October 1997 Peacewatch Cover Story

Religion, Nationalism, and Peace in Sudan

While the self-determination movement in southern Sudan remains strong, it is unlikely that either the North or South can resolve the country's civil war through force.

Above: David Little welcomes Isaias Afwerki, president of Eritrea.
ithout a constitutional guarantee of cultural and religious pluralism--including provisions for human rights, nondiscrimination, and tolerance--Sudan cannot resolve its bitter civil war. Whether that guarantee takes the form of regional autonomy within a federal system or out-and-out partition, it is the only secure basis for lasting peace in a country of such religious diversity, including Muslims, Christians, and animists. This was the central conclusion reached by participants in a U.S. Institute of Peace symposium on "Religion, Nationalism, and Peace in Sudan," held on September 16-17.

Religion has always been at the core of the political process in Sudan, in part because it is at the core of Sudanese identity, said Francis Deng, an expert on Sudanese affairs and former U.S. Institute of Peace fellow and grantee. "All of the political parties have in one way or another endorsed a religious agenda, . . . and you would have a hard time finding a political leader willing to say, 'Let's put aside religious issues.' "

Chester A. Crocker, chair of the Institute's board of directors and specialist on African affairs, noted that although civil conflicts are generally about the struggle for resources and political power, "they also involve the ideas and values that legitimate such struggle. Nowhere is the mix more potent than when religion is brought into the fray, and nowhere is this more evident than in Sudan." Nevertheless, it is a delicate task to sort out the complex role of religion and religious organizations in the midst of the nationalist struggle for power that has fueled Sudan's 17-year civil war, cautioned David Little, the Institute's senior scholar in religion, ethics, and human rights.

The symposium was the sixth event in a series, and the second on Sudan, organized by the Institute's project on Religion, Nationalism, and Intolerance, directed by Little, with the assistance of program officer Scott Hibbard. The project is focusing on the role of religion within conflict and has looked at several cases, including Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tibet, and Ukraine. A follow-on to the 1991 conference on Sudan, the symposium examined the extent to which religion and ideology remain significant forces in Sudan's civil war. The more than 200 participants included representatives of the U.S. government, the Sudanese embassy, the exile community, the diplomatic community, nongovernmental organizations, the academic community, and others.

l to r: Frances Deng, Brookings Institution; Mahdi Ibrahim Mohamed, Sudan's ambassador to the United States; and Gare Smith, U.S. Department of State.

Background

Sudan's predominantly Muslim north has historically perceived Sudan as a single country composed of one people that had been divided by colonial powers. Northern policies since independence in 1956 have sought to

"re-unite" the country through a process of Arabization and Islamization. Such policies, however, have generated antagonism among the southern population, whose indigenous cultural values combined with Christianity to create a common identity, one defined largely in opposition to northern attitudes and policies. Because the policies of successive governments in Khartoum have by and large disregarded Sudan's multi-religious character, conflict and civil war have remained endemic.

Recently, significant political realignments have blurred the traditional North-South character of the conflict. The dominant northern opposition parties have joined together and allied themselves with John Garang and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), which forms the major opposition based in the South. Riak Machar's Southern Sudan Independence Army (SSIA), a smaller southern rebel group, has joined forces with the Khartoum government. However, these realignments are tactical in nature, noted David Smock, director of the Institute's Grant Program and coordinator of Africa activities, and the underlying issues of religion and constitutional pluralism remain central to any long-term resolution of the conflict.

Governmental Credibility and Legitimacy

Gare Smith, U.S. deputy assistant secretary for democracy, human rights, and labor, noted that the Khartoum government has little credibility with the United States at present. This is due in part to its continued violations of human rights, including persecution of Christians, various sanctioned forms of violence against women, and enslavement of prisoners captured in the South during the fighting. Last year, Sudan was placed on the State Department's list of nations supporting terrorism. Smith said that the U.S. government wants the Khartoum government to agree to confidence-building measures, including allowing independent human rights monitors to observe the conflict; institute a program to reunite those separated by war and slavery; and bring to trial those guilty of human rights abuses.

Above: Symposium panelists cautioned that further fragmentation is likely in Sudan.
Several participants pointed out that the current government violates many tenets of Islam when it violates human rights, and thus seems more interested in maintaining its power than in preserving Islamic beliefs, traditions, and law. "Muslims themselves have confirmed that the NIF (National Islamic Front, which heads the government in Khartoum) policies are an abuse of Islam," said Peter Nyot Kok, a law professor and former chair of the Sudan Constitutional Committee.

Additionally, Kok said, while the Khartoum government has been in power for eight years, it still has no constitutional legitimacy. The constitutional models favored by the parties to the conflict do not include one that would unite the political forces in the country. While it may still be too soon to give up on searching for a resolution, "unity is secondary to justice," Kok said. "Unity cannot be pursued endlessly."

Adam Mohamed Abdelmoula, a Sudanese human rights lawyer, recommended an extended federal system with "a serious devolution of power" from the central government to currently disenfranchised groups, in conjunction with an affirmative action program "to restore some sense of belonging to those who have been excluded for a very long time." Without such measures, fragmentation will continue, he warned.

© 1997 United States Institute of Peace

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