The Sudan Handbook

208 thE sudan handbook

of individual tax-defaulters or other offenders; thus demonstrating the

threat of force and reinforcing the memory of force.

The nature of co-dominal rivalry was such that much of the time

Britain was trying to balance or curb the power of Egypt in the Sudan, and

no more so than at the end of the Condominium. At this point Britain’s

objective was not to hold on to the Sudan against a rising nationalist

tide, but to prevent Egypt from taking over when Britain left. This had a

direct impact on the control of force the government was able to exert,

and with Sudanisation of the civil administration, the police and the army

in 1954, that control was loosened.

The 1955 Southern Disturbances

To the southern Sudanese, the process of ‘Sudanisation’, a require-

ment agreed between Britain and Egypt before the Sudan could exercise

self-determination, looked less like national liberation and more like

re-colonization. The vast majority of new administrators, police and army

officers who came into the south to replace British officials were northern

Sudanese with no previous experience in the south, no knowledge of

local languages (unlike most of the British they replaced), and little

knowledge of the people they were supposed to govern.

The tension this sudden changeover caused throughout the southern

Sudan, the lack of any real stake in the new government that most

southerners had, and the uncertainties of the future created an explosive

situation in many parts of the south, especially in the rapidly develop ing

towns of Nzara and Yambio in western Equatoria and in the main

garrisons of the Equatorial Corps of the Sudan Defence Force, whose

headquarters were in Torit, in eastern Equatoria.

The mutiny that broke out in Torit in August 1955 was part of a local

conspiracy among some of the soldiers, but there was very little planning

for a general rising. There were other mutinies within the army, police

and prison service – in Kapoeta, Juba, Terekeka, Yei, Meridi, Yambio,

Nzara and Malakal – but these out-breaks were more in response to

The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors the news from Torit than a co-ordinated rebellion. The mutineers had

(www.riftvalley.net).