Sudan under Bashir
Bashir and his colleagues realized that, as a minority with little popular support, they would have to resort to harsh measures to curtail the educated elites who had been instrumental in organizing populist revolutions in the past. With a ruthlessness to which the Sudanese were unaccustomed, the RCC imprisoned hundreds of political opponents, banned trade unions and political parties, silenced the press, and dismantled the judiciary. It sought to prosecute the war in the south with vigour, inhibited only by the deterioration of the national economy. With the support of the NIF, the Muslim Brotherhood, and a ruthless and efficient security system, the most unpopular government in the modern history of Sudan remained firmly in power as the country entered the last decade of the 20th century.
The confidence of the RCC and its supporters in the Muslim Brotherhood enabled Bashir to reintroduce Islamic law, including corporal punishment, in March 1991 and emboldened the government to support Iraq in the Persian Gulf War. Both these acts isolated Sudan not only from the West but from its Arab neighbours as well (although the Libyan government was supportive). The economy continued to deteriorate, precipitated by this isolation and also by civil war in the south, fallen productivity, and rampant inflation. There were widespread shortages of basic commodities, particularly in the sensitive urban areas, creating disturbances which were ruthlessly suppressed.
Ongoing civil war
In the south the army continued to lose towns to the SPLA, but it managed to hold the three provincial capitals of Malakal, Wau, and Juba. Unable to defeat the SPLA on the field of battle, the government armed and unleashed an Arab militia against their traditional African rivals, principally the Dinka. Moreover, it consistently ignored pleas for food and obstructed the efforts of Western humanitarian relief agencies to provide food aid. Caught between two armies, plundered by the Arab militia, and scourged by a persistent drought, countless Africans fled to northern towns and cities or sought sanctuary in Ethiopia. Thousands perished while fleeing the endemic East African famine or died in the camps for the displaced, where they received no relief from the RCC-led government, which was determined to crush the SPLA as the initial step in a policy to Islamize the non-Muslims of southern Sudan.
Transition to civilian rule
The RCC ruled until 1993. That year it oversaw the transition from military rule to a civilian government. Nonetheless, it was a civilian government in which the NIF was securely in power, as the RCC appointed Bashir to the presidency of the new government before disbanding. The first presidential and legislative elections since the 1989 coup were held in 1996; Bashir won the presidency and was also reelected in 2000. The ostensible transformation of the government continued with a 1998 referendum in which a new constitution was overwhelmingly approved. The introduction of multiparty politics in 1999, although viewed with pessimism by many, also seemed to support the transition to a more democratic approach to government. The partial suspension of the new constitution later that year, however, tempered optimism, as it appeared Sudan was clinging to an authoritarian regime. Also that year, Sudan began to export oil, providing the opportunity to bring in much-needed revenue to the country’s blighted economy.
Peace with the south
Meanwhile, the civil war continued to rage. Numerous cease-fires, agreements, and peace discussions occurred during the 1990s and in the early years of the 21st century but yielded very little success. The government of Sudan and rebels eventually signed an agreement in January 2005, known as the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), finally ending the country’s long-running civil war. The CPA provided for a new constitution and outlined new measures for sharing power, distributing wealth, and providing security in the country. It also allowed for a separate administration for southern Sudan and stipulated that a referendum on independence for that region would be held in six years—key issues for the rebels.
Conflict in Darfur
A separate conflict that remained unresolved centred on the Darfur region in western Sudan. The conflict began in 2003 when rebels launched an insurrection to protest what they contended was the Sudanese government’s disregard for the western region and its non-Arab population. In response, the government equipped and supported Arab militias—which came to be known as Janjaweed (also Jingaweit or Janjawid)—to fight against the rebels in Darfur. The militias, however, also terrorized the civilians in the region and prevented international aid organizations from delivering much-needed food and medical supplies. Despite a 2004 cease-fire and the presence of African Union (AU) troops that followed, by 2007 the conflict and resulting humanitarian crisis had left hundreds of thousands of people dead and more than two million displaced, internally as well as externally, as they were forced to flee from the fighting. On July 31, 2007, the United Nations Security Council authorized a joint UN-AU peacekeeping mission (UNAMID) to replace the AU mission, although UNAMID troop deployment did not begin until 2008.
In July 2008 an International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor alleged that Bashir, as president of Sudan, bore criminal responsibility for the crisis in Darfur. The prosecutor accused Bashir of orchestrating genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in the region and sought a warrant for his arrest; the Sudanese government denied the charges and proclaimed Bashir’s innocence. On March 4, 2009, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity but not genocide. The warrant marked the first time that the ICC had sought the arrest of a sitting head of state.
Multiparty elections and preparations for southern independence
The ICC warrant seemed to have little bearing on Bashir’s popularity in Sudan, and in April 2010 he was reelected president with some 68 percent of the vote in the country’s first multiparty elections in more than 20 years. Salva Kiir, who had been serving as national first vice president under Bashir and as president of the semi-autonomous government in southern Sudan since the death of John Garang in 2005, received almost 93 percent of the vote to continue serving in that capacity. The election results were clouded by the withdrawal of Bashir’s two main opposition candidates prior to the contest, who alleged that there were already indications of fraudulent practices, and by the declaration by some international observers that the elections fell short of international standards.
Per the terms of the 2005 CPA, southern Sudanese citizens voted January 9–15, 2011, in the eagerly awaited referendum on southern independence. Other than a few isolated incidents of violence, the referendum transpired peacefully, and international observers declared the vote to be credible and largely free and fair. Another referendum was initially scheduled to occur at the same time for the inhabitants of the Abyei region, regarding whether that region would be part of the north or the south in the instance that the latter opted for independence. It was postponed indefinitely, however, because of disagreements over voter eligibility in the region.
Preliminary results in the southern independence referendum, released at the end of January, indicated that almost 99 percent of voters opted in favour of seceding from the north; this was confirmed with the announcement of the final results in February. The country then looked toward the final preparations for the south’s secession, scheduled for July 9, 2011. Preparations for the split did not go smoothly, however. As the July independence date grew closer, several key issues remained unresolved between the north and the south, such as the sharing of the country’s oil wealth, distribution of the country’s collective debt, and establishment of the final border demarcation.
Related to the unresolved border issue was an alarming situation in the disputed Abyei region. Under the terms of the 2005 CPA, the region was jointly administered by northern and southern Sudanese until its final status could be determined, which, with the indefinite postponement of the Abyei referendum, was still pending. There had been scattered amounts of low-level violence in Abyei, but tensions reached a new height in May 2011 when Bashir ordered the invasion of the region’s primary town, also named Abyei. He maintained that the invasion was a justified response to southern provocation, citing an attack by southern fighters on northern forces and their UN peacekeeping troop escorts a few days earlier, but the invasion was widely denounced in international circles and elicited cries of protest from the southern Sudanese government. Tens of thousands of Abyei residents were displaced by the conflict. Days later, when Bashir proclaimed Abyei to be northern land and refused to withdraw the northern troops, many feared that the heated situation could reignite civil war in the country, but an agreement was reached in June that provided for a new, temporary north-south administration of the region as well as for the withdrawal of both northern and southern forces from the region. Ethiopian peacekeeping troops agreed to form an interim security force for Abyei.
Meanwhile, another conflict had developed in the central Sudanese state of Southern Kordofan, which shared a border with the soon-to-be-independent south. Although technically in the northern portion of the country, Southern Kordofan was home to thousands of fighters who had allied themselves with the south during the civil war; the state also held much of the oil reserves that were to remain in the north after southern Sudan’s independence. Fighting between the southern-aligned forces and the Sudanese army broke out in early June, with each side accusing the other of instigating the clashes, and the hostilities escalated when the Sudanese army launched a violent campaign to end what they deemed to be a rebellion. The conflict resulted in many civilian casualties and widespread displacement of the state’s population.
The recent hostilities and remaining unresolved secession issues loomed heavily as the south’s scheduled independence date grew closer. With less than a week before the south was scheduled to secede, the north and the south agreed to continue discussions on their unresolved matters—including the key issues of oil-revenue sharing and a final border demarcation—after the south declared independence. The south’s secession took place as scheduled on July 9, 2011.
A new Sudan
Days after the loss of the south—and the lucrative oil fields there—Bashir announced that a three-year program of austerity measures would be implemented to help Sudan adjust to its new fiscal reality. He also spoke of changes in Sudan: speaking of a “second republic,” he included in his statements promises of more transparency in government and greater political freedom for the Sudanese, although these claims were met with some skepticism by his opponents. Bashir also indicated that discussions regarding a new constitution would soon begin, and he pledged that the government would engage in active dialogues to resolve the remaining conflicts in the country. To that end, the government signed a peace agreement with one of the smaller rebel groups of Darfur in July 2011. Later that month, the Central Bank of Sudan introduced a new version of its currency, the Sudanese pound. The launching of Sudan’s new currency, months earlier than expected, came just one week after South Sudan had introduced its own currency. The influx of two new currencies within a narrow time frame raised concerns about economic instability in the region, especially in the wake of all the unresolved issues lingering between the two countries.