The Sudan Handbook

310 thE sudan handbook

The West and the East

The first task of any government in Khartoum is to find a solution to the

conflict in Darfur. Most of Sudan’s peace processes, and the agreements

that resulted from them, have been lengthy, costly and disappointing,

undermined by broken ceasefires and the fomentation of division among

opposition forces. This was the case in the south before the CPA; it is the

case currently in Darfur. The rebel movements in Darfur, unlike those in

the south, have not embraced, either explicitly or tacitly, a secessionist

agenda, and thus have not threatened the territorial integrity of the

country. So a settlement there is possible without the major political

reordering made likely by the CPA in the south. At present it is possible

that a kind of peace will come in Darfur through the progressive cooption

of rebel leaders and the granting of some degree of regional autonomy, as

foreshadowed in the original, failed Darfur Peace Agreement. Yet Darfur

is not the only part of Sudan where regional insurgencies are present.

In Kordofan and eastern Sudan there are long-term discontents that are

liable to reignite. Unless the government in Khartoum can address the

enduring structural inequalities of all the regions of the new north, such

mutinies will not cease.

The North-South Borderlands

Sudan may become two countries, but their fate will remain intertwined
for the foreseeable future. Of all the uncertainties in the era following the
CPA, the fate of the peoples of the north-south borderlands is the most
uncertain. The border is one of the longest in Eastern Africa. Here, local
rivalries, intimacies and enmities have been progressively militarized as
a result of conflict at the wider, national level. Indigenous patterns of
cooperation and conflict have been affected by the politics of Sudan’s
ruling political-military elites. These border areas have become the
testing ground for the peace process.
In the course of the war, military forces on both sides systematically
exploited the competition between border peoples over productive
The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors

(www.riftvalley.net).