A nation that’s only

Roots of South Sudan crisis in 19th century France and Britain, writes Peter Jones

SUDAN has been in the news a lot lately with the Liberal Party focus on “African gangs” in Victoria and issues over basketball teams in the same state.

Two South Sudanese teenagers, Joseph Deng and Peter Bol, have also emerged as Australia’s fastest middledistance runners, having come here as children when their families were refugees.

Less well known is the nature of the civil war in the world’s newest country, South Sudan, resulting in the third largest number of refugees in the world as over a million civilians have fled over the border into Uganda. Uganda, unlike Australia, has an opendoor policy on accepting refugees and Bidi Bidi is now one of the world’s largest refugee camps with about a quarter of a million people, more than the population of Hobart.

This is a country that has been at war virtually since Sudan became independent in 1956 and then in South Sudan since it seceded to become independent in 2011.

As usual, the roots of the conflict go back to the 19th century when Great Britain and France drew up the borders of their African colonies, including Sudan.

Egypt had always had influence in the northern Sudan but Muhammad Ali, ruling on behalf of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, moved further south and seized territory there in the 1820s. The French then persuaded the Khedive (the name of the ruler in Egypt) to allow them to build the Suez Canal which was constructed between 1859 and 1869. For France and Great Britain, it drastically cut the distance to their colonies in Asia and beyond. When the Khedive needed money, he sold his shares in the Canal to Britain in 1875. In Sudan, a revolt against their rulers broke out in 1881, led by the Mahdi, and the British government sent their famous war hero, General Gordon, to put down the rebellion. Gordon was however killed by the rebels in Khartoum in January 1885 after disobeying orders from London to evacuate it.

At this point, New South Wales decided to join the Imperial Force to get revenge for Gordon’s death by showing loyalty to the Empire, and six Tasmanians formed part of the 495-man contingent that headed for Sudan early in 1885. No-one was killed (though several died of illness) because they arrived too late for any fighting and returned later in the same year.

The Scramble for Africa developed after the Berlin Conference in 1885 and British and French ambitions collided in South Sudan. The French, moving eastwards from their colonies in West Africa, set out to control the Upper Nile Basin and exclude Britain from Sudan but encountered an Anglo-Egyptian force at Fashoda on the White Nile in 1898. Conflict was avoided when the French decided they would need British assistance in any war with Germany so backed down. Sudan became known as the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan after British annexation in 1896, despite the obvious difference between the Arab Muslim north of the territory and the predominantly Christian African south. Christianity had arrived in the region through missionaries coming from British East Africa.

Sudan gained independence in 1956, but war broke out even before then, because the South resented control from Khartoum and the Arab north and felt cheated after the new government reneged over a promise of federation. This war lasted till a ceasefire in 1972 by which time 4 million people had been displaced, fleeing to neighbouring countries as refugees.

Another war broke out in 1987 after the government in Sudan sought to introduce Islamic law while another conflict broke out in Darfur province in the east of Sudan in 2003.

Finally after a settlement was negotiated, a referendum was held in 2010 and following a strong Yes vote, South Sudan gained independence in July 2011. The West, having backed the predominantly Christian South, provided extensive economic aid and trained the military. They thought the era of conflict was now over, but within two years, a civil war had broken out. The new President, Salva Kiir, who was favoured by the US and even presented with a cowboy hat by President George W. Bush, had fired his deputy, Riek Machar, in 2013.

The conflict was exacerbated by the existence of different ethnic groups as well as the extensive sale of weapons by the US, Israel and China. The use of child soldiers was given the nod by the Obama administration despite the Child Soldiers Prevention Act. Several attempts to introduce an arms embargo have failed. More than 2 million people have fled since 2013. Many are children without parents. In South Sudan itself, more than half the population are lacking adequate nutrition.

A new agreement was signed between Kiir and Machar in June this year so only time will tell if this finally brings an end to the conflict.

In the meantime, the Sudanese community has become a useful football for politicians with little or no knowledge of the trauma the community has already suffered, and the fact that many of the younger generation were born either in refugee camps or in Australia.

Tasmania’s Peter D. Jones is a teacher of modern history and comparative religion. He has travelled in Sudan and worked with Sudanese refugees in Australia.