230 Scarcity and Surfeitmore detailed information, including the nature of resource flows in and out of
the Sudan, and the internal variables influencing the polities on both sides of
the divide - but there are three general points to be emphasised:
There are clear environmental and ecological longitudinal determinants of
the conflict. The Nile River system created a natural division leading to the
polarisation of African-Arab identities. When we treat this variable as a
constant, and as a mutually reinforcing feedback loop, the importance of
other material variables also emerge as dynamic factors within the current
conflict equation. The respective factors of socio-economic centralisation
in the north are mirrored by environmental disequilibrium in the south
and have exerted opposite impacts over time.
As a consequence, the state took root in Khartoum, and has gradually
grown in strength. The government has manipulated this advantage to its
benefit, and the violence arising out of the disunity of the southern move-
ment has played into its hands. It is difficult to ascertain to what degree
actual military combat is responsible for the suffering inflicted on the
southern civilian population over the past half-century. We can infer, how-
ever, that it is the population in the contested border zones - the Ahyei
Dinka, the Nuba, and perhaps Shilluk to the west - that has suffered most
directly from the war; others have suffered from the secondary phenome-
na it generates.
From a systems perspective, the conflict has grown more complex and
fuzzier with each cycle. Past experience indicates that the ethnic protago-
nists (e.g. Baggara vs. Dinka) of the border zones can manage local con-
flict and even achieve high levels of cooperation - when left to their own
devices. The beneficiaries of the war, in contrast, are the elites on both
sides who camouflage their struggle to control critical natural resources
through ideologies of identity and resistance. The most valuable of these
commodities by far is the Bentiu oil. Its value deems it unlikely that the
north will revert to the former north-south border; it is equally unlikely
that the SPLA/M can dislodge the regime from this area by military means.Sudan's unique position as microcosm of the continent's Arab-African divide
acts as a magnet for external forces arraigned on the Western-Islamic divide.
Stereotyped perceptions of regional and ethnic differences informing succes-
sive political regimes since the Turkish-Egyptian penetration of the southern
region generates self-fulfilling feedback into both the north-south conflict
cycle and the regional frictions that prolong it. Even if we reject the culture
wars thesis as irrelevant, it is not possible to ignore the role of international
feedback in perpetuating the Sudan's north-south struggle.
Selective exploitation of information to influence conflict outcomes
has become an established tactical adjunct to military strategy. The role of