Category Archives: Sudan

Struggle between North and South Sudan Increasingly Tied to Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

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Andrew McGregor

January 12, 2012

In late December, South Sudan president Salva Kiir made a state visit to Israel, meeting with President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. The visit alarmed many in the traditional Khartoum power structure, including former prime minister Sadiq al-Mahdi, who described the visit as “devilish” and part of an Israeli effort to find new allies after alienating Turkey and losing the cooperation of the Mubarak regime in Egypt (Sudan Vision, December 26, 2011).

Salva Kiir Mayardit 2President Salva Kiir Mayardit

A spokesman for the Sudanese Foreign Ministry said the government was studying the national security implications of Kiir’s visit to Israel, citing Israel’s leading role in an international campaign to “foment” the conflict in Darfur (Sudan Tribune, December 22, 2011).

Also on the agenda was the fate of an estimated 15,000 Sudanese refugees in Israel, many of them Muslims from Darfur and Christians from the South Sudan that the Israeli government would like to return in order to preserve the Jewish character of Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu likened the arrival of these refugees to “a nationwide plague – in the economy, society, homeland security. There is no obligation to take in illegal infiltrators. This is no longer a matter of making a decision – it’s a necessity, an imperative… Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state must be secured” (YNet News, December 27, 2011).

After Kiir’s visit, Israel announced it would send a delegation to South Sudan to investigate means of assisting the new nation. Kiir is reported to have asked for greater cooperation in the fields of technology, agriculture and water development (DPA/Reuters, December 20).

Rolf Steiner in Biafra

Israel’s interaction with South Sudan goes back to the Anyanya rebellion of the 1960s, when it provided covert training and arms supplies to Southern guerrillas in an effort to open a new front against Khartoum and prevent the deployment of Sudanese troops along the Suez Canal as part of the Arab alliance against Israel. German mercenary Rolf Steiner, fresh from exploits in the Congo and Biafra, attempted to join the Anyanya forces, but was forced to join another separatist faction after what he believed were Israeli objections to his service with Anyanya based on his experience as a teenaged Jungvolk commander in Nazi Germany in 1943-44. [1]

Right on the heels of the South Sudan president’s visit to Jerusalem came the first official visit to Sudan by the Hamas prime minister of Gaza, Ismail Haniya. After arriving in Khartoum on December 27, the Hamas leader predicted the “Arab Spring” would eventually bring victory to the Palestinian resistance and thanked the Sudanese people for their support (Sudan Vision, December 31, 2011).

Haniya was joined in Khartoum by Khalid Mesha’al, the exiled Hamas leader, and Hamas co-founder Mahmoud Zahar as the delegation sought financial support for its reconstruction following the 2008 Israeli attack on the territory as well as political support for recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state (AFP, December 29). Mesha’al was reported as warning the Sudanese president that Israeli authorities were trying to ethnically cleanse Jerusalem by “Judaizing” the city (Elnashra [Beirut], December 29, 2011; Jerusalem Post, December 30, 2011).

Meanwhile, both the Sudanese and Israeli press have been full of unverified stories alleging Israeli military incursions and airstrikes in the Red Sea coast region of Sudan. In an attack said to have occurred in November, Israeli aircraft were reported to have struck two vehicles in the Wadi al-Allaqi area of northern Sudan near the disputed Hala’ib Triangle region along the Sudanese-Egyptian border (Haaretz, December 25, 2011; December 27, 2011). A second incursion was reported by Sudanese media to have taken place on December 15, involving Israeli Apache attack helicopters landing near a Sudanese radar installation and even Israeli submarines operating off the Sudanese Red Sea coast (YNet News, December 26, 2011). Sudanese officials denied reports that Israeli aircraft had carried out strikes on targets in eastern Sudan on December 18 and 22 (al-Bawaba, December 25, 2011).  A pro-government daily reported that the men killed in a convoy of six Toyota Land Cruisers attacked by Israeli aircraft on December 18 were “gold prospectors”  (Alintibaha [Khartoum], December 24, 2011).

Most of the reports display some confusion over the actual dates and some apparently different reports may refer to the same incident. Colonel Sawarmi Khalid Sa’ad, a spokesman for the Sudanese Army, was adamant that no trace of an aerial incursion had been detected by Sudanese radar and air defense systems (Haaretz, December 25)

Israeli claims that Iran was shipping arms through Sudan and overland through Egypt to Gaza emerged in 2009 just prior to an earlier series of mysterious airstrikes in Sudan’s Red Sea coast region (Jerusalem Post, March 3, 2009).

Note

  1. Scopas S. Poggo: “Politics of Liberation in the Southern Sudan, 1967-1972: The Role of Israel, African Heads of State, and Foreign Mercenaries,” The Uganda Journal, Vol. 47, November 2001, pp. 34-48; Rolf Steiner: The Last Adventurer, Boston, 1978, pp. 178-210; Edgar O’Ballance: The Secret War in the Sudan 1955-1972, London, 1977, pp. 126-130.

This article first appeared in the January 12, 2012 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

Egypt’s Gama’a al-Islamiya and the War in South Sudan

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Andrew McGregor

December 9, 2011

In a surprising statement, a leading member of Egypt’s Gama’a al-Islamiya (GI) has revealed members of the militant group had been sent to fight alongside government forces against South Sudanese rebels during the 1983-2005 Sudanese Civil War. The revelation was made by Dr. Najih Ibrahim, a founding member of the movement (al-Rai [Kuwait], November 16).

PDF KhartoumPopular Defense Forces Rally in Khartoum

In the 1990s, Khartoum’s civil war with rebel forces in the South Sudan was given a religious character when the regime declared it a jihad, partly as a means of inspiring, and later enforcing, recruitment to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) or the lightly-armed Popular Defense Forces (PDF), which was armed with rifles and Qurans in an unsuccessful effort to destroy the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), the most powerful rebel movement in the South Sudan. It was likely during Khartoum’s jihad against what it described as the “communist, tribal and atheist/Christian” SPLA that GI fighters joined the conflict, most probably in the ranks of the PDF, which suffered enormous losses fighting the veteran guerrilla forces of the SPLA on their own turf. Lately, however, there are fears that Khartoum is reviving the rhetoric of jihad to support its offensives against rebels in South Kordofan and the Blue Nile Province (Sudan Tribune, November 1).

The Alexandria-based Islamist ideologue said that GI’s “participation [in the civil war] was a huge mistake that led to what is Sudan’s fate now… The Sudanese regime focused its efforts on Islamizing the south and the Egyptian Islamists considered their participation in the war [was for the cause of] safeguarding Islam.”

From 1992 to 1997, al-Gama’a al-Islamiya waged a pitched war against the Egyptian state, its institutions and its financial underpinnings.  Some 1,200 people died as the group unleashed a wave of assassinations, mass murders of tourists and back-street battles with security forces.  However, the movement went too far in November 1997 when it massacred 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians in a brutal attack at the Temple of Hatshepsut near Luxor. With popular support fizzling away and security forces successful in imprisoning many of the movement’s members, most of the members of the GI agreed to renounce violence, leading to the later release of some 2,000 Islamists from prison. However, some members, including Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, denounced the deal, and fled to Yemen and Afghanistan. Further renunciations of violence by those group members left in prison eventually led to the release of Najih Ibrahim in 2006 after serving 24 years.

The GI’s newly-formed political wing, Hizb al-Bena’a wa’l-Tanmia (Building and Development Party), ran a slate of candidates in the Egyptian parliamentary election after a court overturned a ban on the formation of a political party by the GI (Ahram Online, June 20; al-Masry al-Youm, September 20; MENA, October 10).

A member of GI’s Shura Council, Najih Ibrahim resigned from the council in March, along with Karam Zohid, reportedly as a result of differences that arose within the movement after the release of Colonel Abboud al-Zumar and his cousin Tarek al-Zumar, the GI founder who was imprisoned for three decades for his role in the assassination of President Anwar al-Sadat (Ahram Online, March 29).

Both before and after his release from prison, Ibrahim has been a major proponent of the “Revisions” produced by GI and other Islamist militant groups in Egypt. According to Ibrahim, these reassessments of the political use of violence “have revealed the major Islamic jurisprudential errors that al-Qaeda has made, especially with regard to the rulings and the pre-conditions of jihad” (al-Shorfa [Cairo], August 2). Though he regrets the slow pace with which the “Revisions” are penetrating extremist youth circles in Egypt, Ibrahim maintains that there is a major difference between GI and al-Qaeda: “Their aim is jihad, and our aim is Islam” (al-Sharq al-Awsat, August 14).

This article first appeared in the December 9, 2011 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor

Khartoum Besieged? Sudan’s Rebel Movements Unite against the Center

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Andrew McGregor

November 24, 2011

Sudan’s military offensive against rebels in its southern Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan provinces has begun to spill over the new border with South Sudan with potentially devastating results for the region. As Khartoum descends into a severe financial crisis caused, in part, by the loss of three-quarters of its oil-fields to the newly sovereign South Sudan, it is now being challenged by a new alliance of rebel movements from Darfur, South Kordofan, Blue Nile and eastern Sudan. The Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) is contesting the post-independence domination of Sudan’s non-Arab majority by an Arab minority hailing from the banks of the Nile in northern Sudan.

A statement issued at the SRF’s November 11 meeting asserted the alliance’s determination “to overthrow the [ruling] National Congress Party (NCP) regime using all available means, above all, the convergence of civil political action and armed struggle.” [1] As well as a “High-Level Political Committee,” the alliance has established a “Joint High-Level Military Committee” to coordinate the armed struggle: “Its first responsibility is to repel the NCP’s vengeful dry season offensive, which is targeting civilians in war zones, in all the theaters of conflict, including Khartoum…” The statement makes clear that the constituent groups of the SRF believe the time is ripe to topple the regime, claiming it is “presently at its weakest – economically, politically and militarily. The regime is imploding and will vanish, like other corrupt regimes around us that have come to rely on repression to retain power.” [1]

The statement was signed by representatives of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army – North (SPLM/A – N) and three Darfur rebel movements, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the largely Fur Sudan Liberation Movement/Army – Abdel Wahid (SLM/A – AW), and the largely Zaghawa Sudan Liberation Movement – Minni Minnawi (SLM/A – MM). The latter’s commander, Minni Minawi, had sided with the government for some time after signing the 2006 Abuja agreement with Khartoum, but has now returned to the rebellion.

The groundwork for the formation of the SRF was laid in August when the SPLM/A-N signed an agreement in the South Kordofan town of Kauda with two Darfur rebel movements pledging to overthrow the central government in Khartoum.The formation of the alliance was quickly condemned by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon as an escalation in tension possibly leading to a new civil war, but the secretary-general’s remarks were challenged by the SPLM-N’s own secretary general, Yasir Arman, who accused the UN leader of supporting “aggressors and war criminals” (Sudan Tribune, November 17).

 

 

Beja Congress Fighters

On November 15, the Beja Congress of northeastern Sudan announced its decision to join the SRF. Founded in 1958, the Beja Congress was originally a political party, but has gradually grown into an armed resistance movement fighting a low-intensity insurgency on behalf of the roughly two million indigenous non-Arab Beja people. The Congress has resisted efforts by Khartoum to “Arabize” the Beja tribes, noting in its announcement that “The misery and suffering of the [Beja] people is increasing due to poverty, starvation and other deadly diseases. The ruling regime in Sudan is subjecting its people to humiliation and tyranny. They are arrogant and killing the marginalized people” (Radio Dabanga, November 16).

The SRF also announced that the Koch Revolution Movement (KRM) had joined the alliance (Radio Dabanga, November 18). Though little is known of the KRF, it is likely based in the Koch County of South Sudan’s oil-rich Unity State, which recently suffered from a local rebellion by a pro-government Nuer militia led by the late Colonel Gatluak Gai (murdered by his deputy in late July; for Gatluak Gai, see Terrorism Monitor Brief, August 12).

Unresolved Issues

Prominent opposition leader Sadiq al-Mahdi, leader of the Umma Party and former Prime Minister of Sudan before being overthrown by al-Bashir in 1989, recently described the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between North and South Sudan as a “flawed agreement” that “left behind time bombs,” namely the unresolved status of oil-rich Abyei District, South Kordofan and the Blue Nile Province. The latter two regions lie north of the border between Sudan and South Sudan, but supplied thousands of fighters allied to Southern forces in the 1983-2005 civil war. Al-Mahdi blames the regime for the proliferation of rebel groups in Sudan: “There is no doubt that the ruling regime in Sudan has played an important role in weakening unarmed political parties. In fact during one period they said we do not negotiate with anyone except those who are armed. This tempted a great number of youths to carry arms” (al-Sharq al-Awsat, November 13).

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has loudly accused South Sudan of preparing a new war against the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), claiming to have documented proof of his charges. Saying that Khartoum had already exercised “too much patience and self-restraint,” al-Bashir issued a stern warning to the South: “We tell our brothers in the South that if they want peace, we want peace. If they want war, our army is there… Our message to our brothers in the South is this: you won the South not because you were victorious [in the war], but because of an agreement and a pledge we upheld [i.e. the CPA], so you had better stay in your place” (Sudan Tribune, November 7).

A pro-government news agency in Khartoum reminded the rebels that in a world preoccupied with a number of crises, their cause is unlikely to garner international support: “The engineers of the new alliance might think that they will get support from everywhere, but this is just an illusion because the world is now busy resolving its crises to the extent that there is no time to look on new alliances attempting to topple regimes while the whole world order is collapsing” (Sudan Vision, November 17).

The SPLM/A-N Rebellion

SPLA–N forces have been fighting in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan since June (see Terrorism Monitor, July 1). An SPLA-N insurrection followed in the Blue Nile province, which has now been placed under military control as the SAF drive the rebel fighters south towards the border with South Sudan.

 

SPLA-N Fighters in Blue Nile Province

The SPLA-N rebels in Blue Nile Province suffered a major setback on November 3 when the SAF’s 14th Infantry Division took the town of Kurmuk, a rebel stronghold near the border with Ethiopia, reportedly inflicting heavy losses on the rebels. A spokesman for the rebels insisted that the expulsion was actually a withdrawal undertaken for “strategic reasons” (Reuters, November 4).  SPLM/A-N Secretary General Yasir Arman claimed that the SAF forces attacking Kurmuk had been reinforced by Janjaweed militia from Darfur and fighters belonging to the anti-Juba Jonglei-based South Sudanese militia led by Dinka General George Athor (for Athor, see Terrorism Monitor, May 20, 2010).

On November 22, the SAF announced it had seized the town of Diem Mansour from the rebels (Sudan Tribune, November 22). Diem Mansour is only 25 km from the South Sudan border. Satellite imagery shows that the SAF is installing helipads and lengthening and upgrading runways in Kurmuk and ad-Damazin, moves that would allow the SAF to improve its ability to bomb targets further into the South Sudan (VOA, November 11).

Cross-Border Attacks

Reports from the border between North and South Sudan indicate that al-Bashir’s rhetoric is now being matched by SAF operations in the border region. On November 11, an SPLA spokesman announced that SAF forces and allied militias had been repelled in a seven-hour battle at Kuek, home to an SPLA military base guarding nearby oil fields. The attack was denied by Khartoum, but SPLA spokesmen insisted the battle was proof of Khartoum’s plans to “capture the oil fields” (AFP, November 11; Sudanese Media Center, November 11). There were reports of a similar attack on an SPLA base in Raja County in Western Bahr al-Ghazal Province (Saturday Nation [Nairobi], November 19).

Yida refugee camp in Unity State was bombed on November 10 by one of Sudan’s ancient Soviet-built Antonov cargo planes, used by the Sudan Air Force as makeshift bombers. The attack came a day after a similar bombing of a refugee camp at Guffa in Upper Nile State that killed seven people (Sudan Tribune, November 10; VOA, November 11). Despite estimates that up to 100,000 people may have fled south from the fighting in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile Province, Khartoum maintains that all such camps are actually bases for SPLA-N insurgents.  A spokesman for the Sudanese Foreign Ministry insisted that “There are no camps for Sudanese refugees in South Sudan… only assembly areas for rebel troops” (AFP, November 11).

Sudan has made two complaints to the UN Security Council this year over what it charges is South Sudanese military support for the SPLM/A-N rebels. At the same time, Khartoum continues to ignore a Security Council order to withdraw its forces from the disputed Abyei region. In the South, President Salva Kiir has also complained to the Security Council over threats of a southern invasion coming from Khartoum: “It is surprising that Sudan as a member of the United Nations has arrogated itself to threaten the sovereignty of the Republic of South Sudan through military invasion” (Sudan Tribune, November 10).

Renewed fighting along the border will make it extremely difficult to restart negotiations between North and South, which had already broken down without making any progress on resolving issues like the status of Abyei, border delimitation and a formula for oil distribution fees. Both Sudan’s find themselves in a tricky situation as most oil is produced in the South but all of it must pass through North Sudan in a pipeline to the Red Sea terminal at Port Sudan.  With peace talks having ground to a halt, the SPLM tried a new gambit to revive negotiations by offering “to assist the north, give them billions of dollars… We are willing to share with them, despite our poverty, in the interests of peace” (AFP, November 18; Reuters, November 18). At the same time, South Sudan president Salva Kiir has been issuing increasingly stronger statements maintaining that the South will preserve its newly-gained sovereignty from attack by Khartoum by force if necessary.

Following the alleged SAF attacks Salva Kiir visited Kampala for urgent security-related discussions. Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, a close U.S. ally well on his way to building one of Africa’s strongest militaries, told a joint news conference that Khartoum must end its “aggression” against the South and avoid making the mistake of “managing Sudan as an Arab country [when] it is Afro-Arab” (Saturday Nation [Nairobi], November 19).

China, meanwhile, appears to have decided to continue its support for the Khartoum regime despite its continuing involvement in oil operations in both South and North Sudan. The Defense Ministers of China and the Sudan agreed on November 17 to strengthen military relations and deepen cooperation between their respective militaries (China Daily, November 17).

Conclusion

After decades of conflict, Khartoum seems unable or unwilling to turn to anything other than a military solution in its dealings with internal dissent or in resolving differences with its neighbors. The military buildup along the border with South Sudan suggests Khartoum might like to move on the Southern oilfields, but any such operation would have to quick and decisive; otherwise oil flows would stop and both North and South Sudan would immediately face an economic crisis. The South, having spent roughly 50% of its annual budget on arms and military equipment since 2005, has prepared well for any irredentist attack by Khartoum and the few Khartoum-supported militias operating in the South are unlikely to be enough to distract the South Sudanese Army, now one of Africa’s largest, from repelling a Northern offensive.  In fact, with the creation of the Sudanese Revolutionary Front, it is now Khartoum that must worry about rebel militias operating in its rear areas. In the event of a third round of war with the South, these Northern rebel movements would soon begin receiving arms and training from the SPLA.

The Shaiqiya, the Ja’alin and the Danagla, the powerful riverine Arab tribes that dominate the Sudanese state, have too much at stake to allow al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on war-crimes charges, to bring down a state which, at least in Khartoum and parts of the northern Nile region, had begun to show signs of prosperity thanks to petro-dollars and investment from the Gulf States.

The creation of the SRF does not mean that rebel fighters will soon be seen in the streets of Khartoum, but it does remind Northerners that peace agreements with empty rebel fronts like the recent deal with Darfur’s Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM) are no substitute for negotiations with genuine security threats. The SRF can succeed against the regime through a war of attrition, keeping the Sudanese Army fighting an expensive multi-front counter-insurgency in the midst of a crippling economic crisis. Khartoum will no doubt attempt to apply its proven strategy of dealing with regional opposition by exploiting divisions within the opposition, then offering financial and political incentives for disenchanted factions to join the government forces. Nevertheless, it seems probable that at some point those with vested interests in the survival of the regime and the prevention of the state’s total economic collapse will begin to look for alternatives to al-Bashir in their desire to maintain something as close to the political and social status quo as possible.

Note

  1. Communiqué of the Sudan Revolutionary Front, November 11, 2011; full text available at: http://paanluelwel2011.wordpress.com/2011/11/12/communique-of-the-sudan-revolutionary-front/.

 

This article first appeared in the November 17, 2011 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

Rebellion without Reason: The Strange Survival of Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army

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Andrew McGregor

November 23, 2011

After decades of carrying out unspeakable atrocities and thousands of kidnappings in Central Africa, the elusive commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), Joseph Kony, appears to have narrowly escaped capture by the Uganda People’s Defense Force (UPDF) twice in recent weeks, with the UPDF emerging from the bush with only some of his clothing and his wash basin to show for their efforts (Daily Monitor [Kampala], October 16).

LRA Commander Joseph Kony

Following in the footsteps of the George Bush administration (which once announced elimination of the LRA as an administration priority), President Barack Obama has turned the attention of his administration towards eliminating the LRA by sending roughly 100 Special Forces and other military specialists to aid Ugandan/South Sudanese/Congolese efforts to destroy the dispersed LRA groups still living in the bush of the Central African Republic (CAR) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).  The deployment has been described as a short term effort that is expected to use lessons learned in the U.S. aided 2009 Operation Lightning Thunder fiasco to protect isolated communities from the LRA while military forces hunt down the group’s estimated 200 remaining fighters.  The new weapons to be used against the LRA and its erratic commander, Joseph Kony, are improved communications and military coordination. Villagers will be provided with high-frequency radios to report LRA movements and military commanders from the DRC, South Sudan and Uganda will be given U.S. intelligence gleaned from communications intercepts and satellite imagery (Los Angeles Times, October 25). In addition, both military and civilians will be able to follow the militia’s movements through the “LRA Crisis Tracker” website, funded by U.S. charities (BBC, October 4). [1]

The Acholi Alienation

Kony’s LRA has its roots in the conflict between the Acholi tribe of northern Uganda and other tribes in Uganda’s south that began during the regime of Idi Amin Dada (1971-1979). The Acholi are a sub-group of the Luo people of South Sudan’s Bahr al-Ghazal region who migrated to northern Uganda several centuries ago.

The troubles in Acholiland may be traced back to 1971, when Ugandan president Idi Amin conducted a ruthless purge of Acholi troops in the Ugandan Army. Many of the survivors went into exile, returning to Uganda in 1979 as part of the Tanzanian forces that expelled Idi Amin. A young Ugandan rebel from western Uganda’s Banyankole tribe named Yoweri Museveni was also part of the invading force. A year later Milton Obote returned to power in Kampala, only to preside over atrocities that surpassed anything committed by Idi Amin. Obote unleashed the Acholi troops in the Luwero Triangle region north of Kampala, where they quickly gained a reputation for looting, rape and murder.

By 1985 Uganda was on the verge of collapse, and Obote was overthrown by an Acholi commander, General Tito Okello with the help of fellow Acholi, Brigadier Bazilio Olara-Okello. The general’s rule was short-lived, however, as Museveni broke a pact with his government and seized power, leaving the Acholi troops to flee north to their homeland. Southern troops happily took retribution in Acholiland for the atrocities committed in the Luwero Triangle. By the late 1980s, most Acholi military formations had folded or joined the new religiously inspired Holy Spirit movement led by Alice Lakwena (a.k.a. “The Messenger,” a.k.a. Alice Auma). The young Joseph Kony, who had dropped out of school to become a traditional healer, was also attracted to the movement.

With a mix of pagan and Christian beliefs, Alice Lakwena promised redemption to the Acholi soldiers while organizing them into local defense forces. Ritual observances were intended to make the men bullet-proof, while Lakwena arranged to have them assisted in battle by snakes, bees and legions of spirits while they attacked their enemies in a cross formation. Strategic decisions were often taken while Lakwena was possessed by spirits, including that of an Italian soldier who had been dead for 95 years. On her way to take Kampala, Lakwena was defeated near Jinja. She escaped and died at a refugee camp in Kenya in 2007, aged 50. [2]In the meantime the Acholi and other northern tribes were forced into IDP camps which have helped neutralize the armed opposition to the Museveni regime, but also maintain a high degree of hostility among displace northerners living in miserable conditions towards the government.

With little of coherence emerging from the LRA in terms of political aims and beliefs, it has been left to Acholi living in the international diaspora (especially London) to provide an intellectual/political framework for the LRA’s activities. These exiled supporters of the movement maintain, like Kony, that atrocities are the work of UPDF troops in disguise with the intention of discrediting the LRA. While their statements contain criticism of Museveni’s “one-party rule” and call for Ugandan federalism, free elections and political reform, the Ugandan government has been more successful in providing a counter-narrative that characterizes the LRA leadership as erratic, purposeless and obsessed with bizarre religious beliefs. [3]

The LRA and the Bush Kingdom of Joseph Kony

Kony is known for rapid and continual changes of mood. It is clear that he regards most peace negotiations as a trap or a cover for attack. The barely literate LRA commander is known for delivering a steady stream of convincing sermons with creative interpretations of bible verses that justify his violence. Like his Acholi predecessor, Alice Lakwena, Kony is frequently possessed by spirits.

Kony turns to the Bible for precedents to vindicate his preference for polygamy, abductions and amputations. In particular he cites Matthew 5, 29-30 to defend the common LRA practices of severing limbs, lips and noses: “If your right eye is your trouble, gouge it out and throw it away! Better to lose part of your body than to have it all cast into Gehenna [i.e. hell]. Again, if your right hand is your trouble, cut it off and throw it away! Better to lose party of your body than to have it all cast into Gehenna.” LRA massacres are intended to show that government security forces are incapable of defending the populace. Kony’s three main stated objectives may be described in the following way:

  •  Impose the Ten Commandments on Ugandan society
  •  Restore Acholi culture
  • Overthrow the Museveni regime.

Kony’s dreadlocked warriors are forbidden to smoke or drink alcohol. The consumption of mutton, pork (Kony considers pigs to be ghosts) and pigeon are all prohibited. There are also a number of standing orders concerning water, such as a prohibition on shouting while crossing rivers. Total obedience to Kony is mandatory for his fighters but excellent performance in carrying out his wishes is rewarded by the presentation of kidnapped girls. Pre-pubescent girls are a favorite target for abduction due to the belief they are less likely to be infected with AIDS. Male children are abducted to replace fallen fighters, their youth providing a clean slate for Kony to impose his own vision of morality. In the fashion of most religious cults, the LRA now provides these youth with family and purpose. Adults are used for forced labor and may be released or killed when no longer needed – some in the region have been subject to multiple abductions. Due to battlefield losses, desertion and the movement’s extended absence from north Uganda, it is probably safe to say that most members of the LRA now have no connection to the Acholi people.

The local Acholi often support the LRA to earn cash by selling the group marked-up goods or out of concern for abducted relatives. Others support the LRA’s opposition to Museveni, who has very little support in northern Uganda. Supplies of food, arms and other materiel from Khartoum as part of a proxy war with Uganda allowed the LRA to grow in the bush to a force of over 10,000. From their bases in South Sudan the LRA were encouraged to make local attacks against South Sudanese civilians and even to cross the Ugandan border to attack South Sudanese refugee camps there.  Thanks to the patronage of Khartoum, the LRA found itself well-armed with a variety of Soviet/Russian made equipment, including recoilless rifles, anti-tank weapons, rocket-propelled grenades, landmines and the ubiquitous AK-47 assault rifle. At the height of the struggle between Khartoum and the Ugandan-backed SPLA, Kony’s group was even allowed to open offices in Juba and Khartoum. [4]

Life is precarious in the LRA, dependent entirely upon Kony’s moods and the current state of his paranoia. The LRA commander killed one of his chief lieutenants, Alex Otti Lagony, in 1999, opening the door to a series of murders of top LRA commanders who no longer had Kony’s full trust. According to Ugandan journalist Billie O’Kadameri, “When you are with him, it’s like he cannot kill a fly, yet he has a reputation as the deadliest of all commanders. He would give orders to kill as if he was giving orders to serve food.” [5] At the same time, however, many ex-members of the movement, including abductees, have spoken of the sense of purpose they found through a movement that gave them ranks and rewards they could never achieve otherwise.

Operation Iron Fist

In 1999, Sudan and Uganda reached an agreement to stop supplying each other’s rebel factions in their long-standing proxy war. However, Sudan’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) continued to supply Kony as Khartoum sought to keep its options alive.

With serious negotiations finally underway in Sudan in 2002 to bring an end to the two-decade old Sudanese civil war, Khartoum gave the Ugandan military permission to pursue the LRA across the border and attack their bases in South Sudan. The operation was not a success, however, with Kony fleeing to the remote Imatong Mountains where his forces massacred 400 people. LRA activities in northern Uganda actually intensified during Operation Iron Fist.

Unable to defeat the LRA in the field, Kampala referred Kony’s case to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in December, 2003. The ICC eventually charged Kony and four others (Okot Odhiambo, Vincent Otti, Dominic Ongwen and Raska Lukwiya) with war crimes and crimes against humanity. The move was opposed by many in northern Uganda who preferred traditional methods of conflict resolution and Kony has repeatedly cited the ICC’s charges of war crimes as the main issue preventing him from coming in from the bush. Once the ICC becomes involved, however, it is nearly impossible to ask it to abandon its prosecution efforts. Under ICC rules, Kampala cannot request the suspension of arrest warrants once issued, even if Uganda were to reverse the ratification of its agreement to sign on to the ICC. In the meantime, attrition seems to be taking care of at least some of the problem; Odhiambo and eight other commanders were massacred by Kony in April 2008, Otti and a number of his followers were killed in a gunfight with Kony loyalists in October, 2007, and Lukwiya was killed by the UPDF in August, 2006. Despite committing a series of horrific crimes, Ongwen (a.k.a. “The White Ant”) has received support from various academics in the West as a “victim” who is not responsible for his actions since he was abducted and integrated into the LRA while only ten-years-old. [6]

Riek Machar meets with LRA Commanders

Operation Lighting Thunder

After the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) took effective control of South Sudan in 2005, it became a priority for the acting government in the southern capital of Juba to drive the LRA out of South Sudan. Kony’s surrender seemed tantalizingly close in April 2008 following several years of efforts by South Sudanese vice president Riek Machar to bring an end to LRA rampages. Kony, however, failed to show up for the signing of the Final Peace Agreement (FPA) after keeping Machar and a number of dignitaries and observers waiting for days in a bush clearing in Western Equatoria (see Terrorism Monitor, April 16, 2008).

In February 2009, Kony led some 200 followers into the southeastern Central African Republic (CAR). With this area effectively out of the control of the weak central CAR authorities the UPDF was invited in to eliminate Kony’s group, which had begun using a base at Gbassiguri for raids into South Sudan’s Western Equatoria province (New Vision [Kampala], February 27, 2009; September 7, 2009). The LRA was also quick to attack its new neighbors, abducting over 100 children and adolescents from the CAR village of Obo in March, 2009 (Daily Monitor [Kampala], March 12, 2009; April 10, 2009). Fighting in Western Equatoria between the LRA and the local “Arrow Boys” self-defense groups became increasing brutal. With the LRA short on ammunition, Kony’s fighters used amputations and mutilations to terrorize the local population while the Arrow Boys began treating LRA captives in kind (Sudan Tribune, March 6, 2009).

Like the earlier Operation Iron Fist, Operation Lightning Thunder only succeeded in making things worse. Backed by American advisers working out of Uganda, the operation was a major undertaking by the armed forces of Uganda, South Sudan and the DRC. As the shattered LRA scattered into the thick bush the pursuing militaries lost most of the tactical advantages provided by better arms and equipment, finding themselves reduced to splitting up into platoon-sized groups hunting even smaller groups of LRA through the DRC’s Garamba Forest. Groups of LRA fugitives expressed their displeasure at being chased by their usual methods of massacre, mutilation and abduction in the isolated communities of the eastern DRC. As the operation ground to a close in mid-2009, it was generally recognized as a setback in the elimination of the LRA rather than a triumph, despite the elimination of most of the LRA’s bases and several of its leaders.

The SPLA, however, had not given up on the hunt for Kony, and decided to deploy its Special Forces in the hunt for Kony. In Juba it was widely believed that the ruling Islamist National Congress Party (NCP) was continuing to provide covert aid and assistance to the LRA (Daily Nation [Nairobi], September 4, 2009; see also Terrorism Monitor Brief, September 10, 2009). In December, 2009 LRA forces under the command of Dominic Ongwen are believed to have been responsible for the massacre of roughly 300 civilians in the DRC village of Makombo after locals objected to acts of rape, murder and hundreds of abductions carried out by the group (New Vision, March 28, 2010; Daily Monitor, March 29, 2010). [7]

Conclusion

Kony’s forces no longer fight on behalf of the Acholi, nor do they fight in their interests.  Forced from Uganda and their bases in Sudan, the sole remaining cause of the LRA is the preservation of the LRA.  The vague ideology of the movement has always served as little more than a mask for the personality cult surrounding Joseph Kony despite the efforts of some to cloak the movement in the guise of Acholi liberation. To fight, to murder, to mutilate – these are ways to satisfy Kony and live to kill another day. The rewards for loyalty and success are tangible, while the penalty for failure and disloyalty is an ever real threat.

Despite being one of the world’s most incommunicative rebel leaders and never having shown particular indications of ideological brilliance, Kony has nevertheless survived by masterfully manipulating those who would seek to use him, whether as a pawn in Sudan’s civil war or as a means of maintaining just the right amount of insecurity in the expanding military state of Uganda.  American military cooperation for the Ugandan effort against the LRA will further cement ties between the two militaries, which already cooperate closely in Somalia.

Both the war in Uganda and the aid programs that sustain it have become a kind of industry. The Ugandan Army is very much a profit-making institution, whether through diverting public funds to provide for thousands of “ghost soldiers” (in which arms, food, clothing and salaries for non-existent troops are collected by corrupt officers for resale, sometimes to the LRA), or through the exploitation of natural resources in areas where the Ugandan Army operates, such as the teak wood of South Sudan or the minerals of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Efforts have even been made to tie the LRA to the wider global “War on Terrorism” in an attempt to tap U.S. funding for counterterrorism campaigns; according to Robert Masolo, the Directorf-General of Uganda’s External Security Organization (ESO), Osama bin Laden trained “the LRA into killer squads in Sudan, along with other al-Qaeda terrorists…” (New Vision, June 12, 2007).

The continuing threat posed by Kony’s LRA helps preserve the Museveni regime and the Ugandan military budget. Northern victims of the LRA now gathered in IDP camps have never supported Museveni or his party, so there is little political cost inside Uganda for a prolonged counter-insurgency. Peace talks have often been interrupted by government attacks or offensives, often on the grounds that Kony was using the talks to regroup or re-arm. Kony has also walked out of many negotiations, some of which seemed frustratingly close to bringing an end to the LRA’s depredations. However, the introduction of new tracking technology and military assistance from U.S. Special Forces may soon spell the end of Joseph Kony unless the “spirits” that possess him can once more save the LRA leader from imminent destruction.

Notes

1. http://www.lracrisistracker.com/.

2. Heike, Behrend, Alice Lakwena and the Holy Spirits, War in Northern Uganda, 1985-97, Ohio University Press, 2000.

3. Mareike Schomerus, “The Lord’s Resistance Army in Sudan: A History and Overview,” Small Arms Survey, Geneva, 2007.

4. Matthew Green, The Wizard of the Nile: The Hunt for Africa’s Most Wanted,: London, 2008, p. 175.

5. Quoted in Green, 2008, p.186

6/ See the statement of University of British Columbia professor Erin Baines, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56XadQ32lkw, and “Complicating victims and perpetrators in Uganda: On Dominic Ongwen,” Justice and Reconciliation Project Northern Uganda/ Liu Institute for Global Issues Field Note, 7 October 2008, http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/documents/JRP_dominicongwen.pdf.

7. See http://lracrisistracker.theresolve.org/media/video/makombo-massacres.

This article first appeared in the November 23, 2011 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Militant Leadership Monitor.

Top Darfur Rebel Commander Captured in South Kordofan

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Andrew McGregor

July 28, 2011

After several weeks of conflicting reports from Khartoum regarding the presence or absence of fighters from Darfur’s rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in the Sudanese state of South Kordofan, a military spokesman has announced the capture of a leading JEM commander, Brigadier General al-Tom Hamid Toto, in a battle between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and a combined force of JEM rebels and Nuba rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) (for the war in South Kordofan, see Terrorism Monitor, July 1).

JEM Fighters: A Highly Mobile Force

SAF spokesman Colonel al-Sawarmi Khalid Sa’ad said the JEM commander would soon face trial in Khartoum. The official Sudan News Agency (SUNA) quoted the JEM Brigadier confirming his arrest, which he said happed after his vehicle was destroyed by shelling, during which he sustained a head injury. Toto added that his force had received logistical support from the Government of South Sudan (GoSS) during the JEM incursion into South Kordofan (SUNA, July 21).

A combined SPLA/JEM press release later confirmed the capture of three fighters, including two commanders, Brigadier Toto and Commander A. Zaki. The joint force reported overrunning the SAF garrison in al-Tais (25 km south of the state capital of Kadugli) in a battle that lasted from July 10 to July 17, killing 150 SAF troops and seizing large quantities of light and heavy machine guns, artillery, RPGs and anti-aircraft missiles. The statement also warned the prisoners must be treated as prisoners of war, a status Khartoum has routinely denied to JEM fighters [1] After earlier denials, the battle and the capture of Brigadier Toto led to an SAF admission that it was indeed fighting JEM units in South Kordofan, but said the rebel alliance would make little difference to the region’s balance of power (Sudan Tribune, July 18). The commander of the SAF’s 5th Brigade, Fadl al-Mula Muhammad Ahmad, claimed that government forces had “inflicted enormous losses of life and property” on the joint JEM/SPLA forces at al-Tais (Sudan Tribune, July 22).

Though Khartoum seemed reluctant to admit JEM was again operating in Kordofan, the chief of Sudan’s Joint General Staff, Lieutenant General Ismat Abdul Rahman Zain al-Abdin, claimed that the SAF had anticipated the revolt of the Nuba SPLA in June by learning of a plan to ally the Nuba fighters with a rebel faction from Darfur prior to announcing the confederation of South Kordofan with the new state in South Sudan (Sudanese Media Center, June 27).

JEM has lately been threatening to mount a new attack on the national capital of Khartoum. Elements of a massive 2008 long-distance desert raid reached the suburbs of Omdurman (Khartoum’s sister city on the west bank of the Nile), but fizzled out there under counter-attacks by local security forces before entering Khartoum proper (see Terrorism Monitor, May 15, 2008).

JEM has also made several raids from Darfur into Kordofan since 2006:

  • JEM forces joined other Darfur rebels in a raid on Hamrat al-Shaykh in Northern Kordofan in July 2006 (al-Sahafa [Khartoum], July 4, 2006).
  • On August 29, 2007, four columns of JEM fighters seized a Sudanese military base at Wad Banda (West Kordofan) for several hours, killing at least 41 SAF troops and taking large quantities of weapons and ammunition (SUNA, August 31, 2007, Sudan Tribune, August 31, 2007; see also Terrorism Focus, September 11, 2007).
  • In October, 2007 JEM seized Chinese-operated facilities at the Defra oil field in South Kordofan as a warning to China to cease its support for Khartoum (Reuters, October 25, 2007; October 29, 2007).
  • A JEM force attempted to take Chinese oil facilities at al-Rahaw (South Kordofan) in November 2007. JEM claimed to have taken al-Rahaw, but the SAF claimed they were driven off.
  • JEM officials said the local Arab Missiriya had joined them in a December, 2007 raid on the Heglig oil field in South Kordofan, the most important oil field in Sudan (Reuters, December 11, 2007).

Though Khartoum professes to be unworried, it is almost certain that there is major concern in the capital over a possible alignment between JEM and the Nuba SPLA or the GoSS, which now has one of the largest armies in Africa. Khartoum has hinted at such a development for years and was likely alarmed by the appearance of a high-level JEM delegation in Juba during the July 9 South Sudan independence celebrations. The JEM leaders held talks with SPLM (Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – the political wing of the SPLA) leaders and conveyed a written message from JEM leader Dr. Khalil Ibrahim (Sudan Tribune, July 10).

JEM and the other major rebel movements in Darfur have abstained from the Doha peace talks, which Khartoum says will be the last opportunity for negotiations. The head of the government delegation at Doha, Dr. Amin Hassan Omar, claimed on July 22 that JEM leader Dr. Ibrahim Khalil had been arrested by Libyan intelligence (Radio Omdurman, July 22). Though this has not been confirmed, Khalil had been staying in Libya after being expelled from Chad when N’Djamena and Khartoum agreed to stop hosting each other’s rebel movements in January 2010 (see Terrorism Monitor Brief, January 21, 2010).  Last February, the movement appealed to the United Nations to rescue the JEM leader from Libya, saying his life was in danger as a result of Khartoum’s allegations that JEM fighters were acting as mercenaries in Qaddafi’s military (Reuters, February 28). [2]

Note

1. “Joint JEM/SPLA Forces defeat SAF in South Kordofan: A Military Statement,” http://www.sudanjem.com/2011/07/52292/

2. See Andrew McGregor: “Update on African Mercenaries: Have Darfur Rebels Joined Qaddafi’s Mercenary Defenders?” Jamestown Foundation Special Commentary, February 24, 2011,  https://www.aberfoylesecurity.com/?p=1082

This article was originally published in the July 28, 2011 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

The Abandoned Army: War Returns to Sudan’s Nuba Mountains

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Andrew McGregor

July 1, 2011

The people of South Kordofan have become caught up in the unresolved contradiction of the post-John Garang Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), which is now leading South Sudan into independence; what happens when a national federalist political movement becomes an ethnic separatist political movement? This is the problem in several areas of Sudan outside the new borders of South Sudan, areas in which the then federalist SPLM/A recruited fighters to combat the Khartoum regime in the interests of creating a federal “New Sudan.” With South Sudan declaring full independence on July 9, a force of roughly 40,000 Nuba SPLA fighters have been abandoned in their homeland, with the SPLA declaring they are no longer part of the Southern military and the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) determined to clear their presence as soon as possible. south kordofan 1
South Kordofan is home to a number of armed groups at present, including the SPLA, the SAF, and various militias allied to both sides. Khartoum’s position is that South Kordofan is “100% Northern,” and that only the SAF would be permitted to carry arms after Southern independence is declared on July 9 (Sudan Tribune, June 16).

Khartoum’s attempt to consolidate control of South Kordofan followed its seizure of the disputed oil-producing region of Abyei in May (see Terrorism Monitor Brief, May 27). The local SPLA claim to control roughly one-third of South Kordofan (mainly in the Nuba Mountains), while the rest is controlled by the SAF’s 14th Division, much of which is locally raised and possibly reluctant to carry out operations against fellow Nuba.  An SPLM press release said the SAF’s mission was to “disarm the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement component of the Joint Integrated Units in South Kordofan and to clear the area of Nuba in order to settle Arab tribes there as done in Darfur and Abyei” (Independent, June 17). [1]

The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that provided for an independence referendum in the Southern Sudan after a six-year period also called for “popular consultations” to determine the status and form of governance for South Kordofan and Blue Nile State, both of which hosted large numbers of local fighters affiliated to the SPLA during the 1983-2005 civil war. The CPA stated that the consultations could not be held until local elections were held. In Blue Nile State, the SPLM candidate, Malik Agar, won election as governor, but in South Kordofan, numerous delays held up elections until May, when the candidate of the NCP, Ahmad Haroun, was a surprise victor over the SPLM candidate. The NCP were also majority winners for the local state legislative assembly. As a result, the mostly Nuba SPLA fighters were given the choice of disarming or leaving for the South by June 1 (The CPA does not call for the complete removal of SPLA forces until July 9). Since nearly all the fighters are residents of South Kordofan, moving to South Sudan was rejected as an option. By June 5, SAF tanks, infantry and artillery began to roll into the regional capital of Kadugli in a show of force that quickly broke out into open conflict.

The Nuba

Most of the SPLA fighters remaining in South Kordofan are members of the Nuba, a collection of various indigenous tribes that took refuge in the easily defended Nuba Mountains (more a chaotic collection of hills and ravines covered by a multitude of giant boulders) and gradually adopted a common culture and identity, though the vast range of Nuba languages require the use of Sudanese Arabic as a lingua franca. Fiercely independent, they resisted Mahdist efforts to conquer them in the late 19th century and later British efforts to control the hills and their thousands of caves and other places of refuge continued into the 1920s. The development by necessity of a “warrior culture” has helped stiffen the Nuba defenses – as one British officer sent to the region noted: “Second to their interest in female society comes a love of firearms. No man among them is of account until he is the owner of a rifle of sorts, and the methods employed to gain this end would often make an Afridi border thief blush with envy.” [2]

Under the current regime, there have been extensive efforts to “Islamize” the Nuba, by force if necessary. Many Nuba are already Muslims, though there are also large communities of Christians and followers of traditional beliefs. This and growing pressure on their lands led to SPLA recruitment in the area in 1986. By 1989 local Nuba leader and SPLA Commander Yusuf Kawa led the newly formed “New Kush Division” into the hills to open a new front in the civil war. Divisions within the SPLM/A leadership left the Nuba largely on their own to combat government forces that extracted revenge on the local population through a series of offensives. The death of the charismatic Yusuf Kawa from cancer in 2001 took much of the steam out of the rebellion, and an internationally supervised ceasefire was in place by 2002.

The May Elections

While the exact spark that began the fighting may be hard to identify, the stage for the conflict was set during the May elections for South Kordofan. SPLM candidate and veteran SPLA commander Abd al-Aziz al-Hilu lost the governor’s post to the NCP’s Ahmad Haroun, while the ruling NCP took a surprising 33 seats in the legislative assembly to the SPLM’s 21 (Sudan Tribune, May 18). Al-Hilu withdrew from the elections as the votes were counted, charging the NCP with vote-rigging. Soon after, he announced he was in high-level talks with the SPLM government of South Sudan and had received their support (Sudan Tribune, May 18).

The new governor, Ahmad Haroun, is a veteran of the largely Arab Murahileen mounted militias formed to raid Southern Sudanese tribes in the border regions during the 1980s. In the 1990s Haroun was involved in the brutal campaign to punish the Nuba of South Kordofan for supporting the SPLA, a reprisal campaign that did not differentiate between Muslim and non-Muslim and left roughly 200,000 civilians dead.   By 2003 Haroun was Minister of the State for the Interior and played a major part in organizing the Arab Janjaweed militia to attack non-Arab Muslim civilians suspected of supporting the Darfur insurgency. In respect to these activities, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Haroun on multiple charges of crimes against humanity in April 2007. In response, Khartoum appointed Haroun to head an investigation into human rights abuses in Darfur.

Fighting Breaks Out

Clashes between the SAF and the SPLA are reported to have begun when government troops attempted to disarm SPLA fighters in Kadugli, the administrative center of South Kordofan. Attempts to do the same in the nearby town of Dilling appear to have led to SPLA troops opening up on the SAF, killing an SAF officer and eight soldiers (Sudan Tribune, June 9). SAF sources cited an attack on a police station in Kadugli on June 4 and a nearly simultaneous attack by SPLA forces against SAF troops in Um Dorain, 35 km southeast of Kadugli (Independent, June 17).

south kordofan 2Nuba Fighters of the SPLA-N on the Move in South Kordofan (IRIN)

The Khartoum government presented the events in Kadugli as a SPLM/A attempt to overthrow the regional government in South Kordofan. According to President Omar al-Bashir: “The armed forces have aborted the plot of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) which was aiming to occupy Kadugli… and inaugurate Abdul-Aziz Al-Hilu as ruler for Sudan… What happened in South Kordofan was a betrayal operation by the SPLM. Unfortunately, there was killing, destruction and displacement. The development in South Kordofan, which has been witnessing the biggest development process in Sudan, was crippled” (Xinhua, June 22).

Presidential advisor Dr. Nafi Ali Nafi called the fighting in South Kordofan proof of a specific SPLM/A agenda in the region that involved taking control of South Kordofan either through elections or force as the first step in joining with other unnamed parties in seizing Khartoum (Sudan Vision, June 15). Dr. Nafi also said the NCP had given the SAF “a free hand” to eliminate disturbances in South Kordofan (SUNA, June 8). President Omar al-Bashir accused the SPLA in South Kordofan of “treachery,” adding: “We hope that now they understand… anyone who looks our way, we will stab his eyes” (Sudan Tribune, June 20).

Despite the looming independence of South Sudan, a form of the SPLM known as SPLM-Northern Sector (SPLM-NS) remains active in the North. The chairman of the SPLM-NS is Malik Agar, a former SPLA commander in the Blue Nile Region in the 1990s who was later elected governor of Blue Nile State in 2010. Agar became chairman of the SPLM-NS in February 2011. Despite its associations with the Southern secessionist movement, the SPLM has now become one of the largest political parties in North Sudan. However, like the SPLA fighters in Kordofan, the SPLM-NS has an uncertain future after South Sudan takes independence. An NCP spokesman has already announced that the movement would not be allowed to continue operating in its present form “because it is the party of another country” (AFP, June 18).

Governor Haroun has promised “the severest punishment” will be dealt out to al-Hilu when he is seized by SAF forces who are looking for him in the mountains south and east of Kadugli. Haroun blamed “left-wing elements” under SPLM-NS Secretary General Yasir Arman for inciting resistance to the state against the wishes of many SPLA fighters in South Kordofan who desired a peaceful resolution of existing problems (Sudan Vision, June 11).

In a June 9 interview with pan-Arab daily al-Sharq al-Awsat, al-Hilu seemed to confirm the government’s allegations by saying he was leading a battle to accomplish “fundamental change in the center.” Al-Hilu called on the Sudanese people to overthrow the Bashir regime in order to eliminate political, social, economic and religious marginalization in Sudan, policies which generate “civil wars, discrimination and instability.”

Khartoum Describes a Plot

Local residents and aid workers have reported house-to-house searches for SPLA troops and supporters conducted by Popular Defense Force (PDF) militias. Extrajudicial killings by government militias and a series of assassinations of local NCP leaders by the SPLA have also been reported (AFP, June 12). NCP cabinet minister Haj Majid Swar claimed government security forces had discovered documents in al-Hilu’s home outlining a campaign to target senior NCP figures in Kadugli and nearby Dilling before liquidating SAF forces in the area and seizing Kadugli (Sudan Vision, June 15; Sudanese Media Center, June 20). Colonel Osama Muhammad of the SAF’s 14th Division elaborated on these claims on June 18, saying seized documents showed a SPLA plot to assassinate military and political figures in South Kordofan, including Governor Ahmad Haroun. According to the Colonel, the plot was supported by the willing participation of the UN and a number of local and foreign NGOs (Sudan Tribune, June 18).

Much of the fighting has consisted of ancient SAF Antonov bombers, Mig fighter jets and ground-based artillery shelling SPLA positions in the hills surrounding Kadugli. The Antonovs are Soviet-made transports last made in 1979 that have been converted to use as bombers in the Sudanese Air Force. Due to their improvised nature and the poor quality of their munitions (primitive “barrel-bombs” were often used in Darfur), the Antonovs must fly relatively low to have any degree of accuracy in bombing runs. On June 12, a SPLM-NS spokesman claimed the group’s fighters had downed two government warplanes on June 10, including an Antonov bomber and a MiG fighter. An SAF spokesman responded by describing the claim as “completely wrong” (AFP, June 12).

The International Role – The United Nations and African Union

As part of its mandate, the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) section of the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) has disarmed thousands of pro-government and pro-SPLA fighters since 2009 (Miraya FM, December 28, 2009). UNMIS has complained that the closing of the Kadugli Airport and restrictions on South Kordofan airspace imposed by the SAF have made it difficult to distribute much-needed humanitarian aid. On June 17, SAF aircraft dropped several bombs close to the UN compound at Kadugli. At one point, four UNMIS soldiers were detained and abused by SAF troops in Kadugli (Sudan Tribune, June 29). Egyptian peacekeepers with UNMIS in South Kordofan have also been accused of collaboration with the Khartoum regime as well as criminal activities by Abd al-Aziz al-Hilu (Sudan Tribune, June 9). By mid-June, reinforcements led by 120 Bangladeshi troops were on their way to join AMISOM forces in Kadugli, whose base had become the focus of fighting in the town as it tried to shelter displaced locals (AFP, June 17).

The African Union has created the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) to mediate between North and South Sudan on issues such as the status of South Kordofan and Abyei. Former South African president Thabo Mbeki chairs AUHIP after having previously chaired the African Union Panel on Darfur (AUPD). Just as Mbeki came under criticism from Darfur rebel groups for siding with Khartoum, the former president has now come under fire in some quarters for similarly siding with Khartoum in the South Kordofan crisis. A letter to Mbeki from leading SPLM figure Edward Lino told the AUHIP chair: “All your plans are pro-Khartoum… Khartoum has long decided to ‘use you’ properly and you accepted willingly, letting our people in Abyei and the Nuba Mountains be exterminated!” (Sudan Tribune, June 19).

However, by June 30, Mbeki had managed to broker a deal calling for the SPLA fighters in South Kordofan to be either disarmed or integrated into the Northern army, with a provision that disarmament was not to be carried out by force. The effectiveness of these measures remains uncertain, as it would appear initially that neither of these options would be palatable to the Nuba SPLA forces.

Darfur’s Rebels and the Conflict in South Kordofan

The election of Ahmad Haroun as Governor of South Kordofan appears to have attracted the interest of Darfur’s rebel groups, who believe they have a score to settle with the former Janjaweed commander.  In an interview from Kampala, Abu al-Gamim Imam al-Haj, a prominent member of the largely Fur Sudan Liberation Movement – Abdul Wahid (SLM-AW), announced that his movement would work with Abdul Aziz al-Hilu and the Kordofan branch of the SPLA to use any means available to bring down the Khartoum regime, including strikes, civil disobedience and military operations (Radio Dabanga, June 17).

Darfur’s Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), with a largely Zaghawa leadership, claimed to have used its long-range desert raiding skills to mount a June 9 attack and brief occupation of the Heglig airport in Western Kordofan, center of the North Sudan’s most productive oil field. JEM Field Commander Elnazir Osman said the raiding force had fired a number of RPGs at oil field installations, forcing a temporary shutdown (Radio Dabanja, June 11).  A JEM statement said that the attack by “JEM Kordofan” was “meant to send a clear message to oil companies that use of their airports and other facilities by the Government of Sudan [and] its army and militia will not go unpunished…” (Sudan Tribune, June 14).

The speaker of the JEM Legislative Assembly, Dr. Tahir al-Faki, has called for the imposition of a no-fly zone in the Nuba Mountains to protect civilian lives. He described the fighting in South Kordofan and the “appointment” of Ahmad Haroun as the beginning of a process of ethnic cleansing similar to that experienced in Darfur: “Having orchestrated the Darfur genocide, Haroun is the right choice for the Government of Sudan to complete the unfinished job to ethnically cleanse the Nuba People and bring in Arabs to occupy their lands” (Sudan Tribune, June 21).

Khartoum has repeatedly claimed that JEM guerrillas are fighting on behalf of Mu’ammar Qaddafi in Libya, though these claims have not been confirmed (see Sudan Tribune, June 21, May 31).

Conclusion

Khartoum seems to have correctly assessed that the SPLM/A of South Sudan would be reluctant to intervene in South Kordofan so close to independence. The SPLM seems to have given little thought to the fate of its abandoned Nuba Army; if they did, it seems they were unable to come up with some other solution than the nebulous “Popular Consultations,” which, being short of any mechanism enforcing the popular will, seem simply to be code for “Return to the North.”
Khartoum has little choice but to allow the South to leave; the overwhelming vote for independence (98.83 %) has left no room for dispute. However, the regime appears to have decided to draw the line there. There will be no more “disputed territories” or regions “whose future will be decided by popular consultations.” In South Kordofan and Abyei, the North will want to consolidate control over the few productive oil fields left within its grasp.

Khartoum’s attempt to consolidate its position in South Kordofan and eliminate potential sources of opposition there have been coupled with reinvigorated attempts to strike a deal with the Darfur rebels before South Sudan becomes independent on July 9. Khartoum’s policy has always been to prevent Sudan’s multiple centers of discontent from acting in concert to depose the Nile-based Arab regime in the capital. The government faces potential opposition from the Beja tribes of east Sudan (who have already conducted a low-intensity rebellion against the regime), growing discontent in Nubia over a series of dam-building projects and possible armed opposition in the Blue Nile region. There is also sure to be dissatisfaction within the NCP’s traditional power-base over the government’s failure to prevent the oil-rich South from seceding. Under these conditions and with so many unresolved issues still outstanding between Khartoum and the SPLM, including the still unresolved fate of the Nuba SPLA, it seems unlikely that the ceasefire in South Kordofan will hold for long, adding yet another element of instability to Africa’s largest and possibly most diverse country.

Notes

1. 40,000 SPLA troops in South Kordofan, 6000 of which belonged to the Joint Integrated Units, a largely failed attempt under the CPA to integrate SAF and SPLA forces to regulate disputed border territories.
2. A.J.P., “The Hillmen of the Soudan,” Blackwood’s Magazine 1308, October 1924, p.560.

This article first appeared in the July 1, 2011 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

Darfur Rebel Leader Discusses Secession, Secularism and Ties with Israel

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Andrew McGregor

June 2, 2011

Abdul Wahid Muhammad al-Nur, the Fur leader of the Darfur rebel movement known as the Sudan Liberation Army/Movement – Abdul Wahid (SLA/M-AW) has returned to Africa after five years in Paris. He recently discussed a variety of issues with pan-Arab daily al-Sharq al-Awsat, including his rejection of secessionism as a solution to the Darfur crisis, his support for a secular government in Khartoum and his controversial support for diplomatic relations with Israel (al-Sharq al-Awsat, May 19).

Abdul Wahid Muhammad al-Nur

Al-Nur has come under strong criticism from other rebel leaders in Darfur for leading his movement “from the cafés of Paris.”  Al-Nur, however, justified his absence from the battlefield as necessary due to “pressure” applied by Eritrea and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) of South Sudan, as well as turmoil resulting from splits in the original Sudan Liberation Army/Movement (SLA/M), founded by al-Nur and several others at Khartoum University in 1992.

Al-Nur insists the creation of a “liberal, secular and democratic state” can only be achieved by toppling the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and making its leaders accountable for war crimes in Darfur. According to al-Nur, “secularism is the answer for all of Sudan so religion cannot be used to kill people, annihilate them, oppress them, and confiscate their rights.” The rebel leader draws a distinction between secularism and atheism, citing examples from the time of the Prophet Muhammad of issues whose resolution was achieved without reference to religious law.  The Salafists, says al-Nur, view Islam only in terms of punishments, these being applied only against the poor.

Al-Nur visited Israel in February 2009 after establishing an SLA/M office there a year earlier (Sudan Tribune, February 27, 2008). Both moves were controversial, as they appeared, at least superficially, to validate President Omar al-Bashir’s long-repeated claims that the rebellion in Darfur was orchestrated by Israel. His visit came in the company of a number of prominent European Jews and was reported to have included meetings with Israel’s Mossad spy agency (Ha’aretz [Tel Aviv], February 16, 2009; Associated Press, February 16, 2009). During his time in Paris, al-Nur became close to Jewish philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy, who claims responsibility for convincing French President Nicolas Sarkozy to begin military operations in Libya and recognize the Benghazi-based rebel government. Though Khartoum has never recognized Israel, al-Nur maintains that his movement would establish diplomatic relations with Israel should it take power and would allow the opening of an Israeli embassy in Khartoum.

The SLM founder was coy about his exact whereabouts amidst continuing criticism regarding his absence from the front, saying only that he was now “in the heart of Africa.” “Nobody knows if I am in the field or not, this is one of our secrets… the Sudan Liberation Movement is a political movement that has a military wing. This means that my physical presence is not important because I am directing a military battle that requires planning, field commanders, diplomatic efforts, communication, and negotiation.”

The South Sudanese were forced into a referendum on secession by the NCP, says al-Nur, who believes in a unified Sudan, though he respects the choice of the southerners. Nonetheless, he says his relationship with the SPLA/M has deteriorated recently despite government claims the SPLA/M is supporting his movement. Al-Nur rejects talk of secession for Darfur (which remained an independent sultanate until 1916) but says he cannot prevent others from discussing the possibility given the political atmosphere created by the NCP.

After years of continuing splits within the original SLA/M (“Every three people can now form a faction while sitting under a tree”), al-Nur has been engaged in a major campaign to reunify the Darfur opposition, signing unification deals with the SLM-Minni Minawi, the SLM Juba-Unity and the Revolutionary Democratic Forces Front (Radio Dabanga, May 28; Sudan Tribune, May 15; May 20).

This article was first published in the June 2, 2011 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor

Nuer General Gabriel Tang: South Sudan’s Prodigal Son or Khartoum’s Agent of Chaos?

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Andrew McGregor

May 31, 2011

In the aftermath of the successful vote for independence, South Sudan’s government now finds itself faced with several rebel militias, tribal violence and clashes between gunmen in oil-rich Jonglei state, South Sudan’s largest. Prominent among the rebel generals threatening the unity of South Sudan as it approaches full independence in July is Major General Gabriel Tang (a.k.a. Gabriel Gatwich Chan Tanginya, i.e. “Long Pipe”), aNuer tribesman from Jonglei’s Fangak county. Though he began his career as a separatist rebel, General Tang has long been known as a Khartoum loyalist. Today General Tang is a Southern warlord of uncertain loyalties following a recent series of professions of loyalty to the Government of South Sudan (GoSS) interspersed with a series of armed revolts carried out by his followers, the Tangginyang. General Tang’s future direction will play a crucial role in the development of South Sudan’s massive oil potential, its only important source of revenue and the key to the incipient nation’s success.

Major General Gabriel Tang

Gabriel Tang Joins the Anyanya I Rebellion

Gabriel Tang began his career by taking up arms as a youth in the Anyanya separatist rebellion (1955-1972) that broke out in South Sudan after a number of Southern garrisons mutinied in the lead-up to Sudanese independence in 1956. [1] Under the terms of the 1972 Addis Ababa Peace Agreement, most of the Anyanya rebels were absorbed into the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), but many others rejected integration, some finding employment in the Ugandan Army of Idi Amin. Tang rejected integration and remained in the Upper Nile district until he joined one of a number of dissident militias operating in the South under the umbrella term “Anyanya II.”

The SPLA and Anyanya II

Tang’s differences with the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) and its late leader Colonel John Garang date back to 1983-84, when the Anyanya II movement came into conflict with the newly-formed SPLA which had renewed the rebellion against Khartoum. Many in the Nuer militias of Anyanya II rejected what they viewed as a Dinka-dominated SPLA leadership.

By 1984, Khartoum began to exploit these divisions, providing arms and funds to a more formally organized “Anyanya II” under the leadership of Nuer leaders such as William Abdullah Chuol and Paulino Matip Nhial. The hope was that this militia would help secure the oil fields of Jonglei, but as the Anyanya II enjoyed only limited support amongst the Nuer, the result was a bitter conflict between Nuer militia members and Nuer forces under the SPLA banner. [2] The Anyanya II were successful in disrupting SPLA supply routes and attacking columns of SPLA recruits headed to Ethiopia for training, but by 1988 most of the movement had decided to join the SPLA. Those remaining hostile to the SPLA, including Gabriel Tang, began to be more closely integrated with Sudan’s military intelligence and regular army.

Rivalry with the SPLA during the Second Civil War

The SPLA suffered a devastating split in 1991 when three senior commanders, Riek Machar, Gordon Kong Chuol and Lam Akol, announced the overthrow of John Garang as the movement’s leader. In practice, however, Garang remained in the field with substantial forces under his command and the following decade witnessed a brutal civil war within a civil war between Garang’s SPLA-Mainstream (a.k.a. SPLA-Torit) and Riek Machar’s SPLA-Nasir faction. As Riek Machar’s pro-Khartoum tendencies became clearer (they were eventually sealed in a 1998 agreement with Khartoum), SPLA-Nasir began to splinter and once again there were numerous clashes between different Nuer factions.

Following Riek Machar’s 1998 agreement with Khartoum, his forces were renamed the United Democratic Salvation Front/South Sudan Defense Force (UDSF/SSDF). A clear Khartoum loyalist by now, Tang became a leading commander in the SSDF with a close association to the SAF. After the 1998 agreement, SSDF figures such as Riek Machar and Gabriel Tang were commonly seen in Khartoum. Even after Machar’s 2002 reconciliation with John Garang and SPLA-Mainstream, Tang remained a pro-government militia leader. The SSDF became so closely identified with Northern interests that it was not allowed to be an independent party to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) talks on the grounds the movement had become synonymous with Khartoum.

lam akol 2Dr. Lam Akol Ajawin

2004 Campaign against the Shilluk in Upper Nile

General Tang’s most notorious campaign took place in the Shilluk tribal lands of the Upper Nile in 2004. The origin of the violence dated back to 1991, when Shilluk leader Dr. Lam Akol broke away from the SPLA to form the ironically-named SPLA-United. Fighting between the SPLA and the breakaway group continued until the Fashoda Peace Agreement of 1997 landed Lam Akol’s movement firmly in the pro-Khartoum camp. When Akol rejoined the mainstream SPLA in August 2003, Khartoum took steps to bring the Shilluk country in Upper Nile back under government control. Pro-Khartoum Shilluk militias were joined by SAF gunboats and pro-Khartoum Nuer militias under the leadership of General Tang, General Paulino Matip and Tang’s lieutenant, Thomas Mabor Dhol in an offensive along the west banks of the Nile and Bahr al-Ghazal rivers, attacking the village of the Shilluk king, among others. Shilluk communities were devastated with large loss of civilian life and tens of thousands displaced (Sudan Vision, March 13; IRIN, March 13, 2004). Tang’s efforts were rewarded with a promotion to Major General in the SAF.

A Three Day Battle in Malakal

When many Nuer leaders of pro-Khartoum militias went over to the SPLA in 2006 after signing onto the Juba Declaration, Tang remained in the Khartoum camp, unwilling to associate with the Dinka commanders in the SPLA that he believed intended the subjugation of the Nuer.

After a dispute between the SPLA and the Tangginiya, shooting broke out in Malakal (capital of Upper Nile state) with both sides claiming the other had fired first. The SSDF accused Salva Kiir and Riek Machar of engineering an “assassination attempt” on “SSDF Chief of Operations, Major General Tang” that began with an assault on Tang’s Malakal residence (SSUDA-SSDF Press Release, March 29, 2009). The dispute turned into a pitched battle, with Tang’s force falling back on a barracks close to the Malakal airport (Reuters, December 2, 2006).

After three days of fighting and looting that had scattered bodies in the streets and left Malakal without a water supply, GoSS president Salva Kiir cut short an official visit to Uganda to return to South Sudan (New Vision [Kampala], December 1). Malakal residents began to draw water directly from the Nile, which was contaminated with dead bodies, furthering a local outbreak of cholera (Reuters, December 2, 2006). Leaving thousands of local residents displaced or in mourning, General Tang returned to the safety of Khartoum.

Collapse of the Joint Integrated Units in Malakal

Under the terms of the 2005 CPA, Tang had the option of aligning his men with either Khartoum’s SAF or the Southern SPLA. After opting for the former, Khartoum decided to send Tang’s fighters south as part of the Northern component of the newly formed Joint Integrated Units (JIU). Given Tang’s history in the region, Khartoum’s decision to deploy Tang in his regional home capital of Malakal could be described as somewhere between mischievous and provocative.

Khartoum’s Seizure of Disputed Abyei District Could Launch New War between North and South Sudan

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Andrew McGregor

May 26, 2011

Last weekend’s military occupation of the disputed Abyei district by the Northern Sudanese Army is the latest step in a series of armed clashes in the area that threaten to reignite hostilities between North and South Sudan in the lead-up to South Sudan’s official declaration of independence on July 9.

Abyei 2
Lying on the border of South Kordofan province (part of North Sudan) and Bahr al-Ghazal (part of South Sudan), the oil rich Abyei district is home to the Ngok Dinka and, for part of the year at least, the Arab Missiriya. The Ngok Dinka are well represented in the highest levels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). Abyei lies atop the highly productive Muglad Basin, though some believe intensive production in this area since the 1990s has largely depleted the reserves in this area. Several important pipelines from other oil-producing regions run through Abyei.

Both North and South Sudan were to have withdrawn military forces from Abyei by May 21, except for a small joint force that would continue to provide security. Yet, a battalion of roughly 200 Northern troops was attacked seven kilometers south of Abyei’s northern border during their withdrawal on May 19, leaving 22 soldiers dead and many more missing. The Northern battalion was being escorted by United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) units, which also came under attack. Northern military officials immediately blamed SPLA forces for the attack (SUNA, May 20; May 21). Khartoum responded by occupying Abyei with a force that included 15 tanks, while government aircraft were observed bombing a number of villages (Sudan Tribune, May 22). Armed looters swept through Abyei Town on May 23 without opposition, displacing nearly the entire population.

While the identity of the attackers has not been confirmed, the attack on the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) may have been a Southern response to an incident on May 1, when an SPLA unit attempted to prevent an SAF convoy of 200 men and six land-cruisers mounted with machine-guns from entering Abyei. The SAF force opened fire, killing 11 Southern troops and three civilians (AFP, May 3).

An SAF statement accused the SPLM of consolidating its military presence in Abyei since December 2010, in violation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) (Sudan Vision, May 23). Khartoum maintains that Abyei remains part of the North under the constitution until a referendum determines otherwise. At a rally in South Kordofan on April 27, President Omar al-Bashir affirmed this position and expressed his support for the Missiriya tribe (SUNA, April 27).

abyei 1Missiriya Arabs

Armed clashes occurred between the Missiriya and the Ngok Dinka in 2007; and, by 2008, units of the SAF were battling the SPLA for control of Abyei, destroying much of the housing and infrastructure in the process. Arbitration at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague reduced the size of the district, giving the productive Heglig oil field to the North and promising a plebiscite on the future status of Abyei to take place simultaneously with a referendum on Southern independence in January 2011.

Inability to agree on whether the pastoral Missirya, who traditionally cross into Abyei with their herds for six to eight months of the year, should have the right to vote in a plebiscite on whether Abyei should join the North or South led to a postponement of the vote. The postponement was followed by renewed clashes between Ngok Dinka and Missiriya in late February/early March (for the background to the conflict in Abyei, see Terrorism Monitor Brief, October 4, 2010).

UNMIS peacekeepers stationed in the region stopped patrols in Abyei after the SAF ambush, citing the danger presented by the violence (Reuters, May 23). With some 15,000 to 20,000 residents losing their possessions and homes, a spokesman for the Government of the South Sudan (GoSS) appealed to the UN peacekeepers to “come out of their bunkers” (Sudan Tribune, May 23). The UN mission’s mandate expires on July 9, when the South is scheduled to become an independent state in consequence of the January referendum. According to a state minister of the Khartoum government: “UMNIS must pack their belongings because the time has come for their departure” (Sudan Tribune, May 23).

The UNMIS report on the incident failed to assign blame for the ambush, which brought an angry response from Northern officials, who said the UN’s “state of partiality and lack of clarity” would only encourage further violations of the 2005 CPA (Sudan Tribune, May 22).

The United States has warned that a continuing occupation of Abyei by Northern forces would jeopardize ongoing efforts to normalize relations with Khartoum, including removal from the list of state sponsors of terrorism (Reuters, May 23). Northern officials have vowed their troops will remain in place until new security arrangements are made.

This article first appeared in the May 26, 2011 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

Security Implications for North Africa in the Wake of the Arab Revolution

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Andrew McGregor

March 18, 2011

Speech delivered to the Jamestown Foundation Conference – “The Impact of Arab Uprisings on Regional Stability in the Middle East and North Africa,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington D.C, March 18, 2011.

Storming the Bastille – Revolution in France, 1789

Introduction

Nostradamus himself could not have foretold the wave of political change that has been unleashed on the Arab world, all sparked by the self-immolation of a single Tunisian sidewalk vendor who could not find any other way of expressing his indignation at a corrupt and authoritarian system.

Revolutions are dangerous creatures that can unleash all kinds of unpredictable social forces that can take a revolution a long way from where it started.

The French Revolution of 1789, which both inspired and terrified Europe, began with the journées, days of mass action much like the “days of anger” we see today in the Arab world. Though the king and queen were led to their death, it was not long after that leading revolutionaries such as Robespierre had their own meetings with Madame Guillotine.  Liberty, Fraternity and Equality became a mere slogan as Napoleon Bonaparte, the revolution’s leading general, restored authoritarianism to France and directing the slaughter of a generation of young men in pursuit of imperial conquest.

The European Revolution of 1848 and the Arab Revolution of 2011

In its size, sudden development and transnational character, the Arab Revolution most closely resembles the revolutions that shook Europe in 1848. There were many similarities, including:

  • A rapid spread from country to country, despite each nation’s revolution having a different character and circumstances
  • The revolts crossed social boundaries, even attracting an often reluctant middle class
  • Governments appeared to cave in at first
  • Too many university graduates were pursuing too few jobs. Higher education actually left them without the skills to pursue other types of employment
  • No charismatic leader emerged along the lines of a Bolivar, Garibaldi, Castro or even Washington.

Revolution in Berlin, 1848

The Results of the 1848 Revolutions?

  • Small concessions from the governments led to dwindling interest in revolution
  • When the casual revolutionaries gave up, the revolutions were doomed
  • The revolutions came to be dominated by a single political perspective (in this case, the left)
  • By the summer of 1848, the forces of counter-revolution had time to reorganize and began clearing the barricades with the loss of thousands of lives
  • The revolts in Hungary and Italy became larger wars of national liberation, but within one year both had been solidly defeated by the Hapsburgs
  • In France, the Second Republic was soon replaced by the Second Empire of Louis-Napoleon.

In the end, all of the national revolts failed, but they laid the foundation and provided the inspiration for later revolts such as the Paris Commune of 1871 and the Russian Revolution of 1917. Most importantly, they signaled that the end of absolute monarchies was in sight.  In this sense, even failed revolutions can have an enormous impact on political developments decades later.

Arms for Africa

It has been suggested in some quarters that the military weakness of Libya’s rebels can be overcome with supplies of modern weapons. It must be noted, though, that every influx of arms into the Sahel/Sahara region in the last century has been followed by years of violence.

It was an influx of arms that contributed to the breakdown of order in Darfur that eventually resulted in tens of thousands of dead. Darfur used a centuries old inter-tribal resolution system usually involving compensation in cash or animals to deal with incidents of violence such as murder. However, this system broke down when the introduction of automatic weapons allowed the slaughter of dozens of people at a time by a single individual. Traditional methods of maintaining peace and security were simply overwhelmed by advances in killing technology.

Arms may be the solution to Qaddafi, but they will not bring stability to North Africa. Those advocating the shipment of modern arms to Libya’s rebels speak of controls over whose hands they wind up in. This, however, is wishful thinking. Once introduced, arms are sold, abandoned, lost, stolen, surrendered, or given away. Reports that anti-aircraft missiles taken from the armories of eastern Libya have already found their way to the hands of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb should give pause to those backing a military solution to the Libyan insurrection.

Libya – Key to African Security or African Chaos?

The half-hearted endorsement of a no fly zone by the Arab League was taken by NATO as a green light for attacks on Qaddafi’s forces. In reality, with the exception of wealthy but distant Qatar, most of the Arab League has kept a committed distance from the conflict. Egypt, with its own internal crisis that has largely disappeared from the news, appears unable or unwilling to exert influence on the events in Libya. To the west, there are unverified rumors that Algeria’s own military-based regime is providing arms and aid to Qaddafi. Algeria has no desire to see the Arab revolution wash up on the shores of Tripoli, and giving the Libyan rebels a bloody nose would go a long way to discouraging like-minded dissidents in Algeria.

In neighboring Chad and Sudan two other political survivors, General Idriss Deby and Field Marshal Omar al-Bashir, will not be hasty in counting out Qaddafi. Both nations have deep if turbulent ties with Libya, which has fluctuated between assisting their development and interfering in their internal affairs. In the meantime both are keeping their distance, but if Qaddafi falls it is likely that both will attempt to exert their own influence on the formation of a new regime.

Qaddafi’s Desert Alternative

The fall of Tripoli would not necessarily mean the end of Qaddafi or his regime. The Libyan leader would have the option of retiring on military bases in the desert where he enjoys solid support. With access to fighters from neighboring countries, Qaddafi or his successors could continue low-scale but debilitating attacks on Libya’s oil infrastructure that would effectively prevent any new Libyan government from getting off the ground without substantial foreign aid and assistance. It would not be difficult to raise a tribal force opposed to what would be seen as a Benghazi-based government intent on depriving the western and southern tribes of power, influence and funds. Such a conflict could go on for years, with predictable effects on oil prices. The rebels do not have the means, and possibly not even the inclination, to distribute oil revenues throughout the larger Libyan society.

Revolution in Libya, 2011

Should Qaddafi feel he is losing his grip on Libya it is possible that he could turn to asymmetrical warfare by once again sponsoring international terrorism, especially with strikes against the Western nations leading the attack on his regime. We also have no reason to suppose that a rump government in Benghazi would be a force for restoring security in the region. The rebels lack a trained security force or any kind of administration with a common goal other than the removal of Mu’ammar Qaddafi.

The al-Qaeda Question

The question here is not whether al-Qaeda will want to take advantage of instability in North Africa, but whether it can operate in any meaningful way.

Egypt is the historical crossroads of the world and as such it is an appealing theater of operations for al-Qaeda, which has ideological roots there through the works of Ibn at-Taymiyya and Sayid Qutb.  Al-Qaeda could certainly attempt to penetrate Egypt and resume operations there, a course that would definitely appeal to Ayman al-Zawahiri and the other Egyptians in exile that form much of core al-Qaeda. However, al-Qaeda does not appear to have any active cells in Egypt, or even many sympathizers. There is little appetite for a return to the dirty backstreet war between Islamist extremists and the regime in the 1990s. More importantly, most Egyptians recognize that instability equals poverty, that terrorism isolates Egypt from the international community, depriving them of markets and important sources of foreign currency. 

Al-Qaeda still does not present a political alternative developed beyond slogans promising the establishment of a Caliphate and the implementation of Shari’a law. With insufficient agricultural production, a rapidly increasing population, massive unemployment and underemployment and threats to its water supply that pose dangers to cultivation and power supplies, Egypt is in need of more thoughtful strategies than those supplied by the extremists. There are many sincere Muslims in the region who desire Shari’a, but they would also be the first to question the wisdom of leaving this in the hands of the band of kidnappers, murderers and drug traffickers that make up al-Qaeda in North Africa.

Opportunities will nevertheless be presented for al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb from the conflicts that will inevitably follow revolution. Attention and resources will be diverted from their activities, while arms and alliances will become available to strengthen their position.

Sudan – Darfur

Cobbled together from scores of ethnic and tribal groups speaking hundreds of different languages, Sudan, unsurprisingly, has been a center of dissent, rebellion and outright civil war from its first day of independence. While popular revolts may be something new along the Mediterranean coast, Sudan’s people have already overthrown two dictators (Ibrahim Abboud, 1964; Ja’afar Nimeiri, 1984).

With the conflict in Darfur continuing despite a decline in foreign or media interest, and a number of unresolved issues threatening the peaceful separation of the south from the north, Sudan is now faced with the possibility of further disruptions to security arriving from its northern neighbors of Egypt and Libya. Qaddafi’s Libya has actually played a vital role in negotiating a peace settlement in Darfur and it is uncertain who would step up to fill the void. A small protest movement in Khartoum has been firmly repressed so far, but there is enormous dissatisfaction in the North with President Omar al-Bashir, who has failed to keep the country together and has lost most of its oil revenues to the new southern state. In the current situation there is the possibility of both North and South Sudan turning into failed states with enormous consequences for a large part of Africa.

The Tuareg – What Will They Do After Libya?

The collapse of the Qaddafi regime will have an enormous impact on the states of the Sahara and Sahel, including Chad, Mali and Niger. Libya is an integral part of the economies of many of these states, both through financial donations and the employment of hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from these countries. Qaddafi regards this region as the Libyan hinterland and has played in important if sometimes destabilizing role in the area, particularly through his recruitment and sponsorship of the Tuareg peoples, whose ancient homeland has been divided between half a dozen nations in the post-colonial era. Having long acted as a kind of sponsor for the activities of Tuareg fighters battling regimes that regard the Tuareg presence as inconvenient and undesirable, Qaddafi is now arming Tuareg warriors who are rallying to his cause. Regardless of whether Qaddafi wins or loses, there is immense concern in these nations that the Tuareg fighters will return to their home states to initiate a new round of rebellions in poorly secured but oil and uranium-rich regions.

What Direction for Egyptian Security?

The Egyptian Revolution is not yet history. In fact, we may only have witnessed the first phase of a process that could continue for years or even decades. It is unlikely that Egypt’s officer corps, unquestionably part of Egypt’s elite, is willing to oversee the transfer of power from that same well-entrenched elite to the masses.  Indeed, it would be unreasonable to think that this would be their first instinct.  In Egypt, political revolution is also social revolution, and these things don’t usually happen overnight. 

Egypt’s internal security services collapsed in the wake of the Egyptian Revolution and are in the difficult process of being rebuilt and restructured with a new mandate that promises to pursue genuine security threats rather than internal political opposition.

While there were many cases of government violence against demonstrators, there were remarkably few incidents of retaliatory violence against members of the security services during the revolution.  Egypt does not have a taste for violent revolution. Such matters are traditionally handled by the nation’s elite, now formed from the military leadership.

The question here is how effective will a restructured security service devoted, as promised, to foreign rather than internal threats will be in controlling extremists. Egypt managed to destroy its radical Islamist movement by deploying an Interior Ministry force three times the size of the military, aided by legions of informers, both paid and coerced. Securing Egypt from Islamist extremism has come at a considerable cost to the liberty of most Egyptians, a cost no longer considered acceptable. The question, however, is whether a lighter and less-intrusive security presence still be as effective in eliminating Islamist extremism.   

Unforeseen Consequences

Qaddafi’s Libya has always been one of the major financial backers of the African Union. These donations have stopped now with significant consequences for the African Union Mission in Somalia, which already suffers from underfunding. There is no guarantee a new Libyan regime would renew such support, nor is it likely another African state would be able to step in to fill the shortfall.

Sub-Saharan countries have been effectively excluded from partaking in the resolution of the Libyan conflict, even though they will inevitably be affected by what happens in Libya and, moreover, have close ties and influence with Libya. The African Union negotiations were treated as an unimportant sideshow by the nations busy taking out Libya’s armor and air defenses. At some point the West will have to shrug off a self-assumed “White Man’s Burden” that has become outrageously expensive and deeply destabilizing. While it is true that African Union diplomatic and peacekeeping missions have an uneven record, it is also true that African troops aren’t going to get any better at this kind of thing by sitting in their barracks. More cooperative efforts between the West and Africa that acknowledge the interests of those actually living in the continent and the limitations of external parties would do more to stabilize North Africa than a hail of bombs and rockets.

Conclusion

In short, revolution is not an easy thing – most fail, and it would be presumptuous to assume that revolts in Egypt or Libya or the Middle East will lead to inevitable success, regardless of how this success is interpreted. However, whether successful or not, their repercussions can rarely be tamed, making them recipes for insecurity. At best they can be managed, with a bit of luck. At worst, efforts to contain or reverse social and political transformation are only capping the volcano – if it doesn’t erupt there, it will erupt somewhere else, at a time of its own choosing.