Sudan’s Spreading Conflict (II): War in Blue Nile
Africa Report N°204 18 Jun 2013
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The war in Blue Nile state has had a horrible impact, with about a
third of the state’s population in need of humanitarian assistance,
including some 150,000 refugees in South Sudan and Ethiopia and
approximately 200,000 displaced or severely affected within the state.
It resumed in September 2011 because the root causes – mainly the
concentration of power and resources in Sudan’s centre at the expense
of its peripheries – had not been resolved by the 2005 Comprehensive
Peace Agreement (CPA). The war pits against each other old enemies,
the long-ruling National Congress Party (NCP) regime in Khartoum and
the northern branch of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army
(SPLM/A) that won South Sudan’s independence, but was not able to
achieve as much autonomy as it had hoped in Blue Nile. The conflict’s
local and national dimensions are more intermingled than ever, and it
will not end conclusively without a truly comprehensive national
dialogue between the regime and both armed and unarmed oppositions.
Blue Nile state is a “microcosm of Sudan”, inhabited by an array of
communities and deeply divided between “indigenous” and Arab and
non-Arab “newcomers”. The area has long been marginalised, its natural
wealth mostly enriching elites in Khartoum without them sharing power
and redistributing resources. This feature is the main cause of
Sudan’s multiple conflicts. Many had hoped the CPA would transform
governance, but neither the NCP nor the SPLM focused on the reforms
that would make “unity attractive” and prevent South Sudan from
pursuing self-determination. Such a right was not granted to the “two
areas” of Blue Nile and South Kordofan, and the CPA instead offered
vague “popular consultations”. In 2011, the process allowed 76,000
Blue Nile citizens to air their grievances, and the SPLM used this to
push for “self-rule”. The consultations were supposed to be finalised
before South Sudan’s July 2011 independence, but once that deadline
passed the NCP was less inclined than ever to share power, let alone
to allow local autonomy.
The SPLM-North (SPLM-N) was supposed to become an opposition political
party after July 2011, but it still had troops, which Khartoum wanted
to expel or disarm expeditiously. This in particular led to the
resumption of war in South Kordofan and Blue Nile. A last-minute deal
between the NCP and the SPLM-N, the 26 June 2011 framework agreement,
brokered by the African Union (AU) and late Ethiopian Prime Minister
Meles Zenawi, was rejected by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.
Hardliners in his party in particular disagreed with the agreement’s
commitment to a national solution. Since then, both humanitarian and
political negotiations, with international players confused on whether
they should be separated or linked, have largely stalled.
The SPLM-N in Blue Nile was less prepared for war than in South
Kordofan, where the rebels managed to seize more territory and weapons
than they ever had during the earlier war (1985-2005). In Blue Nile,
they were rapidly pushed toward the South Sudan border and lost
Kurmuk, their historical stronghold on the border with Ethiopia. Addis
Ababa, a former SPLM/A supporter, has refused to help and cautiously
remained a neutral mediator. Even South Sudan, under international
pressure, has not proved willing or able to support former comrades as
much as might have been expected given their historical ties.
The SPLM-N now has united with the main Darfur rebel movements under
the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) with a more than ever national
agenda. But divisions remain between South Kordofan and Blue Nile, and
within Blue Nile itself, notably over whether the conflict should take
a national dimension. Those differences are benefiting Khartoum’s
strategy to limit peace talks and subsequent agreements to local
issues in order to prevent reform – seen as dilution of NCP power – in
the centre. While they partly supported SPLM-N calls for autonomy
during the popular consultation, Blue Nile’s political elites,
including NCP members, are now critical of the SRF’s national agenda
and support a local solution. Yet a local deal is unlikely to address
the root causes of the conflict in Blue Nile, which are not different
from those of the other regions’ conflicts.
This report is the second in a series analysing the spreading conflict
in Sudan’s peripheries. A comprehensive solution, including broader
governance reform and meaningful national dialogue involving the whole
armed opposition, is necessary to end the multiple conflicts and build
a durable peace. Thus, many of the recommendations in the first
report, Sudan’s Spreading Conflict (I): War in South Kordofan (14
February 2013) and the preceding, Major Reform or More War (29
November 2012), are relevant for solving chronic conflict in Blue
Nile, which goes beyond local dynamics.
Since the 1980s, the state has become a major battleground for the
ideological competition between two opposed models: Khartoum’s
attempts at unifying and centralising the country with a dominant
Arab-Islamic identity, which South Sudan’s separation is paradoxically
reviving, versus the rebel SPLM/A’s and now SRF’s agenda for a more
inclusive and devolved Sudan. Attempts to resolve Blue Nile’s past and
current conflicts thus very much reflect Sudan’s existential dilemma
as to how best it should define itself.
RECOMMENDATIONS
To save lives and cope with massive displacement
To the government of Sudan:
1. Refrain from linking humanitarian access and ceasefire to
political conditions in the direct negotiations with the SPLM-N.
2. Allow international humanitarian organisations – UN agencies and
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) – full access to both
government- and SPLM-N-controlled areas of Blue Nile, including from
across the South Sudanese and Ethiopian borders; allow those
humanitarian actors to conduct proper humanitarian assessments and
deliver aid involving international staff, with no presence of
government security forces unless they demand otherwise; and consider
guaranteeing the neutrality of the operations by permitting monitoring
by independent international observers.
To the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N):
3. Allow international humanitarian organisations to conduct
humanitarian assessments and deliver aid involving international staff
in SPLM-N-controlled areas, including from government-controlled
areas, with no SPLM-N military or intelligence presence, unless the
humanitarian organisations demand otherwise; and ensure, within its
capabilities, that all humanitarian aid goes to civilians and that
combatants are separated from civilians and not based in refugee
camps.
To address the local dimensions of the Blue Nile conflict
To the government of Sudan and the SPLM-N:
4. Negotiate a ceasefire in the “two areas” of South Kordofan and
Blue Nile to facilitate both humanitarian operations and negotiations,
including at the national level.
5. Resume the popular consultation process in Blue Nile where it was
left at the outbreak of the conflict so that it can serve as a basis
for state- as well as national-level negotiations.
To the government of Sudan:
6. Acknowledge the popular consultations or any purely local process
will not be sufficient to solve the conflict, and should run in
parallel with a national process including the whole armed opposition.
7. Re-legalise the SPLM-N as a political party allowed to operate in
all Sudan; and reinstate SPLM-N elected officials at their pre-war
positions.
8. Allow the SPLM-N to retain its troops for a transitional period,
following well-monitored security arrangements.
To initiate a meaningful national dialogue and transition
To the government of Sudan:
9. Bring the NCP, the SRF, other opposition forces and civil society
groups together in an arrangement to govern for a limited period with
well-defined parameters (based on agreed principles reiterated in
previous agreements) that is intended to lead first to a comprehensive
ceasefire and humanitarian access to conflict areas; and allow the
political forces to flesh out a roadmap for a durable peace process,
perhaps taking the 28 June 2011 framework agreement and the 24 April
2013 AUHIP draft Declaration of Common Intent as a basis for
discussion of a national transition that includes:
a) debate and agreement on a system of governance that can end the
conflicts between the “centre-Khartoum” and Darfur, South Kordofan and
Blue Nile, as well as the East and North; and
b) drafting of a permanent constitution.
To the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF):
10. Develop and articulate detailed political platforms and visions
that can form the framework for the transition.
11. Work to broaden the opposition’s grassroots support and popular
backing for a transitional framework, including in Blue Nile.
To assist in ending conflict and building sustainable peace and reform
To all parties:
12. Urge the SRF and other opposition forces to recognise that a
managed transition is much preferable to a coup or violent regime
change and their likely attendant chaos.
To the Republic of South Sudan government:
13. Support the SRF’s efforts to negotiate directly with the Sudanese
government.
To the UN Security Council, AU Peace and Security Council, Council of
the League of Arab States, Intergovernmental Authority on Development
(IGAD) and the government of Ethiopia:
14. Demand and work for a single, comprehensive solution to Sudan’s
multiple conflicts in a process that runs in parallel with the
negotiations between Sudan and South Sudan but is not conditioned on
them; and coordinate effectively between the two tracks so as to
prevent obstacles in one delaying, or derailing, the other.
15. Support, through training and capacity building, the
establishment and growth of national parties that can represent and
articulate the demands of marginalised constituencies, including
populations in the peripheries, youth, women, nomads and urban and
rural poor.
Nairobi/Brussels, 18 June 2013
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