Sudan (country)

D

Defence

Sudan has conscription for three years. In 2004 the armed forces of Sudan numbered about 104,800. The army had about 100,000 members (including 20,000 conscripts); the navy, 1,800; and the air force, 3,000. From 1984 the military was involved in a war in southern Sudan, by groups demanding greater political autonomy for the region, or in some cases complete separation from northern Sudan. A peace deal ended the war in 2004.

E

International Organizations

Sudan is a member of the United Nations (UN), the Arab League, and the African Union.

VI

History

From remote antiquity until relatively recent times, the northern portion of the territory comprising modern Sudan formed part of the region known as Nubia. The history of Nilotic, or southern, Sudan before the 19th century is obscure. Egyptian penetration of Nubia began during the period (about 2755-2255 bc) of the Old Kingdom. By 1570 bc, when the 18th Dynasty was founded, Nubia had been reduced to the status of an Egyptian province. The region between the Nubian Desert and the Nile contains numerous monuments, ruins, and other relics of the period of Egyptian dominance, which was ended by a Nubian revolt in the 8th century bc.

A succession of independent kingdoms was subsequently established in Nubia. The most powerful of these, Maqurra, a Christian state centred at Dunqulah (Dongola) and founded in the 6th century ad, endured until the early 14th-century invasion of the Egyptian Mamelukes. Another, Alwa, its capital at Soba in the vicinity of present-day Khartoum, was overwhelmed in about 1500 by the Funj, black Muslims of uncertain origin, who established a sultanate at Sannār.

During the 16th century, the Funj emerged as a powerful Muslim state, and Sannār became one of the great cultural centres of Islam. Dissension among the leading Funj tribes vastly weakened the kingdom during the final years of the 18th century, however. In 1820, it was invaded by an Egyptian army. The ensuing war ended in 1822 with a complete victory for Egypt (at that time a province of the Ottoman Empire). The greater part of Nubia thereupon became an Egyptian province, known as the Egyptian Sudan.

Turkish-Egyptian rule, which was marked by southward expansion of the province, endured for 60 years. In the west, however, the Sultanate of Darfur retained its independence until well into the period of British rule. Internal unrest, resulting from the slave trade in the south and general administrative incompetence, mounted steadily during this period. Between 1877 and 1880, when the British general and administrator Charles George Gordon served as Governor of Egyptian Sudan as a servant of the Ottoman Empire, efforts were made to suppress the slave trade and other abuses.

A

The Mahdi

The anarchic state of affairs that developed after Gordon’s resignation culminated in 1882 in a revolution led by Muhammad Ahmad, who about 1880 had proclaimed himself the Mahdi, the person who, according to a Muslim tradition, would rid the world of evil. The rebels won successive victories, including the annihilation of an Egyptian army in November 1883 and the capture of Khartoum in January 1885. With the latter victory, in which Gordon was killed, the Mahdists won complete control over the province.

Conditions in Egyptian Sudan deteriorated under the rule of the Mahdi and of the caliph Abdallah at-Taaisha, who succeeded the Mahdi in 1885. The caliph waged incessant war against the Nilotic peoples of the south, adding large sections of territory to Egyptian Sudan, and undertook various other military adventures, notably an abortive attempt to conquer Egypt in 1889.

Economic and social chaos engulfed Sudan during the closing years of the caliph’s reign. Meanwhile, Egypt had become a virtual possession of Britain. In 1896 the British and Egyptian governments, alarmed at the spread of French influence from west and central Africa into Nilotic Sudan, dispatched a joint military expedition against the caliph. This expedition, led by General Horatio Herbert Kitchener, routed the caliph’s forces at Omdurman on September 2, 1898. The Anglo-Egyptian victory brought about the complete collapse of the Mahdist movement.

On January 19, 1899, the British and Egyptian governments concluded the agreement that provided for joint sovereignty in Sudan, or a condominium. In practice, Britain was the dominant partner in the condominium, establishing an administrative system in the north, considered the most prestigious after the Indian civil service, and encouraging in the 1920s new economic projects, such as the Gezira scheme, to provide an income for the Sudan, and so reduce direct subventions from the British government. In the south, British control was much less sure, being left in the hands of a few civil servants, who became known as “barons” because of their semi-autonomous power over huge areas.

B

British-Egyptian Sovereignty

Despite growing discontent among Egyptian and Sudanese nationalists, who demanded termination of British authority in Sudan, the Egyptian government concluded a treaty with Britain in 1936, which confirmed, among other things, the convention of 1899. Egyptian antagonism over the arrangement became especially acute following World War II. In 1946 the two nations began negotiations to revise the treaty of 1936. The Egyptian government demanded British withdrawal from Sudan, and the British proposed certain modifications of the existing regime. The negotiations between the two countries ended in deadlock.

On June 19, 1948, after consultations with certain northern Sudanese officials, the British governor-general in Sudan promulgated reforms purportedly calculated to give the northern Sudanese experience in self-government as a prerequisite to decisions concerning the ultimate political status of Sudan. The newly authorized legislative assembly was elected in November. Supporters of political groups advocating union with Egypt boycotted the election. In December 1950 the legislative assembly, dominated by groups favouring Sudanese independence, adopted a resolution asking Egypt and Britain to grant full self-government to Sudan in 1951.

During 1950 and 1951 the Egyptian government continued to demand British withdrawal from Sudan. The legislature denounced the condominium agreement and the 1936 treaty in October 1951, and it proclaimed Faruk I King of Egypt and Sudan. Anglo-Egyptian negotiations on the status of Sudan were resumed, following the forced abdication of King Faruk in July 1952. On February 12, 1953, the two governments signed an agreement providing self-determination for Sudan within a three-year transitional period.