Sudan: International Dimensions to the State and Its Crisis

crisis states research centre OCCASIONAL PAPERS Occasional Paper no. 3 Sudan: international dimensions to the state and its crisis Alex de Waal Social Science Research Council April 2007 ISSN 1753 3082 (online) Copyright © Alex de Waal, 2007 Although every effort is made to ensure the accuracy and reliability of material published in this Occasional Paper, the Crisis States Research Centre and LSE accept no responsibility for the veracity of claims or accuracy of information provided by contributors. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher nor be issued to the public or circulated in any form other than that in which it is published. Requests for permission to reproduce this Occasional Paper, or any part thereof, should be sent to: The Editor, Crisis States Research Centre, LSE, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE 1 Crisis States Research Centre Sudan: International Dimensions to the State and its Crisis Alex de Waal Social Science Research Council Overview This paper follows on from the associated essay, “Sudan: What Kind of State? What Kind of Crisis?”1 which concluded that the two dominant characteristics of the Sudanese state are (a) the extreme economic and political inequality between a hyper-dominant centre and peripheries that are weak and fragmented and (b) the failure of any single group or faction within the centre to exercise effective control over the institutions of the state, but who nonetheless can collectively stay in power because of their disproportionate resources. As a result, Sudan has been marked by chronic political instability, characterised by (a) constantly shifting coalitions at the centre, (b) protracted armed conflict in the peripheries and (c) the persistent ability of the broader central elite class to not only survive but prosper amid this flux and crisis. The Sudanese state is deeply dysfunctional but has thus far proved resistant to radical restructuring. This paper continues this analysis, examining the international dimensions to these entrenched patterns of governance. Sudan’s crisis is internationalised in two major ways. First, the viability of the state and its military is dependent upon external financial linkages, both donor assistance and informal flows of resources. Second, the mercantile and security hinterland of the central elites extends beyond the country’s borders, so that Sudan is entangled in its neighbours’ internal conflicts. The first part of this paper locates the internationalisation of Sudanese governance in a historical context, briefly noting how the country had an unusual and complex experience of imperial rule. This section mentions some of the implications of this for post-independence politics. The second section looks into Sudan’s relationship with its donors and creditors. It examines how the government has managed to maintain a remarkable degree of autonomy despite its enormous debt burden that should in principle have left it dependent. It looks at how successive governments have managed to finance the war using a mixture of formal and informal channels for international resource flows. The conclusion is that while Sudan today possesses the finance to escape from its dependence, it is unlikely to be able to manage such a feat because of the contending power centres within Khartoum. The third section examines how Sudan relates to its eastern, western and southern neighbours. In common with its domestic pattern of contested power and policy, Sudan has generally followed several competing foreign policies at the same time. Sudan’s strategy for peripheral governance has included creating clientelistic relationships with governments, security services and insurgents across its frontiers. This is the structural condition underpinning the ubiquitous “spillover” of conflicts into neighbouring countries, and from neighbouring countries into the Sudanese peripheries. The conclusion is that Sudan is a regional power, exporting its habit of retail politics over its international frontiers. This has grave implications for the region. 1 Crisis States Occasional Paper 2 (April 2007). 2 The last part of the paper examines the international strategies for peacemaking in Sudan and the role they play in governance strategies. International mediators and guarantors of agreements have become drawn into Sudanese political affairs, becoming players in the unending game of political reshuffling and manoeuvre. Because Sudan’s political system is marked by very limited levels of trust, agreements tend to be politically opportunistic rather than founded on confidence that they will prevail. The weaker parties (provincial insurgents) increasingly look to international guarantees to compensate for their expectation of betrayal from the centre. Peacemaking efforts for the Khartoum-Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) conflict succeeded in 2001-05 primarily because of an unusual focus and clarity of international policy and the unusual geo- political environment following September 11, 2001. Peacemaking efforts for Darfur in Abuja and subsequently are unlikely to succeed because they are unfocused and the multiple and ambitious goals of the U.S. exceed its diminished power. The paper concludes with the observation that there are no obvious or simple solutions to Sudan’s crisis, noting again that the flux and indeterminacy that continue to characterise Sudanese politics are an outcome of the structure of power and not the perfidy of individuals. History Sudan was created by a peculiar colonisation. It was trebly an imperial conquest. For most of the territory’s inhabitants, the most significant “foreign” rulers were traders and soldiers from two tribes in Northern Sudan, who conquered and dominated the peripheries up to (and in some cases beyond) the country’s current borders. Known collectively as jellaba, this group dominated the trade and administration and held senior positions in the army. During the first colonial period (1821-83) the formal sovereign was the neighbouring state of Egypt – which at that time was a province of the Ottoman Empire - and during the second period (1898-1955) Sudan was formally an Anglo-Egyptian condominium.2 Beginning in the 1860s, the British Empire underpinned Egypt’s colonial enterprise. But the fact that from early days Sudan was an exercise in dependent colonization - conquest by a state that was itself subject to imperial domination - meant that formal incorporation into the metropolitan empire was never complete. Britain’s Sudan Political Service was a branch of the foreign office not the colonial office (Daly 1991, 2003; Deng and Daly 1989). The dissonance between the interests of the different conquistadors created some of the most significant themes in Sudanese history (Fabunmi 1960; Warburg 1992; Woodward 1979). For the Northern tribes, the primary concerns were power and mercantile opportunity. The most useful political skill was navigating the interests of Cairo and London so as to retain paramountcy within Sudan. For the Egyptians, the motives included prestige, realpolitik and profit (Troutt-Powell 2003). Initially, Egypt sought an empire to rival the French who had defeated and humiliated the country in 1798. For millennia, Egyptians had wanted to locate and control the source of the Nile, and controlling Sudan was the first and most essential step in that. Southward expansion was also an opportunity for primitive capital accumulation. After the completion of the Suez canal, Egypt was unable to pay its debts, and the running of the Egyptian state was taken over by its creditors, principally Britain. The British imposed what would now be called “good governance conditionalities” on its dependent - specifically it insisted on the abolition of the slave trade. This 2 In principle, sovereignty was exercised jointly by Egypt (on the basis of its conquests of 1821-83) and Britain. In practice Britain was the dominant partner, not least because Egypt was itself under British administration for the early part of the condominium period. 3 placed the Egyptian ruling class and its Northern Sudanese allies in an awkward position, as their profits were heavily reliant on the same economic activities that their controlling creditor demanded should be suppressed (Bjørkelo 1989). While the abolitionist rhetoric was sustained, in practice many of the European administrators sent to Sudan were ready to compromise with the unsavoury reality of what they euphemistically called “Sudanese servants.” These inescapable contradictions came to a head by the early 1880s, resulting in widespread support for the millenarian rebellion headed by Mohamed Ahmad al Mahdi. For the British, engagement in Sudan began as an adjunct to strategic interest in Egypt. The overriding aim was to stop France controlling the Suez Canal and hence the sea route to India. However, Britain soon developed an important streak of philanthropic imperialism in the form of the suppression of the slave trade. The pretext for dispatching British soldiers and administrators to Sudan was to ensure that the Egyptians carried out their promise in this respect. In the 1890s, the demand to avenge the death of General Charles Gordon also helped drive the charge to war against the Mahdist armies. However, it was strategic rivalry that prompted the 1896-98 invasion. After the French sent an expedition from the Congo that set up a base on the Upper

Load more