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1. Ending the War in Sudan will be Difficult

Author:
Jędrzej Czerep
Publication Date:
05-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Polish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Fighting in Sudan between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has been ongoing since 15 April. The clashes are mainly taking place in the capital, Khartoum, and in the Darfur region, causing the destruction of infrastructure, a humanitarian disaster, and the displacement of the population. Although neither side has achieved military superiority or the support of the population, they are determined to continue fighting until the opponent is eliminated, which makes efforts to achieve a permanent ceasefire difficult. In the longer term, international support for a political solution to the crisis should aim to restore civilian control of the state.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, War, Armed Forces, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan

2. South Sudan: Jonglei—"We Have Always Been at War"

Publication Date:
12-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Jonglei state's combustible mix of armed political opposition, violent ethnic militias and dysfunctional political system were part of the tinder that led to the eruption of the civil war in South Sudan in late December 2013. Despite eleven months of peace talks, mediated by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the war threatens to reintensify in the coming weeks. The negotiations do not reflect the diversity of armed groups and interests in South Sudan and the region, most of which are nominally allied with either President Salva Kiir's government or former Vice President Riek Machar's Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement/Army-In Opposition (SPLM/ A-IO). The constellation of regional and South Sudanese armed groups in Jonglei is emblematic of the regional, national and local challenges to peace and the pattern of a war that cannot be resolved by engaging only two of the nearly two-dozen armed groups in the country and ignoring those that have not yet engaged in the fight.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Political Violence, Governance, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
Sudan

3. Sudan: Preserving Peace in the East

Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
The situation in Sudan’s forgotten East – without deadly conflict since the 2006 Eastern Sudan Peace Agreement (ESPA) – stands in contrast to the fighting besetting the country’s other peripheries. But this peace is increasingly fragile. Seven years after the ESPA’s signing, the conflict’s root causes remain and in some respects are more acute, due to the failure to implement many of the agreement’s core provisions. Mirroring elsewhere in the country, with no sign of genuine efforts by Khartoum to address the situation, conflict could erupt in the East again and lead to further national fragmentation. All ESPA stakeholders urgently need to reconvene and address the deteriorating situation; the leading sign atories need publicly to concede that the promises of the original agreement have not met expectations and reach a consensus on remedial measures.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Political Violence, Development, and Fragile/Failed State
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan

4. Sudan: Major Reform or More War

Publication Date:
11-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
The “Sudan Problem” has not gone away with the South's secession. Chronic conflict, driven by concentration of power and resources in the centre, continues to plague the country. The solution is a more inclusive government that addresses at least some of the peripheries' grievances, but pledges to transform governance remain unfulfilled. A key hurdle – though not the only one – is President Bashir, who has further concentrated authority in a small circle of trusted officials and is unwilling to step aside. Many hope for regime change via coup but have not considered the dangers. The goal should be managed transition to a government that includes, but is not dominated by his National Congress Party (NCP). He might be willing to go along if he concludes greater disorder or even a coup is growing more likely, but only if the right incentives are in place. The international community should contribute to these provided a credible and inclusive transitional government, a meaningful national dialogue on a new constitution and a roadmap for permanent change in how Sudan is governed are first put firmly in train.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Regime Change, Insurgency, and Fragile/Failed State
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan

5. Toward a New Republic of Sudan

Author:
Jon Temin and Theodore Murphy
Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Approaches to Sudan's challenges—by both Sudanese and the international community— have been fragmented and regionally focused rather than national in scope. They overlook fundamental governance challenges at the roots of Sudan's decades of instability and the center of the country's economic and political dominance of the periphery, which marginalizes a majority of the population. Such fragmentation diffuses efforts into fighting various eruptions of violence throughout the periphery and confounds efforts to address governance and identity issues. Ongoing processes in the future Republic of Sudan, sometimes referred to as north Sudan, continue this trend. While Darfur negotiations and popular consultations in Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan states should continue, they should eventually be subsumed into a national process aimed at addressing the root causes of Sudan's governance failures. The process should feed into, and then be reified by, development of a new national constitution. Even now the goal of these regional processes should be re-envisaged as steps toward a national process. Sudanese negotiations largely occur between elites. Negotiators often cannot claim genuine representativeness, resulting in lack of broad buy-in and minimal consultation with the wider population. The ongoing Darfur negotiations are a case in point. To avoid prolonging the trend, a more national process should be broad-based and consultative. It should feature an inclusive dialogue, involving representatives from throughout the periphery, about the nature of the Sudanese state and how to manage Sudan's considerable diversity. Southern secession in July 2011 presents an opportunity for Sudanese to take a more comprehensive, holistic approach to their governance problems. Significant adjustments are warranted by the end of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, such as the development of a new constitution. The opportunity to initiate fundamental governance reform may be ripe because the ruling National Congress Party is under intense political and economic pressure. The Arab Spring revolts, the economic shock of lost oil revenue, and the proof of governance failure that southern secession represents have inspired, among some NCP leaders, a belief in the necessity of preemptive change. Any reform of northern governance should be led by Sudanese. Perceptions that external actors are forcing change can be counterproductive. The international community can support a reform process but should tread carefully. International efforts should focus on promoting an enabling environment in which nascent Sudanese-led efforts can take root and grow. Support to constructive voices and aid to inchoate political initiatives should be available when requested. Supporting a national process poses a challenge for the international community as its capacity, pressure, and incentives are already distributed across the various regional political processes. Pressures and incentives are tied to specific benchmarks defined by those processes, making it difficult to reorient them toward the new criteria dictated by a national process.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Political Violence, Civil War, and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan

6. The Sudan Referendum and Neighbouring Countries: Egypt and Uganda

Author:
Øystein Rolandsen, Jacob Høigilt, and Åshild Falch
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
Abstract:
As a former coloniser and the Sudan's Nile-valley neighbour to the north, Egypt will inevitably be affected by the Sudan's political transition. As Egypt's regional influence appears to wane, the Sudan's increasing economic strength and the likely secession of Southern Sudan exemplify Egypt's overall difficulties in regard to the regional politics of the Horn of Africa and Nile Basin. Egyptian policy-makers and diplomats struggle with fundamental contradictions in Egypt's current regional status, competing priorities, and the need to stay on good terms with all political parties in the Sudan. To be able to balance domestic needs, relations with its immediate neighbours, and its role as a regional power Egypt must reshape its foreign policy; Egypt's national interests in the Sudan preclude neutrality in the processes ahead. It can however play a key role in a joint regional and international effort to secure the peaceful secession for Southern Sudan.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Foreign Policy, Civil War, Democratization, Diplomacy, Ethnic Conflict, and Islam
Political Geography:
Uganda, Africa, Sudan, and Egypt

7. Final Report: Observing Sudan's 2010 National Elections, April 11–18, 2010

Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
The April 2010 elections in Sudan were mandated by the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). They were intended to be instrumental in setting the stage for the referendum and corresponding negotiations and were envisioned as a critical part of a broader democratic transformation. In the period between the CPA's signing and the holding of the national elections, political rights and freedoms were circumscribed, placing limits on political parties and civil society and fostering distrust between the ruling parties and the opposition in the North and South that was to prove central in undermining the inclusiveness and credibility of the elections.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Civil War, and Democratization
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan

8. Rhetoric and Reality: The Failure to Resolve the Darfur Conflict

Author:
Julie Flint
Publication Date:
01-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Small Arms Survey
Abstract:
Seven years after large-scale militia attacks signalled a change in the long- running but generally low-level conflict in Darfur, an unprecedented array of international instruments has been deployed, often chaotically, to address the conflict, including peacekeepers, peacemakers, special envoys, mediators, sanctions, embargoes, and criminal prosecution. Yet peace remains as elusive as ever. In the three and a half years since the Darfur Peace Agreement was precipitously concluded in Abuja and, rejected by most Darfurians, left to wither, the paradigm of government–rebel talks has persisted, despite stalemate. Time is not on Darfur's side: the longer the conflict continues, the more actors become involved and the harder it is to resolve. With national elections scheduled for April 2010 and a referendum on self-determination for Southern Sudan in 2011, the focus has moved away from Darfur. This Working Paper examines mediation efforts since Abuja and suggests why they have failed.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Civil War, Ethnic Conflict, Treaties and Agreements, and Armed Struggle
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan

9. The African Union in Darfur: Understanding the afro-arab response to the crisis

Author:
A. Sarjoh Bah
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
Darfur, an arid region in western Sudan, has become synonymous with genocide, though many have been reluctant to describe the situation there in such terms, not least the African Union (AU). As the conflict between Government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) raged on for over two decades, long-standing tensions in Darfur were neglected. Meanwhile, negotiations led by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) culminated in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in January 2005, marking the end of Africa's longest running civil war; a conflict that had claimed the lives of approximately two million people and displaced millions more. However, the marginalisation of Darfur meant that the celebrations marking the end of the north-south conflict were short-lived, as news of mass murder involving government soldiers and their infamous militia allies, the Janjaweed, eclipsed the much celebrated deal. In Darfur, the Government and Janjaweed were pitted against the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the two groups that had taken up arms against the Islamist government in early 2003.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Civil War, Peace Studies, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
Africa, Sudan, Middle East, and Arabia

10. Why Sudan's Popular Consultation Matters

Publication Date:
11-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Largely unnoticed outside the region, the Sudanese states of Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile have begun the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA)–mandated process of popular consultation, which permits Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile to either adopt the CPA as the final settlement between the two states and the Government of Sudan (GoS) or renegotiate the CPA to remedy any shortcomings and reach a final settlement. The first phase of the popular consultation process involves civic education campaigns to inform the two states' populations of the contents of the CPA and the issues at stake. The second phase is the consultations themselves, which are to be conducted by a commission in each state. The results of the consultations will be reported to the state assemblies and inform the positions taken by the states during negotiations with the central government. A successful popular consultation could begin to transform Sudanese politics by realigning political interests from political parties to the states and could provide a test case for new governance structures between the center and the states. A neglected or mismanaged process could destabilize not just Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, but all of Sudan. The international community can contribute to a successful process through financial assistance, monitoring and reporting, promoting reconciliation within the population, and engaging directly with Khartoum and Juba to smooth negotiations. It might also anticipate possible procedural challenges and prepare to engage in creative and quiet diplomacy should the need arise.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Civil Society, Democratization, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan

11. Scenarios for Sudan: Avoiding Political Violence Through 2011

Author:
Alan Schwartz
Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Absent a change in current trends, further political violence in Sudan will be hard to avoid. Lack of governance capacity in the South and failure to resolve key issues between the North and South are important factors that can lead to political violence surrounding the referendum, slated for 2011, on whether the South secedes or remains part of a united Sudan. The parties need a shared sense of confidence about post-2011 futures. The North should be encouraged to cooperate in the referendum process and accept the outcome. The Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) should devote more energy and resources to governance and service delivery rather than building military capability. The international community needs an assistance strategy focused on enhancing the GOSS's capacity to deliver services through local governments. The United States and the international community should pressure and assist the parties to promptly pass referendum legislation and address fundamental issues (e.g., oil and boundaries) before the referendum.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Political Violence, Genocide, Human Rights, and Armed Struggle
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, Sudan, and Arabia

12. Against the Gathering Storm: Securing Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement

Author:
Edward Thomas
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Chatham House
Abstract:
Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed in 2005, ending two decades of war between Sudan's central government and the Southern-based Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army. The CPA shares wealth and power between Sudan's powerful Centre, a newly autonomous South, and Sudan's other vast, diverse, impoverished peripheries. The bold peace gave new legitimacy to the two parties, who agreed to face their first competitive elections in 2009. Southern Sudan will have a referendum on self-determination in 2011.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Treaties and Agreements, and War
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan

13. The Broader Horn:Peacekeeping in a Strategic Vacuum

Author:
A. Sarjoh Bah
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
The deployment of peacekeepers is increasingly becoming a reflex solution to crises, often in the absence of viable political agreements. The cluster of peace operations in the Broader Horn of Africa – stretching from Central African Republic and Chad, through Sudan, to Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia – epitomizes both practices. Moreover, though the conflicts in the region are deeply inter-linked, the peace operations there are not, nor do they form part of a broader regional strategy. Lack of a regional strategy compounds pre-existing problems of weak commitment and slow implementation. The results have been unsurprisingly poor, at great human cost.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Peace Studies, and Post Colonialism
Political Geography:
Africa, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea

14. Consultation on the Crisis in Darfur: New Strategies for a Just Peace Settlement

Author:
George Shepherd, Peter Van Arsdale, Negin Sobhani, Nicole Tanner, and Frederick AgyemanDuah
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Africa Policy Information Center
Abstract:
Africa Today Associates, Inc. (ATA) is a 501 (C) (3) non-profit organization registered in the United States of America. The organization was created in 1967 to publish the journal Africa Today and to address significant human rights issues involving the African continent. The journal had been launched in 1954 by Professor George Shepherd, the first Director of the American Committee on Africa (ACOA), to educate the public on Africa's struggle against colonialism. When ACOA could no longer publish the journal, ATA was moved to the University of Denver's Graduate School of International Studies (recently renamed the Josef Korbel School of International Studies). Since 2000, the journal has been owned and published by the University of Indiana Press.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Political Violence, and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Africa, Washington, and Sudan

15. Conduct and Discipline in Un Peacekeeping Operations: Culture, Political Economy and Gender

Author:
Catherine Lutz, Matthew C. Gutmann, and Keith Brown
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
Systematic patterns of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) have emerged around UN peacekeeping missions over the course of many years.1 Reports of abuse by peacekeepers in Cambodia and the Balkans in the 1990s were followed by news of similar problems in West African missions in 2001 and 2002. The Secretary General subsequently issued a 2003 Bulletin outlining a zero-tolerance policy, but the abuse continued. In 2004, peacekeeper misconduct became widely known through mainstream media reports that UN personnel in MONUC, the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, had been engaging in sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) of local women and children. The SEA included, most egregiously, peacekeepers' exchange of UN food supplies or money for sex with young girls and sometimes boys. SEA has been a particular problem in mission areas where extreme poverty and conflict or post-conflict trauma and social dislocation drive local people to sell their bodies, but it has occurred in more developed contexts as well, such as Cyprus and Kosovo. The UN response to these problems has been to establish, in 2005, a Conduct and Discipline Unit with offices in New York and mission areas, charged with addressing the problem in a variety of ways. SEA continues to occur since then, with serious incidents revealed in Sudan, Liberia, Haiti, Cote d'Ivoire, and again in the Congo.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Corruption, Crime, Gender Issues, Sex Trafficking, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
United States, New York, Sudan, Kosovo, Cambodia, Haiti, Liberia, West Africa, and Cyprus

16. Sudan's Southern Kordofan Problem: The Next Darfur?

Publication Date:
10-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended Sudan's generation-long North-South civil war in 2005 is at risk in Southern Kordofan state, where many of the same ingredients exist that produced the vicious Darfur conflict. Both parties to that agreement, the National Congress Party (NCP) and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), who together form the Government of National Unity in Khartoum, have been guilty of mistakes and misjudgements there as they manoeuvre for partisan advantage in advance of national elections scheduled for 2009. Any strategy for addressing the problems must recognise that time is short. Concrete progress on integration and reform is essential to address the prospect of what could be a devastating new conflict. Rapid interventions are needed, well before the national elections.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan

17. Beyond Darfur: Sudan in its Entirety

Author:
Matt Levy
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Africa Policy Information Center
Abstract:
Sudan is known to most Americans today for the ongoing genocide in its western region of Darfur, yet the problems facing this country are more complex than many activists are aware. As the largest country in Africa and the size of the United States East of the Mississippi River1, Sudan faces many challenges, governance chief among them. Shaped by its history, modern Sudan experienced two phases of civil war between the North and South (1955-1972 and 1983- 2005) killing more than two million while displacing many millions more. In 2005, this conflict ceased with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). However, it is in danger of erupting once again if CPA implementation continues to be delayed due to Khartoum's intransigence on many issues and the capacity challenges faced by the Government of Southern Sudan.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Foreign Policy, and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, America, and Sudan

18. Northern Uganda: The Road to Peace, with or without Kony

Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
The Juba peace process, intended to bring closure to the northern Uganda conflict and disarm Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), is failing. On 29 November, Kony failed again to appear at the Ri-Kwangba assembly point to sign the Final Peace Agreement (FPA). Since April, armed actions attributed (not always accurately) to the LRA resumed in Sudan's Western Equatoria state and the Bas Uélé district of the Congo (DRC). The LRA menace has moved out of Uganda, but the north does not yet have the certainty of sustainable peace. The government's reconstruction, development and oil exploitation policies will only bring peace if joined to a credible process of consultation over benefits and of reconciliation and measures to address the region's marginalisation from national institutions. Additional negotiations on insufficient aspects of the protocols, under a new format and supported by a military containment strategy, are also needed to disarm and reintegrate LRA fighters. For all this to happen, donor governments must adopt a more critical view of government intentions and performance.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution and Conflict Prevention
Political Geography:
Uganda and Sudan

19. Chad: A New Conflict Resolution Framework - Africa Report N°144

Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
The political and security crisis Chad faces is internal, and has been exacerbated rather than caused by the meddling of its Sudanese neighbours. Power has been monopolised by a Zaghawa military clan with President Idriss Déby at the top since 1990, leading to increased violence in political and social relations, ethnic tensions and distribution of the spoils of government on the basis of clan favouritism. Neither return to a multi-party system in 1990, enhanced government revenues from newly exploited oil reserves since 2004, nor elections backed by Chad's Western allies have brought democracy or improved governance. The international community must press for an internal reconciliation process focused on reforming the Chadian state, particularly its administration and security sector, and ending the armed insurgency. At the same time, a regional process must be revived to address longstanding disputes between Chad and Sudan and eliminate the pattern of proxy war and support for each other's rebels.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Security, and Insurgency
Political Geography:
Africa, Sudan, and Chad

20. Implementing Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement; Prospects and Challenges

Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Wilson Center
Abstract:
On September 11th, 2006, just over a year after the passing of John Garang, and 18 months after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) on January 9, 2005, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the National Defense University convened a conference to assess the progress that had been made in implementing Sudan's landmark CPA. The conference brought together experts and policymakers to discuss the state of CPA implementation, the relationship between the CPA and political developments elsewhere in Sudan, notably in Darfur, and the ways in which the international community might assist in building a sustainable peace in Sudan.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan