Before South Sudan’s independence in 2011, Sudan was the largest country in Africa and bordered nine other African countries: covering more than 2,500,000 square kilometres with 19 major ethnic groups and over 500 subgroups speaking more than 60 languages and dialects. Simply navigating this vast land presents significant challenges.

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Conflict may be synonymous with Sudan but alongside exists a continuum of peacebuilding efforts. The international community and Intergovernmental Authority on Drought & Development (IGADD, latterly IGAD) were heavily involved in peace-building efforts between the Government of Sudan and the rebel group, the SPLM/A throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Internal peacebuilding efforts led by the churches and NGOs focused on the inter-factional fighting that had been devastating local communities for decades. The number of different factions, competing groups and warlords in southern Sudan throughout the 1990s/2000s was staggering and when combined with communal grievances presented a deeply complex landscape covering a vast geographical area. To put the context of this kaleidoscopic conflict into one that holds foreign oil companies as responsible is a clear misrepresentation of the history of Sudan.

 

Droughts, floods and famine are also recurrent themes in Sudan’s history. These incidences have not only caused death and food shortages but also displacement on a large scale. From the 1980s through the 1990s, droughts accompanied the desertification of Sudan. This led to the movement of people seeking to improve their socio-economic opportunities and prospects for basic survival. Increased conflicts for water, grazing land and fishing rights, as well as cattle raids, particularly between the major southern ethnic groups, the Dinka and Nuer, were a constant feature in Sudan’s instability. It is estimated that the inter-factional conflicts in the 1990s and the new millennium were responsible for ninety-per cent of internally displaced people in Sudan.

 

Sudan was the largest recipient of aid in sub-Saharan Africa in the 1980s. During the 1990s, humanitarian emphasis began to shift from relief to development. The aid industry was also attempting to move to more sustainable methods to establish longer term peacebuilding in Sudan. The UN Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) (1989-2005) was one such example. It was a unique operation as it involved a tripartite agreement between the UN, Government of Sudan and the SPLM/A. Over time, aid would become synonymous with the conflict as aid was taken by the SPLM/A and used in its military campaigns against the Government of Sudan and by the other militia groups in their internecine conflicts in the south. Crucially, these conflicts both pre- and post-dated the Company’s oil exploration in Block 5A and their causes multi-layered. Factors include the role of political elites, inter and intra-tribal animosities, competition and control of resources such as land and cattle, historic external influences from Egyptian interference to the divide and rule policies of colonial Britain.

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In southern Sudan, the prevailing way of life is traditional agriculture and the raising of livestock. For decades, this has led to acute competition and conflict over natural resources, such as water, fishing and grazing, among the various communities. Farmers and nomadic herdsmen in undeveloped rural areas have historically clashed for long-standing reasons, unconnected with oil resources. Religion and ethnicity have been exploited by elites and foreign actors for their own political agendas. Famine and food have been used frequently as weapons of war. Arms have been supplied by foreign powers via Sudan’s neighbours fighting proxy or ideological wars via Sudanese factional groups or opportune warlords. The picture is complex and history disputed.