By Norm Dixon
Since early January, the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA), in a joint offensive with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) — an coalition of northern political groups opposed to the military dictatorship — has captured a string of towns along the Eritrean and Ethiopian borders and about 2000 sq km of territory.
Guerillas have advanced to within 65km of a key dam on the Blue Nile river at Damazin that provides most of the electricity for the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, 460 km to the north-west.
Sudan's rulers claim that the SPLA military successes are the result of an invasion by the armies of Ethiopia, Eritrea and Uganda, backed by the US, Egypt and Israel.
The rebels and Sudan's neighbours deny any direct military support, although it is no secret that Ethiopia, Eritrea and Uganda all give Khartoum's opponents sanctuary and aid in retaliation against Khartoum's support for reactionary armed insurgencies against them. Nor is it a secret that the US would like to see the Khartoum regime nobbled for its support of Islamic fundamentalist forces hostile to US allies, most notably Egypt.
The people of southern Sudan have long fought against racial and religious oppression from Arab-chauvinist governments in the north. The SPLA has wide support among the 6 million non-Muslim, non-Arabic speaking peoples that populate the region.
The current struggle dates from 1983, but its roots lie in the period of British colonial rule. In 1899, Sudan formally came under joint Egyptian-British rule, but London called the shots.
Then, as now, Sudan encompassed two distinct cultures — a majority Arabic-speaking, Muslim north, and in the south those who speak sub-Saharan languages and practise indigenous religions. For centuries the only contact between north and south occurred when northern slave traders raided the south. Only in the late 19th century did Sudan lay claim to the south.
The British sought to block unity among the people of Sudan. Economic development and political institutions were centred in the north. The south was ignored economically, politically and socially, and all but cordoned off from the north, with outsiders required to carry passes. Transport links were poor.
Christian missionaries were encouraged to "civilise" the south, providing the only source of education, and the English language was encouraged.
The struggle for the independence of Sudan was mainly in the north, where Arab culture and Islam united the population. In the south, while the people were not passive in the face of British rule, tribal divisions prevented unity among them, as well as with the north.
In 1953, the British shifted ground and agreed to "Sudanise" the colony. Southern Sudanese filled just four out of 800 government positions. The "Sudanised" administration imposed the Arabic language and Islam on the southern population. On January 1, 1956, London finally granted Sudan its independence.
Civil war
Between 1955 and 1972, as many as 500,000 died in a civil war over the north's attempt to "Arabise" the south. By 1972, Khartoum was forced to concede the south limited regional autonomy.
Despite the truce, Khartoum continued to intrude into the south's affairs and allowed little economic development. Significant economic resources, especially the south's rich oil deposits, remained under northern control. Khartoum proposed the construction of a canal to divert water from the south.
Between 1980 and 1983, military dictator Colonel Gafaar al-Nimeiri, who seized power in 1969, revoked the autonomy deal, splitting the south into three separately governed regions and imposing Arabic as the only official language.
In 1983, Islamic law — sharia — was strictly imposed throughout Sudan on Muslims, Christians and adherents of traditional African religions alike. Many customs permissible for non-Muslims were outlawed at a stroke of a pen with sanctions such as stonings, public floggings, amputations and crucifixion.
Nimeiri renewed the war in 1983, after a large number of Sudanese soldiers in the south led by John Garang, a former colonel in the Sudanese army, rebelled.
Garang formed the SPLA and its allied political wing, the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement. The SPLA did not propose independence for the south but autonomy within a federated, democratic and secular Sudan. The SPLA also insisted on greater economic development for the south.
In 1985, the dictatorship provoked a mass uprising in the north by raising food and fuel prices. The military overthrew Nimeiri and agreed to elections. A coalition government led by Sadiq al-Mahdi, of the Umma Party, was elected. The SPLA boycotted the election because the civil war prevented 36 out the south's 67 electorates from voting.
The "democratic" Mahdi regime, after briefly flirting with the idea of a negotiated settlement, continued the war against the south with even greater vigour. The Umma Party allied itself with the reactionary fundamentalist National Islamic Front (NIF) of the Muslim Brotherhood. Mahdi and his partners enforced the sharia with increased fanaticism.
The policy toward the south became increasingly genocidal. As war-induced famine ravaged the south in 1988-89, Mahdi callously used food as a weapon. In 1988, as 250,000 people in the south died of starvation, Khartoum refrained from requesting aid and refused to allow aid workers to deliver food aid and medical supplies.
The military systematically burned villages and crops, stole cattle and massacred villagers in a brutal attempt to depopulate the south and deprive the SPLA of its base of support. By 1988, 85% of the southern population was displaced.
Washington steadfastly backed successive Sudanese regimes with little regard to the oppression in the south. During the Cold War, Khartoum was seen as a strategic bulwark against the pro-Soviet Ethiopian regime. The US provided Sudan with significant military and economic aid throughout the 1980s.
In 1989, as the US public became aware of the Mahdi government's genocide, pressure mounted on the Bush White House to withhold assistance until Khartoum allowed humanitarian aid to reach the south (US aid did not completely cease until 1991, when Khartoum backed Iraq in the Gulf War).
A combination of US pressure and the continuing gains being made by the guerillas forced Mahdi again to entertain peace negotiations with the SPLA.
The new policy was vehemently opposed by the NIF. On June 30, 1989 — on the eve of peace talks — the NIF organised a military coup that brought to power the current regime of Lt General Omar al-Bashir. Bashir suspended the constitution, banned all political parties except the NIF, banned public gatherings, shut down the press and declared a state of emergency.
Bashir repeated Mahdi's use of starvation as a weapon of war. Government-backed NIF militias raided trains and trucks carrying aid. Barges on the Nile were attacked or detained. In 1991-92, 11 million Sudanese, north and south, faced starvation. Sudan's limited grain reserves were exported to raise foreign exchange to fund the war. Like Mahdi, Bashir refused to recognise that a food crisis even existed.
At this time, the SPLA suffered a series of setbacks from which it is only now recovering. In 1991, the brutal Mengistu regime in Ethiopia was overthrown by Ethiopian and Eritrean rebels. The new governments in Addis Ababa and Asmara forced SPLA fighters and Sudanese refugees from their sanctuaries back into Sudan. Bashir's armed forces bombed them as they returned, killing hundreds of civilians.
The SPLA suffered a serious split between those who claimed to support total independence for the south and the supporters of the Garang leadership and its policy of a federated, democratic, secular Sudan. Taking advantage of the split, Khartoum — now armed by Libya, China and Iraq — launched an offensive in 1992 and retook much of the territory lost in the previous decade.
Bashir allowed food aid to reach areas controlled by the pro-independence factions while starving Garang's mainstream SPLA of aid. The "separatists" allied themselves with Khartoum and concentrated on fighting Garang.
The tide began to turn late last year for a number of reasons. The Ethiopian and Eritrean governments, upset at Khartoum's encouragement of Islamic fundamentalist opposition groups in their countries, again offered the Sudanese opposition sanctuary and aid.
Uganda stepped up its support for the rebels in response to the horrific attacks of the terrorist Christian fundamentalist Lord's Resistance Army based in, and supported by, Sudan.
The "separatists" were exposed as agents of Khartoum, and the Garang-led SPLA again commanded the support of most in the south. In October, the National Democratic Alliance announced a military alliance. The alliance immediately retook several towns in the south and even some in the north. In early January, former prime minister Sadiq Mahdi joined the alliance.
The SPLA-NDA alliance has agreed to a referendum to allow the people of the south to choose whether to remain part of a democratic, secular Sudan or secede.
The strategy of the alliance is not to march on Khartoum but to use its military victories to provoke a revolution in the north. Throughout September, in the streets of Khartoum occurred continual mass demonstrations against the al-Bashir regime. Troops used live ammunition to disperse the protests, and at least six people were killed.
Following the rebel gains in January, hundreds of activists from outlawed opposition parties, trade unionists, student activists, human rights advocates and others were rounded up and detained, some in the notorious secret "ghost houses" where detainees are tortured.