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Sudan's Changing Relations with Its Neighbours and The

Sudan's Changing Relations with Its Neighbours and The

’S CHANGING RELATIONS WITH ITS NEIGHBOURS AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR WAR AND PEACE By John Young∗

‘For a majority of weak African states, regions are sources of authoritative foreign policies, places where power is displayed and exerted. They are also the closest and generally most salient threat to regime survival, thereby warranting particular attention.’ (Khadiagala and Lyons, 2001)

Introduction: Critical to understanding the course, dynamics, and of Sudan’s civil war and assessing the prospects of peace is an appreciation of regional relations in the Horn of . Indeed, support by neighbouring countries for one another’s armed dissidents dates almost from Sudan’s independence and is a critical element in regional relations. In the more recent period ’s facilitation of Tigrayan and Eritrean revolutionaries from Sudanese proved crucial in the overthrow of the military in , the coming to power of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), and the establishment of an independent state in under the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front (EPLF). Likewise the Sudan People’s Liberation (SPLA) was actually established in and given state support as a counterweight to the Government of Sudan’s acceptance of Ethiopian and Eritrean rebels operating from its territory (Young, 1997). Subsequently the post-Derg regimes in Ethiopia and Eritrea provided support for the SPLA and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in response to assistance by the National Islamic Front (NIF) to a host of Islamist groups attempting to overthrow the EPRDF and EPLF. A similar pattern was at work in Ugandan-Sudanese relations where ’s support for the SPLA led to, or was due to, Khartoum’s support for the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

Countries of the region have likewise played a critical role in Sudan’s peace processes. Churches from the region, combined with the mediation efforts of Emperor , produced the Addis Ababa Agreement of 1972, which ended the first civil war. And the premier peace process during the second civil war is being pursued by the Inter- Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), and another initiative led by neighbouring countries, and has also attempted to bring peace to the war- weary country.

Against this background, the following article will simply provide a perspective on changing relations by briefly reviewing Khartoum’s relations with its neighbours in 1997 and then again five years later in 2002. These dates are not arbitrary: in 1997 there was region-wide political and military opposition to the NIF, while in 2002 this opposition had almost completely dissipated. Clearly the changing fortunes of the regime and its opposition have major implications for war and peace in Sudan and this is the essential point I want to make in this overview.

∗ Research Associate, Institute of Governance Studies, Simon Fraser University Historical Primer: The coming to power of the military under Omar Beshir in 1989 was cautiously accepted by most countries in the Horn and even warmly welcomed by Egypt which saw the in-coming regime as similar in character to its own (Abdel Salem, 1996). And this was the case even when the Islamist orientation of the regime and the critical role played by Hassan El Turabi became apparent. For its part the regime, seeing the inevitable collapse of the Derg, gave assistance to the Eritrean and Ethiopian dissidents who subsequently came to power in 1991. This clearly favoured positive relations with these two countries. To the south where suspicion of the Arabs and identity with the southern Sudanese was more developed, there was greater distrust of the NIF. But initially while the regime consolidated its hold on power and undermined or eliminated its opponents, relations between countries in the region and Khartoum were restrained.

This early phase did not, however, last long and by the early the NIF was pursuing an aggressive Islamist-based foreign policy parallel to its domestic policies. Indeed, while virtually all Sudanese regimes have had Islamic orientations, particularly in their efforts to Arabise and Islamise the southern Sudanese, the NIF stood out by its efforts to export its vision of political to the countries of the region, and in particular Eritrea and Ethiopia with their large Moslem populations. Relations with and Addis Ababa thus rapidly deteriorated. The incursion from Sudanese territory of a multinational group of Islamist guerrillas into the region of Eritrea in December 1994 proved pivotal in the decline in relations between Khartoum and Asmara (Cliffe, 1997). And the counterpart with respect to both Ethiopia and Egypt was the attempted assassination of President Hosni Mubarak on the streets of Addis Ababa in June 1995, which both countries concluded involved support from elements of the Government of Sudan ( Times, 10-09-95). While Kenyan-Sudanese relations never reached such a low ebb, they became increasingly tense as Khartoum objected (in one instance violently with an aerial bombing of northern ) to ’s logistical assistance of SPLA political and humanitarian operations. On the Ugandan tension also led to tit for tat support for one another’s dissidents.

The fate of the peace process largely mirrored these political developments. In the wake of the collapse of Nigerian mediation efforts as represented by I and Abuja II, President Beshir approached the countries of IGAD in the early 1990s and proposed its intervention (Abdelwahab El-Affendi, 2001). And with relations between Khartoum on balance generally positive with its neighbours (particularly Eritrea and Ethiopia) he and his government assumed that were IGAD to take up the challenge that Khartoum would get a sympathetic hearing. And indeed the SPLA’s initial reluctance to participate in the IGAD Initiative made clear that the movement shared this perspective. However, the Khartoum government misread the regional dynamics and contrary to the assumption of unquestioning support, the governments of Eritrea and Ethiopia were not at all well- disposed to a neighbouring regime based on political Islam and they gave strong support to secularism and to the demand of the SPLA for self-determination. Thus under the influence of Prime Minister Meles of Ethiopia and to some extent President Issias of Eritrea, and with the support of the governments of Kenya, and , an IGAD Peace Initiative was formulated that gave high value to secularism and self- determination in its Declaration of Principles (DOP). The government of Sudan’s

2 forceful rejection of these proposals in 1994 was another formative step in the deterioration of relations with its neighbours.

Thus the NIF’s aggressive attempts to export political Islam in the region, the resistance of the region, and the stymied peace process, together galvanised the countries of the Horn, and in particular Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Uganda, to launch a military campaign against Khartoum. And while the initiative clearly came from the region, the provided military assistance to these three countries and hoped that it would produce, together with the actions of the SPLA and the NDA which it strongly endorsed, sufficient momentum to overthrow the regime in Khartoum. The ultimate objective of this military campaign by the countries of the region, however, was more mixed. In Eritrea it was anticipated that the campaign would lead to the overthrow of the Sudanese regime, while in Ethiopia the military actions carried out seemed to have the lesser objectives of punishing the NIF and strengthening the SPLA. There is no doubt that President Museveni would have liked to see the NIF regime overthrown, but given his other commitments in and the Congo during this period it is not clear whether his army even had the capability of entertaining such far-reaching objectives. But at the least Museveni hoped to end LRA and create a cordon sanitaire between Uganda and the Arab Islamists of the north.

1997: the Region versus the NIF: Thus early 1997 saw a high degree of unity and commitment by the countries of IGAD, and even Egypt, to seriously confront the NIF. Indeed, Egypt had joined with Ethiopia to co-sponsor a Security Council resolution with strong US support for an embargo against Sudan. Egypt had thus moved from initially urging the international community to accept the NIF to making clear at the highest levels its revulsion of the regime. This was not only based on the attempted assassination of Mubarak, which was convinced had NIF support, but also its conviction that the regime was assisting the Egyptian Moslem Brothers. Cairo was also aggrieved at the confiscation of state properties in Khartoum and alarmed at Turabi’s assumption of a leading role in the internationalist Islamist movement, Sudan’s growing relations with Iran, which Cairo saw as its major challenger for dominance in the Middle East, and of its endorsement of Iraq in the Gulf War. With all of these grievances in mind Egypt deliberately intensified the conflict over the long contentious Halib along Sudan and Egypt’s joint border near the Sea and endeavoured in both the Arab and in international forums to isolate the NIF. Although Cairo could not follow IGAD in accepting self-determination for southern Sudan, its hatred of the Khartoum regime and desire to see it replaced was not very different from that of the IGAD countries.

Indeed, largely to counter southern demands for self-determination, Egypt and Libya proposed a peace initiative that involved the various parties to the conflict coming together and establishing a transitional government. The emphasis was on achieving consensus of the country’s major political forces, but it was widely seen as an attempt to reach agreement among the northern political parties since it pointedly did not include the right of self-determination for the southern Sudanese, the key principle of the IGAD Initiative. Libya, as much as Egypt, rejected self-determination and saw it as a threat to the unity of Sudan, and after giving crucial and generous support to the SPLA when it

3 opposed the Nimeiri regime, quickly ended its endorsement after he was overthrown in 1985. In any case, the Joint Initiative has gone nowhere and has not even managed to hold any negotiations, but US support for Egypt and its role in the Sudan peace process has meant that weak though it is, it cannot be discounted.

In 1997 Eritrea gave every appearance of leading the campaign to overthrow the NIF. With a militarist tradition derived from its years fighting the Ethiopian Derg, the EPLF (renamed the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice or PFDJ) looked to military means to end the threat posed by NIF support for Eritrean Islamist and other armed groups operating from Sudanese territory or out of refugee camps along the border. Given the PFDJ’s base among the highland Tigrigna-speakers and weakness among the lowland Moslem population of the west it had to take such opposition seriously. And indeed its response was firm. At the symbolic level it ejected the Government of Sudan from its embassy in Asmara and turned the facilities over to the NDA. By 1997 Asmara had become the political and military headquarters for the NDA and its various components. The PFDJ provided these groups with military training, logistical support, diplomatic services, military equipment, provision of a radio transmitter, as well as giving them direct assistance when they went into battle.

Moreover, the PFDJ was crucial in the actual creation of a number of the NDA members, including the (i.e. that section of the Congress which took up arms against the government), the Rashida Free Lions, and the Sudan Alliance Forces (SAF). Nor was PFDJ assistance strictly of a supportive character; elements of the took independent action in Sudan and reputedly operated on occasion within fifty kilometres of Khartoum. In addition, the Eritrean army sent trainers and generals to SPLA-occupied western where they played a major role in the movement’s expanding territorial base during the mid-1990s. With this level of commitment and enormous confidence, President Issias repeatedly predicted the eminent demise of the NIF and no doubt its anticipated replacement by forces that would be beholden to the PFDJ.

In the period under consideration the NDA appeared to be a viable body, at least at the political level, to both challenge the NIF and also to serve as a basis for the formation of a post-NIF government. Moreover, its northern membership included the Umma Party and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which between them had gained the lion’s share of the votes during Sudan’s last democratic election in 1986. While the other northern components did not carry much electoral weight, the NDA’s Asmara Declaration of 1995, which called for a democratic and secular Sudan that recognised the right of southern Sudan to self-determination, appeared at the time to serve as a model for national reconciliation. The weaknesses of the NDA were, however, equally apparent and they included not only the fact that some of the components were beholden to the Eritrean government, that agreements on secularism and southern self-determination were paper thin, but also that the northern groups were never successful in establishing a viable military force and were always dependent upon the SPLA.

Although more circumspect than the , the by 1997 were in fact the regional leaders in the military campaign against the NIF. The attempted assassination of

4 President Mubarak served as the final impetus in irrevocably ending Ethiopia’s failed policy of good neighbourliness, but this development also came in the wake of years of terrorist attacks from Sudan on the largely Moslem-populated territory of Benishangul, and the efforts of Sudanese Islamist NGOs to mobilise Moslems in the country against the EPRDF (Young, 1999). In response Ethiopia neither completely closed the Government of Sudan embassy, nor did its leaders publicly proclaim their objective of overthrowing the regime, but Addis Ababa did open its to the Sudanese opposition, provided training for them on a considerable scale, and directly captured territory that was subsequently turned over to the rebels. By 1997 the DUP and Umma Party had established bases in Ethiopia, but Addis Ababa looked more to the non- traditional forces to lead the campaign against the NIF, and in particular to SAF and the SPLA.

Menza, a Sudanese territory north of the Blue and adjacent to the Ethiopian border, was captured in January 1997 by the EPRDF for SAF but with minimal assistance from the movement, and the army stayed to repulse a counter-attack in March of the same year (Ethiopian Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense). In addition, SAF was permitted to establish a logistical base in Bahr Dar on , which was used in the subsequent supply of Menza. The EPRDF also permitted SAF to mobilise among the large number of farm labourers from western and southern Sudan who were employed in the border area of north-western Ethiopia and these conscripts remained the backbone of the of SAF until the organisation’s final collapse in early 2002.

The EPRDF, however, largely looked to building up the SPLA as the best means to challenge the NIF. In the period 1996-98 it trained and supplied some 10,000 SPLA fighters in southern Ethiopia, according to Ethiopian defense sources. And while the forces of the Derg had twice in 1987 and 1989 captured the border towns of and Gissan in South for the SPLA only to see the movement soon lose it, in January 1997 the EPRDF followed suit in an operation that was to prove far more effective. After first forcing the Sudanese army to withdraw from these border towns, the Ethiopian security forces, which included heavy artillery and tanks, crossed the border and headed north to positions not far from the crucial Blue Nile dam at Rossaires and then helped the SPLA advance far south to Yabus, thus capturing an area of considerable size (Ethiopian Ministry of Defense). Like Eritrea, the Ethiopian army also sent its top generals, together with a large number of trainers and logistics personnel, into western Equatoria and with the assistance and sometimes through joint operations of Eritrean, Ugandan, and SPLA forces, liberated large sections of territory west of the .

Uganda also assumed an increasingly aggressive stance against the NIF, but in the mid- 1990s its armed forces and resources were being stretched as President Museveni was distracted by engagements in the Congo. Nonetheless, Ugandan regimes of various political complexions have always shown sympathy for southern Sudanese dissidents and preferred to have their northern Sudanese border under the control of and Africans rather than Moslems and Arabs. Moreover, increasingly in the 1990s the LRA grew as a threat to the security of northern Uganda, and particularly Acholiland. Thus throughout the 1990s the Ugandan army provided training and supplies to the SPLA,

5 permitted it to recruit from refugee camps in the country, gave logistical support to SPLA operations in southern Sudan, and not infrequently crossed the border in support of the southern rebels. The advent of US military support in the late 1990s for Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Uganda, nominally to protect themselves against NIF aggression but in reality as part of an effort to overthrow the regime, served to sanction Kampala’s military engagement in and further its close relations with Washington.

Kenya’s support for the SPLA was neither of a military character, nor of the same order as its IGAD partners in keeping with the more restrained stance of the Moi regime. Moreover, Kenya alone in the region reaped enormous economic gains for its role as a conduit of international assistance to southern Sudan, a supplier itself, as well as filling thousands of positions in the industry, particularly in Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) run from Lokichokkio. Sudan’s war was thus good business for Kenya. Nonetheless, Kenya did provide the SPLA leadership with a congenial environment in Nairobi to carry out their political activities and oversee the large relief operations. It almost certainly looked the other way when military supplies sometimes crossed through its territory destined for the SPLA in south Sudan and it also provided the movement’s leadership at different times with travel documents.

The impact of this region-wide effort to at most overthrow the NIF and at the least see it isolated and unable to pose a threat to the security of its neighbours was already becoming clear by late 1997. The Islamist threat to the region was weakening, the aggressive stance of Khartoum was being recognised by its own leadership as a failure, the SPLA had rarely held so much territory and now in both the south as well as in the north of Sudan, and the IGAD Peace Initiative actually looked like it was on the verge of a breakthrough. Indeed, after the NIF had rejected IGAD’s efforts in the strongest language in 1994, it had come around in 1997 to accepting its DOP as the basis from which to conduct negotiations. And this in spite of the fact that it contained provisions regarding the separation of state and religion, and the right of self-determination for southern Sudan that its leadership found odious.

2002: the NIF and the Region Moves to Reconciliation: Although the leaderships of all the governments considered above were the same in 2002 as when they led an aggressive campaign against the NIF in 1997, their policies and approaches to Khartoum have now undergone marked changes. These changes have served to strengthen the Khartoum regime, weaken the SPLA and other opposition groups, undermine the IGAD Peace Initiative and hence encourage outside intervention in the peace process.

The first indications of the turn around came from Cairo. Although furious with the NIF, it did not for long feel comfortable with its own efforts to completely isolate the regime internationally. And even less did it favour policies and approaches that served to strengthen the position of the SPLA with its demand for self-determination, which had long and forcefully been rejected by Cairo because it was seen as leading to southern independence and posing a threat to the free flow of the of the White Nile. Moreover, as well as strongly supporting a united Sudan, Egypt has long assumed some extra-territorial rights in Sudan based on historical-cultural linkages, the Anglo-Egyptian

6 Condominium, and its assumed natural and historical rights to the waters of the Nile. From such a perspective Cairo has always favoured an amenable and conciliatory regime in Khartoum. And with the removal of Sheik Turabi from power and his subsequent arrest, the apparent end of Khartoum’s support for the Moslem Brothers and other dissident Egyptian groups, and the regime’s move away from association with the most radical international Islamist organisations and movements, Cairo could now assume a more conciliatory approach to the NIF. The NIF’s confiscation of Egyptian property was resolved, the tension over the Halib territory was reduced, and Cairo and Khartoum have moved toward establishing more normal and lasting diplomatic relations.

And no doubt as its premier ally in the region, the US, has been influenced by the changing perspectives of Cairo on Khartoum. Moreover, the US has long favoured Egypt playing a major role in the Sudan peace process and in the circumstances at the time of writing Washington needs Cairo’s cooperation in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Officially the US has said it does not want to link its Middle East policy with the Sudanese conflict. However, at the least it can be assumed that the Americans are prepared to seriously listen to Egyptian concerns about granting self-determination to south Sudan, and maybe as some in the region are suggesting, giving Cairo a veto on this right which forms the basis of the IGAD Peace Initiative. Moreover, by repeatedly calling for a merging or uniting of the IGAD efforts and the Joint Initiative of Egypt and Libya (and this appeal again figured in the Danforth Report), it can be assumed that the US is prepared to see IGAD’s commitment to self-determination watered down. In addition, the NIF’s willingness (indeed eagerness) to provide the US with information on international Islamist terrorist movements in the wake of , 2001 has served to moderate American opposition to the regime and bring it closer in line with its ally Egypt.

Thus in the present context Cairo can reasonably conclude that things are moving its way on Sudan: self-determination is being increasingly challenged, the hard-line elements of the NIF led by Turabi have been marginalised, and with the NIF to some extent in disarray the regime is weakened and more amenable to the influence of the Egyptians. And Cairo would also derive satisfaction from the fact that Washington appears to be moving closer to its views on Sudan. For its part, the NIF welcomes Egypt’s involvement in the peace process to ensure that self-determination is removed, or sufficiently undermined, in the peace negotiations.

Eritrea’s aggressive stance against the NIF began collapsing on May 6, 1998, the day its army crossed the border into Ethiopia and started a twenty-six month long war with that country. Eritrea, no less than Ethiopia, appreciated that Sudanese military, political, and intelligence support or use of Sudanese territory could provide a decisive advantage in the conflict and to ensure this did not happen both Asmara and Addis Ababa moved quickly to improve their relations with Khartoum. At the same time and for the same reason the US instigated alliance between Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Uganda in opposition to the NIF also began unraveling.

7 While many in the West concluded that Eritrea would win the war with Ethiopia, after initially sitting on the sidelines and being courted by both countries, Khartoum eventually concluded that Ethiopia would come out on top. Ethiopia also won the favour of Khartoum when it resolved that some elements of the NDA were little more than agents of the Eritreans and dismissed them from the country. Asmara, meanwhile, remained the military and political base of the NDA. But instead of the country serving as a launching pad for a war against the NIF, Issias tried to use the presence of the Sudanese opposition as a to make peace for the NDA and at the same serve as an instrument in achieve reconciliation between the two countries. These efforts, however, have completely failed and instead Khartoum has worked to lure elements of the NDA back to Khartoum. And in this regard the regime has had considerable success when the Umma Party broke with the NDA and returned to Khartoum in 2001. Elements of SAF, the Beja Congress, the Sudan Communist Party, and the DUP have also returned to Khartoum, further weakening the NDA. The loss of Hamishkareb, the opposition’s major territorial holding on the north-eastern front to the Sudanese army in 2001, not only served to weaken the military threat posed by the NDA, but also undermined the organisation’s morale. The NDA’s (in fact largely the SPLA’s) subsequent day-long capture of did not change the strategic position on the north-eastern front and in fact caused considerable political problems for the DUP and its leader Moulana Mirghani who claims the allegiance of many in this town.

Moreover, while some elements of the NDA have long been beholden to Asmara, and the DUP has had close links with Cairo since Sudan’s independence, it was assumed until recently that the other components of the NDA were operating autonomously. That, however, appears to not be the case. It has been learned that in March of 2002 the SPLA was pressed by the Eritreans to support the (OLF) in entering Ethiopia from SPLA-held territory along Ethiopia’s western border (Ethiopian Ministry of Defense and de Waal, 2002). Thus some 2-400 OLF fighters were flown from Eritrea to an area north of in early April and SPLA personnel then facilitated their movement into western Wallega. The Ethiopians found out about this operation and not only were the OLF fighters killed or dispersed, but Dr. John Garang was subsequently called to task in Addis Ababa and the SPLA representative in the country was expelled. In this light the NDA increasingly looks like a broken force and its principle backer, Eritrea, reduced to using it as an instrument to carry on a proxy war against Ethiopia after its defeat in 2000.

Although its idiosyncratic foreign policy cannot be easily predicted, Eritrea’s military and economic weakness and divisions within the leadership that led Issias to imprison many senior PFDJ officials and close down the press in 2001, suggest that the regime is in no position to pose a serious threat to Khartoum. Indeed, although relations between the two countries remain strained, at the time of writing in mid-2002 there has been no serious military action along the countries’ borders for approximately one and a half years, the Government of Sudan has returned to its embassy in Asmara, and the limited border trade that has developed is held to be crucial in warding off in near destitute Eritrea. For its part, the NIF continues to condone, and probably support, the Eritrean opposition within Sudan’s borders, but these forces thus far have limited

8 capacity and the NIF likely views them as a threat to Eritrea should its government again attempt to destabilise the regime.

While relations between Eritrea and Sudan moderated but did not fundamentally change as a result of the outbreak of the Ethio-Eritrean War, relations between Sudan and Ethiopia have now been improving for four years and represent a very significant development in terms of regional security and thus they have a major implications for Sudan’s civil war. Indeed, the joint submission by Cairo and Addis Ababa in 1998 to the asking that the embargo against Sudan be rescinded made clear that the isolation of the NIF within the region had effectively ended. The subsequent efforts by Beshir to marginalise Turabi were warmly welcomed in Addis Ababa where the sheik is held to personify the regionally aggressive stance of political Islam. As well as forcing the removal of some NDA members from Ethiopia, there is no evidence of Ethiopian support for the SPLA since the start of the Ethio-Eritrean war. And the fact noted above that the SPLA assisted the OLF to enter Ethiopia when it has long held that its value to the country has been to protect it from such incursions will inevitably lead the EPRDF to question whether it should respond positively to Khartoum’s repeated requests that it be permitted to use Ethiopian territory to attack the SPLA in South Blue Nile.

As a result of the Ethio-Eritrean war, Ethiopia lost the use of the Eritrean ports of and and this left the country heavily dependent upon Djibouti, which was quick to use its new leverage to attempt to squeeze more rents out of Addis Ababa. While Ethiopia has encouraged the development of links to ports in Kenya and , its major interest is in Port Sudan, and Khartoum has been happy to oblige. A significant obstacle to the use of Port Sudan, however, has been the limited transport links between Sudan and Ethiopia and since 1999 the two countries have been constructing (at their own expense) an all-weather road between in the highlands of Ethiopia and Gedederif in the plains of eastern Sudan that should be completed in mid-2002.

Closely linked to this development has been the agreement reached between the two countries on oil which will be transported to Ethiopia over this road. It is anticipated that these exports should begin very soon after the road is completed and authorities in Addis Ababa anticipate that as much as 85% of Ethiopia’s oil needs will be met by Sudan (Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs). Impoverished countries like Ethiopia in fact use little oil, but with limited access to hard currency and much of it consumed in paying for oil to feed the modern sectors of its economy, such an agreement on terms acknowledged to be highly favourable with Sudan is very significant.

Probably even more important in the long term will be how developing relations between Sudan and Ethiopia effect agreements on the use of the waters of the . The second phase of Sudan’s civil war began in 1983 with the SPLA bringing to a halt of the Jongeli Canal and the Chevron oil development. Work on the canal has not been resumed, but with the Egyptian population now double what it was when Cairo and Khartoum reached agreement on the distribution of the Nile waters in 1959, there is growing pressure to increase the supply (Swain, 1997). For its part, with the end of Ethiopia’s thirty year long internal conflict in 1991 the incoming EPRDF was

9 quick to appreciate that the country’s long-term progress depended upon the development of the water resources of the Nile Basin and this means challenging Egypt’s virtual hegemonic position over the Nile waters (Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs). And Sudan, through which all of the Nile waters flow before entering Egypt, is seen as a potential crucial partner by Addis Ababa if relations between the two countries continue to develop and if Khartoum, which has also expressed dissatisfaction with the 1959 agreement, is prepared to confront Cairo.

While Ethiopia sees the developing relations with Sudan largely in terms of economic benefits to be gained, Sudan in turn is mostly concerned with increasing its security. Khartoum recognises the crucial role Ethiopia has played in support of southern dissidents during its two civil wars, is of the importance attached to the fact that Ethiopia alone in the region has borders with both north and south Sudan, and as a result of its victory in the Ethio-Eritrean war is the premier military power in the Horn.

Changes in Kenya’s policy to Sudan over the past five years have also been significant, although they have largely been dictated by outside forces. Here what needs emphasising is the crucial role assigned Kenya to some extent by IGAD, but more importantly by the US and its Western allies, in the Sudan peace process. Kenya was given the task of leading the Sudan Peace Initiative by IGAD and until October 2001 when its special envoy, Daniel Mboya, was replaced by Lt. General Lazarus Sumbeiywo it did assume this role, although clearly not with a great deal of success. However, under Sumbeiywo and President Moi the IGAD process has been a Kenyan process in which the countries of the region have played almost no part. And behind the Kenyans are clearly the Americans who now dominate the Sudan peace process. Thus the Sudan IGAD Secretariat’s proposed peace agreement of March 2002 closely anticipated the US’s Danforth Report in watering down self-determination for southern Sudan, changing the language on the separation of religion and the state, calling for the unification of the IGAD Peace Initiative and that of the Egyptians (the Libyans apparently being forgotten out of sensitivity to the US) (IGAD Secretariat On Peace In The Sudan, 2002). Needless to say this apparent change of sentiments on the part of the Kenyans who were previously assumed to be loyal supporters of the southern Sudanese was warmly welcomed in Khartoum and angrily dismissed by the SPLA.

To some extent Kenya’s changing approach to the Sudan conflict is a response to domestic concerns, and notably the campaign led by Energy Minister (and would-be presidential candidate) Riala Odinga to import oil from Sudan, but it has far more to do with Nairobi serving US and Western interests in the region. This is clear from the Danforth Report which pointedly ignores any direct role for IGAD in the peace process and assigns the only positions to Kenya and Egypt, its two closest allies in the region (Danforth, 2002). There is certainly opposition within Kenya to the move away from its traditional sympathies for the southern Sudanese, by MPs who have seen the destruction in the oil fields, and by those who question how Kenya can assume a neutral role in the peace process if it imports oil from Sudan. But with an impending national election and the leadership of the country at stake, these foreign policy concerns will probably not be given a lot of attention, while General Sumbeiywo is likely to be increasingly concerned

10 about security within Kenya and will not have sufficient time to focus on Sudan’s civil war.

Relations between Uganda and Sudan are also undergoing change, but the picture and conclusions drawn must be much more tentative than those for the above countries. The end of the informal anti-NIF alliance with Eritrea and Ethiopia as a result of the Ethio- Eritrean war meant that Uganda alone in the region continued to maintain an aggressive stance against the regime. Although Museveni has been a consistent supporter of the SPLA, his foreign policy concerns in the past few years have largely focused on Rwanda, the Congo, and the East African Community, and he and his government have only played a minimal role within IGAD. In fact Museveni has rarely attended the IGAD summits. However, he did participate in the January 2002 summit in Khartoum and his meeting without aides with Beshir probably produced a decision to set the countries on the road to improved relations. And this in turn paved the way for Sudanese acceptance of the Ugandan army crossing the border in pursuit of the LRA. Thus the Ugandan army’s success in overcoming the LRA will be a crucial test of Ugandan-Sudanese relations.

A number of factors are behind the changing relations between the two countries. First, was the failure of Khartoum’s efforts to export political Islam and its attempt from the late 1990s to end its isolation by improving relations with its neighbours. Second, was the lack of success of Museveni’s attempts to militarily defeat the LRA and the growing resentment the insurgency was causing among the Acholi of northern Uganda who have been the major victims of its terrorist campaign. Pressure was thus mounting to end the security problem in the north. Third, the recent withdrawal of Uganda’s army from the Congo permitted it to devote resources to the problems in the north. And lastly, and most significantly, was the September 24, 2002 US declaration of the LRA as a terrorist organization, which led a frightened Khartoum to break relations with it. Current military cooperation between Khartoum and Kampala in the latter’s campaign against the LRA in south Sudan is a critical indicator of these changes.

There does not appear to be a quid pro quo for ending Sudanese support of the LRA and the Government of Uganda gives no indication of any willingness to end its relations with the SPLA. Indeed, the GoS apparently does not expect such a result and instead is urging Kampala to pressure the SPLA to accept more conciliatory negotiating positions. At present there is little sign of any concessions, but many who had looked upon Uganda as a bedrock of support for the SPLA now acknowledge that the movement has few supporters in the country outside the government. The SPLA has frequently presented itself as the front-line against expansionist Islam and while this has some resonance in neighbouring Kenya, it does not have the same impact in Uganda. Moreover, the Acholi are adamantly opposed to the SPLA because they attribute Khartoum’s support for the LRA as a response to Kampala’s assistance of the south Sudanese rebels (Interviews, northern Uganda, April 2002). In addition, there has been agreement to upgrade diplomatic relations between the two countries, place military observers in one another’s countries, and resume air flights between Kampala and Khartoum. With the recent high level US engagement in Sudan’s civil war conditions are very much in flux and

11 Washington’s close relations with Kampala make the Museveni government highly susceptible to its pressure.

Five years ago the Sudanese regime was effectively marginalized in the region and the Ugandan government was among its most militant opponents. But with the NIF’s recent moderation, the lure of oil imports, and changed international circumstances, notably present US-Sudan cooperation in the area of terrorism, countries in the region are all moving cautiously to improve their relations with Khartoum. None of these countries, however, is giving up their fears that the long-term objectives of the NIF still include the export of political Islam. Recent developments in relations between Kampala and Khartoum are consistent with these regional patterns. But a long history of antagonism, the unpredictability of the volatile Horn, the limited willingness of either government to make more than minor compromises, and doubts about the outcome of the Ugandan army assault on the LRA, means that the trend of improving relations between Khartoum and Kampala remains in doubt.

Conclusion: Brief as this overview is, it should make clear the importance of Sudan’s relations with its neighbours to the country’s civil war and the prospects for peace. While there is no denying the indigenous nature of Sudan’s conflict, there also needs to be an acceptance of the crucial role played by the countries of the region in the war and their importance in both the peace process and in ensuring that it is sustained. Until the mid to late 1990s the NIF government of Sudan pursued a regionally expansive foreign policy that gained it the ire of its neighbours in the Horn, Egypt, and the US and its Western allies. While the West repeatedly pressed the NIF to assume a more moderate stance, stopped development assistance to the country, and supported the UN embargo against Sudan, what proved most significant in turning around Sudan’s foreign policies was the military engagement of Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Uganda in Sudan in the period 1995-1998. Indeed, the pressure applied by the region, together with that of the SPLA and the northern opposition, was such as to put the very existence of the NIF into question. In addition, these military and political pressures were also crucial in getting the NIF to accept the DOP of the IGAD Initiative as the basis for peace negotiations in 1997, the very position it had rejected over the previous three years.

However, the threat to the NIF’s survival quickly ended when the Ethio-Eritrean War broke out and the leading belligerent states were forced to reconcile with Khartoum. Without the military threat to the regime and the increasing willingness of the regional and international communities to engage Khartoum and invest in its rapidly expanding oil industry irrespective of the continuing war, there is a declining interest in reaching agreement with the SPLA on the contentious issues of self-determination, the separation of religion and the state, and wealth-sharing, at least within the terms of the IGAD principles.

And while the NIF has clearly improved its relations with the region, and hence its political capacity (not withstanding its internal divisions with the Turabi group), relations between the SPLA and NDA and the countries of the region have declined, particularly with Ethiopia, the major power in the Horn. The fate of the SPLA has been closely

12 linked to its relations with Ethiopia. The SPLA was established in 1983 in Ethiopia and flourished under Ethiopian tutelage until 1991 when the EPRDF came to power and it was forced to leave the country. Without its powerful regional ally and in the wake of the Nuer-led revolt of Riek Macher, the SPLA declined through the early years of the 1990s (Nyaba, 2000). Its fortunes revived when the region led by Ethiopia accepted the SPLA as a means to challenge the security threat posed by the NIF. But again when the Ethio-Eritrean war broke out the prospects of the SPLA and NDA overthrowing the NIF rapidly declined. The return of the Umma Party to Sudan and the co-optation of NDA elements, and most significantly the SPLA, to the interests of Eritrea have dealt a near fatal blow to the credibility of the NDA, as well as alienating Ethiopia.

While Uganda and Kenya have some genuine sympathies for the Africans and Christians of southern Sudan, and Eritrea claims (less credibly) to identify with the opposition in both the north and south of the country, the foreign policies of the two most powerful countries of north- – Egypt and Ethiopia – are based on more narrowly defined national interests. Egyptian opposition to the NIF rapidly declined after Turabi was marginalised and it was feared that continuing hostility to the regime might serve to advance the interests of the SPLA which was seen as posing a threat to the upper reaches of the White Nile. Ethiopia also revised its approach to the NIF after the Islamist terrorist threat ended and in the wake of the Ethio-Eritrean War when it feared any Sudanese assistance to the Eritreans. The NIF further cemented the growing ties between the two countries by offering Ethiopia the use of Port Sudan, oil imports at concessionary prices, the prospects of agreements on the use of the Nile waters, and of Sudanese investment in the Ethiopian economy.

However, both these countries and the region as a whole are still confronted by the question of whether Sudan’s growing ‘political capital’ based on oil might lead to a return to the aggressive foreign policy of the recent past. In the wake of the assault the NIF experienced at the hands of the region and with Hassan El Turabi apparently marginalised this is less likely, but it cannot be entirely discounted. Thus the NIF must make clear whether it is to lead an ideologically driven Islamist government with an agenda of using oil revenues to completely route the SPLA and pursue an interventionist foreign policy. Or alternatively, whether it will direct its energies to development and achieve the status of an economic giant in the region, an objective that cannot be achieved if resources are diverted to war and interfering in neighbouring countries. Moreover, the NIF cannot expect the countries of the Horn, and even Ethiopia with which it has made considerable progress, to fully accept it if it insists on maintaining Arab-Islamic hegemony in the country. Without the resolution of the civil war on terms that provide justice to southern Sudanese and the presence in Khartoum governments of a strong core of southerners with legitimacy and real power to restrain the Islamist impulses that have repeatedly come to the fore in the half century of the country’s independence, no country in the region can long reduce its vigilance and the tensions and conflict that have long beset the Horn will continue.

13 References Abdel Salem Sidhamed. Politics and Islam in Contemporary Sudan. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996). Abdelwahab El-Affendi. ‘The Impasse in the IGAD Peace Process for Sudan: The Limits of Regional Peacemaking?’ African Affairs (2001). 100. Cliffe, L. ‘Regional dimensions of conflict in the .’ Third World Quarterly. Vol. 20. No. 1. (1999). Danforth, J. (Special Envoy) ‘Report to the President of the United States On The Outlook for Peace in Sudan.’ (26-04-02). De Waal, A. ‘Prospects for Peace in Sudan: Briefing May-June 2002.’ (London: Justice Africa, June 2002). IGAD Secretariat On Peace In The Sudan. ‘Proposed Draft Agreement Between The Government of Sudan And The Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Sudan People’s Liberation Movement.’ (Nairobi, March 2002). Khadiagala, G. and Lyons, T. (eds.). ‘Foreign Policy Making in Africa: An Introduction.’ African Foreign Policies: Power and Process. (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2001). Middle East Times. (Cairo: 10-09-95). Nyaba, P. The Politics of Liberation in South Sudan: An Insider’s View. (Kampala: Fountain Publishers, 2000). Swain, A. ‘Ethiopia, the Sudan, and Egypt: The Nile Water Dispute.’ Journal of Modern . Vol. 35. No. 4. (1997). Young, J. Peasant Revolution in Ethiopia: The Tigray People’s Liberation Front, 1975 – 1991. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). ‘Along Ethiopia’s Western Frontier: Gambella and Benishangul in Transition.’ Journal of Modern African Studies. Vol 37. No. 2. (1999).

Interviews: Ethiopian Ministry of Defense officials, conducted at various times in the period March 2000 to May 2002. Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials, conducted at various times in the period March 2000 to May 2002. Acholi elders and local government officials in northern Uganda, April 1-14, 2002.

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