
‘legitimate’ armies in the country, even if temporarily, and the
approval of the extra-electoral special status of the SPLM-N despite
the expiry of the CPA. These are exactly the elements that troubled
President Bashir and his generals in the SAF. Khartoum scrapped the
agreement as soon as it was signed. Before making the grand
conclusions that drive the enthusiasm for yet another round of warfare
in Sudan it may be judicious to dwell on the lessons of the peace
respite that just came to an end. The first I presume is the utter
falsity of Prendergast’s ‘gun-driven democracy’ and Taha’s ‘peace by
pacification’.
The author is a fellow of the Rift Valley Institute. He publishes
regular opinion articles and analyses at his blog Still Sudan. He can
be reached at [email protected]
The views expressed in the 'Comment and Analysisi>' section are solely
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