Sudan Introduction

Sudan is the largest country in Africa, bordering Egypt, Eritrea, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya and Uganda. Getting a visa for Sudan is an expensive hit-and-miss affair, but if you do manage to get in, and you stick to the safe areas, you will probably have a fantastic experience. The Sudanese people are very hospitable, and you can visit some awesome tourist attractions without even seeing another tourist.

Sudan Weather

Sudan has tropical weather conditions (warm and humid) in the south, while in the deserts of the north, conditions are hot and dry for most of the year. The rainy season is (April - November)

Sudan Attractions

Khartoum

Omdurman

Atbara

Kassala

Sudan History

Three ancient Kushite kingdoms existed consecutively in northern Sudan. This region was also known as the Nubian Kingdom and these civilizations flourished mainly along the Nile River from the first to the sixth cataracts. The kingdoms were influenced by, and in turn influenced Pharaonic Egypt. The borders of the ancient Egyptian and Sudanese kingdoms fluctuated greatly and what is now the upper third of present day Northern Sudan was during ancient times indistinguishable from Upper Egypt.

Christianity was introduced in the 3rd or 4th century, and Islam around AD 640. A merchant class of Arabs became economically dominant in feudal Sudan. Important kingdoms in the next 1,200 years include Makuria and the Kingdom of Sennar.

In 1820, Sudan came under Egyptian rule when Mehemet Ali, the Ottoman viceroy of Egypt, sent armies led by his son Ismail Pasha and Mahommed Bey to conquer eastern Sudan. In the 1880s, religious leader Muhammad ibn Abdalla, self-proclaimed Mahdi (Messiah), attempted to unify the tribes of western and central Sudan. He led a nationalist revolt against Egyptian rule culminating in the fall of Khartoum in 1885, in which the British General Gordon was killed, and during which a tribe in the region of Port Sudan inspired Rudyard Kipling's poem Fuzzy Wuzzy. But in 1898, the Mahdist state was overwhelmed by an Anglo-Egyptian force under Lord Kitchener. The United Kingdom ran Sudan as two essentially separate colonies, the south and the north, until 1956.

The year before independence in 1956, Southern Sudan embarked upon a civil war. During British rule, it was illegal for people living above the 10th parallel to go further south and people above the 8th parallel further north. The law was enacted to prevent the spread of malaria and other tropical diseases that had ravaged British troops. The resulting isolation between Northeners and Southerners and the conflicts of interest that ensued, among other reasons, sparked 17 years of civil war from 1955 to 1972. In 1972, the Addis Ababa Agreement led to a cessation of the north-south civil war and a degree of self-rule. This led to a ten-year hiatus in the civil war.

In September 1983, President Gaafar Nimeiry, created a Federated Sudan which included 3 federal states in Southern Sudan, in effect violating the Addis Ababa Agreement and weakening the self-rule in the process. It was the introduction of Sharia law and the dissolution of the 3 federal states in the South that led to the reinvigoration of the civil war.

After shortages of fuel and bread, a growing insurgency in the south, drought and famine, in 1984-5 another military coup led by Gen. Suwar al-Dahab restored a civilian democratic government. However the civil war intensified in lethality and the economy continued to deteriorate. In 1989 General Omar el-Bashir became president and chief of state, prime minister and chief of the armed forces.

In 1991, Osama Bin Laden moved to Sudan. His stated objective was to use his money, power and expertise in construction to help Sudan. He was attracted to Sudan because it claimed to be a purely Islamic state. He was responsible for building the road from Khartoum northward to the town of Shendi. He is purported to have lost much money on business ventures in Sudan; some estimates exceed $100 million USD [1]. In place of payment for his road venture, the Government of Sudan, strapped for cash, paid him with a defunct tanning factory, which in 1996 was confiscated when he was forcebly expelled at the request of the United States and he relocated to Afghanistan.

The ongoing civil war has displaced more than 4 million southerners. Some fled into southern cities, such as Juba; others trekked as far north as Khartoum and even into Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Egypt, and other neighboring countries. These people were unable to grow food or earn money to feed themselves, and malnutrition and starvation became widespread. The lack of investment in the south also resulted in what international humanitarian organizations call a "lost generation" of people who lack educational opportunities, access to basic health care services, and little prospects for productive employment in the small and weak economies of the south or the north.

In early 2003 a new rebellion began in the western province of Darfur, during which the government committed terrible atrocities. In February 2004, the government declared victory over the rebellion but the rebels reported that they remained in control of rural areas and other reports indicated that widespread fighting continued.

Peace talks between the southern rebels and the government made substantial progress in 2003 and early 2004, although skirmishes in parts of the south reportedly continued. The peace was consolidated with the official signing by both sides of the Naivasha treaty on 9 January 2005, granting Southern Sudan autonomy for six years, to be followed by a referendum about independence. It created a co-vice president position and allowed the north and south to split oil equally, but also left both the North's and South's armies in place. John Garang, the south's elected co-vice president died in a helicopter crash on August 1, 2005, three weeks after being sworn in. It is hoped that the treaty will finally mark the end of a decades-long war that has claimed millions of lives.

Now politically, there is a "verbal" peace between the north and the south. But an inter-ethnic war has been raging in Darfur since 2003 between the so-called Arab and African peoples of that region. That war shows no immediate signs of abating despite several rounds of inconclusive peace talks in the Nigerian capital, Abuja. Also in the east of Sudan on the border with Eritrea another conflict is brewing between the non-Arab Beja people and the central Government, related to the same sort of issues of ethnic tension and marginalisation that sparked the Darfur conflict.

Sudan has enjoyed brief spells of democracy in various years. The British have handed governance to a democratic government in 1956, which was toppled by a coup in 1958. Democratic parliamentary governments were also in place in the periods 1964-1969 and 1986-1989, the latter after Gen. Suwar al-Dahab voluntarily handed power.

Chad-Sudan conflict

The Chad-Sudan conflict officially started on December 23, 2005, when the government of Chad declared a state of war with Sudan and called for the citizens of Chad to mobilize themselves against the "common enemy," which the Chadian government sees as the Rally for Democracy and Liberty (RDL) militants, Chadian rebels, backed by the Sudanese government, and Sudanese militiamen. Militants have attacked villages and towns in eastern Chad, stealing cattle, murdering citizens, and burning houses. Over 200,000 refugees from the Darfur region of northwestern Sudan currently claim asylum in eastern Chad. Chadian president Idriss Déby accuses Sudanese President Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir of trying to "destabilize our country, to drive our people into misery, to create disorder and export the war from Darfur to Chad."

The incident prompting the declaration of war was an attack on the Chadian town of Adré near the Sudanese border that led to the deaths of either one hundred rebels (as most news sources reported) or three hundred rebels. The Sudanese government was blamed for the attack, which was the second in the region in three days, but Sudanese foreign ministry spokesman Jamal Mohammed Ibrahim denied any Sudanese involvement, "We are not for any escalation with Chad. We technically deny involvement in Chadian internal affairs." The Adre attack led to the declaration of war by Chad and the alleged deployment of the Chadian airforce into Sudanese airspace, which the Chadian government denies.

Sudan Politics

Sudan has an authoritarian government in which all effective political power is in the hands of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. Bashir and his party have controlled the government since he led the military coup on 30 June 1989.

From 1983 to 1997, the country was divided into five regions in the north and three in the south, each headed by a military governor. After the April 6, 1985 military coup, regional assemblies were suspended. The RCC was abolished in 1996, and the ruling National Islamic Front changed its name to the National Congress Party. After 1997, the structure of regional administration was replaced by the creation of 26 states. The executives, cabinets, and senior-level state officials are appointed by the president, and their limited budgets are determined by and dispensed from Khartoum. The states, as a result, remain economically dependent upon the central government. Khartoum state, comprising the capital and outlying districts, is administered by a governor.

In December 1999, a power struggle climaxed between President al-Bashir and then-speaker of parliament Hassan al-Turabi, who was the NIF founder and an Islamist ideologue. Al-Turabi was stripped of his posts in the ruling party and the government, parliament was disbanded, the constitution was suspended, and a state of national emergency was declared by presidential decree. Parliament resumed in February 2001 after the December 2000 presidential and parliamentary elections, but the national emergency laws remain in effect. Al-Turabi was arrested in February 2001, and charged with being a threat to national security and the constitutional order for signing a memorandum of understanding with the SPLA. Since then his outspoken style has had him in prison or under house-arrest, his most recent stint beginning in March of 2004 and ending in June of 2005. During that time he was under house-arrest for his role in a failed coup attempt in September of 2003, an allegation he has denied. According to some reports, the president had no choice but to release him, given that a coalition of National Democratic Union (NDA) members headquartered in both Cairo and Eritrea, composed of the political parites known as the SPLM/A, Umma Party, Mirghani Party, and Turabi's own National People's Congress, were calling for his release at a time when an interim government was preparing to take over in accordance with the Naivasha agreement and the Machokos Accord.