In 1946, the British gave in to northern pressure to integrate the two areas. This integration took place without consultation with southern leaders. Arabic was made the language of administration in the south, and northerners began to hold positions there. The southern elite, trained in English, resented being kept out of their own government, and feared being subsumed by the political power of the larger north.
DECOLONISATION
After the February 1953 agreement by the United Kingdom and Egypt to grant independence to Sudan, internal tensions between the north and south heightened. Most of the power was given to the northern Muslim elites based in Khartoum, causing unrest in the south. Northern leaders seemed to be backing away from commitments to create a federal government that would give the south substantial autonomy. The south demanded representation and more regional autonomy. When this did not eventuate, civil war broke out in 1955.
THE FIRST SUDANESE CIVIL WAR (1955–1972)
Initially the war was waged largely by guerrilla forces, which were soon subsumed into a larger, more formidable fighting force, the southern Sudanese separatist army. This army became known as Anyanya, a term in the Ma’di language that means ‘snake venom’. The first civil war thus became known as the Anyanya Rebellion or Anyanya. People in the south had suffered great injustice under the central government and wished to break free of it and experience greater self-determination. This was the cause behind which Anyanya rallied. But although the common goal was to gain autonomy for the south, conflict between the leaders of the rebellion and the eruption of old tribal rivalries and enmities often prevented effective and unified action by the rebel forces. And because of the collateral damage and intense suffering caused by the rebel armies, they were not always viewed positively by South Sudanese people. Half a million people died during the seventeen years of war and thousands more were forced to leave their homes.
ADDIS ABABA AGREEMENT
Mediation between the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) eventually led to the Addis Ababa Agreement of February 1972, bringing the conflict to an end. In exchange for ending their armed uprising, southerners were granted a single southern administrative region with various defined powers.
But the Addis Ababa Agreement proved to be only a temporary respite. The first violations of the agreement occurred when President Gaafar Nimeiry attempted to take control of oil fields straddling the north–south border. Uneven distribution of resources was a source of ongoing tension. Access to the oil fields meant significant economic benefit to whoever controlled them. The south was agriculturally richer as well, with higher rainfall than the north and an abundance of fertile land.
Islamic fundamentalists in the north were also discontented with the Addis Ababa Agreement, which gave relative autonomy to the non-Islamic majority in the south. The fundamentalists continued to grow in power, and in 1983 President Nimeiry declared all Sudan an Islamic state under sharia law, terminating the existence of the Southern Sudan Autonomous Region. War erupted once more.
THE SECOND SUDANESE CIVIL WAR (1983–2005)
The Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) was founded in 1983 as a rebel group, to fight against the central government and to re-establish an autonomous southern Sudan. While based in southern Sudan, it identified itself as a movement for all oppressed Sudanese citizens, and was led by John Garang de Mabior. Initially, the SPLA campaigned for a ‘United Sudan’, criticising the central government for policies that were leading to national ‘disintegration’. Traditional and long-standing tribal enmities and internal dissensions bedevilled the struggle, as they had during the first civil war and continue to do so, to this day.
By 2005, when a comprehensive peace agreement was signed in Nairobi, the Second Sudanese Civil War had become one of the longest on record. Four million people in southern Sudan were displaced at least once (and often repeatedly) during the war. Thousands ended up in refugee camps in Kenya and Uganda, many of these later relocating to Australia, Canada and the USA as humanitarian entrants.
Roughly two million people died as a result of violence, famine and disease caused by the conflict, one of the highest civilian death tolls of any war since World War II. The war was also marked by a large number of human rights violations, including slavery and mass killings, and armies from all sides enlisted children in their ranks.
COMPREHENSIVE PEACE AGREEMENT
The 2005 peace agreement required that child soldiers be demobilised and sent home, and guaranteed autonomy for the south for six years, to be followed by a referendum on independence in 2011. Oil revenues were to be divided equally between the government and SPLA during the six-year autonomy period, and Islamic sharia law was applied in the north, while terms of use of sharia in the south were to be decided by a more equally representative elected assembly.
REPUBLIC OF SOUTH SUDAN
In January 2011, a referendum was held to determine whether South Sudan should become an independent country and separate from Sudan. An overwhelming majority – 98.83 per cent – of the population voted for independence. Those living in the north and expatriates living overseas also voted.
The Republic of South Sudan formally became independent from Sudan on 9 July 2011, and is a Christian country. English has replaced Arabic as the official language of education and administration.
Disputes still remain, including over the division of oil revenues – 75 per cent of all the former Sudan’s oil reserves are in South Sudan, and the oil-rich region of Abyei remains a disputed territory. Ongoing tribal conflicts and enmities continue to acerbate tensions and a very uneasy peace currently exists in both Sudan and the Republic of South Sudan.
AUTHORS’ NOTES
AFTER MEETING in Hobart in 2011, Terry and Sarafino quickly decided to write Sarafino’s life history, A Little Peace, together. The title of the book reflects the turbulent events of Sarafino’s life: he was born in a refugee camp in Uganda, where his family had fled during the first phase of the Sudanese Civil War, and his schooldays were later interrupted when war broke out again and he was forced to trek through thick jungle to seek refuge in neighbouring Kenya. He spent more than ten years in refugee camps, training as a peace education facilitator in Kakuma before migrating to Tasmania in 2004.
While A Little Peace was still in production, Terry and Sarafino began to collaborate with other Tasmanian writers and artists and with Ma’di elder Paskalina Eiyo to create two bilingual picture books, When I Was a Girl in Sudan and When I Was a Boy in Sudan. These books are based on Sarafino’s and Paskalina’s childhood memories of daily life in Sudan before the war. They provide Ma’di and Australian children with a view of traditional Sudanese life and a taste of Ma’di language.
In 2012 Terry and Sarafino travelled to South Sudan together on a research trip. The trip awoke traumatic memories for Sarafino, but also joy, as he was reunited with members of his family he had not seen for twenty years. Terry witnessed first-hand the devastation many years of civil war had inflicted on the country, and both Terry and Sarafino wished to assist school students. They promised to send books when they returned to Australia.
A Little Peace, When I Was a Girl in Sudan and When I Was a Boy in Sudan were published in 2014. Book sales and a crowd-funding campaign will enable Terry and Sarafino to return to South Sudan, taking 2000 copies of the picture books for students in South Sudanese schools, and also copies of A Little Peace and Trouble Tomorrow, and many other books donated by Tasmanians.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
WE SALUTE THE Ma’di people of South Sudan for their courage and resilience through decades of war. We hope that those who now have made Australia their home may find peace and freedom here.
We owe a great debt of gratitude to our families in Australia and South Sudan, in particular to Albino Okano who generously assisted every aspect of this book’s creation and who continues to offer support and assistance both to us in Australia and to family and colleagues in Sout
h Sudan. We thank our respective partners, Beatrice Storrs and David Collins, for their support and the sacrifices they have made during the long years of research and writing.
Terry particularly thanks Tasmanian writer Julie Hunt for good conversation, enthusiasm and vital encouragement during those times Terry felt she might never see the book completed! Julie also introduced us to the team at Allen & Unwin, with whom we have developed a cordial relationship.
Thanks to commissioning editor Sarah Brenan for believing in the book, for her thoughtful editing, searching questions and excellent suggestions for strengthening the narrative; thanks to Sonja Heijn for her impressive and rigorous attention to all the little foxes that might potentially spoil the vine; to the sensitive and flexible cover designer and especially to Sophie Splatt who has midwifed Trouble Tomorrow through to its birth. It is our work for peace in the world and we thank all those, named and unnamed, who have helped bring it to completion.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
DR TERRY WHITEBEACH is a Tasmanian writer and historian and the mother of two adult sons and two daughters. She has published in a number of genres including poetry, novels, radio drama and biography. Trouble Tomorrow is her third novel for teenagers.
SARAFINO ENADIO is a Ma’di man from South Sudan, who spent many years during the Sudanese Civil War in refugee camps in Kenya, before migrating to Tasmania. He works in education, and is currently studying for his Masters of Teaching.
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