Previously, on his missionary journey, he returned to southern Sudan hoping to find peace, but a sudden burst of gunfire showed him how fragile life there still was. As fear and frustration spread among his friends, Bishop Paride Taban reminded him that people could choose to be like flies, drawn to trouble, or like bees, working together to bring life and hope. By the end of their talk, he dared to believe that peace might still be possible.
As early as 2800 BC, Egypt occupied Nubia, which is now part of North Sudan. The country has always been important to Egypt, since the White and the Blue Nile which flow through Sudan are tributaries to their Nile.
It is an old country, older than the Bible. Many southern Sudanese will tell you that their country is referred to in the Old Testament: in Isaiah 18, there is mention of a people, tall and smooth-skinned, a people feared near and far, a nation mighty and conquering, whose land rivers divide. Often the present-day inhabitants associate themselves with the suffering people of the Old Testament.
As early as the fourteenth century, the entire area between the Blue Nile and the White Nile was under Arab influence. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Egypt conquered the present Sudan. In 1881 the Sheik of Dongola, the great Al-Mahdi, succeeded in regaining Sudanese independence, but it did not last very long.
Sudan is a large country in Africa, almost one million square miles. One can hardly say that it is densely populated, with 25 million inhabitants, of whom two million live in the capital, Khartoum. Great tracts of the country are desolate; the north is largely desert with fertile strips only along the Nile. Here the population is mainly Arabic. Over 430 miles south of Khartoum the large swamps begin, formed by the White Nile with its many tributaries. These swamps, called the Sudd, are the largest swamp-lands in the world. They form a natural border between the north and south of Sudan.
Many tribes have their homes here in the south: the Dinka, the Nuer, and the Azande are probably the best known. Because of their isolation, for many centuries they went unnoticed by the outside world.
It was probably the missionaries who were the strongest influence from the outside world. Colonial administration was minimal, and often more linked to the administration in Uganda than the administration in the north of Sudan. Education was very much left to the Protestant and Catholic missions, each church being given its own territory to evangelize. The great missionary Daniel Comboni, and his followers, the Comboni Missionaries, have probably contributed most, especially in the field of education. My colleagues, the Mill Hill Missionaries, are still working in Upper Nile, around Malakal.
The north and the south of Sudan were joined together when Sudan became independent in 1956, and since then there has been little peace in the land. It is not easy to understand this long war, but it is a little easier if we know some of the historical background.
What is called Sudan today has never been one country for any length of time. It was united for the first time under Turko-Egyptian domination from 1820-1. It was partly at the request of Egypt that North and South Sudan were united before independence in 1956. Since then many governments have fallen before their time, usually because they were not able to solve what was dubbed ‘The Southern Problem’. Many battles have been fought by the various governments against the south of Sudan.
The first civil war between the north and the south started before independence. Later on it came to be called Anya-nya. When a southern leader, Joseph Lagu, managed to unite the different rebel movements, Colonel Numeiri, who came to power in Khartoum in 1969, had to choose a path of reconciliation, which, with the help of the churches, resulted in the Addis Ababa agreement. This was the beginning of about ten years of relative peace. There were plans for big development in the south, but they were not always designed to benefit the people there.
War-torn Sudan has had, in its forty years of independence, hardly ten years of peace. War crimes and human rights violations continue. More than three-quarters of the people in South Sudan have become displaced within their own country, or are refugees in neighbouring countries. Almost the entire infrastructure in the south has been destroyed. It is beyond the imagination to understand that in an area twenty-five times the size of Holland, there is hardly a shop left, no petrol station that works, no proper education system, no money economy. Still the people survive, largely because they evidence a strong sense of community.
Several times, neighbouring countries have tried to intervene and broker peace, especially Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Eritrea, which are united with Sudan in IGADD (Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and Development). Also from within the Sudan people have taken peace initiatives, supported by the churches. But all these efforts have been to no avail. It is a complicated war and it is important to remember that not only Sudanese parties play a role in this war.
It is quite clear that religious conflict is not the origin of this war. But as the war continues the original causes become more and more obscured. At present there seems to be no solution in sight. In the end, only the people of Sudan can resolve the conflict.
Thank you for following every episode of this journey. As we bring the story to a close with this final episode, may its message remain with us long after the last page. Let us continue to pray for peace, healing, and hope in all war-torn areas of the world.
