First Sudanese Civil War 1955-1972 - Modern History DOCUMENTARY

0:11 Sudan has once again made headlines for all the wrong reasons.

0:16 A civil war has erupted yet again,

0:20 causing immense suffering for ordinary people.

0:23 But, unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident.

0:27 Far from it.

0:28 Ever since gaining independence from Britain in 1956,

0:32 Sudan has been engulfed in internal conflict.

0:35 What is happening now is the third civil war in Sudan.

0:41 Today, we are starting our short series on civil wars in Sudan.

0:51 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND The word “Sudan” comes from Arabic “Bilal

1:30 al-Sudan,” literally meaning “the land of the blacks.” This region,

1:34 known in history as Nubia,

1:36 was not Arabized and Islamized through a conquest by the Caliphate,

1:41 but rather through a very slow process of assimilation via

1:45 the migration of Arab tribes and the gradual decline of Christian Nubia,

1:50 which eventually converted to Islam.

1:52 However, the country, which we now call South Sudan,

1:56 was beyond the reach of Arab influence due to its difficult geography,

2:00 particularly its vast bogs and swamps.

2:03 This made the population of South Sudan different from that of North Sudan.

2:07 While the vast majority of North Sudan follows Islam and some 70%

2:12 of them are considered Sudanese Arabs

2:15 with several large minorities like Nubians and Zaghawa,

2:19 the South Sudanese are predominantly Christians,

2:21 with a very large minority of around

2:24 30% of the population following traditional African religions.

2:27 In terms of the current ethnic composition of South Sudan,

2:31 the country is very diverse, with large Dinka,

2:35 Nuer, Shilluk, and Bari populations,

2:37 and the vast majority of the population speaks a Nilo-Saharan language.

2:43 Partly due to these ethnic, cultural, religious, and linguistic differences,

2:47 and partly due to political and administrative

2:50 reasons stemming from significantly different levels of development,

2:54 when both Sudans came under British-Egyptian rule in the late 19th century,

2:58 the colonial overlords decided to divide them into two administrative units.

3:04 And unfortunately, the Brits did almost

3:07 nothing to empower Southern Sudan economically,

3:09 concentrating most of their investment in the North,

3:13 which was already way better developed.

3:15 The North already had a functioning bureaucracy

3:18 and trade relations with the outside world,

3:20 along with arable lands in the Nile valley,

3:23 which provided fertile ground for agriculture.

3:26 Meanwhile, they did not deem the South worthy

3:29 of much attention due to its swampy terrain, lack of irrigation and arable land,

3:34 its location outside the main trade routes,

3:36 and what they saw as a primitive society,

3:39 best left alone for local tribal chiefs to govern.

3:43 As a result, Southern Sudan remained underdeveloped with poor transport

3:47 infrastructure within the country and between the South and the North.

3:51 SUDAN INDEPENDENCE AND THE START OF THE CIVIL WAR By 1956,

3:54 there were not only significant ethno-confessional

3:56 differences between the North and South, but also a major economic gulf.

4:02 On the eve of the declaration of independence,

4:05 many Southerners feared that the new regime would

4:08 not be much different from the previous one,

4:10 as the only change would be their new overlord.

4:13 As Joseph Lagu, the future commander of the Southern guerrilla force, put it,

4:18 “The Southerners began to feel more and more strongly

4:21 that their country was being colonized by Arabs and that their great

4:26 expectations from independence boiled down to the replacement of one

4:30 master by another.” And these fears were not for naught.

4:34 One of the pressing issues for the new Sudanese government was

4:38 filling the bureaucratic positions left vacant

4:41 by outgoing British and Egyptian administrators.

4:44 The Sudanization Committee, which was created for this purpose,

4:48 nominated only 8 Southerners for 800 available positions.

4:52 A similar situation was developing in the army, too.

4:57 These decisions, which were a clear demonstration of the Northern

5:01 attitude towards the South and their intention to dominate it,

5:04 were met with dismay in the South.

5:07 Southern politicians were calling for the federalization

5:09 of Sudan and the autonomy of South Sudan.

5:12 The first prime minister of Sudan, Ismail al-Azhari,

5:15 who was at the time fighting his rivals in the North

5:19 over the future design of the state of Sudan,

5:22 travelled to South Sudan in July 1955

5:25 to secure their support in this political battle.

5:29 However, this trip did not go according to his plan,

5:33 as the Southerners expected concrete promises regarding their future autonomy,

5:38 which al-Azhari had no intention of giving.

5:41 TORIT MUTINY The tensions were clearly on the rise,

5:44 and all it took for the events to spiral out of control was a trigger.

5:48 And it came less than a month after al-Azhari’s trip to the South.

5:53 In early August 1955, a telegram was purportedly sent from the capital,

5:58 Khartoum, to the headquarters of the Equatoria Corps in Torit.

6:02 The telegram, which was claimed to be sent by al-Azhari,

6:05 allegedly ordered the arrest and disarmament of all Southern

6:09 soldiers and the replacement of them with Northern troops.

6:12 Many scholars claim that this telegram was

6:15 a forgery and was not actually written by al-Azhari.

6:18 Robert Collins argues that the telegram was likely exaggerated

6:22 or deliberately distorted by Sudanese officials to provoke the Southerners.

6:26 Whatever the case, Southern soldiers saw it as a clear threat.

6:31 A few days later, the Sudanese government ordered

6:34 the families of their Northern officers from Torit,

6:37 while advising them to be extra vigilant in the coming days.

6:41 Then, a company of the Equatoria Corps stationed in the South

6:45 was ordered to come to Khartoum to participate in a parade.

6:49 They feared that this would be used

6:51 as a pretext to permanently station them in the north.

6:54 There was already an atmosphere of distrust,

6:57 and these new developments only exacerbated the situation.

7:02 Some Southern politicians and soldiers were already discussing

7:05 a rebellion as a means to achieve secession,

7:08 and the events preceding the Torit mutiny accelerated its implementation.

7:13 Soon, the plan to organize widespread disorder in Southern

7:16 cities to force the Northern troops and Arab merchants out

7:20 of the South and then somehow secure the support

7:23 of the King’s African Rifles- the British troops in Kenya was designed.

7:28 On August 18, the Southern troops in Torit were ordered to march to Khartoum.

7:34 It was a crossing of the Rubicon moment for them.

7:37 Either they were to go to the North

7:39 with the risk of being forced to stay there or worse,

7:43 face repressions, or refuse the order and effectively enter

7:46 the state of rebellion with all the accompanying risks.

7:49 They chose the latter.

7:51 The Torit mutiny started when the Southern soldiers attacked Northern officers,

7:56 and then proceeded to burn their houses and loot their property.

8:00 Soon, Southern troops, policemen and prison guards in Juba,

8:03 Yei, Yambio and Meridi followed their example.

8:06 This is when the Civil War in Sudan started.

8:09 The first day claimed the lives of 361 Northerners and 75 Southerners.

8:15 So, the Torit Mutiny partially put the rebel plan into motion,

8:19 but the hope of receiving assistance

8:21 from the British troops was shattered immediately.

8:24 The British strongly rejected the Southern call for help in their telegram.

8:29 Sudan’s prime minister al-Azhari also sent a telegram,

8:32 calling the mutiny “a very serious crime”,

8:35 but also promised safety to those soldiers who surrendered.

8:39 He also called for a meeting with rebel

8:43 representatives to discuss the causes of their actions.

8:46 The mutineers rejected this proposition and instead demanded

8:50 the removal of all northern forces from the South.

8:55 But once it became clear that no help was coming from Britain,

8:59 many rebels surrendered to Northern troops at Torit.

9:02 Those who refused to lay down their arms

9:04 fled to remote areas of the South or abroad.

9:07 Contrary to the government’s promises,

9:10 355 rebels were immediately tried and executed.

9:15 Southern policemen and prison guards in Yei and Kajo-Kaji,

9:18 who killed several policemen and Arab merchants during the rebellion,

9:22 were also promised amnesty if they gathered in Yei

9:25 town center to show their allegiance to the government.

9:28 But once they did so, the Sudanese military started shooting at them.

9:33 The news of atrocities against

9:35 Southern rebels infuriated many ordinary civilians,

9:38 who protested against that in Juba.

9:40 But this only led to further government repression.

9:43 Hundreds were arrested and taken to the North for further interrogation.

9:48 Ordinary Southerners were harassed, imprisoned, tortured,

9:51 and saw their houses and businesses destroyed by the Northern security.

9:56 Thousands fled to Uganda, Kenya, Congo and the Central African Republic.

10:02 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS.

10:02 TROUBLES OF THE SOUTHERN RESISTANCE So, on the one hand,

10:05 the government adopted a very hard-handed

10:07 approach to deal with the Southern rebellion, but on the other hand,

10:10 they recognized that at least some lip

10:13 service was necessary to appease the Southerners.

10:17 Thus, in December 1955, the Sudanese parliament proclaimed Sudan a federation.

10:22 Even though in practice, the Northern dominance continued,

10:26 not everyone was happy with this decision.

10:29 The commander-in-chief of the Sudanese army, General Ibrahim Abboud,

10:33 publicly opposed the federal status for the South

10:37 and criticized the government's economic performance.

10:39 Under pressure, Prime Minister Khalil handed over power to the military.

10:44 On November 17, 1958, a military junta under General Abboud came to power.

10:50 The Constitution and the parliament were dissolved.

10:54 The situation was now getting even worse for the South.

10:57 The military junta started the policy of Islamization

11:00 and Arabization of the South through administrative and educational measures.

11:06 The decision to substitute Friday for Sunday as the day of rest

11:09 in other Muslim countries was met with particular discontent in the South.

11:14 Students at Rumbek Secondary School went on strike against this decision,

11:18 but the strike was violently suppressed.

11:21 In 1964, Abboud ordered the expulsion of all foreign missionaries,

11:26 mostly Christians from the South.

11:29 Abboud’s policies meant that finding non-violent methods to achieve

11:33 Southern aspirations of autonomy or independence was not really viable.

11:37 Southerners who fled to remote areas and abroad engaged

11:41 in low-scale insurgency soon after the defeat of the Torit mutiny.

11:45 But for a while this was inconsequential,

11:48 since the Southern insurgents were mostly equipped with spears,

11:51 bows and arrows and had no chance against the Northern firepower.

11:55 They would attack military and police posts and ambush Northern soldiers,

11:59 but the only tangible result of these actions was

12:02 more Northern troops in the South and harsher reprisals.

12:07 But by the early 1960s,

12:09 the situation started to change as more people joined the insurgency.

12:14 In 1962, they established their first military camp in Murta.

12:19 Another camp was created in Agu on the border with Uganda in 1963.

12:24 Within a month, this camp had 400 guerrillas.

12:27 Simultaneously, Southern politicians in Sudan

12:30 and abroad were starting to organize.

12:32 Their main goals were to raise funds for the guerrilla movement,

12:37 to politicize Southern Sudanese people, and to act as their voice and raise

12:41 international awareness about the situation in South Sudan.

12:45 In March 1962, Joseph Oduho, William Deng,

12:48 and Father Saturnino founded the first

12:51 political organization of the South Sudanese resistance,

12:55 the Sudan African Closed District National Union.

12:58 But most importantly, in August 1963,

13:02 Southern politicians and guerrilla leaders met in Kampala,

13:06 Uganda, to create a centralized military organization called Anya-Nya.

13:11 Previously, the guerrilla movement in South

13:14 Sudan operated in small groups with little,

13:17 if any, coordination among themselves.

13:19 Now, with at least some degree of centralization,

13:23 more effective operation was expected.

13:25 The guerrillas carried out regular ambushes

13:27 against government forces in rural areas,

13:30 complicating the government's control outside major urban centers.

13:33 However, there were many setbacks as well,

13:36 since the Northern army was much better prepared and equipped.

13:40 For instance, on January 1, 1964,

13:43 Anya-Nya fighters attacked a military storage depot in Wau,

13:48 hoping to capture firearms and ammunition,

13:51 but were soundly defeated by the Northern forces.

13:55 The government was also eager to employ various

13:58 intimidation tactics to prevent the expansion of Anya-Nya.

14:01 Villages suspected of harboring rebels were routinely destroyed.

14:06 Suspected sympathizers were arrested or killed.

14:09 The Sudanese army often crossed ill-defined borders to Ethiopia

14:13 and Congo to attack South Sudanese refugee settlements.

14:17 Many former South Sudanese soldiers were either under

14:21 arrest or had restrictions on their freedom of movement.

14:24 But despite all the repressions,

14:26 the General Abboud regime could not solve the Southern problem.

14:29 And it was one of the causes of his undoing.

14:33 Unable to quell the unrest in the South,

14:35 Abboud made an unusual step of asking the civilian

14:39 sector to offer solutions to the Southern problem.

14:42 But this opened the Pandora's box of criticism.

14:46 In October 1964, students at the University of Khartoum

14:50 began protests that later spread across the rest of Sudan.

14:54 The military junta fell, and Sudan briefly returned to democracy once again,

14:59 but the policy of the new regime

15:01 towards the South was perhaps even more repressive.

15:04 Northern security forces routinely destroyed villages and terrorized civilians.

15:10 The educated class of Southern Sudan became another target,

15:13 as the government believed that they

15:16 were behind the pro-secessionist propaganda.

15:18 On July 8, 1965, the security forces attacked several neighborhoods in Juba,

15:24 burning houses and killing civilians indiscriminately.

15:28 According to the Southern sources,

15:30 at least 1400 people were killed in this massacre.

15:35 Another repressive tactic of the so-called Peace Villages was adopted in 1966,

15:42 which envisaged gathering of the rural population

15:44 of the South along the main roads in larger towns.

15:48 They were essentially uprooted from their homes and brought

15:51 into concentration camps in order to isolate them from the guerrillas.

15:55 The logic was that the absence of the civilians

15:58 would leave guerrillas without food and supplies.

16:01 This policy was catastrophic for the Southerners.

16:05 The exact death toll is unknown, but according to Robert O.

16:11 Collins, 25000-35000 people died during relocation

16:15 and in camps until 1969 from exhaustion, disease, starvation and mistreatment.

16:21 The Sudanese government also conducted regular air strikes against the South,

16:26 along with engaging in counter-insurgency actions

16:28 to limit the influence of the guerrillas.

16:31 In 1965, the Sudanese government under

16:34 Al-Khalifa organized the Round Table Conference,

16:37 attended by Southern politicians, to find a solution.

16:39 But the gulf between the sides was huge,

16:42 as the Southerners demanded at least federalization,

16:46 while the North insisted on maintaining Sudan's unitary system.

16:50 Hence, the talks did not lead nowhere.

16:54 THE SOUTH CONSOLIDATES.

16:54 SUPPORT FROM ISRAEL.

16:54 JOSEPH LAGU The problem is that for a very long time during the civil war,

16:58 the Southern movement was anything but united.

17:00 Attempts by Southern politicians and organizations,

17:03 which regularly fell apart only to be rebranded with a different name,

17:08 to control and direct the armed struggle of Anya-nya

17:11 had been unsuccessful for a very long time.

17:15 Personal ambition of politicians and their inability to rise above ethnic,

17:21 tribal and regional differences prevented the Southern movement from acting

17:26 as a unified front against the more powerful and well-equipped Northern army.

17:32 Enter a former lieutenant of the Sudanese

17:35 army and commander of Anya-Nya, Joseph Lagu.

17:39 In 1967, he wrote to the prime minister of Israel, Levi Eshkol,

17:43 congratulating him on the victory in the Six-Day

17:46 War and offering to work together against the Arab Sudan in order to prevent

17:51 them from helping the Egyptians against Israel.

17:54 In 1969, Lagu was invited to Israel, a visit that led Israel to start

18:00 sending significant amounts of military equipment through Uganda,

18:03 Ethiopia, and Congo.

18:05 Anya-nya fighters brought these weapons to their headquarters at Owini-ki-Bul,

18:10 which was the seat of Lagu’s power.

18:13 There, Anya-nya fighters received weapons and training from Israeli officers.

18:17 This significantly expanded Lagu’s influence.

18:21 Joseph Lagu spoke several Southern languages,

18:24 enabling him to communicate with fighters of various ethnic backgrounds.

18:28 He opposed centralized command for Anya-Nya,

18:31 instead ordering each ethnic group to fight in its own region.

18:35 Each of the three Southern provinces now had its own army,

18:39 the commanders of which met at the Annual Command

18:42 Council to discuss future plans of the guerrilla army.

18:46 Eventually, Lagu capitalized on the massive

18:48 influence he had gained in the Southern

18:51 movement by effectively staging a coup d’état against Gordon Muortat Mayen,

18:55 who was considered the president of the South.

18:58 In July 1971, he invited the main military and political leaders to a conference

19:04 that established the Southern Sudan Liberation

19:06 Movement and elected Lagu as its leader.

19:09 For the first time since the start of the civil war,

19:13 South Sudan was fighting as a unified front.

19:17 Lagu’s leadership and Israeli support enabled

19:19 Anya-Nya to expand its operations once again,

19:23 carrying out effective ambushes and often limiting the government’s

19:28 sphere of control to major administrative and urban centers.

19:32 STALEMATE.

19:32 ADDIS ABABA AGREEMENT (1972) Meanwhile,

19:33 the Sudanese government was fighting a war, which depleted its resources.

19:38 In May 1969, another military coup,

19:41 led by Colonel Numeiri, ousted the civilian government.

19:45 Numeiri recognized the economic problems Sudan faced and understood that a new

19:50 approach was necessary to resolve the conflict with the South,

19:53 which had been ongoing for almost 15 years.

19:56 He became the first leader of Sudan to proclaim

19:59 regional autonomy for the South in June 1969,

20:03 after publicly acknowledging differences between the North and the South.

20:07 He promised amnesty to the guerrillas and his intention to tackle unemployment,

20:13 poverty, illiteracy and other major problems,

20:15 which the people in the South faced.

20:17 He appointed Joseph Garang, a Southern politician,

20:20 as the minister for Southern Affairs.

20:23 But all the atrocities committed by Khartoum

20:25 through the years had not been forgotten,

20:27 and it was difficult for the Southern politicians, guerrillas,

20:31 and ordinary civilians to trust the word of the Sudanese government.

20:36 Furthermore, these peace overtures were accompanied by increased

20:40 military activity supported by weapons from Egypt,

20:44 Libya, other Arab countries, and the USSR.

20:47 However, a new military campaign in the South and attempts

20:51 to defeat the Anya-Nya did not bring any tangible results,

20:54 as the stalemate persisted.

20:56 At one point, Numeiri was even briefly ousted in the communist coup,

21:01 but he was soon brought back to power by an intervention from Egypt and Libya.

21:07 Regardless, the South was not in a position

21:09 to inflict a decisive military blow on the government either,

21:12 particularly as the new leader of Uganda,

21:15 the notorious dictator Idi Amin, had fallen out with Israel,

21:19 thus cutting the main source of military and financial aid to the rebels.

21:25 At this point, it had become clear to both sides

21:28 that there was no immediate military solution to the civil war.

21:32 In 1971, the sides began preliminary peace talks mediated by the All

21:37 Africa Conference of Churches and the World Council of Churches.

21:41 The outcome was the Addis Ababa Agreement,

21:43 which ended the First Civil War in Sudan.

21:47 The agreement envisaged the creation of the South Sudan

21:51 Autonomous Region with its own legislative and executive bodies.

21:55 However, the matters of national defense, foreign affairs, finances, economy,

21:59 education and so on remained in the hands of Khartoum.

22:04 The Anya-Nya fighters were to be integrated into the Sudanese military.

22:10 CONCLUSION So, the first civil war in Sudan,

22:12 which claimed the lives of anywhere between 500k and 1 million people,

22:18 was over after 17 years.

22:21 However the war stopped not because one of the sides had a clear

22:25 military advantage or because the North and the South had found a just,

22:30 sustainable solution.

22:30 No, it was because they were both exhausted

22:34 and did not see a way to their victory.

22:37 This forced them into an imperfect peace deal that eventually

22:40 paved the way for another civil war a decade later.

22:43 We will talk more about the events in Sudan in our future videos,

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