The Sudan Handbook

tWEntiEth-CEntuRy CiVil WaRs 211

The overthrow of the military government in 1964 paradoxically gave

the Anyanya their first real access to arms. The civilian government in

Khartoum chose to support the Simba rebels in the Congo, but arms

intended for the Simba fell into the hands of the Anyanya, making them

a far more potent military force than they had previously been.

An attempt was made to reach a political solution for the ‘Southern

Problem’ at the 1965 round table conference in Khartoum where all the

major northern parties were represented, along with the newly formed

Southern Front. SANU, too, was persuaded to attend. But the conference

got no further than each party stating its position and no real compro-

mise was reached. One result was that SANU split. William Deng chose

to stay inside the country and work through the parliamentary system,

while Joseph Oduho and Aggrey Jaden went back into exile. Fr. Saturnino

Lohure continued his work seeking arms and supplies for the Anyanya.

Factionalism thus beset the southern guerrilla movements from the

outset. Over the next few years there were several attempts at forming

‘provisional governments’ in the bush: the Azania Liberation Front,

the Anyidi Liberation Front, the Nile Provisional Government, the

Nile Republic, even a Sueh River Republic under Samuel Abujohn in

Zandeland. Very often fighting in the field was between these different

groups.

The early civil war took place mainly along the south’s international

borders (where the guerrillas had their bases) and especially in Equatoria.

This limited territorial range was one of the movement’s weaknesses,

and only gradually did the civil war expand outside these areas and begin

to overcome these factional differences.

Those killed in factional fighting were not the main casualties. In 1965

the army carried out a series of massacres, the largest of which took place

in Juba and Wau in which a large number of educated southerners were

killed. Fr. Saturnino, one of the key figures, was killed through collusion

between the Sudanese and Ugandan armies as he crossed into Uganda in

1967, and William Deng was assassinated by the army in 1968.

With the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and the 1969 left-wing coup that

The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors brought in a second military government under Jaafar Nimeiri the Sudan

(www.riftvalley.net).