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Update: Crisis in Sudan

Warfare and drought have decimated the people of southern Sudan for the past twenty years. Now, western Sudan is under siege. Listen to learn more!

November 2002
Sudan: Overview of the Conflict in the South

The world has tolerated the high cost of conflict in Sudan for too long. The international community allocates an estimated $1 million a day in humanitarian aid, while the Government of Sudan (GOS) reportedly spends another $1 million a day financing its war effort. Virtually all of Sudan's nine neighbors have become embroiled in the conflict in some way over the years many helping to fund the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army.

Southern factions and rival ethnic groups, for their part, have spent more time and money fighting each other than the GOS. In addition, rebellion against the state has spread well beyond the south and is escalating in the east, west, and north of Sudan as these populations increasingly agitate for respect of fundamental civil, political, and human rights.

In terms of human costs, more than 1.9 million people have died in southern Sudan and the Nuba Mountains since 1983 as a result of the war, according to the U.S. Committee for Refugees. In 1998 alone, famine rendered another 2.6 million people at risk of starvation, making it the most serious humanitarian crisis Sudan had seen in more than a decade. Fighting also has caused massive internal displacement, leaving millions more homeless or without lands to farm. Furthermore, the south is far behind the north developmentally due to the war and benign neglect during colonial rule.

With neither side on the verge of a military victory, and with no negotiated settlement in sight, the international community faces two key questions:

1) How much longer is it willing to pay for humanitarian aid for Sudan? and
2) What are the costs of peace?

The first question is difficult to answer. With a conflict that has continued for the better part of four decades, the international community may be tired of spending approximately $365 million a year for humanitarian aid. Indeed, it has become so accustomed to Sudan's suffering that southern Sudan's 1998 call for more help than the norm was nearly ignored. Yet, donor governments also realize that the civil war in Sudan is not just a power struggle for economic and political gain: key principles of justice are at stake. Human rights abuses committed by the state against the civilian population and opposition forces include: arbitrary arrests, torture, and summary executions; indiscriminate bombing of civilian sites; denial of freedom of expression, press, or religion; and kidnapping of women and children for use as slave labor.

So what are the costs of peace? What can the international community do to provide hope for an end to suffering in Sudan?

The international community should:

Articulate its support for the fundamental principles of justice at stake in this conflict.
Focus on ways to convince the warring parties to forsake a military solution to the conflict in favor of a negotiated settlement. One way would be to make it as difficult as possible for the parties to prosecute the war.
Cut the GOS off from sources of hard currency including actions to discourage commercial investment in Sudan.
Impose an immediate arms embargo on the sale or supply of arms and ammunition, as well as military material and services, against all sides in light of the human rights abuses by all parties to the conflict.
Maintain the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) as the only viable forum for peace talks on Sudan, taking steps to strengthen the mediation role of IGAD by providing funding and technical assistance, applying leverage on the parties, and bringing the weight of the UN Security Council to the process.
Promote and strengthen grassroots efforts at reconciliation, particularly in the south.
Pressure both sides to agree on the details of carrying out a referendum in the south and defining self-determination.
Work to gain greater access throughout Sudan to properly assess and respond to humanitarian needs.
Focus on humanitarian aid strategies that not only meet daily nutritional requirements of affected populations, but that also facilitate asset replenishment and restoration of coping mechanisms.
Decide now how to respond to any potential disruptions of Operation Lifeline Sudan in 1999 before any possible disruptions occur.-Increase funding for road rehabilitation and expansion of trucking fleets. The cost of delivering one metric ton of food into southern Sudan by air is more than twice the cost of delivering it by road.
Begin to prepare the south for the eventuality of peace, whatever form it takes. The extreme state of underdevelopment in southern Sudan poses tremendous challenges to any vision of a peaceful south and must be addressed.
All Sudanese deserve to live in peace in a just and equitable society. Yet, progress toward peace will require much greater political commitment from the international community and a renewed sense of moral outrage that nearly 2 million people have died in a conflict that has gone on too long.

Sudan, Southern Rebels Sign Accord to End Decades of War
Washington Post, Jan 10, 2005

World Vision Policy Paper

Sudan:
The Continuing
Cost of War

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President Bush's Statement on the "Sudan Peace Act", signed into law on October 21, 2002.

Joint statement issued by humanitarian NGOs regarding US policy towards Sudan.