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The 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement and the Sudan's Afro-Arab Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Extract

In February 1975, following a major cabinet reshuffle, General Gaafar Mohamed Nimeiri reaffirmed his Government's basic commitment to the pursuit of an Afro-Arab foreign policy, and noted that this was not tied to particular personalities. For just as the appointment of the distinguished diplomat, Mansour Khalid, as Foreign Minister in August 1971, had prompted charges that the Sudan's Arab ties were to be sacrificed to African interests, so his departure from office to become Minister of Education aroused speculation that greater Arab involvement, if not actual African disengagement, would now follow.

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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

page 247 note 1 Text of Address given by H. E. Gaafar Mohamed Nimeiri, President of the D.R. of the Sudan, on the Occasion of the National Unity Day, Wau, 3 March 1975, Ministry of Information, Khartoum, mimeographed in English and Arabic.

page 248 note 1 Quoted in the Sudan News Agency, hereafter referred to as SUNA, 7 March 1975.

page 248 note 2 Ibid. 29 January 1975.

page 248 note 3 Ibid. 5 February 1975.

page 248 note 4 Ibid. 11 February 1975.

page 248 note 5 For the complete text of the ‘Policy Statement on the Southern Question by President Nirneiri, 9 June 1969’, see Beshir, Mohamed Omer, The Southern Sudan: from conflict to peace (London, 1975), app. A.Google Scholar

page 248 note 6 Ibid. pp. 99–120.

page 249 note 1 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Peace and Unity in the Sudan: an African achievement (Khartoum, 1973), p. 6.Google Scholar

page 249 note 2 Bell, J. Bowyer, ‘The Sudan's African Policy: problems and prospects’, in Africa Today (Denver), XX, 3, Summer 1973, pp. 9 and 11.Google Scholar

page 249 note 3 Rosenau, James N., The Scientific Study of Foreign Policy (New York, 1971), p. 50.Google Scholar

page 250 note 1 Abdel Alier, born 1933 in the Bor district of the Upper Nile Province, was educated at the Universities of Khartoum, London, and Yale. A former advocate and district judge, he was a participant in the 1965 Round Table Conference, and a member of the Southern Front, holding three ministerial positions between 1969 and 1971. Alier succeeded Joseph Garang as Minister of Southern Affairs, after the latter's conviction and execution in July 1971 for complicity in the attempted communist coup, and was simultaneously appointed Second Vice-President of the Republic.

page 250 note 2 For the complete text of the permanent constitution, see Legum, Cohn (ed.), African Contemporary Record: annual survey and documents, 1973–1974 (London, 1974), pp. c10720.Google Scholar

page 250 note 3 For the first in-depth assessment of the functioning of the Southern Regional administration, see Kunijwok, Walter M., ‘Administration in the Southern Sudan’, University of Khartoum, 03 1975.Google Scholar Also see the letter of 12 November 1974 from Southern students in Khartoum to President Nimeiri, requesting the dismissal of the High Executive Council for its ‘loose, weak and inefficient’ operation.

page 251 note 1 Interview with DrWol, Wol in ‘The South: three years of peace’, in Africa (London), 43, 03 1975, p. 91.Google Scholar

page 251 note 2 Ibid.

page 251 note 3 ‘Interview: Africa talks to Abel Alier’, Ibid. p. 87. For additional details of the Jonglei protest, see Karl Lavrencic, ‘Sudan: Afro-Arab link’, Ibid. 43, December 1974, p. 33, and ‘Interview with Abel Alier’, in Nile Mirror (Khartoum), 27 October 1974. On 28 April 1975, Stephen Lamp, a former member of the Regional People's Assembly, and James Oshan, a former Governor of Juba Province, were sentenced in Juba to five years’ imprisonment for instigating the riots.

page 251 note 4 For a study of institution-building in the Sudan, see Niblock, Timothy C., ‘A New Political System in Sudan’, in African Affairs (London), 73, 293, 10 1974, pp. 408–18.Google Scholar

page 251 note 5 The mutiny occurred at dawn on 2 March 1975, apparently the result of misunderstanding the integration and replacement of troops. Colonel Abel Chol, the Southern commander of Akobo garrison, was killed along with seven other soldiers. SUNA, 12 March 1975.

page 252 note 1 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Report of a Special Mission on the Economic Development of Southern Sudan (Washington, 1973), pp. 5565.Google Scholar

page 252 note 2 Peace and Unity in the Sudan, p. 8.

page 252 note 3 Butwell, Richard (ed.), Foreign Policy and the Developing Nation (Lexington, 1969), p. 27.Google Scholar

page 252 note 4 Khalid, Mansour, Hawar ma Al Safwa (Khartoum, 1972), p. 46, translated from the Arabic.Google Scholar

page 252 note 5 Howell, John and Hamid, M. Beshir, ‘Sudan and the Outside World, 1964–1968’, in African Affairs, 68, 273, 10 1969, p. 299.Google Scholar

page 254 note 1 Bechtold, Peter K., ‘New Attempts at Arab Cooperation: the Federation of Arab Republics, 1971–?’, in Middle East Journal (Washington), XXVII, 2, Spring 1973, p. 160.Google Scholar

page 254 note 2 Peter K. Bechtold, ‘Military Rule in the Sudan: the first five years of Ja'far Numayri’, Ibid. XXIX, 1, Winter 1975, p. 27.

page 255 note 1 For the Sudanese involvement with Frolinat, see Howell and Hamid, loc. cit. pp. 304 and 309.

page 255 note 2 SUNA,4 August 1975.

page 255 note 3 For background on the Congolese–Sudanese involvement, see Howell and Hamid, loc. cit. pp. 301–3.

page 255 note 4 For a discussion on the Nigerian attitude, see Legum (ed.), op. cit. p. A6.

page 255 note 5 Cited in Mazrui, Ali A., ‘Black Africa and the Arabs’, in Foreign Affairs (New York), 53, 4 07 1975, pp. 735–6.Google Scholar

page 256 note 1 For a full discussion of this topic, see Ibid.

page 256 note 2 Ibid. pp. 734–5.

page 257 note 1 Africa, 17 January 1973, p. 26.

page 257 note 2 Africa Research Bulletin (Exeter), XI, 12, I5 January 1975, p. 3454.

page 257 note 3 Ibid.

page 257 note 4 SUNA, 10 Janauray 1975.

page 257 note 5 Ibid. 27 February 1975.

page 257 note 6 Ibid. 10 February 1975. General Amin visited the Sudan in late March 1975.

page 257 note 7 Ibid. 31 July 1975.

page 258 note 1 Africa Research Bulletin, x, 6, 15 July 1973, p. 2881.

page 258 note 2 Quoted in Peace and Unity in the Sudan, p. 88.

page 258 note 3 For a conCise summary, see Howell and Hamid, loc. cit. pp. 303–4 and 309–10.

page 259 note 1 See U.N. General Assembly, Aide-Mémoire Appeal for Assistance for the Government of the Sudan (New York, 1972), p. 3;Google Scholar and U.N.H.C.R., The Water-Road: highway to regional development at Qala en Nahal, Sudan (Geneva, 1972), p. 8,Google Scholar devoted entirely to the question of Eritrean refugees in the Sudan.

page 260 note 1 SUNA, 7 January 1975.

page 260 note 2 Ibid. 15 December 1974.

page 260 note 3 African Research Bulletin, XII, 4, 15 may 1975, p. 3597.

page 261 note 1 Southern student wall-newspaper comment at the University of Khartoum dwelt upon ‘Arab plots’ to separate Eritrea from Africa.

page 261 note 2 For the text of resolutions, see SUNA, I7 July 1975.

page 261 note 3 Ibid. 3 August 1975.

page 262 note 1 The Sudan Research Unit, established at the University of Khartoum in 1964, and its broadening into the Institute of African and Asian Studies in July 1972, reflected this effort at the academic level. The publication of the proceedings of the February 1968 international conference was a major step ‘in defining objectively the place of the Sudan in Africa’. See Hasan, Yusuf Fadl (ed.), Sudan in Africa (Khartoum, 1971),Google Scholar preface.

page 262 note 2 The Palestine Liberation Organisation opened its Khartoum office in 1961, and received a gift of £S50,000 in 1967. Although it was allowed to broadcast as the Voice of Palestine over Radio Omdurman, this permission was withdrawn after opposition had been expressed to Egyptian acceptance of the U.N. Security Council resolution on Palestine in November 1967, and the Rodgers proposals in July 1970, a position endorsed by the Sudan. This transmission has not been resumed, but in January 1971 a gift of £S40,000 was made to the P.L.O. In 1972 with Sudanese–Egyptian relations at a low ebb, the President reaffirmed Sudanese support for the Palestinian commandos, and charged that their setbacks could be attributed to the fact that Arab States bordering on Israel had hindered their free operation.

page 263 note 1 Babikir Awadallah, born 1917, was Prime Minister, May-October 1969; Minister of Foreign Affairs, May 1969-July 1970; Minister of Justice, October 1969–71, and Deputy Prime Minister, June 1970–71; and First Vice-President, October 1971-May 1972, when he resigned office during a trip to Cairo. Another prominent ‘Arabist’ who left the Government about this time, was Major-General Khalid Hassan Abbas, Member of the Revolutionary Command Council, May 1969–72; Chief of the General Staff, October 1969-June 1970; Minister of Defence, 1969–72, and also Vice President, 1971-February 1972, when he resigned all his offices. He was appointed Presidential Adviser on African Affairs in July 1975.

page 263 note 2 Mohamed Omer Beshir, born 1926, was the former Principal of the University of Khartoum, and General Secretary of the 1965 Round Table Conference. His publications include The Southern Sudan: background to conf1ict (London, 1968).

page 264 note 1 Zambian-Sudanese Joint Communiqué, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Khartoum, 8 March 1974, mimeographed. See also SUNA, 4 December 1974.

page 264 note 2 Phillips, Claude S. Jr, The Development of Nigerian Foreign Policy (Evanston, 1964), p. 126.Google Scholar

page 264 note 3 Ibid. p. 82.

page 265 note 1 New Nigerian (Kaduna), 23 July 1973.

page 265 note 2 Barnes, Leonard, Africa in Eclipse (London, 1971), p. 262.Google Scholar

page 265 note 3 SUNA, 1 November 1970.

page 266 note 1 Nigerian Daily Sketch (Ibadan), 2 March 1973.

page 266 note 2 Ngerian Morning Post (Lagos), 13 March 1973.

page 266 note 3 For an excellent analysis, see Cohn Legum, ‘Africa, the Arabs and the Middle East’, in Legum (ed.), op. cit. pp. A3–14.

page 266 note 4 The appointment of General Abbas was variously interpreted as part of Nimeiri's ongoing effort to regain and build consensus among those who in the past had disagreed with a number of policies, i.e. the ‘Arabists’, or as an effort to ‘educate’ actual or potential critics in terms of the Government's Afro-Arab policy.

page 267 note 1 SUNA, a August 1975.

page 267 note 2 Sudan–Tanzania Joint Communiqué, 1972, Khartoum, S.S.U. Records, Executive Office, mimeographed.

page 268 note 1 Radio Omdurman broadcast, 2 November 1974.

page 268 note 2 For the text of the Sudan–Tanzania Joint Communiqué, 1974, see the Nile Mirror, 8 November 1974.

page 268 note 3 Arab Report and Record (London), March 1973, p. 138.

page 269 note 1 Africa Research Bulletin, x, 3, 15 April 1973.

page 269 note 2 Arab Report and Record, March 1973, p. 158.

page 270 note 1 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Press Release (Khartoum), 13 02 1974.Google Scholar

page 270 note 2 For the text of the Alexandria Agreement, see Nile Mirror, 16 August 1974.

page 270 note 3 See Khalid, Mansour, International Symposium on Diplomacy, Deoelopment and Cooperation, Jan. 15–20th, 1974, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Khartoum, 1974.Google Scholar

page 270 note 4 SUNA,25 May 1974.

page 271 note 1 Ibid. 16 November 1974.

page 271 note 2 National Planning Commission, Economic Survey, 1974 (Khartoum, 1975), pp. 114–14.Google Scholar

page 272 note 1 SUNA,4 August 1975.

page 272 note 2 Ibid. 9 February 1975.

page 272 note 3 Africa Research Bulletin, XII, 5, 15 June 1975, p. 3618.

page 272 note 4 SUNA, 7 July 1974.

page 272 note 5 Ibid. 22 November 1974.

page 272 note 6 Mazrui, loc. cit. p. 725.

page 273 note 1 Ibid. p. 733.

page 273 note 2 All Abusin, Director of the African Department in the Arab League, prepared a working paper outlining the realities of the post-October war situation entitled, ‘The Launching of Afro-Arab Cooperation: an experiment in inter-regional solidarity’, mimeographed, Cairo.

page 273 note 3 For an interesting discussion of this topic, see Aguda, Oluwadare, ‘Arabism and PanArabism in Sudanese Politics’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), XI, 2, 06 1973, pp. 177200.Google Scholar

page 273 note 4 Mazrui, loc. cit. p. 742. Nimeiri's statement that the Sudan and Saudi Arabia, ‘the center of the Moslem world, should cooperate to propagate the Islamic faith’, again raised the question of how this could be done in practice, without adversely affecting the internal balance. See SUNA, 21 March 1974.

page 274 note 1 See ‘Libya Accused’, in Africa, 36, August 1974, p. 51, and ‘Sudan–Libya Reconciled’, Ibid. 41, January 1975, p. 43.

page 274 note 2 SUNA, 7 August 1975. Nimeiri had denounced ‘adventurers who issue childish statements and announce, every day and every hour, projects for imaginative unity according to moods’; Ibid. 25 May 1974. He strongly intimated that Libyan agents had sheltered plotters against his Government, had stirred up student agitation at the University of Khartoum, and had unjustiflably changed its position concerning a sum of £7.25 million, presumably made as a gift in November 1969, but demanded back as a loan, with interest, in early 1973. Ibid. 30 May 1974.

page 274 note 3 Mazrui, loc. cit. p. 742.

page 274 note 4 Deng, Francis Mading, The Dynamics of Identification (Khartoum, 1973), p. 108.Google Scholar