The Sudan Handbook

sudan’s REGional RElations 267

shape, thousands of Kenyans are already moving to Southern Sudan to

ply their various trades, ranging from plumbing and electrical work to

transport and petty trade. They are useful but resented by much of the

local population for monopolizing some of the economic opportunities

brought by peace.

Ethiopia

Like Egypt, the area of Ethiopia had historical links with the Sudan

region long before the birth of a Sudanese state. The relations go back to

deep antiquity, between Meroe and Axum. They were often conflictual,

particularly after Sudan became progressively Islamized between the

eighth and sixteenth centuries while Abyssinia remained a bastion of

Eastern Christianity. The rugged mountainous terrain protected Abyssinia

from Islamization from the west, leaving the greatest threat of Islamic

conquest coming from the east, from the Somali lowlands at the time

of the sixteenth century invasion by Imam Ahmed Gragn. The tensions

grew after the 1821 Egyptian conquest of Sudan, which led to progressive

infiltrations from Cairo’s forces in the north of Ethiopia and to an all-out

attempt at military conquest in 1877. Egyptian forces were defeated by

the Ethiopians but there were further Sudanese raids during the period

of the Mahdiyya in the 1880s. In recent times the pattern of conflict and

rivalry has roughly been a trade-off between periodic Sudanese help to

the secessionist guerrillas after the beginning of the revolt in Eritrea in

1961, and varying degrees of support from the Ethiopians to the southern

Sudanese insurgents between the mid-1950s and the end of the recent

war in 2002.

The Ethiopian regime, which came to power in 1991, is the first to have

tried seriously to develop trade links with Khartoum. This is probably

because its leaders had long found shelter in Sudan during the war years

and, contrary to their predecessors, tended to see it as a friend. Deprived

of access to the sea by the 1998–2000 Ethio–Eritrean war, Addis Ababa

has developed oil imports through Port Sudan and the Metemma road –

The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors long a neglected artery, now improved and busy with commercial traffic.

(www.riftvalley.net).