The Sudan Handbook

298 thE sudan handbook

law as the basis for Sudan’s political order. Second, it gave one group of

Sudanese citizens – the mainly non-Muslim southern population – the

right to opt out of that political order. The formulation proved durable,

and also palatable to the United States, which played an increasingly

dominant role in the peace process after 2001. The US accepted the

NCP’s claim to represent and articulate a unified Muslim identity on

behalf of the peoples of northern Sudan. The south, seen as non-Muslim,

had a right to secede from this sharia-inspired political order, (though

the US position did not initially favour self- determination leading to

independence), but the political order itself was not in question. This

was to have long-term implications for the prospect of secular politics

in northern Sudan.

US involvement came shortly after the split in the ranks of the NCP,

which led to the defection of its chief ideologue, Hassan al-Turabi. The

ruling party perpetuated its hold on power by exploring, with US support,

an audaciously pragmatic deal with its enemy – the SPLM – in the process

that culminated in the CPA.

The agreement marked not just the end of the war, but the culmination

of decades of friction between central governments and political forces in

southern Sudan and the borderlands. On paper – and to some extent in

reality – the CPA radically restructured the institutions of government.

It created an autonomous Government of Southern Sudan and provided

mechanisms that offered previously marginalized areas of central Sudan

a say in determining their future. The Interim Period provided for in

the CPA explicitly enjoined the parties to make the continued unity of

Sudan attractive. And, it gave one group of Sudanese – the people of

Southern Sudan – a vote on the issue in the form of a referendum on

self-determination.

The CPA offered a new system of sharing wealth and power between

north and south; and it promised a new political dispensation in the whole

country. But it followed the Khartoum Peace agreement rather than the

original IGAD declaration in tacitly accepting the cultural dominance of

Islam in northern Sudanese politics. In signing the CPA, the SPLM and

The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors IGAD accepted the NCP’s vision of the state. The price paid for southern

(www.riftvalley.net).