A History of South Sudan by Rolandsen Øystein H. & Daly M. W. & Rolandsen Øystein H. & Daly M. W

Author:Rolandsen, Øystein H. & Daly, M. W. & Rolandsen, Øystein H. & Daly, M. W.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2016-05-05T16:00:00+00:00

The end of Abboud and the return of parliamentarian rule

In the face of widespread dissatisfaction, driven in part by the war in the South, the military regime in Khartoum crumbled during the fall of 1964, and on November 14, was forced to resign. A transitional government, based on an alliance of trade unions and northern politicians, was established under Sirr al-Khatim al-Khalifa, a civil servant, as prime minister. The cabinet included Southerners of some political acumen and influence: Ezbon Mundiri (until then serving a prison sentence for subversion), Luigi Adwok, and Clement Mboro, who got the theoretically powerful position of Minister of Interior. All three were associated with the new Southern Front, formed in Khartoum to advocate nonviolence and federation. Abel Alier, at that time a young lawyer and politician, was also among the early members.

By 1964, Greater Khartoum’s many Southern residents, mainly migrants seeking employment and education, were considered locally as a threat to public security. On December 6 – Black Sunday as it would be called – Clement Mboro, having toured the South in his ministerial capacity, was due to return to Khartoum, where a large crowd gathered to greet him. When his plane was delayed, rumors circulated that he had been killed by the government. Riots and looting ensued, and bands of northerners indiscriminately attacked Southerners all over Khartoum. A hundred or more Southerners were killed and many more wounded. Although the political climate was poisoned, the Southern Front continued to collaborate with the transitional government. An important, shared goal was to end the violence in the South. An amnesty was offered to the rebels and politicians in exile, and a Round Table Conference was called.

The goal of the conference, which began in Khartoum on March 16, 1965, was agreement between the northern political establishment and various Southern parties over the future status of the South. Posterity has judged this effort a failure, and in many ways it was. Southern participants were insufficiently united – the new leader of SANU (outside), Aggrey Jaden, attended the opening, read a statement, then left – and the Northern leaders were unwilling to grant the concessions that moderate Southerners demanded. The Conference was important, however, for the precedent it set: for the first time representatives of “Southern Sudan” negotiated with “the north” over constitutional arrangements for the three Southern provinces as one political unit. This innovation, unappreciated at the time, was an early step on the road to the 1972 Peace Agreement and, eventually, Southern secession.

But the Round Table process itself also caused division among Southerners. William Deng, having been marginalized not only within SANU but also in diaspora circles generally, relocated to Khartoum, while the other politicians, despite amnesty, stayed abroad. But Deng fell out too with leaders of the Southern Front, probably over personal rather than political differences and subsequently established SANU “inside” with, among others, Toby Madut, later to be prominent in regional Southern politics.

After elections in March and April 1965, the Umma and NUP formed a coalition government.

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