28 the sudan handbookexpertise that has characterized the course from its early days.
The Course began at a moment of optimism. By early 2004 it had
become clear that, despite many delays, the negotiations in Kenya
between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation
Movement, first at Machakos and then at Naivasha, would soon lead to
a binding peace agreement. The accords which had already been signed
offered a commitment from both sides to a comprehensive political
transformation, one that would address fundamental issues of inequality,
injustice and popular representation. There seemed a real possibility
that the conditions of life for millions of people all over Sudan might be
dramatically improved.
But it was also clear that the conflicts which had ravaged the country
for decades could not simply be wished away by signatures on a peace
agreement. These conflicts were the product of long-established patterns
of authoritarianism on the part of the Sudanese state that would prove
hard to break away from. They were themselves generated or exacerbated
by earlier projects of national transformation that had been pursued
with little or no regard for the interests and opinions of most of those
affected by them. There was clearly a danger that an elite peace agree-
ment between the warring parties – the Comprehensive Peace Agreement
was finally signed in Naivasha the following year – might have the same
outcome.
In 2004 it was already apparent that the oil industry would bring new
wealth to Sudan. Oil served both to fuel the war and to create a potential
peace dividend, a factor that helped bring the belligerents to the negoti-
ating table. Even before the peace agreement the violent interventions
in the oil areas that occurred during the war were coming to an end. But
it seemed that the wartime sufferings of the Sudanese might be about to
be replaced by new problems of peace.
The years following the CPA were to see sudden unplanned influxes
of capital, a huge increase in the presence of both oil workers and aid
workers, grand development projects, most of them undertaken in haste,
with little local consultation and no sense of historical context. TheseThe Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors projects^ seemed^ likely,^ at^ the^ local^ level,^ to^ exacerbate^ existing^ conflicts^
(www.riftvalley.net).