The Persecuted Church in the Sudan
By Michael Kuju Paul
(Page 2 of 3)
When the British and the Egyptians ruled the
Sudan as a joint project (the so-called condominion) from 1898 to 1953,
they kept the two parts, North and South, quite separate, more or less
the way the British ruled the two former Rhodesias (now Zambia and
Zimbabwe). Unfortunately for the South, the Anglo-Egyptians project
favored the North in every way. The North was developed economically,
while the South was kept undeveloped; the North was opened up
educationally, while the South was kept backward. There was however, one
element of British policy that favored the South. The North was not open
to Western missionary enterprise, while the missionaries were given the
right to evangelize the South. They did not however develop educational
institutions of comparable stature with those in the North. These
differences were a factor in the present war (herein termed "crisis").
The Anglo-Egyptian colonial project did not
last too long. Following the post-Second World War agitation for
independence by the colonized, the British and the Egyptians conspired
with the Northern Sudanese to yoke the South with the North-all for
different geographical reasons of their own. Although barely educated
and therefore fairly unsophisticated at the time, Southerners saw the
scheme as a betrayal by the colonial powers. They insisted, however,
that they could only accept a federal arrangement with the North. Seeing
that they were being outmaneuvered by the North, the Southerners
mutinied on August 18, 1955 by rebelling, the Southerners were saying
they did not accept the colonial arrangement that basically handed them
to the Northern Sudanese. For the Northerners, however, this presented a
golden chance to have people they would use "to hew wood and draw water"
successive post-colonial regimes have done just that, treating Southern
Sudanese like second-hand-or even third-class citizens. Of course, we
have come to learn that the same treatment was also meted out to other
"marginalized" areas, like the Nuba in Southern Kordofan, the Ingessena
in Southern Blue Nile, the Fur in Darfur Region, and even the Beja in
the Red Sea Hills. All of these areas are located in the central part of
Sudan.
Relations between the North and the South
have never been cordial since the 18th century when the infamous slave
trade took over from the trade in ivory as the main mode of relationship
between the two parts of the Sudan; with the Northern people doing the
slaving and the "African peoples of the South providing the slaves.
There are two types of combatants in the current war in the Sudan. (1)
The Khartoum government with the "national army" as its war machine on
the one side, and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (a peasant based
army) on the other side. Alongside these two main armies are a host of
auxiliary forces-various militia groups set up by the Khartoum
government as a bulwark against the Sudan People's Liberation Army (S.P.L.A).
(2) The police, the prison wardens, game wardens and the People's
defense force, which includes the "Mujahideen." The Mujahideen are
fanatical fundamentalists within the People's defense Forces who think
they are fighting for god and are prepared to die in the war.
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