Vol 4 (AAC) No 2 |
- SUDAN
- CHINA
Usually a supporter of territorial integrity, Beijing is making plans to adapt to the prospect of an oil-rich and independent Southern Sudan
Sudan is set to split into two next year, and China – the Khartoum regime’s most important international backer – is stuck in the middle. Under the 2005...
Vol 4 (AAC) No 1 |
- SUDAN
- CHINA
China has breached the United Nations arms embargo on Darfur by failing to ‘take the necessary measures to prevent the supply of arms and related materiel of all...
Khartoum’s deadly bombardment of a border village shows growing
desperation at the prospects of Southern succession next year
Three weeks before the referendum on Southern Sudan, it is clear that the scheduled simultaneous vote on the Abyei area’s future will not go ahead on 9 January....
Abyei is still waiting, while Southerners register for their own referendum
The National Congress Party (NCP) carried its brinkmanship
beyond the 30 November deadline set by Abyei's Dinka Ngok leaders
– and the requisite Referendum Commission had still not been set
up....
Khartoum fights its corner over the Abyei referendum and outflanks the
SPLM and the United States
The devastated foundations of former buildings and burnt out lorries dot the town of Abyei, a haunting reminder to residents of the May 2008 attack which razed it...
Talk of war might be in the air but Juba is booming. Building sites are around every corner of South Sudan’s capital and so are foreign delegations and contract-wielding business people. Expecting independence next year, the South is marketing itself as a virgin land rich in oil, minerals and fertile soil. As one of the last remaining markets to open up to a world economy battling for natural resources, commercial and diplomatic interest is growing fast in the new state.
The National Congress Party regime in Khartoum wants to delay January’s referenda on the status of the South and Abyei. Discussions about oil revenue and borders are unresolved...
Last year, in Africa’s biggest land deal, Jarch Capital leased 400,000 hectares in Mayom County, Unity State, from one-time warlord Paulino Matiep Nhial’s family (AC Vol 50 No...
The prospect of losing most of its oil income if the South becomes independent next year has galvanised the National Congress Party. As the Sudanese pound hurtles downwards...
Khartoum plays the national unity card to crack down on its many opponents in the North as a new movement is launched
The prospect of independence for Southern Sudan after the referenda due in January is sharpening the cleavages in the Northern opposition. Many Northern oppositionists say their movement...
Positions are hardening in both Washington and Khartoum
in the lead up to the referenda in the South and Abyei, due in
January
Within days of the United Nations' New York meeting on Sudan, the 15-member UN Security Council set off for Kampala, Juba and Khartoum. The 4-10 October trip, led...
With all eyes on the South and preparations for January’s referendum,
Khartoum has stepped up its attacks in Darfur
As attention from Juba to New York focuses on January’s referenda in Abyei and the South, Khartoum is trying to build a new reality in Darfur, away from...
Vol 51 No 18 |
- KENYA
- SUDAN
In one fell swoop, the Khartoum government strengthens President Omer el Beshir and undermines the Nairobi government’s new constitution
With arrest warrants for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity over his head, Sudan’s President Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir does not often get the chance to...
Vol 51 No 18 |
- KENYA
- SUDAN
Was the invitation to Sudan’s President Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir for the promulgation of Kenya’s new constitution another attempt by the securocracy to frustrate a new dispensation?...
Khartoum is determined to block January’s referenda; the South is
determined to hold them
Four months before the scheduled referenda that would decide Sudan’s future borders, the ruling National Congress Party in Khartoum is now openly saying that a ‘credible’ referendum is...
The National Congress Party employs a variety of tactics to sabotage January’s referenda. Because a 60% quorum (of a still undefined electorate) is needed and a 51% vote...
When Awad Ahmed el Jaz told a National Congress Party youth meeting on 1 August that the separation of the South 'cannot be allowed under any circumstances', it...
Vol 51 No 15 |
- SUDAN
- BRITAIN
The first test for the International Criminal Court's 12 July arrest warrant for genocide against President Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir is his visit to Ndjamena this week....
Vol 51 No 15 |
- EGYPT
- SUDAN
Egypt has quietly accepted that Southern Sudanese may choose independence in January's referendum in return for assurances that the Juba government will not abandon the 1959 Nile Waters...
The new teams in Khartoum and Juba will face a tense six months before the referendum – and the threat of a war that some want and many expect
The message from the new government in Khartoum is that the National Congress Party is in full control and intends to stay there. The message from the new...
The most dramatic military-security appointment is of Ali Ahmed Kurti as full Foreign Affairs Minister (he was previously State Minister). He is best known for establishing the Popular...
Amid complaints of Khartoum’s meddling and the SPLM’s betrayal, how South Kordofan reacts will be critical to the referenda in January
The rerun of the population census in South Kordofan next week will highlight another flash point in Sudan’s shaky North-South peace agreement ahead of the referenda on self-determination...
In the seven short months before January’s independence referendum, militias in the South’s oil-producing areas – Upper Nile, Jonglei and Unity states – will be one of the...
A new oil consortium operating in Darfur brings together private Arab, Gabonese and Libyan state interests and companies close to Khartoum’s ruling National Congress Party. It also raises...
Vol 51 No 10 |
- SUDAN
- WORLD BANK
The World Bank is looking for new printers following its decision to bar publishers Macmillan from all Bank contracts for six years. This follows the admission by a...
Vote-fixing in an election lacking any credibility has galvanised opposition in the North and may undermine the ruling party
A beaming President Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir waved his stick triumphantly as his victory was announced in Khartoum on 26 April. Yet the ruling National Congress Party...
Free, fair and good-humoured. They were organised and monitored entirely by Sudanese and their results were widely accepted as free and fair. Those were Sudan’s landmark elections of...
There was plenty of rigging and fixing of votes across the country but sometimes the best laid plans went awry.
Western governments accept the regime’s rigged victory in exchange for what they hope will be a Southern referendum
Long before voting started on 11 April, it was clear that the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) in Khartoum would maintain its iron grip on power and that...
Interested governments may turn a deaf ear but the opposition is making sure no one, at home or abroad, can credibly claim the 2010 elections were free and...
There was no election boycott in Darfur by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, Ibrahim Agboola Gambari told Jimmy Carter on 10 April. The United States’ ex-President then told...
Vol 51 No 7 |
- SUDAN
- ANALYSIS
Sudan is set to become the first country to elect an indicted war criminal as president. Yet the elections are deemed so unlikely to be free and fair that, as AC went to press, the focus was on the extent and effects of the opposition boycott. Oppositionists argued there was little to be gained by participating and lending credence to the elections as the regime had rigged a victory with a manipulated census and elector registration, gerrymandered constituency boundaries and used state funds to buy loyalty.
In the face of blatant preparations for election rigging, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement decided on 31 March to boycott the national presidential election and all elections in...
The combination of one of the most elaborate and time-consuming electoral systems and mass illiteracy across most of the country virtually guarantees chaos in Sudan's elections on 11-13...
Independent analysts identify Khartoum's efforts to rig the polls and logistical difficulties (which the regime can exploit).
Vol 51 No 6 |
- SUDAN
- BRITAIN
British police are investigating whether the murder of Sudanese human rights activist Abdel Salam Hassan Abdel Salam in south London on the night of 12-13 March was political...
Foreign governments welcome claims of a peace deal in Darfur but many Sudanese see it as another pre-election trick by Khartoum
The latest Darfur peace deal announced on 23 February meets the strategic aims of the ruling National Congress Party (aka National Islamic Front, NIF): to consolidate a fragmented...
The National Congress Party (aka National Islamic Front) wants to stop the world challenging its planned April election victory. A quiet push last month on debt relief and...
Vol 51 No 3 |
- SUDAN
- ANALYSIS
There are fears that the thrice-delayed national elections, now due on 8 April, could trigger an escalation of fighting in Darfur and the South, given the probability that few will accept the results as free and fair. The Khartoum regime has failed to implement most of the key democratic reforms agreed under the 2005 peace deal. The 2008 census and the constituency boundaries lacked credibility and the Islamist government has done nothing to promote an independent judiciary or independent electoral administration.
referendumA new wave of violence and fraudulent elections could block any chance of progress on Darfur and undermine the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) led by Salva Kiir...
Salva Kiir Mayardit, President, Government of South Sudan, Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon, GOSS Vice-President, and Paulino Matip Nhial, Lieutenant General, SPLA-SSDF.
This year’s elections and constitutional negotiations will test the Islamist clique which has held power since the 1989 putsch
Bolstered by its formidable security organisation, the ruling National Congress Party (NCP, aka National Islamic Front, NIF) is widely expected to win the national elections due in April...
Vol 3 (AAC) No 11 |
- SUDAN
- CHINA
Whatever the outcome of next January's referendum on Southern independence, China wants its oil to keep flowing
Beijing hopes that business and non-interference will win the day in Sudan. Liu Guijin, China's highest-ranking Africa envoy, told Africa-Asia Confidential that in Sudan China's 'overall concern is...
Vol 3 (AAC) No 11 |
- KENYA
- SUDAN
- CHINA
The International Criminal Court's arrest warrants for Sudanese President Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir continues to cast clouds over China's Africa policy. Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki invited Omer...
Vol 3 (AAC) No 9 |
- SUDAN
- CHINA
The coming referendum is concentrating minds - Sudanese, Chinese
and Western - on how the oil wealth will be shared
China's oil interests in Sudan will come under heavy scrutiny
again as Khartoum and Juba start negotiations on sharing oil revenues
after the independence referendum due in January 2011. Backed
by...
Vol 3 (AAC) No 9 |
- SUDAN
- CHINA
When asked about the 12 July reinstatement by the International
Criminal Court of genocide charges against Sudanese President
Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman
Qin Gang did not...