It is particularly tragic that the present war has ravaged the South and denied it the minimum chances for survival. It seems as if the South is destined to struggle for survival from slavery to the age of enlightenment. In fact the South is economically crippled, military devastated and politically and socially alienated. The South is for the first time since the creation of the so-called modern Sudan plagued with famine, mass starvation and a total destruction of the meagre social and public amenities. The misery of its people is beyond comprehension, yet the South is still fighting genocide; a message which has been echoed throughout the world, but is yet to be felt by the political leadership, the elites and the status seekers from the South and the North.
Amidst this unprecedented misery there is also a tribalism which is being used by the educated elites to ensure their grip on power and other resources. Tribal militias which did not exist during the Mahdist state in the 1880s are now thriving, with much vigour and direct and indirect support from the Government. It is a situation in which law and order are no longer administered through the legitimate state institutions which are entrusted with the task of keeping the country united and intact. Law and order in the South and other parts of the Sudan, are taken up by the fist of the most powerful and feared.
Feeling deceived and disappointed with the conduct of the state during the present war, the masses both in the North and the South have resorted to taking the law in their own hands. Whereas the first war involved Government soldiers in uniform or Anya Nya fighters, the South is now a scene of a war of all against all. Arms are carried almost by every and any person who can afford to purchase or acquire them by illegal means.
It is likely that it will take the Sudan decades after peace is achieved to contain the problems raised by the creation of the tribal militias. In the face of a weak state based on family rule and the manipulation of kinship and ethnic ties, the prospect for a peaceful co-existence between the warring tribes is a long-term programme. Such a programme can hardly be realized within the confines of the present dominant political ideology amongst the political elites who have abused tribal sentiments for their own short-term political gains.
The main theme of this paper is based on the recognition that the present war has contributed to the resuscitation of tribal entities which are in many ways detrimental to the process of nation-building and peace making. If the Southern and Northern political elites (liberal, Islamicists and radicals) are able to reach a compromise, they yet have the laborious task of confronting the tribal militias. It is inconceivable to discuss issues pertaining to national unity when the ingredients for unity are shattered amid animosities, racial hatred and suspicion. To elaborate on these and other issues, I concentrate on the following: tribal militias and the warrior tradition, retribalization, the shrinking of the modern political arena and finally, the tribal militias and the peace-making process.
The main justification which has been voiced by some supporters of the creation of tribal militias emanates from the fact that the state is debilitated and unable to execute its duties in sustaining peace and order. This is largely attributed to an endemic economic crisis and the sporadic fighting and swift movement of the SPLA/SPLM forces. Consequently, subsequent governments since the down-fall of Nimeiri have resorted directly or indirectly to arming tribal groups with modern weapons to protect themselves or to fight the war for the state. Such military support and supply of arms was not confined only to the Muslim Arabic-speaking tribes, but also to some of rival Southern tribes which perceived the SPLA/SPLM as a threat.
Two features are commonly discussed in examining the pervasiveness of the state and its relationship to society: a) either that the structure of the state is tailored according to class dominance or b) its jurisdiction powers, which are also described as an expression of the general public interest mediated by institutional mechanisms of dominance. These institutions are designed to enforce law and order, within a specific territory, through apparatuses of force such as the police and the army and operate within a specific territorial entity of a sovereign state. The enforcement of law and order may mount to the use of force by the state. Chaos and disorder usually result from delegating the state monopoly over the use of force to civilians.
More importantly, the formalist approach to the nature of the state in the Sudan or other parts of Africa has to be mediated by the ethnic nature of some of these states. Moreover, the state has to be economically capable of executing its duties in maintaining national integrity. The Sudanese state has suffered, since the mid-1970s, deep economic recession, slow economic growth, mounting debt and worsening budget balance coupled with drought and famine. Financing the war in the South and the purchase of expensive weapons should never have been a priority. However, in its urge to maintain the status-quo between the North and the South, the state found itself obliged to continue the war efforts. As the financial resources dwindled and the morale began to erode, the state resorted to rival tribesmen and engaged them in its war against the SPLA/SPLM.
The emergence of the SPLA/SPLM in 1983, therefore, came at the peak of the economic crisis which the state envisaged as a sufficient excuse for its indulgence in arming the militias so that the innocent citizens could defend their lives and property.
The tribal groups justify the importance of the militias as the only means of self-defence. The only means available for some ethnic groups who are not part of the war, to survive the present genocide is to arm themselves in order to protect their lives and property.
Hence the Government found in the divergent tribal interests a ready contingent to be used in its war against the SPLA/SPLM. The Government argument has been that it armed the innocent and defenceless tribes to protect themselves. However, there are no objective measures by which one may easily decide who is innocent and defenceless and who is not in a war situation.
The process of militarizing tribalism began with the Northern Muslim Arabic-speaking tribes bordering the South amidst the advances of the SPLA/SPLM forces northward. The Northern tribes which have been armed directly or indirectly by the Government, include the Missiriya (both Humr and Zurug), the Riziygat and the Ma'aliya. These tribes already command high skills in the use of modern machine-guns due to their long standing tradition of service in the Sudanese army. Some Southern tribes such as the Mandari, Didinga, the Murle and the Bari have also been armed by the Government. The Nuer were on and off with the Government since they were represented by Anay-nya II which the Government sometimes refers to as "friendly".
As the war gained momentum, these tribal militias devastated the peaceful Southern villages and animal camps. As a matter of fact the creation of the militias hurt the innocent and inflicted more misery on the lives of the defenceless simply because when any person takes up arms he or she can no longer be called innocent and defenceless.
The militarization of the tribal groups is pursued not without a good knowledge of the traditional practices of animal theft and raids which usually contribute to inter-ethnic warfare. It seems that the state has taken the whole country back to ages before the advent of colonialism and fuelled inter-tribal warfare by adding an extra dimension of providing modern weapons. An act which makes the colonialists appear like angels in holding the country together and bringing the warring tribal groups under law and order.
It is not surprising that some of the tribal groups were astounded as their long lost values, detrimental to national unity, have been revived by the state policy of arming them to defend themselves. This has signalled a very serious message to the tribesmen. The Government's reckless attitude gave the impression that the state is weak and there is no authority to question whatever is gained by raiding, plundering and devastating the lives and property of other people. Again it expresses what Hobbes describes as one of the central issues of conflict,
"The first maketh man invade for gain, the second for safety and the third for reputation. The first use of violence to make themselves masters of other men's persons, wives, children and cattle; the second to defend them; the third trifles by reflection on their kindred, their friends, their nations, their profession or their name" (Hobbes 1977).
The above values have found their expression in the traditional setting and the social values which are closely linked with the warrior tradition. This tradition is deeply rooted in many African societies. Mazrui (1977, p.74) has summarized it as follows,
The above argument is also applicable to the Sudanese case. Consider for example Deng's (1972, p.73) argument that,
(Cunnison, 1965, p.118) writes that,among the Humr a Muslim Arabic-speaking group which rivalled the Ngok Dinka for decades,
The warrior tradition is well rooted not only among these two warring Sudanese tribes. Baxter (1977, p.77-8) has often been quoted in rightly observing that among the Boran and in Eastern Africa in general,
Such values can easily be swayed and transferred from the traditional to modern military combat, albeit with considerable modification of their form, content and structure. Many tribal groups both in the South and the North have resorted to such values and spontaneously formed groups of armed men to protect themselves. On the other hand, both the Sudanese state and the SPLA/SPLM found in these tribal military values a ready institutional framework for recruitment and morale raising among their fighters.
In short, what the subsequent governments have done is that they have promoted and revived such sentiments and brought them to use in modern warfare. The resuscitation of the warrior tradition means that the tribe has gained one of its lost values of internal cohesion which was traditionally sustained by directing hostilities to aliens and strangers. The end result of this is retribalization rather than the modernization of the political process.
In the particular case of the Sudan the partial retribalization of national politics is not a new phenomenon. However, in order to be brief, I confine myself to the events which have direct bearing on the subject matter of this paper.
The process of retribalization in recent years could be related to the implementation of the Regional Government Act in 1983-the same year when the war started. Although the announcement of regionalism in Sudan was greeted with enthusiasm, it soon became clear that the regional governments both in the South and the North were subsumed to traditional balancing of power between major ethnic groups. In the South there is the notion of a pan Dinka league vis a vis non-Dinka, mainly Equatorians. In Kordofan there was the complementary opposition between the Baggara (cattle herders) and the Aballa (camel herders of Northern Kordofan), on the one hand, and these two groups and the Nuba and the Dinka, on the other. There were hideous deals and conspiracies between various ethnic groups to oust a Governor or a Regional Minister. Large tribal entities without high ranking representation at the top of the administrative and political hierarchy were at times resentful and rebellious in attitudes.
The situation in the South was not any better. The redivision of the South has split public opinion in the region. According to Gurdon (1984, p.64)
When the war started in 1983 many infuriated politicians who served under Nimeiri joined either Anya-nya II or the SPLA/SPLM in order to settle old grievances disguised under the fight against the racist nature of the Sudanese state. The political and educated elites usually do not fight wars, they manipulate their tribesmen to fight on their behalf. Strong military organization and committed leadership to the tribal cause is also an all familiar aspect of tribalism which Salzman (1978:p.55) has convincingly expressed in pointing out that,
The beginning of the war immediately after the enactment of the Regional Government Act in 1983 and the redivision of the South offered an opportunity to such tribal animosities to surface as an inseparable part of national politics. It is unfortunate that the educated, tribal and political elites scrambled for offices and hence became a dynamic force in the resurrection of tribalism. Consequently, many people who felt that their lives are at jeopardy fell back to their tribes seeking refuge and protection.
Tribalism remained unabated 16 years after Nimeiri's rule which claimed to have abolished the Native Administration System. It also failed to modernize the political arena as the 1986 elections clearly demonstrated that what happened during Nimeiri's regime was a suspension and not an all out divorce between tribalism and the sectarian political parties.
A keen observer of the political behaviour of the Sudanese parties today would easily be confronted with the sad fact that they have not only been dependent on the perpetuation of tribalism, but also deepened its values. The use of ethnic cleavages in pursuing short term political gains has gone beyond reason to the extent of using tribal militias to fight a civil war on behalf of the state. Likewise, in the face of a weak state which manages survival rather than development, the populace have begun to isolate themselves from any notion of political modernization to local politics. The end result is the same, more retribalization and a negation of concepts such as nation and state, which are so remote for tribalists to conceptualize.
One of the unique features of the present war which I have already mentioned in the introduction of this paper, is that the South has divided its allegiance, lost its ideological uniformity vis a vis the North and backed away from a unitary approach to the solution of the Southern problem. The educated Equatorians in particular have voiced their individuality in seeking a different approach from the SPLA/SPLM. This is not to deny that there are some Equatorians within the ranks and files of the SPLA/SPLM.
Retribalization therefore has taken two passages: a) the militarization of the warrior tradition and b) the use of tribal entities by political and educated elites in the South and the North as a main source of power. This has in effect led to the shrinking of the modern political arena.
The Shrinking Modern Political Arena is a concept borrowed from Kasfir (1976) with some major modifications. Kasfir (op. cit. p.14) argues that the shrinking of the political arena is due to departicipation which he defines as ,"the reduction or elimination of political involvement as a consequence of choice, apathy and coercion". However in the Sudan case the term departicipation is substituted for retribalization and the shrinking is of the modern political institutions in the face of the advancing tribal values. The disengagement of the populace from modern political institutions and their adherence to tribal sentiments is by and large augmented by the lack of political tolerance between the warring parties which thrived in perpetuating tribal sentiments in order to strengthen their political positions. Departicipation, therefore, is not a matter of choice, coercion or apathy as Kasfir (op. cit) has pointed out, it is a conscious participation of the populace in a civil war which is instigated by the elites.
Again a cynical view may point out that the present conflict has given the political leadership a room to justify its failures in dealing with the problems of underdevelopment. This view is not new and was already expressed in 1973 by the Sudan Ministry of Foreign Affairs that,
If a leadership is ready to sacrifice a whole region for political survival, then the shrinking of the political arena from modern to tribal, and the relegation of politics to ethnic cleavages is a matter of minor concern to its consciousness. If politics imposes more problematic situations on its practitioners than any, then the political parties in the Sudan have been playing their cards in response to short-term solutions. Any solution of long-term substance certainly imposes a difficult choice. The lack of such long-sightedness certainly leads to more shrinking of the modern political arena. In this sense retribalization is facilitated by the shift of emphasis from development to the discussion of basic questions such as the nature of the state which many African countries have put behind their back. It also implies a retreat from handling the pressing social and economic problems facing the country to ideology in which the populace is hardly involved in any substantial manner. It is obvious that the move from development to crisis management is also a move from the modern institutions that can involve the populace regardless of religion, race or creed to those which glorify the ethnicist tendencies of the political leadership.
THE EVIDENCE
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