Sudan is a country endowed with very rich history dating back to centuries Before Christ. The Cush and Meroe Kingdoms whose capital was Napata in present day Nuba Mountains dominated and conquered areas as far as Egypt to the North, Abyssinia (Ethiopia) to the East and West Africa to the West.
The rich and extensive history of the Nubia Kingdom starting centuries before the birth of Jesus and extended to many centuries after the death of Jesus are living testimony to the rich history the ancient people, the original inhabitants of African origin residing in Sudan, conquered the world in the past.
The Funj to the East and Fur to the west all had kingdoms. Several Kingdoms belonging to Nilotic tribes of the Sudan also thrived. However, continuous attacks by invaders such as Arab traders and later the European led to the downfall of such kingdoms.
Arabs invaded Nubia in 642 AD and again in 652 AD, when they laid siege to the city of Dunqulah. The Nubians put up a stout defense, however, causing the Arabs to accept an armistice and withdraw their forces. This, however, was to mark the influx of Arabs into Africa, pushing those of African origin southwards. Some entered the continent as merchants while others came in as Islam Crusaders.
After the defeat of African kingdoms, different African tribes found themselves vulnerable to the attacks and raiding by the well armed Arab traders and crusaders. The Arabs on the other hand exploited the situation by taking African captives and selling them as slaves. This culminated into slave trade.
Several local villages of the Nubia, Fur, Funj and Southerners were frequently raided by Arabs. This phenomenon would continue for centuries. Consequently, the Africans developed a lot of resentment and hatred towards the Arabs.
Traditional genealogies trace the ancestry of most of the Nile Valley's mixed population to Arab tribes that migrated into the region during this period.
The two most important Arabic-speaking groups to emerge in Nubia were the Jaali and the Juhayna. Both showed physical continuity with the indigenous pre-Islamic population. The former claimed descent from the Quraysh, the Prophet Muhammad's tribe. Historically, the Jaali have been sedentary farmers and herders or townspeople settled along the Nile and in Al Jazirah.
The nomadic Juhayna comprised a family of tribes that included the Kababish, Baqqara, and Shukriya. They were descended from Arabs who migrated after the thirteenth century into an area that extended from the savanna and semidesert west of the Nile to the Abyssinian foothills east of the Blue Nile. Both groups formed a series of tribal shaykhdoms that succeeded the crumbling Christian Nubian kingdoms and that were in frequent conflict with one another and with neighboring non-Arabs.
In 1869 British explorer Sir Samuel Baker received a commission as governor of Equatoria Province, with orders to annex all territory in the White Nile's basin and to suppress the slave trade. In 1874 Charles George Gordon, a British officer, succeeded Baker. Gordon disarmed many slave traders and hanged those who defied him. By the time he became Sudan's governor general in 1877, Gordon had weakened the slave trade in much of the South.
In 1871 a notorious Arab slave trader, Rahman Mansur az Zubayr, was named as governor of the newly created province of Bahr al Ghazal. Zubayr used his army to pacify the province and to eliminate his competition in the slave trade. In 1874 he invaded Darfur after the sultan had refused to guard caravan routes through his territory. Later that year, Zubayr defied Cairo when it attempted to relieve him of his post, and defeated an Egyptian force that sought to oust him. After he became Sudan's governor general, Gordon ended Zubayr's slave trading, disbanded his army, and sent him back to Cairo.
Early in 1882, Mahdi’s followers known as the Ansar, a bunch of jihadists who supported slave trade to continue in the South, armed with spears and swords, overwhelmed a 7,000-man Egyptian force not far from Al Ubayyid and seized their rifles and ammunition. The Mahdi followed up this victory by laying siege to Al Ubayyid and starving it into submission after four months. The Ansar had waited for the Nile flood to recede before attacking the poorly defended river approach to Khartoum in boats, slaughtering the garrison, killing Gordon, and delivering his head to the Mahdi's tent.
In January 1899, an Anglo-Egyptian agreement restored Egyptian rule in Sudan but as part of a condominium, or joint authority, exercised by Britain and Egypt. The agreement designated territory south of the twenty-second parallel as the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.
From the beginning of the Anglo-Egyptian condominium, the British sought to modernize Sudan by applying European technology to its underdeveloped economy and by replacing its authoritarian institutions with ones that adhered to liberal English traditions. However, southern Sudan's remote and undeveloped provinces--Equatoria, Bahr al Ghazal, and Upper Nile--received little official attention until after World War I, except for efforts to suppress tribal warfare and the slave trade.
The British justified this policy by claiming that the south was not ready for exposure to the modern world. To allow the south to develop along indigenous lines, the British, therefore, closed the region to outsiders. As a result, the south remained isolated and backward.
The time when the South became politically developed, hence starting to struggle for their rights spans more than 52 years. Despite the fact that the region defied three conspirators – the two colonial powers namely Britain and Egypt on one hand and Northern Sudan on the other– over their conspiracy to forcefully annex the South to become part of the whole Sudan.
The South’s woes started immediately after the establishment and implementation of the Closed District Ordinance Act, barring the freedom of movement between the Northern and Southern provinces of Sudan. Under this act the British colonialists administered the South as a "Closed District", meaning that it was an isolated area and entry by any Northerners or exit by Southerners was highly restricted and prohibited by law.
While several schools were opened in the North in order to accommodate the Northern population, the government never built any school in the South. Had it not been the entrance of the Missionaries into the South, education would have been news to Southern masses. The same disproportionate and preferential treatment was applied in the distribution of the country’s wealth, jobs and other social services.
The Closed District Ordinance continued until 1947 when the British handed over the administration of the South to the North.
But in the year preceding 1947, Southern Sudanese employees serving in the government had been protesting about the disparities in pay levels between them and their Northern counterparts.
In the wake of such unrest from Southerners, the then Civil Secretary, Sir James W. Robertson circulated to the heads of departments and Southern Provincial governors a memo outlining the change in policy and instructing them to take soundings of Southern educated opinion regarding the status of the South.
The response was nearly unanimous in rejecting incorporation into Uganda, only four rejected amalgamation with the North, all rejected the idea of Southern Provinces being governed by a Northern Parliament, some wanted Southern representatives in Khartoum while others wanted a separate Southern parliament.
In presenting their answers, many Southern respondents cited distrust of Northerners based on historical experiences such as slavery. Others mentioned religious differences while several others made comparisons with contemporary events elsewhere in the empire.
These responses enabled Sir James W. Robertson stage-manage a conference. This conference is what is now known as the 1947 Juba Conference. Both Northern and Southern delegates were invited to attend.
From those Southerners who had responded to Robertson’s circular, only three were chosen. Robertson ensured that those who were to attend were those who had written against the option of separate South. Majority of those who had written in favour of separation – and who were by far the majority – were not told of an impending conference, leave alone being invited.
During the Conference, Robertson tried to coerce the attendees to address the topic of whether Sudan should be one country or not. Of the sixteen Southern delegates, only three spoke and only one of the three speakers had accepted, with some reservations, the idea that Sudan was one country during the deliberation of the 1947 Juba Conference. The overwhelming majority of Southern representatives chose silence because they were not mandated by their people to discuss the topic.
The three speakers, however, emphasized the importance of providing safeguards for the South. One of such safeguards was federation (one country two systems).
Despite the above observation and preference by Southerners the Civil Secretary (Roberson) unilaterally wrote in his report to the then Governor-General, Sir Robert Howe, the highest authority in a colony representing British Queen, saying:
“The Southern Sudan, through her representatives in the two-day Juba Conference has agreed to throw her lot with the North. The best interest of the South will therefore be guaranteed in a united Sudan.”
This recommendation was later implemented by British colonial power in the subsequent years leading to Sudan’s Independence Day. Southerners were thus forced to embrace unity which they did not endorse.
After sense dawned on him, although damage was already inflicted on the Southern interest, Robertson later refuted his earlier recommendation when he wrote:
“I looked upon the Juba Conference solely as a means of finding out the capabilities of the Southerners, and it was therefore inaccurate for some people to say later that at the Juba Conference, the Southern representatives agreed to come in with the North. No decision could be made at the Conference since members had received no mandate from their peoples. The only decision resulting from the Conference was taken by myself”
In light of the above, the South was essentially coerced to stay in a united Sudan through the decision made by a single British representative!
While the North was jovial about the prospect of being handed the mantle of running the whole of Sudan including the South, Southerners were enraged by such political development. This was the beginning of political wrangling between the North and the South.
By 1952, Egypt had formulated a plan to expand its territory so as to give it more power to control Nile waters. To do this, they had to sweet-talk their colonial partner, the British, and give it some concessions in the use of the Suez Canal which the British needed so badly in return for the possibility of Sudan merging with Egypt as one country. Britain took the bait.
So the new Egyptian government of Free Officers led by Neguib and Nasser invited Northern Sudanese politicians to Cairo persuading the pro-unionist parties of Umma and National Union Party (NUP) to merge into a single party, the NUP, and negotiated a new agreement with them that removed any of the previously agreed safeguards for the South.
Such unfolding meant that self-determination was not going to be debated as a North-South issue. Rather, Egypt inserted itself and wanted Sudan as a whole to decide whether it would merge with it or remain an independent state.
The Anglo-Egyptian Agreement on Sudan set out Sudan’s self-determination process by which the Sudan was first to become self-governing under a British Governor-General and then elect a constituent Assembly that would decide whether Sudan would join in union with Egypt or become totally independent.
With Egypt and Britain having conspired in their Anglo-Egyptian Agreement while Northern politicians who were to be handed over the government by the British were pro-unity with Egypt, the South found herself in a very uncompromising position.
In 1953, an Assembly was elected as provided in the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement. NUP was declared the winner and Ismail al-Azhari became the first Prime Minister. Egypt was eagerly waiting for NUP and by extension the Prime Minister to endorse the union with Egypt. This was not going to be the case as many Northerners despised the move.
Having been forced to accept the 1953 self-government statute and having participated in the elections of that year, Southerners felt shortchanged and by 1954, federation emerged as the only safeguard and condition by Southerners to participate in a united Sudan.
This feeling was manifested in a petition written by Southern politicians shortly before Ismail al Azhari’s cabinet was sworn in. The petition reads as follows:
“No one in the South would like at the moment to see this Egyptian proposals carried out. We in the South are still undeveloped economically, socially and politically. If Egyptian proposal to deprive us of our safeguards vested in the Governor-General are accepted, we ask Your Excellency that there will be no any other way for us except to ask for federation with the North. Failing to federate, we shall aske as the alternative for the appointment of a High-Commissioner from the British Foreign Office to Administer the South under the Trusteeship of the United Nations till such time as we shall be able decide our own future. Thus self-determination for the south by itself was raised as the only acceptable alternative to federation”
In the wake of such sentiments among Southern Sudanese Members of the Assembly and civil servants, the Liberal Party, the only Southern party at the time organized a conference. This conference is now known as the 1954 Both Diu Conference. This conference was attended by over 200 delegates from all the three Provinces of Southern Sudan including chiefs from rural areas.
The resolution of Both Diu Conference overwhelmingly asserted that the safeguards put forward in 1947 Juba Conference must be honoured and implemented. They resolved that the establishment of the federal system in Sudan is not negotiable as it is the only way to safeguard the interest of the South. If this fails then Southerners would opt for the ultimate self-determination. This resolution is found in a letter written by Hon. Benjamin Lwoki, the Chairman of the 1954 Both Diu Conference to Governor-General and copied to Prime Minister. Like Juba Conference, the soundings of Southern Sudan were largely ignored by both Britain and Al-Azhari’s government.
To add insult to an injury, Al Azhari allotted only 4 of the 800 civil servants to the South. Besides, all the four were junior positions. Political events were ripe as discontentment over disproportionate distribution of civil service jobs hardened Southerners’ quest for a federal system.
Having sensed political danger in the South, Ismail al Azhari devised a way that would make Southern politicians look like dogs that bark without teeth. To do this, he would transfer all the army who were Southerners from the South and replace them with forces who were predominantly Northerners. To that effect, all units in Torit garrison town were ordered to go to Khartoum. The Torit forces rejected the transfer and on May 18th 1955 they mutinied, killing most of Arab traders in the process. This mutiny is what is presently known as the 1955 Torit Mutiny.
The al Azhari government responded by ferrying large number of Northern troops to the South in an attempt to quell the mutineers. Most of the rebels were summarily executed, a good number languished in prisons while others ran to the bush and started, albeit slowly, what later became known as Anyanya One.
Ismail al Azhari and by extension his Northern cohorts had succeeded in silencing the South. In the subsequent years, Southern politicians would be barking dogs without teeth to bite. But this thinking would be shortlived as Southerners portrayed high degree of relentlessness in their quest for safeguards.
Comes January 1956, Britain handed over the governance of the country to Sudanese. As agreed in the Anglo-Egyptian agreement, January 1st was Independence Day while Al Azhari became the country’s first post-colonial Prime Minister.
In early 1957 fresh elections were held. The pro-Egypt party of NUP was defeated by Umma while Abdalla Bey Khalil took over the premiership on the promise that he would produce a new constitution. The Southern based party, the Liberal Party, fielded a candidate, Fr. Saturino Lohure, for the Prime Minister’s post but lost as well.
With Southern politicians settling for nothing less than federal status for the South, the possibility of producing a new constitution was stalled. The endorsement of the constitution required a unanimous approval of all House Members. But Southern politicians in the Assembly opted not to back the constitution. This, in essence paralysed the parliament and by extension the government.
To break this stalemate and ensuring that things go by their expectations, Northerners conspired to oust Abdalla through a military coup. The coup under the auspice of General Ibrahim Aboud was successfully executed in 1958.
Shortly after the coup, General Abboud dissolved parliament while political activities were prohibited. This in the view of Northerners would silence Southern politicians who had been nuisance in the Legislative Assembly. In their view, such move would bring to a final end the South’s bickering, since the mutineers were generally crushed in 1955 and now politicians are being silence militarily.
But the darling of the North – General Abboud – would later unleash his wrath on his Northern people, prompting another civilian uprising, and essentially taking over the government from Abboud in 1964.
Although Abboud’s policy of suppression, humiliation and detention of Southerners succeeded in the short term, underground political and militant organizations emerged. Through their secret meetings, Southern Sudanese resolved that it is time for the South to resort to armed struggle. This was cemented in 1961. To do this effectively, all Southern politicians who suffered humiliation and suppression by Northerners should go to the neighbouring countries to set up sensitization and administrative processes for the upcoming armed struggle.
This call was responded to positively by senior politicians such as Joseph Oduho, William Deng Nhial, Fr. Saturino Lohure, Muorwel Malou, Akuot Atem, Marko Rume among others.
While in exile, the Southern politicians formed Sudan African Closed District Union (SACDU) with Joseph Oduho as the Chairman, Marko Rume as the Vice Chairman while William Deng Nhial became its Secretary-General.
The group launched an effective and successful mobilization campaigns that saw students, politicians, civil servants and peasants responding to the revolutionary struggle call in their thousands. SACDU became the political wing of the revolution, and by such virtue the de facto ruling party, while Anyanya One was the military wing with Joseph Oduho, the Chairman of SACDU, as its Commander-In-Chief. Fr. Saturino Lohure was the patron of SACDU. This means that both military and political decisions were vested in the political class.
By 1963 the Anyanya war went into full scale with southerners inflicting heavy military blows on the government forces. With such successes in the battlefields, SACDU proposed a transitional government, the Nile Provisional Government (NPG) that was to administer the Anyanya army, liberated areas and Southern Sudanese in Diaspora.
In 1967, Gordon Muortat Mayen was elected the President of NPG and by default the Commander-in-Chief of Anyanya army. He was to stay in this position until 1969 when Col. Joseph Lagu staged a bloodless military coup against Muortat’s government.
When Muortat came to power, he appointed Joseph Lagu as the Chief of Staff of Anyanya forces. In 1969, Gordon Muortat negotiated a secret arms deal with Tel Aviv. Muortat therefore had to send his Chief of Staff to collect the weapons from Tel Aviv, Israel.
On his return from Tel Aviv, Joseph Lagu refused to report to the NPG’s headquarters and instead established his own headquarters at Owinykibul. In a coup at his Owinykibul headquarters, Lagu dissolved Muortat’s transitional government and declared himself both the Chairman and Commander-in-Chief of Southern Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM) and Anyanya army respectively. He consequently promoted himself to the rank of Major-General.
With Lagu in control of the army, most of the Southern politicians threw their support behind him despite the coup. In spite of such pitfall, the Anyanya war continued without interruption.
While Lagu had staged a coup in the South in 1969, another military coup occurred in the North in the same year. Col. Jaffer Nimeiri overthrew the civilian government over its stagnation in important sectors of development. He pledged to develop the country uniformly and to address the rebel problems in the South.
Soon after his military junta took over, he sent emissaries to Joseph Lagu and the possibility of negotiations were explored. Secret negotiations were conducted until they reached advanced stages where peace process was no longer a secret ordeal.
By 1972, the parties had agreed to usher an agreement cementing a deal that would lead to cessation of hostilities and instead embark on development projects. Nimeiri had agreed to give Southerners the autonomy they desired, an opportunity Lagu grabbed. This agreement is what is widely known as the Addis Ababa Agreement (AAA).
But as the saying goes that the devil is always in the details, Southerners came to realize that they have been shortchanged in the agreement. The Anyanya forces were to be absorbed into the national army, where they would be transferred outside the South and eventually get dismissed or forced to early retirement. This, in essence, did not provide the South with a guarantor that would safeguard the interest of Southerners after the end of interim period. Besides, their was no strategy put forward to cater for the needs of ex-combatants who took part in Anyanya one.
Several young officers including Dr. John Garang, then a captain, were opposed to such agreement without safeguards. But because they were the minority, their voices were overshadowed.
By 1975, a series of mutinies by former Anyanya forces broke out in Southern towns. They ran to the bush to form what we became to know as Anyanya Two. Most of Anyanya Two forces were stationed in Bahr el Ghazal and Upper Nile Regions. Southern Sudan Liberation Movement was also carrying out its military operations around Buma.
In 1983, news spread out that Nimeiri was bound to divide the South into mini-regions. Jonglei Canal was already being dug while the intention of building a refinery in the North instead of Bentiu where oil was drilled was in the pipeline. Then there was a plan hatched by Nimeiri to declare Sharia as the law applying to anyone and anything found within the confines of geographical Sudan, the South included. These distasteful ploys were not received well by Southern Sudanese.
To add insult to an injury, Nimeiri ordered the transfer of former Anyanya One forces who were absorbed into the national army. This in essence triggered the mass exodus of Southern Sudanese into the bush to form the SPLA.
On May 16th 1983, battalion 105 that was deployed in Bor and led by Major Kerubino Kuanyin Bol disobeyed Nimeiri’s directives of transfer. In Ayod, Major William Nyuon, the commander of battalion 104 followed suit. The two mutinied, fought and deserted the government forces into the bush to wage a war in the name of Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). These two battalions became the nucleus of the SPLA.
Col Dr. John Garang de Mabior who was on a holiday visit in Bor during the mutiny played a superb role in helping the mutineers, including Kerubino Kuanyin who was wounded in the battle. After the successful departure of the mutineers into the thick bushes, Col Garang joined his comrades, went to Ethiopia and formed SPLM/A in Sudan-Ethiopia border at a place called Bilpam.
On their arrival at Bilpam, the new rebels found members of Anyanya Two already stationed there. During the formation of the SPLA, several members of Anyanya Two were persuaded to join. From Upper Nile, Captains Oyay Deng Ajak and John Kulang Puot responded positively. The SPLM/A also extended its olive branch to Southern Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM) led by Major Nyacigak Ngaciluk and Captain Pagan Amum who voluntarily joined.
In Bahr el Ghazal, the Anyanya Two forces commanded separately by Paul Malong Awan, Anthony Bol Madut and Miakol Deng Kuol also merged ranks with SPLA.
James Wani Igga joined SPLA with Equatorian recruits from Eastern Equatoria. Yusif Kuwa came from The Nuba Mountains while Malik Agar came from Blue Nile.
Through all these personalities and groups, thousands of youth, peasants, students, politicians, civil servants, policemen and army personnel later trekked to Ethiopia to join SPLM/A.
With the complete national outlook, the SPLM/A became a formidable force that captured town after town. It also repulsed and annihilated any approaching troops from Khartoum’s government.
In 1989, the SPLM/A signed an agreement with Gordon Kong, the leader of Anyanya Two forces. Such union led to heavy losses incurred by Government forces.
Between 1990 and 1991, the first phase of Bright Star Campaign, commanded by the C-In-C himself and deputized by Commander Kuol Manyang Juk launched a devastative attack in the Eastern Bank of the Nile. As a result, Kapoeta, Torit, Chukudum, Nimule, Ikotos, Waat, Mongala, Gemeiza and Bor fell into the hands of SPLA.
The second phase was sent to liberate the Western Bank and concentrated on Central and Western Equatoria States. Towns such as Kajo Keji, Kaya, Yei, Morobo, Bazi, Kagulu, Yambio, Maridi, Toumbura, Nzara, Izo and Sersibo were captured.
By early 1991, the SPLA was virtually unstoppable as most of the Southern towns fell under it. The SPLA had confined government forces to three major garrison towns of Juba, Malakal and Wau.
However, such military successes would be shortlived as Dr. Riek Machar and Dr. Lam Akol, then Alternate Members of Politico-Military High Command, staged a coup d’etat in August 1991 in Nasir. Riek ordered his men to attack Bor, massacring thousands of civilians including children, women and elderly while others sought refuge in Internal Displaced Camps.
Militarily, the coup weakened SPLA seriously. The SPLA lost the following towns as a result of joint attack by SSIM/A of Riek and government forces: Nasir, Akobo, Waat, Pibor, Ayod, Fanjak, Bor, Kapoeta, Torit, Magwi, Parajok, Mongala, Gemeiza, Melut, Maban, Yirol, Bailiet, Kaya, Kajo Keji, Morobo, Bazi, Kagulu and Pageri.
The civilians were not spared either. The coup culminated into irreparable damages where tribal conflicts, manmade calamities, starvation and defection were the order of the day.
Having failed to defeat SPLA militarily, the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) turned against the civil population in their mistaken agenda of depriving, isolating and denying SPLA forces their bloodline, the civil population. SAF’s Air force launched very indiscriminate aerial bombardments on civil infrastructures such as schools, hospitals, cattle and fishing camps, displaced and relief centers which became military targets. Thousands of civilians perished through such arbitrary aerial bombardments.
The intention was to kill them, destroy their assets and livelihoods, prevent them from cultivation and production, make them hungry and force them either to the displaced or refugee camps where they will entirely and absolutely depend on relief handouts or into the so-called peace camps where they would be used as cheap labor or human shield. Their scheme was to cut SPLA’s supply of its bloodline, the recruits. Again their attempt was futile
When the above could not work, they resorted to Divide and Conquer policy. Tribes and clans were influenced, mobilized, armed and turned against one another and fought the bloodiest tribal feuds, in which children and women were not spared.
Starvation was used as a weapon too. Relief agencies and humanitarian assistance were channeled to areas and communities supporting and backing SAF; while prevented and denied access to areas behind SPLA/M controlled areas. This resulted in general starvation in which many thousands of innocent people died of hunger.
In their appeasement maneuvre, the government of Sudan allowed humanitarian assistance to reach areas controlled by Dr. Riek’s men. While Nasir was overwhelmed by constant food supply by Aid agencies, the rest of Southern Sudan was languishing in starvation.
In 1992, SPLA regrouped under Operation Jungle Storm (OJS). OJS’ target was Juba. In 1993, the forces besieged Juba and made several advances leading to the capture of Juba Bridge, the headquarters of SAF and some pockets of Juba. The force almost captured the whole of Juba was it not the likes of Mundari militias under Clement Wani Konga, EDF of Dr. (Name to be found later) who stabbed SPLA in the back.
By 1995, the OJS was thinly stretched in remote areas of Eastern Equatoria including Aswa River, Owinykibul and Pageri. But it regrouped, reorganized and underwent training after which it staged several assaults on government positions. As a result, they regained Owinykibul, Aswa, Pageri, Magwi, Ame and Opari.
In Bahr el Ghazal in 1997, Operation Deng Nhial (ODN) was conceived and went under operation. Rumbek, Tonj, Yirol, Tali and Tindilo fell into the hands of SPLA.
In 2002, Operation Nyacigak Ngaciluk (ONN) was formed resulting to a recapture of Torit and Kapoeta. Lafon was also captured during Operation Nyacigak Ngaciluk.
Political activities
While SPLA gave the Sudan government insurmountable military pressure, the SPLM, the twin brother of SPLA, was doing the political operation.
Dr. Riek and other groups with loose followings later signed Khartoum Peace Agreement in 1997. In Khartoum peace agreement, the referendum where Southern Sudanese would decide their destiny of either to remain in a united Sudan or a separate South was provided. But like other agreements and promises before it, Khartoum Peace Agreement was never implemented.
Dr. Riek later returned to the SPLM/A in 2002 while Lam rejoined a year after.
On January 9th 2005, the SPLM/A signed a Comprehensive Peace Agreement. This agreement formally ended the war. However, its implementation remains a thorny issue. Will it survive upto the referendum period or while it be abrogated before the Referendum?