Sudan

(CC) Image: George Swan
Sudan and its capital Khartoum.

Sudan is a nation in East Africa, which has the largest land area of any country in Africa. It gained independence from the United Kingdom, and has had near-continuous civil wars and local conflicts since then. The Second Sudanese Civil War, which first established, with the Machakos Protocol of 2002, a frame work for agreement, and then, with the Naivasha Comprehensive Peace Agreement(CPA) in 2005, signed a treaty. The treaty included provisions for a referendum, in 2011, in which South Sudan will have the option of whether or not to become an independent nation; the South now issues its own currency and conducts its own foreign policy. There is also an active struggle in the Darfur region in the west of the country, with the most important border being with Chad; elements of one of the rebel groups in Darfur attacked Omdurman, the sister city/suburb of the national capital, Khartoum, in May 2008.

Both the Darfur Conflict and the Civil Wars are complex, mixtures of power, ethnic and sometimes religious struggles. North Sudan, which has historically held the most power, predominantly is Arab and Muslim. South Sudan is much more mixed, with Nilotic and other subsaharan ethnicities, and a mixture of Christian, indigenous animist, and Muslim religions. As in the The Troubles, at least for the North-South struggle, religion is a surrogate for political and economic power. There is no accident that the peace treaty is called the Power-Sharing Agreement

Darfur is populated by several groups, led by the Fur people (Darfur means "land of the Fur"), who are Muslim of subsaharan ancestry, tracing their ancestry to a people in the current area of Nigeria. Before the struggle fragmented into several groups, the conflict was between Baggara Arabs, who are a nomadic people, and farming groups such as the Fur, Daju and Masalit.

Government

Effectively, Sudan is a federation under a coalition government. North Sudan is headed by the prior national president, Omar al-Bashir, while South Sudan has a relatively autonomous government (e.g., with its own currency and foreign policy) headed by Salva Kiir. Al-Bashir is national president while Kiir is first vice-president; Ali Osman Taha, the former national vice-president in the northern-dominated government, is now second vice-president.

The major political parties are:

• National Congress Party (NCP), headed by Omar al-Bashir
• Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) Salva Kiir (Southern leadership)
• National Democratic Alliance (NDA)
  • Democratic Union Party (DUP) Muhammad Uthman al-Mirghani
  • Umma Party Siddiq al-Mahdi Sadiq
  • Popular Congress Party (PCP) Hassan al-Turabi

In March 2009, the International Criminal Court issued a war crimes indictment against Bashir; a number of other officials previously had been indicted for crimes against humanity, primarily in the Darfur region. This is the first warrant ever issued against a sitting head of state and the entire matter is evolving.

Geography

Sudan shares boundaries with:

• Central African Republic 1,165 km
• Chad 1,360 km
• Democratic Republic of the Congo 628 km
• Egypt 1,273 km
• Eritrea 605 km
• Ethiopia 1,606 km
• Kenya 232 km
• Libya 383 km
• Uganda 435 km

The Blue and White Nile rivers join to form the Nile at the Khartoum-Omdurman area. Sudan has significant internal river transport, and Port Sudan is on the Red Sea.

Economy

Before the discovery of oil in 1974, not exploited until years later, the economy was primarily agricultural. Gum arabic, used in a variety of products, was probably its most important export.

Oil

Foreign oil concessions, 2004 (United Nations)

One of the factors in the conflict is the increasing significance of oil; Sudan is self-sufficient and beginning to export. Economically viable oilfields were discovered in 1974 by Chevron Oil, who did not pursue their concession due to security concerns. Later, Western firms such as Talisman of Canada, established working fields in the South, centered around Bentiu, but eventually withdrew over shareholder human rights protest. The main oil consortium is the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC), with ownership split among the People's Republic of China, India, and Malaysia; Sudan has a minor share.

Actual oil drilling is centered around Bentiu in South Sudan, but the only practical means of transporting it was a pipeline traveling north to a refinery outside Khartoum in North Sudan. Initially, the production of this refinery was devoted to domestic use, but export became possible by transport using road, rail, and possibly pipeline to Port Sudan on the Red Sea. North Sudan's only seaport is equipped with an oil shipping terminal.

A politically and economically significant, if difficult, alternative being explored is to develop rail service linking Bentiu to railroad facilities in northern Kenya, which would take crude oil as far as the head of a pipeline in Kenya, and thence to a refinery and port at Mombasa, Kenya. While an experienced German firm has been ready to build and fund the railroad, there has been slow progress in getting Kenyan approval for the project. The oil facilities in Mombasa are in need of renovation.

If the South Sudan to Kenya alternative became viable, it would be an immense political-economic lever on the Northern government, which saw the southern deposits as a source of foreign income. There are no likely oil fields in the main areas of the north, although there are in the disputed border provinces of North and South Kordofan.

Industry

The country has been growing its industrial sector, much of it in well-designed facilities that make basic materials for infrastructure, such as concrete and steel, although there is some electrical and automotive parts production, as well as automotive assembly, in a purpose-built industrial city.

Foreign relations

Sudan is a member of the Arab League. Before the Power-Sharing Agreement, Sudan's foreign policy was oriented toward Arab cooperation.

International economic policy, however, very much related to the participants in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company, currently China, India, and Malaysia. Relations with France were complex, given both French oil concessions in Sudan, and that Chad is a French client. Since the oilfields are in the south, the northern interests might be quite different if the south dealt with the oil operators.

Since the Agreement, however, and South Sudan's separate conduct of foreign policy, the Southern interactions emphasize Uganda and Kenya, and has a good deal of interaction with the West as well as China and India. External Christian groups, at a final conference in Washington, D.C. helped resolve the internal conflict between Dinka and Nuer. There are mutual interests with Ethiopia.