The recent shutdown of communications and the atrocities resulting from the peaceful pro-democracy protests in Sudan have led to a catastrophic situation in which a great number of civilians have been killed or injured, many have gone missing or have been arrested, and an undetermined number of women and girls have been raped. The massacre has lacked enough media coverage not only internally but abroad too, but it is fundamental to remember that the Sudanese revolution did not happen overnight—it is rather the result of decades of conflict and a pseudo-authoritarian regime.
After becoming independent in 1956, the First Sudanese Civil War broke out as a consequence of the lack of Government representation of the southern region. During medieval times, Arab travelers called the territory extending from the Atlantic Ocean immediately below the Sahara Desert to the Red Sea Bilad al-Sudan, ‘the land of blacks’. Humid climatic conditions, vast swamps and the spread of diseases were some of the factors that prevented medieval Arab travelers from penetrating what is now South Sudan, which would then determine the ethnic differences between the North and the South. In light of this, the rebel movement Anya Nya, formed by members of different South Sudanese ethnicities, became the main force fighting against the Khartoum government.
The First Civil War came to an end with the 1972 Addis Ababa peace agreement between the Sudanese government and Anya Nya, through which the South obtained a partial self-governance. Although both regions were able to live in relative peace for some time, the discovery of oil reserves in the town of Bentiu in 1978 led to the beginning of a new civil war in 1983. This time, the war confronted the Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), a South Sudanese political party.
In the political arena, president Nimeiry, who had come to power in 1969 after a coup d’état, imposed the Sharia Islamic Law in the nation in 1983, but the political conditions leading to the current situation began with the appointment of General Omar al-Bashir as president of Sudan in 1993, also following a military coup. In 1998, president al-Bashir dissolved the National Assembly and declared the state of emergency after a power struggle with one of the Parliament speakers, and he also decided to make Sudan an oil-exporting country.
In 2002, the Machakos Protocol negotiated by the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army settled an agreement to end the civil war, although peace would not be signed by both parties until 2005.
In the meantime, the western region of Darfur gave birth to two main rebel groups: the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Army. These rebel groups, formed in 2003, claimed that Darfur had been marginalized by the Khartoum government, and in their attempt to demand more representation they started a bloody conflict that still has not been solved. In 2004, the government’s response, strongly supported by Janjaweed militias, was a systematic genocide of the local populations: according to the UN, over 200,000 people have been killed and at least 2 million have been displaced to neighboring countries such as Chad. Some of the atrocities conducted by government officials as well as Janjaweed forces also include rape as a tool of genocide, the exact number of which cannot be calculated although most sexual crimes were perpetrated against non-Arab women and girls.
In 2005, the UN Security Council authorized sanctions against violations of the ceasefire in Darfur and allowed for individual violators to be brought before the International Criminal Court of the Hague for war crimes. As a matter of fact, the Court in the Hague has played a relatively important role in the Sudanese conflict throughout the years, as its jurisdiction has also been accepted by both North and South Sudan in the dispute over the oil-rich town of Abyei. In addition, in 2009, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, and issued another arrest warrant for genocide in 2010.
South Sudan achieved independence in 2011 after 98.83% of the population voted in favor through a referendum held in January 2011. As 75% of the total of oil reserves of the former Sudan are in the newly-independent South Sudan, President al-Bashir adopted a series of austerity measures including cuts of fuel subsidies that eventually led to a first wave of protests in 2013 due to the deterioration of the citizens’ living conditions. In response to the relatively violent protests, the authorities killed at least 29 people, reported Human Rights Watch, but the number of deaths is estimated to have been much higher.
From 2016 onwards, the austerity measures adopted by al-Bashir increased prices of basic goods, thus further raising the costs of living and worsening the living conditions of the population. Citizens kept protesting and in December 2018 demanded the President to step down. On February 22, 2019 the state of emergency was established and al-Bashir decided to dissolve the national and regional governments by replacing them with the military and intelligence services. On April 11, the military conducted a coup to remove al-Bashir from power, but the new provisional government composed by the military did not comply with the conditions set by the protesters, who instead supported a civilian-led transitional government.
The continuation of non-violent, pro-democracy protests against the Transitional Military Council led to the so-called Khartoum massacre: on June 3rd, the Rapid Support Forces, a state-controlled group mainly consisting of Janjaweed militias, attacked the peaceful protesters causing at least 100 murders (around 40 corpses have been dumped into the Nile River), injuring at least 700 people, and committing at least 70 rapes. The Rapid Support Forces quickly shut down all internet access and communications services in an attempt to cover up their crimes, and foreign journalists were also revoked their licenses to prevent them from reporting on the situation.
The telecommunications blackout and the lack of coverage by Western media makes it hard to report on the exact estimates of all the cases of murder and rape that have been happening since protests broke out at the end of 2018, but it is undeniable that human rights are being violated every day not only in Khartoum but in Darfur and other areas of Sudan and South Sudan.
The least we can do is turn #blueforSudan.
