The Root Causes of Sudans Civil Wars.

Douglas Johnson, Bloomington

IN: Indiana niversit! "ress #$$%. #%& ''.
Print/Download PDF
Drawing on his own research as one of the foremost historians on the Sudan,
as well as first-hand experience working in the southern Sudan, Douglas
Johnson has written a concise, accessible and authoritative guide to the civil
wars that have plagued the countr!s modern histor" First begun as a #$$%
report commissioned for relief personnel engaged in the Sudan, Johnson has
expanded and updated the work to include the events of the past decade in
order to remed &the institutional amnesia afflicting diplomats, 'ournalists, and
development, relief and human rights workers( anone who has dipped into
the current of the war with onl a vague apprehension of its source)"
*rgani+ed around a set of &historical factors) that he places at the root of
Sudan!s civil wars, the book provides an excellent comparative framework for
anal+ing one of the world!s most intractable insurgencies" Foremost among
the causes of the countr!s recurring wars is a durable political econom that
sets the centrali+ing power of expansionist states against peripheral regions"
,anifested in the transcendent practices of slave and cattle raiding and land
displacement, Sudanic states have, since the #-
th
centur, exploited and
alienated peoples along the peripher, &creating groups of peoples with a
lastingl ambiguous status in relation to the state)" .n other words, the histor
of contemporar conflicts predate colonial interventions and /ritain!s decision
to grant independence to a united Sudan before ine0ualities between 1orth
and South 2 ine0ualities exacerbated b /ritain!s &Southern Polic) for
administering the South 2 could be remedied" 3hat the colonial period is so
often the starting point for analses of the countr!s war is indicative of what
Johnson terms our historical &amnesia) in regards to the Sudan"
4 theme that emerges later in the book, and is intrinsicall related to
exploitative modes of state consolidation, is the persistence of fragmentation
among and between communities in both the South and 1orth" 4mong the
founding principles of the Sudan People!s 5iberation 4rm 6SP547 in #$-8 was
1
the need to prevent the sorts of militar factionalism that beset southern forces
in the first civil war 6#$99/:#-;%7" Johnson is at his best in discussing the
internecine SP54 split in #$$# and the still unresolved 1uer civil war" <e also
traces the fracturing of the &1orthern ,uslim consensus) as the 1orth-South
war has expanded into regions of the 1orth 2 Darfur, Southern =ordofan, >ed
Sea 2 over the past decade as a result of =hartoum!s meddling in neighboring
conflicts, and the government!s pursuit of a radical, exclusionar polic of
.slami+ation at home and abroad" 4lso noteworth given current
preoccupations with so-called &resource wars) is Johnson!s analsis of the
relationship between war economies and relief/development polic" <e traces
how &having captured the relief effort, =hartoum will continue to work for the
sub'ugation of Southern labour and Southern resources)" 3hose contemplating
peace as part of the ,achakos peace process currentl underwa in =ena
should contemplate the effect of peace on the persistent pattern of the 1orth!s
commercial exploitation of the South"
.t is clear that the author!s smpathies lie with southern resistance to
=hartoum" .n this respect, however, the book provides a useful counter to what
Johnson correctl identifies as the predominant focus on the 1orth in the
historiograph of the Sudan" The Root Causes of Sudans Civil Wars is an
immensel important contribution to the literature" .t should be read b
students of conflict, on the continent and elsewhere, as well as all those
associated with relief, development and peacemaking in the Sudan"
5ee J"," Semour
Northwestern University
2