Challenging the Dragon: China&#39;s New Role in Sudan and South Sudan

Irene Segati

China's post-2008 international insertion can be analyzed through three major vectors that we call "channels of external projection". First, the political economy channel, with the rise of Chinese companies in global value chains, resulting from a domestic alliance between state and capital, and whose objective is the expansion of the new accumulation regime in China that took shape since 2008. Second, the strategic channel, with the shift in paradigm in the armed forces and the increasing investments in the military sector, holding the main objectives of maintaining the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity (including sensitive issues such as separatism, terrorism and Taiwan), a more balanced relation with the United States and the projection of power in the Asia-Pacific region. And finally the channel of diplomacy and the “speech act” in the broader sense, meaning the use of symbolic and institutional means in bilateral and multilateral fora to achieve political economy and security goals. In this triangular dynamics, the political economy and strategic pillars are the most determinant and the symbolic one tends to follow in accordance to the Chinese bureaucracy and its external interlocutors. These three spheres have undergone fundamental changes since 2008 and are in the DNA of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Thus, the objective of this essay is to propose a theoretical model to analyze the international insertion of China and its main vectors inspired in Immanuel Wallerstein’s (2006) proposal of dialogue among different social sciences. Three paths of research remain open and should be addressed in a more profound study: how domestic forces are shaped by foreign constrains; how these forces are projected abroad (our proposal); and the different responses from foreign interlocutors.

The growing influence and role of the People’s Republic of China (PRC or China) in the modern world-economy is the basis of ongoing polemics in world-systems analysis and in other academic and non-academic fields of study. Twenty years ago, in The Long Twentieth Century, Giovanni Arrighi (1994) astutely theorized that the bifurcation of financial and military power that occurred during the financial expansion of the late twentieth century was not only anomalous of all other such expansions but it paved the way for a possible Sino-centered world-system. In, Adam Smith In Beijing, he went a step further and outlined the rise of China in light of the United States’ waning hegemonic rule (2007). While the growing Chinese economy and a complementary expanding role in the global economy, propelled Arrighi’s to contemplate a systemic shake-up, he saw the catalyst for the subversion of the modern world-system ostensibly as China’s demographic size (Arrighi 2007; 1994, p. 371-386). It is true that population size has been shown to have impacts on economic growth and development. However, this paper asserts that China has the potential to transform the logic of the modern capitalist world-system not only because of its demography but also its distinctive approach to its involvement in the world-economy, particularly its interactions with those countries of the Global South. To illustrate this point, we examine China’s engagement with Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where it has spent billions of dollars on foreign direct investment and foreign aid along with a growing trade relationship. I will demonstrate that demographic size alone cannot account for any substantive reorganization of the world-system; that China has taken specific actions, primarily economic on the surface but with political underpinnings that could potentially create rippling system-wide change. In providing considerable economic aid to SSA with the only caveat being the adoption of a 'One China' policy, the PRC is influencing an entire continent’s economic outlook. So far, initial empirical evidence shows positive growth patterns instead of further peripheralization in the SSA countries where China is heavily involved. In addition to their economic outlook, China is impacting the foreign policy of a bloc of nations that make up the second most populous continent in the world, while simultaneously undermining Western neoclassical ideas of development. Yet, despite all of this, China appears to maintain and buttress the existing core-periphery hierarchy and power structures of the world-system. Is this the case that ‘the more things change, the more they remain the same?’

China is a developing country, has the second largest economy in the world, and is viewed as the manufacturing capital of the world that needs the mineral resources that Africa can provide. Three categories of Chinese national interests were identified: development interests, sovereignty interests and responsibility interests. It is especially the development interests that kindle China’s interest in Africa with its mineral riches in general and more specifically oil, which can be found in the greater Sudan . As a result China has become a major role player on the African continent over the past two decades and in 2015 China became Africa’s largest trading partner. There is consequently speculation in the literature about Chinese hegemony in Africa. Because of Africa’s history of colonialism, this is a sensitive point for China. China will utilise soft power, which is in general terms positively influencing other states and their citizens towards China, as a low-risk route to establishing, broadening and deepening its influence in Africa in general and more specifically in the greater Sudan. This then leads to a research problem that can be phrased in question format as: “How does China apply soft power in its relationship with the greater Sudan?”. The purpose of this research was thus to gain insight into the Chinese application of soft power in the greater Sudan. In addressing the research problem, this study followed a qualitative research design within an interpretivist paradigm while making use of an intrinsic case study. Sampling was done by means of expert sampling and four subject matter experts (SMEs) with experience in intelligence, with detailed knowledge on Sudan and/or China and/or soft power, were selected. The SMEs were equally distributed in terms of gender (50% each); their age varied between 25 and 50 and collectively they had more than 55 years of experience in the field of intelligence. After getting their consent, a list of questions was forwarded to them, which they completed. Data analysis was done in six stages using an adapted format of framework analysis and the SMEs’ views were compared and integrated with the literature. As this is a qualitative study, the data integrity was ensured by the credibility, auditability, dependability and confirmability of the study. Five broad themes emerged during data analysis to describe China’s utilization of soft power in the greater Sudan. The first theme is the long-term or strategic nature of Chinese soft power; secondly, the modelling of a positive image of China in the international system; thirdly, China’s national interests as drivers behind the process; fourthly, the modalities (such as diplomacy, culture and infrastructure development) used by China, and lastly, the outcome for the parties involved. An original contribution was made to the methodology by making use of a case study and framework analysis in the field of international relations (IR) and security studies. In practice IR specialists and national security advisors gained insight into the mechanisms of Chinese soft power in the greater Sudan. The findings were translated into SA foreign policy and national security policy recommendations with specific reference to including soft power in SA foreign policy, and the necessity to view China’s involvement as an opportunity to explore deeper economic engagements between SA and China from which SA also can benefit. It was indicated what SA can expect when moving closer to China and what SA should be cautious of. Changes to foreign policy are recommended, and the necessity of balancing development or economic interests with national security interests is emphasised. Suggestions for future research are made where more time is made available and where different types of SMEs could be used. Suggestions are also made to compare China’s soft power in specific African countries with that of other African countries and/or other developing countries.

Corso di Laurea Magistrale in Relazioni Internazionali e Studi Europei Challenging the Dragon: China’s New Role in Sudan and South Sudan Relatrice: Prof.ssa Maria Stella Rognoni Anno Accademico 2012/2013 Candidata: Irene Segati Index of Contents Acronyms and Abbreviations ......................................................................................................... 3 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 7 2. China in Africa: a brief overview ........................................................................................ 11 2.1. 3. The principle of non-interference in China’s African policy........................................ 20 Sudanese foreign policy and Sino-Sudanese relations in historical perspective .... 27 Back to the origins of Sudanese-Egyptian relations: from the Kush kingdom to the end of the Mahdiyya ..................................................................................................................... 29 3.1. 4. 5. 3.2. The Anglo-Egyptian administration and the Sudan on the eve of independence ...... 39 3.3. Sudan after independence and its “reactive” foreign policy ......................................... 51 3.4. Nimairi’s era and democratic Sudan (1969-1989) ......................................................... 64 3.5. The National Islamic Front................................................................................................ 77 China’s policy towards Sudan .............................................................................................. 83 4.1. Sino-Sudanese relations before oil ................................................................................... 83 4.2. The discovery of Sudanese oil and Chinese early engagement .................................... 92 4.3. China’s quest for Sudanese oil........................................................................................ 109 4.4. China’s diplomacy: the case of Darfur .......................................................................... 123 China’s policy towards the South: turning enemies into friends? ............................ 143 5.1. Sino-Sudanese relations between the CPA and Southern independence .................. 143 5.2. Sino-South Sudanese relations and contemporary triangular ties .............................. 154 6. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 165 7. Bibliography ............................................................................................................................ 169 1 2 Acronyms and Abbreviations AAPSO Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organization AUHIP African Union High-Level Implementation Panel CCP Chinese Communist Party CIA Central Intelligence Agency CNOOC China National Offshore Oil Corporation CNPC China National Petroleum Corporation CPA Comprehensive Peace Agreement CPS Communist Party of Sudan DoP Declaration of Principles ESRDF Eastern Sudan Reconstruction and Development Fund FDI Foreign Direct Investment GNPOC Greater Nile Petroleum Corporation GoNU Government of National Unity GoS Government of Sudan GoSS Government of South Sudan HEC High Executive Council IGAD Intergovernmental Authority on Development IGADD Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and Development IMF International Monetary Fund LDCs Less Developed Countries LRA Lord’s Resistance Army MPI Ministry of Petroleum Industry NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration NDA National Democratic Alliance NIF National Islamic Front NOC National Oil Company NUP National Unionist Party OIC Organisation of Islamic Conference OPEC Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries 3 OVL OnGC Videsh Ltd PAIC Popular Arab Islamic Conference PDP People Democratic Party PRC People Republic of China RCC Revolutionary Command Council RSP Republic Socialist Party SAF Sudanese Armed Forces SANU Sudan African National Union SCP Sudanese Communist Party Sinopec China Petrochemical Corporation SMNL Sudanese Movement for National Liberation SOE State-owned enterprise SPC State Petroleum Corporation SPDF Sudan People Defence Force SPLM/A Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army SRG Southern Regional Government SSDF Southern Sudanese Defence Forces SSU Sudan Socialist Union SUS Sudanese Union Society TMC Transitional Military Council UK United Kingdom UNAMID African Union/United Nations Hybrid Mission in Darfur UNF United Nationalist Front UNMIS United Nations in Sudan USA United States of America USAID United States Agency for International Development USSR Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics WB World Bank WFL White Flag League 4 Map 1: Sudan. Source: Department of Field Support, UN Cartographic Section, March 2012, available at: www.un.org 5 Map 2: South Sudan. Source: Department of Field Support, UN Cartographic Section, October 2011, available at: www.un.org 6 1. Introduction This dissertation is about the growing role played by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in Sudan and, lately, in South Sudan. This is to be framed in the broader context of China’s involvement in the African continent which, though far from being a new topic, has only recently caught the attention of academics. This may be attributed to two phenomena: first, a revived attention on Africa triggered by the richness of its soil in terms of land and natural resources which led the continent to turn from the “hopeless continent” to the “rising Africa” in slightly more than a decade’s time;1 and second, China’s unprecedented appetite for natural resources aimed at fuelling its booming economy paving the way for a more comprehensive engagement in resource-rich African countries. Moving from these two intermingled phenomena, this dissertation is driven by the aim of exploring the geopolitical-strategic consequences of this growing involvement, bearing in mind that, according to this research, no economic engagement could be devoid of deeper geostrategic implications. This conceptual caveat could provide us with an interesting theoretical framework to be employed as we analyse the interaction of the global powers on the international stage. This would help, for instance, to understand the rationale driving the PRC to exert a considerable degree of diplomatic pressure in order for the Government of Sudan (GoS) to finally accept the AU-UN hybrid mission within its territory in 2007, while vetoing UN Security Council resolution proposals calling for the imposition of economic sanctions to Syria in 2012.2 From an overview of the contemporary international relations’ dynamics and balance of power, what results clear is the fact that the PRC is emerging as a global economic power, whose geostrategic interests are increasingly expanding at the expense of traditional powers such as Europe and the United States (US).3 Hence, in light of this transition, the present research will try to understand what sort of challenges the Asian power is facing with respect to both its traditional foreign policy principles and to its growing role in the African context, with specific reference to Sudan and South Sudan. 1 These two expressions refer to two articles appeared on The Economist, the first one pessimistically portraying the continent as the land of dreadful wars, failure and despair, while the second enthusiastically analysing the rising growth rates of many African countries which seemed not to have suffered from the international financial crisis. See The Economist, Hopeless Africa, (May) 2000, and Africa Rising, (December) 2011, both available at: www.economist.com. 2 N. Wong, China’s veto on Syria: what interests are at play?, OpenDemocracy, (July) 2012, available at: www.opendemocracy.net. 3 A. Monaghan, China surpasses US as world's largest trading nation, The Guardian, (January) 2014, available at: www.theguardian.com. 7 Not surprisingly, in the wake of a “rising China” on the global scenario, most of the Western literature has critically analysed the features, scopes and consequences of this presence, warning about the threatening implications for the Western interests’ in the Black Continent.4 Offering an alternative model to the traditional Washington Consensus, in fact, China’s developmental paradigm, officially relying on a “no political strings attached” clause, is increasingly gaining devotees among the African leaderships. According to the Western view, however, this model is also threatening to worsen African human rights and democratic records, as it dangerously insulates authoritarian and repressive regimes from external pressure to comply with international norms. If great emphasis is being devoted by Western academics to the dangers of the PRC’s increasing role in the continent, more optimistic views are conveyed by African leaders and scholars alike, who enthusiastically welcome Beijing’s huge investments, grants and infrastructural projects as a source of new hope for the continent.5 By the same token, eminent sinologists and an increasing number of Chinese experts on Sino-African relations, while objectively recognizing the new challenges faced by the Asian country, are positively looking at China’s changing role in Africa.6 Although the topics of China’s rise and its expanding interests are receiving increasing attention, the analysis of the geopolitical implications of this engagement proved to be much less covered by the literature. As a consequence, the present dissertation also aimed at contributing to fill this research gap insofar it is devoted to the investigation of China’s redefined principles of non-interference and state sovereignty in light of the new position acquired on the global scenario. As far as the methodology is concerned, this dissertation attempts to provide the reader with both a descriptive overview over the history of the different actors interplaying in the H. Campbell, China in Africa, Challenging US Global Hegemony, “Third World Quarterly”, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2008, pp. 89-105; S. Giry, China’s Africa Strategy, The New Republic (November), 2004, available at: www.newrepublic.com. 5 S. Babu and A. Wilson (eds.), The Future That Works, Selected Writings of A. M. Babu, Africa World Press, Inc., Asmara, 2002; D. J. Muekalia, Africa and China’s Strategic Partnership, “African Security Review”, Vol. 21, No. 13, 2004, pp.1-11. 6 Yu-Shan Wu, The Rise of China’s State-Led Media Dynasty in Africa, South African Institute of International Affairs, China in Africa Project, Occasional Paper No. 117, (June) 2012, available at: www.saiia.org.za/; Z. Qingmin and S. Wei, China’s policy toward Africa: a Chinese perspective, The Focus: Africa and the Chinese way, International Institute for Asian Studies, Newsletter No. 60, (Summer) 2012, available at: www.iias.nl; A. Harneit-Sievers, S. Marks and S. Naidu (eds.), Chinese and African Perspectives on China in Africa, Pambazuka Press, Kampala, 2010. 4 8 context under current scrutiny, and critical insights over the scopes of their actions. To this aim, throughout the text we alternate descriptive paragraphs aimed at objectively contextualizing the situation, and deeper geopolitical insights to frame the whole analysis within a critical perspective functional to support the dissertation’s argument. Accordingly, the research period preceding the drafting was featured by the gathering of historical monographs and specialised review articles alike in order to critically frame the historical events within a “thicker” perspective assessing the validity of the argument throughout the text. Moreover, since the latest developments are very recent – being the Republic of South Sudan independent since July 2011 – we also resorted to newspaper articles, research papers and online sources to analyse the most contemporary events. To this concern, the most reliable sources as well as the voices of the most prominent scholars and organizations were chosen in order to avoid risks of bias. Renowned non-governmental organizations’ reports and publications were also used, the references of which are fully reported in the notes and freely downloadable. Numerical data and statistics, as well as technical information on the geographical, ethnic and economic characteristics of the considered countries were retrieved on the websites of official international organizations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and so forth. Some recent AlJazeera documentaries were also used with regard to contemporary historical events. Although a massive amount of material is actually available, Chinese sources for a nonChinese speaker are still a few, as only a limited number of Asian scholars write in English. As a consequence, despite the efforts to include Chinese references and opinions whenever possible, we are aware that the Western bias affecting the literature may have partly influenced this research. Most of this dissertation took shape in London during the period December 2013 - March 2014, more specifically at the main library of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), where most of the academic references come from. The dissertation is divided into five sections. The first one offers a brief overview over the history and nature of China’s engagement in the African continent; the second one provides the reader with basic notions of the history of the ancient, modern and contemporary Sudan in order to contextualize the core dynamics of PRC’s growing involvement in the aftermath of the Sudanese oil discovery, which are described in the third part; the fourth section furthers the analysis of China’s management of the contemporary relations with both Sudan and South 9 Sudan after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005; and finally the fifth section is devoted to some concluding remarks. 10 2. China in Africa: a brief overview China’s engagement in Africa has been recently deemed as one of the most challenging topic animating the contemporary academic debate. Many scholars have attempted to explain the features, significance, and future implications of China’s growing presence in the continent, either by enthusiastically welcoming Beijing’s huge investments, grants and infrastructural projects as a source of new hope for the continent,7 or by suspiciously warning about the self-interested motives underlying Chinese neo-colonial partnership.8 If on the one hand it has been argued that China is engaging most African countries in a mutually beneficial and egalitarian relationship which would enhance the African economy, on the other hand it has also been suggested that Beijing is reproducing the same colonial dynamics which characterized the European occupation during the 19th and 20th centuries through soil exploitation and the securitization of African natural resources at the expense of the continent long-term political and economic independence. All these considerations notwithstanding, China’s presence in the African continent is far from being a recent phenomenon, as from a deeper scrutiny we may properly talk about Chinese “return” to Africa.9 As recently argued by Strauss, the rhetorical dimension in which China frames its relationship with Africa goes far beyond the official discourses made by the heads of States, as it actually shapes the reality in which different actors interact while addressing their strategic long-term goals.10 Hence, Sino-African common historical linkages are often emphasized in order to bridge the gaps distancing the two worlds. To this concern, despite the academic debate being quite recent on the topic, it can be claimed that China’s interaction with Africa has ancient origins. Although China’s foreign relations have mostly been shaped in accordance to the safeguard of its borders against external threats, therefore keeping a low profile in terms of international expansion,11 during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), a several thousand people fleet, the greatest in the world until then, was built under the directives of the Yongle Emperor (1360-1424) with the aim of promoting Chinese diplomacy and culture, 7 S. Babu and A. Wilson (eds.), op. cit., D. J. Muekalia, op. cit. H. Campbell, op. cit.,; S. Giry, op. cit. 9 C. Alden, D. Large and R. Soares de Oliveira, China returns to Africa, Anatomy of an Expansive Engagement, Working Paper 51/2008, Real Instituto Elcano, available at: www.realinstitutoelcano.org. 10 J.C. Strauss, The Past in the Present: Historical and Rhetorical Lineages in China’s Relations with Africa, “The China Quarterly”, Vol. 199 (September), 2009, pp. 777-795. 11 M. D. Swaine and A. J. Tellis, Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy, Past, Present and Future, Project Air Force, Rand, Santa Monica, California, 2000, p. 22. 8 11 together with gathering information and materials from foreign countries.12 Hence, between 1405 and 1431, at least half a century before Columbus’ feat, Zheng He, a Chinese Muslim eunuch was nominated at the head of the fleet and was sent from the Yunnan region towards the areas bordering both the Pacific and the Indian Oceans.13 During his seven expeditions, He’s fleet managed to reach the Southern Asian, Indian and Eastern Africa shores, visiting the regions corresponding to today’s countries of Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Iran, Oman, Yemen, Somalia and Tanzania.14 Between 1431 and 1433, an expedition towards the African coasts represented the end of what has been defined as China’s golden age of exploration, before a period of inner power struggles paved the way to the emergence of the Confucian tradition which imposed its inward-oriented philosophy, turning the country into semi-isolation, with the subsequent dismantling of its maritime force.15 This isolation was harshly broken this time from the outside in the late 16th century, when the Middle Kingdom had to face aggressive Christians missionaries’ waves which mostly disregarded Chinese claims of religious and moral superiority with regard to foreign “barbarians”. Although Duignan stated that the Jesuits travelling to the Middle Kingdom employed a policy of accommodation and cultural relativism towards Chinese nonbelievers,16 it has also been argued that most missionaries adopted a less flexible approach, leading the local communities to openly oppose them. In particular, the Franciscans and the Dominicans arrogantly acted in order to impose their religious credo over local heathens, planting the seeds of popular discontent against the foreigners.17 Additionally, the 17th century China had also to deal with the military threat represented by bordering Russia, with which its first international treaty was signed, the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689), to prevent Russia from supporting the Mongols against the Middle Kingdom territorial integrity.18 12 Wilson Quarterly, The Ming Voyages, In Essence (Spring), Vol. 25, No. 2, 2001, pp. 105-106. S. Guangqi, Zheng He’s Expedition to the Western Ocean and His Navigation Technology, “Journal of Navigation”, Volume 45, No. 3, (September) 1992, pp 329-343. 14 F. Viviano, China’s Great Armada, Six Hundreds Years Ago China’s Admiral Zheng He led a mighty fleet that reshaped an Empire, “Feature of National Geographic”, (July) 2005, available at: www.ngm.nationalgeographic.com. 15 I. Musu, The Contemporary China, (original title: “La Cina Contemporanea”), Universale Paperbacks, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2011. 16 P. Duignan, Early Jesuits Missionaries: A Suggestion for Further Study, “American Anthropologist”, Vol. 60, No. 4, 1958, pp. 725-732. 17 G. Samarani, The 20th Century China, From the End of the Empire to Contemporary Days (original title: “La Cina del Novecento. Dalla Fine dell’Impero ad Oggi”), Giulio Einaudi Editore, Torino, 2004. 18 I. Musu, op. cit. 13 12 In the late 18th and 19th centuries, thanks to the Industrial Revolution enhancing the Western sailing capabilities through the invention of the steam engine,19 also the Europeans reached the Chinese shores paving the way to a phase of intense trading at the expense of the local interests. Although the “Canton System” was initially established by the Chinese authorities in order to regulate the international trade through the creation of merchant guilds, this system was shortly challenged by the British with the so-called Opium Wars (1839-1842 and 1856-1860), at the end of which the Middle Kingdom was forced to accept the trading terms imposed by the British, and to open several Chinese ports to commercial activities for the Westerns’ benefit.20 In addition, the Opium Wars paved the way for a number of treaties being imposed by the Europeans between the late 19th and the early 20th centuries which deprived China of its sovereignty over consistent portions of its territory – the so-called “unequal treaties”. Therefore, on the eve of the First World War, China’s position in the international arena was heavily undermined, and its foreign relations with the outside world were marked by the humiliating conditions which had been imposed at length by the Western powers. As stated by Eisenman, Heginbotham and Mitchell, the steady loss of domestic sovereignty and territorial integrity at the hands of foreign powers, including Japan, launched China’s so-called “century of humiliation” that fundamentally altered China’s relationship with its neighbours and dispelled any myth of cultural or any other measure of superiority.21 This condition of international subjugation lasted until the end of World War II, when Mao proclaimed the foundation of the PRC, on the 1st of October 1949, following a difficult period characterized by several internal and international threats alike. As a consequence, China’s international relations during the late 1940s were mainly shaped in accordance with Mao’s obsession for maintaining his country’s independence and enhancing its security.22 Considering the situation of economic fragility due to the conflict against Japan (1931-1938) and the long-lasting civil war between Mao’s Communists and the nationalists led by Chiang 19 For further details on this topic, we send the reader to the following introductory book: Lardner D., Steam and Its Uses, Including the Steam Engine, the Locomotive and Steam Navigation, Walton and Maberly, London, 1856. 20 When we cite the “Europeans” or the “Westerns” coming into the scene during the process of trade expansion and subjugation at the expense of China’s interests we mainly refer to Great Britain, France, and Germany. By contrast, the United States, while profiting from the opening up of the Chinese ports and privileged trading terms, have always tried to avoid a severe policy of subjugation. I.C.Y. Hsü, The Rise of Modern China, Sixth Edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 2000. 21 J. Eisenman, E. Heginbotham and D. Mitchell (eds.), China and the developing world, Beijing’st strategy for the twenty-first century, M.E., Sharpe, Inc. 2007, p. 13. 22 M. Chi-Kwan, China and the world since 1945, Routledge, London, New York, 2012. 13 Kai-shek (1927-1950), as stated by Le Pere and Shelton, the leitmotif of Chinese foreign policy was “its engagement in international politics for the sole purpose of enhancing and preserving its autonomy”.23 To this concern, in the early 1950s China’s territorial expansion towards the regions of westward Tibet and northward Xinjiang can be read as a strategic attempt to enlarge its borders while protecting its heartland. As a matter of fact, these regions have always been considered of outmost geo-strategic importance to China, for their being its natural anchor to Himalayas and access door to the rest of the Eurasia, respectively. 24 As far as the relations with the developing countries are concerned, Mao and his Prime Minister Zhou Enlai tried to find the room for diplomatic manoeuvre between the tight spots of bipolarity: if on the one they were committed to solidarity and peaceful cooperation because of a common background of anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism, on the other hand, they wanted the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to gain international supports to be accepted as the only legitimate representative of China at the United Nations, which required a two-thirds vote by the United Nations’ members.25 As a consequence, Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, on behalf of the PRC, took part in the Bandung Conference26 held in 1955 in Indonesia, leading to the emergence of the “Non-Aligned Movement” (NAM) in 1961. This movement was joined by the President of Indonesia Sukarno, Egyptian Second President Nasser, Indian Prime Minister Nehru and some 29 heads of state from Asia and Africa, and it lied the basis for the future creation by the Third World community of the first movement seeking to gain an equidistant and independent position from the two blocs.27 During the meeting, the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, the so-called Panch Sheela (from the Sanskrit panch, meaning “five”, and sheel, meaning “virtues”) were presented, and they would soon become the Chinese manifesto of the cooperation strategy with the developing world. They included the principles of mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity; mutual nonaggression; non-interference in each other’s internal affairs; equality and mutual benefits; and 23 G. Le Pere and G. Shelton, China, Africa, and South Africa, South-South Cooperation in a Global Era, Institute for Global Dialogue, Midrand, South Africa, 2007, p. 28. 24 G. Friedman, Chinese Geopolitics and the Significance of Tibet, “Geopolitical Weekly”, Stratford, Global Intelligence, (April) 2008, available at: www.stratford.com. 25 United Nations General Assembly, Representation of China in the United Nations, Resolution 1668(XVI), (December) 1961, available at: www.un.org/en. 26 For further details on the Bandung Conference, we send the reader to the following introductory texts: Roeslan Abdulgani, The Bandung connection: The Asia–Africa Conference in Bandung in 1955, Gunung Agung, Singapore, 1981; Carlos P. Romulo, The meaning of Bandung, The Weil Lectures on American Citizenship, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1956. 27 F. Cheru and C. Obi (eds.), The rise of China and India in Africa, Zed Books, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Croydon, 2010. 14 peaceful coexistence.28 Despite the fact that only 6 African countries were represented (Egypt, Ethiopia, Gold Coast, Liberia, and Sudan), as most of the continent was still under foreign domination, and major leaders, such as Kwame Knrumah and Haile Salassie, did not personally attend the meeting,29 this Conference still represented a major breakthrough for Sino-African relations, as their previous economic and diplomatic contacts were scattered.30 From the late 1940s to the 1970s, China’s presence in Africa was mainly characterized by the release of aid programmes, close diplomatic ties and infrastructural commitments.31 Although African countries were far from representing China’s first strategic partners unlike neighbouring Soviet Union or Asian countries, this multidimensional cooperation aimed at pursuing Chinese long-term “strategic, economic, and ideological aims”.32 As a matter of fact, from Stalin’s death, Mao’s relationship with Chruščёv revealed its fallacies, and China’s long-term dream was to impose itself as the leader of an international socialist vanguard, which would have led the African countries to rise against Western imperialism. On the wake of this ideological motivation, in 1956 the Chinese West Asian and African Affairs Department was created, and where official diplomatic channels lacked, other informal meetings and initiatives were created, such as the Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Conference, through which the relations between the two continents were strengthened. Hence, from the late 1950s Chinese influence over the African countries increased dramatically, as well as the number of high-level African delegations to the PRC: starting from being 18 in 1958, they became 39 in 1959, up to 88 in 1960.33 The 1960s and the 1970s were characterized by a strong Chinese commitment towards the African liberation movements which were to challenge the colonial domination and apartheid regimes. During this period Beijing supported the South African National Congress (ANC), the South West African People’s Organization (SWAPO) from the South African protectorate of South West Africa (today’s Namibia), the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) of Southern Rhodesia (today’s 28 Ivi, p. 55. Kwame Nkrumah was prevented from personally attending the conference as he was dealing with the British Government in order to reach an agreement to further the independence process. For further detail, see See Seng Tan and Amitav Acharya (eds.), Bandung Revisited, The Legacy of the 1955 Asian-African Conference for International Order, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 2008. Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, by contrast, chose not to attend the meeting, as it did not show particular interest in joining the Asian-African conference. For further details on Ethiopian foreign relations, see Seifudein Adem, Imperial Ethiopia’s Relations with Maoist China, African-East Asian Affairs, “The China Monitor”, Issue 1, (August) 2012, pp.31-53. 30 D. B. Larkin, China and Africa 1949-1970, The Foreign Policy of the Republic of China, University of California Press, Berkley, California, 1971, pp. 16-17. 31 Ibidem. 32 Ivi, p. 3. 33 D. B. Larkin, op. cit., p. 45. 29 15 Zimbabwe), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) and the African Party for the Independence of Guiné and Cape Verde (PAICG).34 This support, in striking contradiction with the Principles of Peaceful Cooperation, substantiated both in the supply of huge cargos of weapons such as mortars and bazookas, anti-vehicle mines and hand grenades, and in the provision of several trainings in guerrilla and warfare provided by the military academy of Nanking to a considerable range of countries, such as Ghana and Tanzania.35 As reported by Anshan, between 1956 and 1977 China provided economic aid worth for 2,476 billion dollars to 36 African countries, over half of the total ratio of China’s foreign aid.36 Great rhetorical emphasis was also put on Zhou Enlai’s great tours of Africa of 1963-65 which, together with the construction of the Tazara railway connecting Tanzania to Zambia (1967-1976) brought about the consolidation of Sino-African ties during that time. During his several trips, the Chinese Prime Minister visited 11 African countries (Algeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Morocco, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, and The United Arab Republic - today’s Egypt), and managed to deepen the relations with most of them through the same effective rhetoric on non-interference, anti-imperialism and development which, according to many, is still powerful today.37 In the 1964 Peking Review a joint communiqué was reported according to which Chinese and Ghana countries’ leaders, Zhou Enlai and Kwame Nkrumah, “agreed that all anti-colonialist movements in the world should close their ranks and wage a united struggle against the forces of imperialism, colonialism and neocolonialism”.38 In addition, the Chinese Premier enriched the Panch Sheela framework with some principles concerning both economic and technical aid, based on a reciprocal exchange of technical assistance which should have been built upon local expertise, both African and Chinese, to be treated on an egalitarian basis. Furthermore, such a type of reciprocal assistance did not aim at creating dependency between the two continents, but it should have furthered self-reliance and mutual respect, without imposing neither economic nor political conditions upon the recipients.39 As such, this heightened cooperation strategy was meant to provide a wide range of mutual benefits in a lot of different fields such as primary industry 34 G. Le Pere and G. Shelton, op. cit., p. 52. Ibidem. 36 L. Anshan, Transformation of China’s Policy towards Africa, Working Paper N°20 presented at the International Conference “China-African Links” (10-11 September 2006) held at the Centre on China’s Transnational Relations, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2006, p. 8. 37 J.C. Strauss, op.cit., p. 778. 38 Peking Review, Premier Zhou En-lai Reporst on His Visits to 14 Countries, No. 18 (May), 1964, p. 13, available at: www.marxists.org/subject/china/peking-review/1964/PR1964-18.pdf. 39 J. C. Strauss, op.cit., p. 779. 35 16 (agriculture, transportation, stock-breeding, broadcasting fisheries, and textiles) communication, and light public and industries (energy, civil construction, health…).40 By the same token, the above-mentioned Tazara Railway project, after being refused by the World Bank because it was not considered economically viable, was financed by the Chinese government, and it later assumed great importance since it stood as an alternative to the Westerns.41 The coming to power of Deng Xiaoping in 1978 and the reformist period following the end of the Maoist era coincided with a slight decline of Chinese strategic interests towards the African continent. This was due to the reforms put in place by Mao’s successor, which aimed at modernizing the country in the quickest and most effective way. As a matter of fact, after the 1982 Communist Party Congress opted for the economic development as its long-term goal, Chinese international policy switched towards “peace and development”.42 Therefore, from a strategic point of view, Beijing’s foreign relations shifted towards the more profitable United States, Soviet Union and Japan, as the African continent was considered to be immaterial in its quest for modernization and development.43 Additionally, the demise of the ideological factor as a pillar to orient Chinese international policy paved the way to a phase of political distension with the West and a breakthrough in the relations with the developing countries.44 Despite the fact that China never officially downplayed its historical bonds with the African countries, the report provided by Anshan showed that China’s aid to Africa during the period 1976-1980 amounted to 94 million dollars - most of which was for the year 19761978 - compared to 319 million dollars for the years between 1970-1975.45 This low profile Chinese policy was also reflected by the decreasing number of official diplomatic intercourses between the two continents if compared to the previous decade: as a matter of fact, before the 1990s, the last official Chinese African tours were the ones by Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang in 1982, and by Vice Premier Li Peng in 1984. Furthermore, Chinese approach towards African leaders proved to be less dogmatic than the previous period, as the open critics by Deng Xiaoping to the Tanzanian “uncritical” embrace of socialism showed.46 However, what was defined by Snow as the “missionary phase” of Beijing’s presence in the continent between the early 1950s and the mid-1960s actually revealed a complex net of 40 F. Cheru and C. Obi, op.cit., p. 55. Ibidem. 42 L. Anshan, op. cit., p. 2. 43 I. Taylor, China’s Foreign Policy Towards Africa in the 1990s, “The Journal of Modern African Studies”, Vol. 36, No. 3, 1998, pp. 443-460. 44 G. T. Yu, Africa in Chinese Foreign Policy, “Asian Survey”, Vol. 28, No. 8, 1988, pp. 849-862. 45 L. Anshan, op. cit., pp. 8-9. 46 I. Taylor, op. cit., pp. 445-446. 41 17 interests that was creeping under the surface and would strongly emerge in the early 1990s.47 In the early 1990s, in fact, Sino-African relations strongly resurrected.48 This was due to a number of reasons: first, China’s quest for international support revived after the crisis of Tiananmen Square in 1989 led most Western countries to accuse the PRC of reproachful human rights records; second, by restoring the relations with its old friends, Beijing tried to oppose the Western interference over its internal affairs (which, according to some, incidentally manifested itself at a time when Chinese economic power was dramatically growing potentially at the expense of Western economies); third, Chinese fast industrialization needed to be fuelled by huge raw material supplies which the African soil was rich of.49 African leaders promptly backed China’s use of violence: several state officials, such as Angola's foreign minister or Namibia’s President, expressed their support for the actions taken against the counter-revolution rebels. According to Naidu and Mbazima, this support was justified by African-Chinese common doubtful human rights records; by their ideological anti-imperialistic background; and by their common long-term strategic interests.50 More specifically, lacking most African leaders widespread popular legitimization or good human rights records, post-Tiananmen world’s attention on those issues would have threatened their authority; furthermore, African leaders understood that furthering their relationship with the PRC would have meant to securitize the Chinese flows of foreign direct investment within the continent. As a consequence, since the early 1990s, China’s foreign policy viewed Africa as the cornerstone for its future cooperation strategy. During this period African-Chinese diplomatic ties were strengthened by more than 150 high level visits by both sides’ official leaders including Chinese Premier Li Peng in 1991 and 1995; President Shangkun in 1992; and President Jiang Zemin in 1996 at the headquarter of the Organization of African Unity.51 In such a revived context, a new cooperation strategy was also launched focusing on economic intercourses. To this concern, the decision of granting interest-free loans to African countries and subsidizing Chinese enterprises to invest in the continent by establishing preferential agreements also served as important boosting tools.52 As showed by recent data, during the 1990s China’s presence involved more than 40 countries, which represents a consistent improvement if we notice that they were 24 in 1989; furthermore, we P. Snow, The Star Raft: China’s Encounters with Africa, Cornell University Press, New York, 1989. I Taylor, op.cit. 49 S. Naidu and D. Mbazima, China–African Relations: A New Impulse in a Changing Continental Landscape, “Futures”, Centre for Chinese Studies, Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, Vol. 40, 2008, pp. 748-761. 50 Ivi, pp. 750-751. 51 G. Le Pere and G. Shelton, op. cit., p.56. 52 F. Cheru and C. Obi, op. cit. 47 48 18 notice that between 1989 and 1997 the overall trading amount between the two continents has increased by 431%, from a starting volume of 1’665 million dollars in 1990 to nearly 5’030 million dollars in 1997.53 The beginning of the 21st century has represented a great opportunity to further this strategic partnership through the establishment of new instruments aimed at promoting SinoAfrican relations at all levels: since its birth in 2000, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) was held every three years with the aim of gathering some key figures from China and Africa as they recognize “that close consultation between the two sides on international affairs is of great importance to consolidating solidarity among developing countries and facilitating the establishment of a new international order”;54 in 2006 the Chinese African Joint Chamber of Commerce and in Industry (CAJCCI) was jointly established by China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) and the Union Of African Chambers Of Commerce, Industry, Agriculture, and Professions (UACCIAP) with the aim of promoting “friendship and understanding among Chinese and African business communities, to promote cooperation between the two sides in such areas of trade and investment through organize various forms of interactive communication activities”.55 As a matter of fact, since 1997 the bilateral trade volume between the two continents has more than quintupled: in 2004 it reached 24 billion dollars and in the early 2005 it grew by 39% up to 32,17 billion dollars (463);56 moreover, according to recent OECD data, in 2009 China has ousted the United States as the biggest African trading partner, though it still gets behind the overall trading volume recorded with the European Union.57 Furthermore, China showed great support for the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), namely a technical body under the framework of the African Union whose purpose is to address some of the root causes of contemporary social ills, such as poverty and underdevelopment, through African-based solutions and local expertise. To this concern, the 2007 Chief Executive of NEPAD Secretariat, Professor Mucavele, openly stated that China’s assistance could have filled the serious infrastructural gap from which the African Union still suffered.58 Furthermore, according to most of the literature, China’s Africa strategy for the new millennium is not just 53 I. Taylor, op. cit., p. 455. Beijing Declaration of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, 2000, available at: www.fmprc.gov.cn/zflt/eng/zyzl/hywj/t157833.htm. 55 China Africa Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry Website, available at: www.chinaafricajcci.org/english/about_us.asp. 56 D. M. Tull, China’s Engagement in Africa: Scope, Significance and Consequences, “Journal of African Studies”, Vol. 44, No. 3, 2006, pp. 459-479, p. 463. 57 OECD Factbook, 2011-2012, available at: www.oecd-ilibrary.org/content/book/factbook-2011-en. 58 AllAfrica News, Africa: Nepad Flags Importance of Chinese Investment for Africa, (March) 2007. 54 19 focused on the traditional achievement of economic goals through the enhancement of both multilateral and bilateral trading channels, but also on the expansion towards other areas of cooperation, such as the political-diplomatic, security and social ones.59 In 2006, the so-called “year of Africa”, the then Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao celebrated Sino-African historical and mutual benefit relations by visiting 7 African nations (Egypt, Ghana, Republic of Congo, Angola, Tanzania, South Africa and Uganda), as a demonstration of Chinese commitment towards the continent.60 In addition to the securitization of African natural resources to fuel its developing economy, Beijing, is also furthering Sino-African diplomatic ties through both multilateral and bilateral institutions; increasing its level of development and technical assistance towards the continent;61 furthering its military intercourses mainly through arms supply62 and a growing Chinese presence in African peacekeeping operations;63 finally, promoting Chinese education, language and scholarships for Africans.64 2.1. The principle of non-interference in China’s African policy After briefly exploring the history and features of Sino-African relations since their origins, we may notice that certain long-lasting principles have survived over the time and still characterize China’s foreign policy. Specifically, the principles of non-interference, national sovereignty and territorial integrity have always stood as the cornerstones of Beijing’s foreign policy towards third countries. They were officially launched at the Bandung Conference (1955), when the Non-Aligned Movement leaders promoted the Principles of Peaceful Coexistence to guide their foreign relations, and they have been reasserted through both official and semi-official rhetoric and concrete practice guiding J. L. Parenti, China-Africa Relations in the 21st Century, “Joint Force Quarterly”, No. 52 (1st Quarter), National Defense University, Institute for National Strategic Studies, Washington DC, 2009, available at: www.dtic.mil. 60 M. J. Davies, The China Monitor, Centre for Chinese Studies, University of Stellenbosch, 2006, available at: www.ccs.org.za/. 61 M. Davies, H. Edinger, N. Tay and S. Naidu, How China delivers development assistance to Africa, A research undertaking by the Centre for Chinese Studies, prepared for the Department for International Development (DFID), Beijing, Centre for Chinese Studies, University of Stellenbosch, 2008, available at: www.ccs.org.za. 62 H. Andersson, China is fuelling war in Darfur, BBC News, (July) 2008, available at: www.news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7503428.stm 63 Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the UN Website, availabe at: www.chinaun.org/eng/zt/wh/; K. Ayenagbo, T. Njobvu, J. V. Sossou and B. Tozoun, China’s peacekeeping operations in Africa: From unwilling participation to responsible contribution, “African Journal of Political Science and International Relations”, Vol. , No. 2, 2012, pp. 22-32. 64 J. Kaiman, Africa's future leaders benefit from Beijing's desire to win hearts and minds, The Guardian, (April) 2013, available at: www.theguardian.com. 59 20 Chinese foreign policy in the international arena. At the conference, the then Chinese Premier Hu Jintao affirmed that We respect each others’ sovereignty and territorial integrity (…). We have no intention whatsoever to interfere or intervene in the internal affairs of these two neighbouring states [Cambodia and Laos] of ours. This is our policy toward all countries (…).65 Likewise, in a speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence in 2004, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao stated that The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence have withstood the test of time, and made a monumental contribution to the maintenance of peace and stability in Asia and the world over and the sound development of international relations. (…)Given the international relations as they are, mutually beneficial cooperation can be conducted between states and peace and development can be maintained throughout the world only when the principle of sovereign equality is genuinely observed, when the right to equal treatment by all countries, big or small, rich or poor, strong or weak, is recognized, when the right of all countries, developing countries in particular, to freely choose their road of development is fully respected, and when the legitimate rights, interests and appeals of the small, poor and weak countries are taken into account and earnestly protected.66 As argued by Strauss, far from representing just empty rhetoric, if on the one hand Chinese official and semi-official discourses served as an artificial instrument to gain its partners’ trust by persuading they shared the same anti-imperialistic and anti-Western values – which still were considered to be of outmost importance in the aftermath of the decolonization –, on the other hand it also contributed to shape Sino-African interactions in the long run, turning abstract words into concrete reality.67 Opposing the Western concepts of development, progress, and aid, which have been at length associated either with the colonial domination or with the more recent neo-liberal economic diktat of the so-called “Washington Consensus”,68 China has promoted “free” economic benefits without making the disbursements contingent upon any prerequisite as it has always stressed the importance on the sovereign equality of all 65 C. Enlai, 1955, in G. McTurnan Kahin, Asian-African Conference, Bandung, Indonesia, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, (April) 1956. 66 W. Jiabao, Carrying Forward the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence in the Promotion of Peace and Development, Speech by Wen Jiabao, Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, at Rally Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, (June), 2004, available at: www.mfa.gov.cn. 67 J. C. Strauss, op. cit. p. 779. 68 For further informations on the topic and a critical view, see N. Serra and J. E. Stiglitz, The Washington Consensus reconsidered: towards a new global governance, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008. 21 member states, which should be left free to determine their own internal policy without foreign interferences.69 This approach has been at the basis of the alternative developmental paradigm which has been dubbed as the “Beijing Consensus”, namely a set of rules that have been associated with “China’s specific commercial interests in investing for extracting minerals on favourable terms”, downplaying the importance of the recipient countries’ human rights and democratic records which, by contrast, are taken into account by the promoters of the traditional Washington Consensus.70 The significance of this emphasis can be explained by both looking at Chinese contemporary historical heritage, and considering its security concerns. As already hinted upon, Chinese foreign policy after World War II has been mainly shaped in response to the “century of humiliation” perpetrated by the Western powers, therefore enhancing an antiimperialistic and anti-hegemonic international policy which has substantiated in the principles of mutual benefit, respect for state sovereignty, reciprocal solidarity, and non-interference.71 Furthermore, security considerations have vastly marked China’s quest for non-interference and as the preservation of Chinese heartland from external threats has always been of vital importance.72 According to Chinese official rhetoric, a violation of the non-interference principle is committed in the case of armed intervention on threat to use force with the purpose of altering the economic, political or social order of another state; direct armed intervention or subversion to challenge another state’s stability; using its own territory with the purpose of backing rebellion or secessionist movements willing to undermine the stability of another state, or directly arming or supporting such subversive groups; altered propaganda persuading about the necessity of intervening in the internal affairs of a third country; exploiting one’s own leverage to replace another country in determining its economic, political or social agenda.73 However, although the guidelines for peaceful coexistence have always been put at the very centre of China’s foreign policy, many authors have come to argue that since it was first proclaimed, the principle of non-interference has often substantiated in its very contrary, allowing Chinese military assistance and arms supplies, as well as economic aid and diplomatic interventions towards Third World countries, which have progressively stretched 69 W. Jiabao, op. cit. R. I. McKinnon, China in Africa: the Washington Consensus versus the Beijing Consensus, “Book Review” (August) 2010, available at: www.stanford.edu, p. 7. 71 See infra. 72 J. Eisenman, E. Heginbotham and D. Mitchell, op. cit., 2007. 73 S. Hess and R. Aidoo, Beyond the Rhetoric: Noninterference in China’s Africa Policy, “African and Asian Studies”, Vol. 9, No. 3, 2010, p. 359. 70 22 its official rhetoric.74 Moreover, during the last decades, facing an increasing role in the international community of States both in terms of economic and political power, China is struggling to make the principle of non-interference compatible with its major economic, political and strategic interests.75 Even before its first official proclamation in 1981 by the United Nations General Assembly “Declaration on the Inadmissibility of the Intervention and Interference in the Internal Affairs of States” this doctrine had appeared in several hundreds of speeches and official documents released by the NAM community after the Bandung Conference was held in 1955. From an African perspective, during the Cold War era this principle was warmly welcome by most leaders, who were willing to emancipate themselves from their colonial bonds, and to rely on an a viable economic and military alternative. As a matter of fact, during the 1950s and 1960s this approach has been interpreted through the ideological lenses of Marxism, therefore Beijing directly intervened to support most African liberation movements against the Western hegemony, from Egypt to South Africa.76 Furthermore, the socialist revolution was highly encouraged and Socialist-Marxist regimes were economically supported by the PRC.77 Later, in the 1970s, after Sino-Soviet relations inevitably worsened and China’s foreign policy switched in favour of the United States, it also started to address to those countries which opposed the Soviet Union, as the case of the Angolan liberation struggle paradigmatically showed. In this specific case, from its original backing of the MPLA during the early stages of the Angolan liberation struggle together with the Soviet-Cuban support, in the mid-1960s the PRC started to support the FNLA and by the mid-1970s it officially turned to UNITA, which was backed by the US. As a consequence, we may state that China’s embroilment in the complex net of the Cold War interests led the country to stretch its official non-interference rhetoric in accordance to what seemed most convenient in a given geopolitical order. As stated by the authors, The Angolan case is particularly relevant to this discussion, as it clearly shows that China’s foreign policy agenda came to be framed by a number of overarching goals, but notably absent among them was the importance of honouring the principle of non-interference and the Angolans’ right to self-determination.78 74 S. Hess and R. Aidoo, op. cit., p. 365. D. Large, China and the Contradictions of Non-interference in Sudan, “Review of African Political Economy”, Vol. 35, No. 115, 2008, pp. 93-106. 76 S. Hess and R. Aidoo, op. cit., p. 366. 77 D. J. Muekalia, op. cit., p. 6. 78 Ibidem. 75 23 From the late 1970s, the pragmatic leadership led by Deng Xiaoping which succeeded to Mao’s death and launched the “Reforms and Openness” era, dropped its historical ideological drive and started its quest for international recognition and fast industrialization. At this stage, the non-interference policy was instrumentally resurrected to drive Chinese securitization of natural resources which were needed to fuel its booming economic, and it was rhetorically addressed against foreign interventions in other countries’ political affairs, as happened in the case of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, which was officially condemned by Beijing.79 In addition, this was also the period in which the PRC felt increasingly threatened by the nationalistic stances of Tibet. Predictably enough, this approach has always been favourably deemed by African leaders, who did not have to be accountable of their human rights or democratic records. This paved the way for a great number of African “rogue” states (as they were labelled by the Westerns) to enter the market and to make huge profits from the trade of their natural resources with the PRC, which proved to be more prone than Western companies to deal with instable or unreliable governments, as the cases of Angola or the Democratic Republic of the Congo showed.80 Similarly, other African leaders have often expressed their official approval towards the Chinese foreign policy address: during the 2006 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, Ethiopian Prime Minister Zenawi welcame the flood of Chinese cheap products in the African markets as, far from undermining the local industry, they will enhance African standards of living.81 As a matter of fact, after some decades, this noninterference policy has allowed the PRC both to gain access to African raw minerals and natural resources, as needed by its growing internal demands for energy, and to let Chinese exports (such as textiles, electrical equipment, garments and new technology) to flow to new African markets.82 Furthermore, from a strategic viewpoint, China’s emphasis on noninterference has also been tactically used in order to gather developing countries’ consents to balance the Western international influence, specifically the United States’, which is still perceived as a threat to its growing role. However, the principles for a Peaceful Coexistence have also been challenged by other authors, according to whom specifically the principle of non-interference has been recently used by the PRC just as a pretext to enhance its self-motivated and asymmetric policy, that would unlikely lead the continent to reach the long-sought economic progress. By employing See the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC’s Website, available at: www.fmprc.gov.cn/chn//gxh/cgb/zcgmzysx/yz/1206/1206x1/t356107.htm. 80 S. Hess and R. Aidoo, op. cit., p. 367. 81 Nazret, Ethiopian PM Meles Zenawi arrives in Beijing for China-Africa summit, (March) 2006. 82 S. Hess and R. Aidoo, op. cit., p. 368. 79 24 such an approach, China is only attempting at securitizing its natural resources supplies and new markets for its growing exports.83 Moreover, this policy, by economically supporting countries such as Sudan or Zimbabwe with “no political strings attached”,84 is contributing to dangerously worsen African human rights and democratic records, while granting the Chinese a prominent position within the continent. To sum up, although many authors have showed that most African countries are favourably looking at Chinese principle of non-interference guiding its foreign relations,85 others have also claimed that since its first proclamation in the mid-1950s, this quest for nondiscrimination has often been interpreted in accordance to Chinese ideological and selfinterested ends, overstretching its official rhetoric at the expense of its deep meaning. Therefore, as the official rhetoric was often manipulated in the past, the role the PRC is increasingly acquiring on the economic and geopolitical global scenarios, is likely to challenge its non-interference policy, which would have to adapt to its growing (and irreversible) needs. 83 D. M. Tull, op. cit. S. Hess and R. Aidoo, op. cit., p. 364. 85 Ivi, p. 373. 84 25 26 3. Sudanese foreign policy and Sino-Sudanese relations in historical perspective Sudan has an ancient and complex history. Religious, ethnic and political considerations vastly intertwine in the modern and contemporary history of the country. This is certainly due to the fact that the country positions itself at the cross-road of both the Middle Eastern and the African world, sharing both the Arabic-Islamic and the non-Arabic-Christian cultures. The very name of the country, the Sudan, comes from the Arabic Bilad al-Sudan, which means “the land of the blacks”, and which had a number of different meanings, as it was either generally referred to the sub-Saharan Africa, or to that portion of savannah and plains territory stretching from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, or to the territories south of Egypt. It was first used with its contemporary meaning only in the 19th century to refer to the African territories under the Egyptian rule.86 Rivers of ink have been written on the general history of Sudan, which still represents the core of never-ending academic researches.87 More specifically, scholars’ attention has focused on the Sudanese modern88 as well as contemporary history;89 on the history of Sudan’s different tribes and ethnic groups,90 and on the Sudanese Christian and Islamic presence.91 Lately, the long-lasting period of North-South civil war have been at the centre of many studies;92 likewise, the independence of South Sudan paved the way to a recent and challenging academic inquiry.93 As a full history of the Sudan would fall outside the purposes of this text, only some historical periods will be analysed insofar they are functional to the 86 R. S. Kramer, R. A. Lobban Jr., and C. Fluehr-Lobban, Historical Dictionary of the Sudan, The Scarecrow Press, Inc., Plymouth, 2013. 87 P. M. Holt and M. W. Daly, A History of the Sudan: From the coming of Islam to the present day, Pearson Education Limited, Essex, 2000; R. Lobban, C. Fluehr-Lobban and R. S. Kramer, Historical Dictionary of the Sudan, Scarecrow Press, Incorporated, 2013; M. H. Fadlalla, Short History of Sudan, iUniverse, Inc., New York, Lincoln, Shanghai, 2004. 88 F. R. Wingate, Mahdiism and the Egyptian Sudan : being an account of the rise and progress of Mahdiism and of subsequent events in the Sudan to the present time, Macmillan, London, 1891; L. R. Hill, Egypt in the Sudan, 1820-1881, Oxford University Press, 1959; A. J. Arkell, A History of the Sudan: From the Earliest Time To 1821, Athlone Press, University of London, 1961. 89 M.W. Daly, Imperial Sudan The Anglo-Egyptian Condominium 1934-1956, Cambridge University Press, 1991; P. Bechtold, Politics in the Sudan Parliamentary and Military Rule in an Emerging African Nation, Greenwood Publishing Group, New York, 1976. 90 H. A. MacMichael, The Tribes of Central and Northern Kordofan, Cambridge University Press, 1912; A. Paul, A Hisotry of the Beja Tribes of the Sudan, Cambridge University Press, 1954. 91 J.S. Trimingham, Islam and the Sudan, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1949. 92 O.Albino, The Sudan, a Southern Viewpoint, Oxford University Press, 1970; J. Millard Burr and R. O. Collins, Requiem for the Sudan: War, Drought and Disaster Relief on the Nile, Westview Press, Boulder, 1995. 93 M. LeRiche and M. Arnold, South Sudan, From Revolution to Independence, Hurst and Company, London, 2012; P. F Hartley and R. Bland, South Sudan: Challenges and Opportunities for Africa’s New Nation, Nova Science Publisher's, New York, 2012; 27 topics under current scrutiny. To our purposes, after offering a brief overview over the features of contemporary Sudan, and rapidly referring to the Sudanese pre-colonial, colonial and independent periods, the origins and the changing features of Sino-Sudanese relations will be specifically addressed. Before the independence of the South, with more than 2,000,000 Km2, the unified Republic of Sudan was the largest country in Africa. Today, its territory is of around 1,860,000 Km2 (the 16th largest in the world) and its climate may vary from being arid and desert in the north –where we can find the Sudan deserts– to tropical wet-and-dry according to the rainy season in the South.94 The country has a population of more than 30 million people, a growth rate of 1.83% (2013), a life expectancy birth rate of 62.95 years (2013), and an overall literacy rate of 71.9% (2011). As far as the Sudanese economy is concerned, with a total rural population of nearly 70%,95 agriculture remains the most important sector, as it currently employs 80% of the work force in the production of cotton, peanuts, sorghum, millet, wheat, sugarcane, cassava (tapioca), mangoes, papaya, bananas, and sweet potatoes, which contributes for 27.7% of the country’s GDP;96 however, the Sudanese economy relies heavily on the exportation of natural resources, such as petroleum, iron, copper chromium, zinc, tungsten, silver and gold, which its subsoil is rich of; specifically, since the discovery of major reserves in the late 1970s, oil has become the most consistent source of national revenues. According to recent statistics, Sudan’s oil accounts for nearly 60% of the National Government revenue and for some 78% of exports earning in 2011;97 according to British Petroleum Statistical Review, the country has been deemed to have 1,5 thousand billion barrels as proved reserves, which is remarkable if we consider that oil explorations have been limited only to the central and South-central areas.98 Furthermore, the Sudanese economy has also recently benefited from the production of hydroelectricity, boosted after the construction of the Merowe Dam in the early 2000s.99 According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, during the decade between 2000 and 2010, Sudanese power generation has almost tripled;100 however, as of 2009, only 36% of Sudanese had access to electricity.101 94 Central Intelligence Agency Factsheet, 2014, available at: www.cia.gov/library/publications/theworld-factbook/geos/su.html; 95 Ibidem. 96 Ibidem. 97 U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2013, available at: www.eia.gov/. 98 British Petroleum Statistical Review, 2013, available at: www.bp.com. 99 Merowe Dam Project Website, available at: www.merowedam.gov.sd/en/index.php. 100 U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2013, available at: www.eia.gov/. 101 World Energy Outlook, International Energy Agency, 2011, available at: www.iea.org. 28 Given the territorial features of the country, and the presence of the Nile River, whose course runs for hundreds of kilometers within the Sudanese borders before flowing into the Mediterranean Sea, all past conquerors, from the Pharaohs to the Romans, taking control over Egypt had necessarily to expand their domination upstream in the Nile Valley if they wanted to securitize and dominate their major source of living, namely the water flow coming from the river. As a consequence, the Sudanese territory has always been at the core of foreign geostrategic interests, specifically the Egyptians’, as the two countries’ modern and contemporary histories have consistently intermingled over the time. As stated by Abdel Rahim, At no time […], could either of the two countries ignore the other or minimize its importance for its own being – a fact that, in the hands of modern Egyptian nationalists, became one of the main arguments for the Unity of the Nile Valley, for many years the raison d’être of Egyptian foreign policy.102 As a matter of fact, as we will see in this chapter, the Egyptian influence over the Sudan has been one of the leitmotif characterizing the country’s modern and contemporary history. 3.1. Back to the origins of Sudanese-Egyptian relations: from the Kush kingdom to the end of the Mahdiyya Given its abundance of mineral resources and territorial fertility due to the presence of the Nile River, Sudan has always been at the centre of major geo-strategic interests within the region of the Nile Valley. In particular, considering its territorial contiguity with Egypt, Sudanese modern history has largely intertwined with the Egyptian one. As a matter of fact, already under the Egyptian Old Kingdom (ca. 2700-2180 B.C.) historical records confirming the relations between Cairo and the Sudanese northern region of Kush can be found.103 Their trading relations were fruitful, especially for the Egyptians, who gained ivory, incense, hides, precious stones and gold, as well as slaves, in exchange of grains. However, it was not until the Egyptian Middle Kingdom (ca. 2100-1720 B.C.) that the Sudanese region fell officially under the foreign domination, when the Egyptians built a number of forts all along the Southern part of the Nile in order to securitize their gold flows. 102 M. Abdel Rahim, Imperialism and Nationalism in the Sudan, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1963, p. 13. 103 M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit., p. 13. 29 Later on, after the invasion of Egypt by the Asian population of Hyksos (1720 B.C.), which marked the end of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, the Kush region was ultimately turned into an Egyptian province governed by a viceroy. During the foreign invasion a great number of Egyptians emigrated towards the Kush region giving rise to the Kingdom of Napata (the capital of Kush), whose kings were allegedly of Egyptian lineage.104 Under this period, Egypt exerted a great influence over the Sudanese territories, in terms of language, religion and culture: as a matter of fact, the Egyptians attempted to subjugate the local chiefs to their own authorities, and expected them to show their loyalties through gold and slaves tributes to the pharaohs; Egyptian language – the Coptic –, and religious credo were exported in the region, where several temples were built, before Christianity spread around the 6th century.105 As the Egyptian New Kingdom’s power was increasingly undermined by foreign threats, the balance of power was gradually reversed in favour of the Kush kingdom led by King Kashta, who managed to conquer the Upper Egypt, and to rule over the Thebes until 740 B.C. Before the 26th Egyptian Dynasty fell, paving the way for the invasion of Egypt by the Persians (525 B.C.), several attempts to re-conquer the Kush forced its inhabitants to move to a safer area called Meroe, where the Meroitic kingdom was established in the area northeast of Khartoum. Simultaneously to the Ptolemaic dynasty ruling in Egypt (332-330 B.C.), the Meroe kingdom was at its territorial greatest extension, as it stretched from the third cataract of the Nile – near today’s Kerma – to the city of Sawba, south of Khartoum.106 During this period, the relations between Egypt and the Meroitic dynasty were mostly characterized by a “peaceful penetration” by the former aiming at gaining access to the latter’s natural resources.107 After the Persians, Egypt underwent the Greek and Roman dominations, during the eras of which the Meroe kingdom maintained its independence and was affected by neighbouring countries’ cultures and ideas, such as the Hellenistic, Roman, and Ethiopian ones, until it was invaded by the Axum Dynasty coming from Ethiopia, posing an end to the above-mentioned kingdom certainly before 350 C.E.108 By the 6th century, three different communities were born from the ashes of the Meroitic kingdom: Nobatia, Mukuria and Alwa, geographically collocated in the northern, central, and Southern part of the Nubia region, 104 A. El-Fattah I. el-Dayed Baddour, Sudanese-Egyptian Relations, Martinus Nijoff, The Hague, 1960. 105 M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit., p. 13. 106 Ivi, p. 14. 107 Baddour, op. cit., p. 12. 108 R. S. Kramer, R. A. Lobban Jr., and C. Fluehr-Lobban, op. cit., pp. 7-8. 30 which goes from the Southern Egypt to the northern Sudan, all along the Nile.109 Soon after their establishment, their leaders converted to Christianity, and the Makuria and Alwa states merged to form the Dongola kingdom around 300 C.E. Although early contacts between the Nubians and the Arabs have ancient origins, 110 the process of gradual Islamization of North Africa started around 632 C.E., shortly after Prophet Muhammad’s death, and lasted nearly a century. The first state to be converted by this wave was Egypt, which was conquered by the Arabs in 640 C.E.; an Islamic attempt to invade the Nubian region followed, but the Nubians managed to defend themselves and compelled the Arabs to temporarily withdraw their forces.111 Map 3: Ancient Nubia. Source: Ancient Egypt and Archeology Website, March 2013, available at: http://www.ancient-egypt.co.uk. 109 Look at map No.3. Y. F. Hasan, The Arabs and the Sudan, From the Seventh to the early sixteenth century, Edinburgh Univesity Press, 1967. 111 M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit., p. 16. 110 31 However, by the 16th century, the Nubian states all fell under Arab domination: around 1315 the first Muslim was proclaimed as the king of Dongola, and in 1505 the last Christian fortress of Alwa was also subjugated. The ensuing period was characterized by intense trading interconnections and gradual Muslim migrations and intermarriages within the region, so that “the end of the medieval period and the spread of Islam and the Arabic language in the Sudan was more a gradual transition than fully the result of conquest.”112 Replacing the kingdom of Alwa in the Southern Nubia, in the meanwhile the Arabs were invading the region, the Funj kingdom was established. As reported by Fadlalla, in the early 16th century, the so-called Black Sultanate was founded by the first Funj leader, Amara Dunqas, and Sannar was chosen as its capital city.113 People of uncertain origins, the Funj were originally neither Arabs, nor Muslims but soon converted to Islam, despite maintaining a certain degree of continuity with the Nubian traditions.114 The Black Sultanate comprised a confederation of sultanates which were under the Sannar’s sultan, who had the right to ask for tributes on a regular basis, levy taxes and oblige the vassal states to have their troops ready to defend the central sultanate in case of war. In turn, the Sannar’s sultanate should have granted a sort of central judicial authority to supervise internal disputes or local disorders. The Funj economy mainly relied on agriculture and trading, but it was the slave trade the most profitable activity it was involved in. Initially representing a stabilizing “buffer zone” within the region, as the sultanate stood between the Arabs in the north, the Abyssinians in the east, and the non-Arabs in the South, at the acme of their power it also managed to halt the attempt of invasion by the Nilotic people by mid-17th century, and subjugate them to its authority.115 By the end of the 18th century, the Funj gradually lost its power until it was the victim of the Turco-Egyptian conquest, in 1820-21. In the meanwhile, the Keira clan established itself in the South-west region of Darfur, stretching from the Chad’s border to the White Nile, overcoming a period of inner turbulence during the 17th century.116 Then, it gave rise to the so-called “kingdom of the Fur” whose historical origins remain unclear.117 According to Holt, it can be supposed that one of the founding fathers of the clan, Ahmed Bakr, contributed to the Islamization of the region through the construction of mosques, importations of teachers and forced conversions. Over 112 R. S. Kramer, R. A. Lobban Jr., and C. Fluehr-Lobban, op. cit., p. 8. M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit., p. 21. 114 P. M. Holt, A Modern History of the Sudan, From the Funj Sultanate to the Present Day, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1961, p. 19. 115 M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit., p. 22. 116 Ibidem. 117 N. R. Bassil, The Rise and Demise of the Keira Sultanate of Dar Fur, “The Journal of NorthAfrican Studies”, Vol. 11, No. 4, 2006, p. 347-364. 113 32 the time, the Keira dynasty strengthened its hold over the region of Darfur and claimed also the area of Kordofan, which was under the domination of the Funj kingdom. Their economy, as the Funj’s, mostly relied on the trading of slaves directed to Egypt.118 At the time of the Turco-Egyptian invasion of the Nubian region, the Keira sultanate succumbed to the foreign conquerors, until they were incorporated in the Anglo-Egyptian administration of the Sudan in 1917. Since the early 16th century, Egypt was under the Ottoman domination, and it was divided into several provinces, directly dependent on the Sublime Porte, as the Ottoman Empire was commonly known, which had its centre in the city of Istanbul. In the early 19th century, the Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt, Mohammed Ali, sent his son to head an Ottoman expedition aiming at conquering the Nubia region. The goals of this military campaign were twofold: first, Mohammed Ali wished to definitely crush the Mamelukes, who were previously chased from Egypt and settled in the Dongola region; second, the Ottomans were also interested in gaining control of the profitable slave trade routes, which were under the control of the Nubian population.119 At the end of the campaign in 1821, the Mamelukes were dispersed, the Funj kingdom and the Kordofan region were subjugated, and the Ottomans inaugurated the new government of the Turkiyah, which was to last until 1885.120 During that time, the Ottoman administration of Nubia proved to the be harsh and aggressive: as a matter of fact, the Ottomans exploited the local populations by imposing heavy taxes; they demolished several ancient buildings established under the Meroitic kingdom looking for natural resources; in addition, the traffic of slaves grew sensibly, paving the way to several migrations of people willing to escape from Al Jazirah – what has been the heartland of the Funj kingdom – towards safer areas, until the trading was abolished around the end of the century.121 Moreover, the Egyptians tried to guide the Sudan through a process of administrative and legislative modernization: as a matter fact, the country was divided into provinces and smaller administrative units; both a commercial and criminal codes were introduced, at the expense of the traditional sharia law; an Ottoman education system was created and several mosques were built in accordance to the official Ottoman’s orthodoxy. However, these changes did not take root, as the Sudanese Muslims discredited the Ottoman religious and law schools, in favour of the traditional ones.122 118 Ivi, p. 22. D. A. Welsby, Egyptian invasions of Nubia: the last 5,000 years, “Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa”, Vol. 39, No. 1, 2004, pp. 283-304, p. 298. 120 M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit., pp. 24-25. 121 Ibidem. 122 Ibidem. 119 33 By contrast, a few information have been collected around the Southern provinces as they were less prone to foreign domination because of their territorial mountainous morphology, which prevented the region to be conquered from the outside. If the northern part of the country was directly affected by the Egyptian-Ottoman influence, the Southern provinces remained mostly isolated, therefore presenting different ethnic groups from the northern ones, which firstly got in contact only under the Turkiyah.123 As far as the ethnic composition of the Southern provinces’ tribes, it has been argued that the indigenous populations who first inhabited the region around the 10th century, were all Nilotic. In fact, the Dinka and Nuer represented the majority of the Southern population (which is still reflecting the reality, as they are almost 38% and 16% of the total South Sudanese current population respectively), and were geographically located in the central and northern parts of today’s South Sudan, while the Shilluk presence was scattered (today representing 9% of the population). Additionally, there were also the Bari people, mainly around Juba (corresponding to 8,3% of today’s population), and the Azande, the only non-Nilotic group (around 8%), mainly located in the western part of the country, at the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.124 Given the natural barriers of the Southern territory, these populations were able to preserve their traditional religions and culture from the Islamic invasion, and generally from foreign interferences, until they came into the Ottomans’ sights. Indeed, the slave traffic has represented a distinctive institution of the 19th century Sudan, as the vastly-extended Ottoman Empire needed to protect itself from foreign threats by constantly fuelling its army with local populations.125 Until the mid-19th century, when the White Nile was opened to navigation, the regions affected by the slave traffic stretched from the north of the Nuba mountains, to the South of Sinnar, until the Ethiopian border; afterwards, the traders spread towards the Southern provinces, where they first encountered the local tribes, who soon become the major victims of human trafficking.126 As stated by Moore-Harell, There existed a high demand in the slave markets for boys aged 12-15 years old. The price that was paid for them in Southern Sudan in the mid-1870s was 15-20 silver Maria Theresa dollars, the equivalent of four to five Egyptian pounds. In Northern Sudan they fetched four 123 Ivi, p. 25. Look at map No. 4. 125 A. Moore-Harell, Slave Trade in the Sudan in the Nineteenth Century and Its Suppression in the Years 1877-80, “Middle Eastern Studies”, Vol. 34, No. 2, (April) 1998, pp. 113-128; 126 Ivi, p. 114. 124 34 times as much. The elderly slaves were at the same time cheaper to buy, while the young girls and the eunuchs were the most lucrative and brought the merchants the highest profit.127 Therefore, the first contact between the Northern traders and the Southern communities was far from being peaceful, and it partly contributed to boost a sense of anger and revenge that has characterized the contemporary relations between the Northern and the Southern communities. Map 4: Ethnic Groups in the Republic of South Sudan. Source: Dr. Michael Izady, 2011-2014, the Gulf2000/project, available at: www.gulf2000.columbia.edu. In the late 19th century, after the United States officially abolished slavery (1863), the British anti-slavery lobby turned its attention on the Sudanese trade and leveraged the British influence on Egypt128 to put an end to the ignoble human trade. However, the first attempts to 127 Ivi, p. 115. In 1882 Egypt was occupied by the British forces who wished to secure their trading route to India through the Suez Canal. As a matter of fact, already in 1876 the Egyptian authorities were bankrupt 128 35 forbid this trade proved to be unsuccessful, as the Southern traders often fell outside the Egyptian authorities, therefore the decree emanated by the Egyptian viceroy Said in the late 1850s did not substantially alter the situation.129 Neither the expeditions of several British explorers and army’s members, such as Samuel Baker (1869) or Charles George Gordon (1874), whose mission was both to conquer all territories in the White Nile basin and to put an end to the trade were successful in the long run to eradicate the problem. In the meanwhile, the British and Sudanese histories became more and more intermingled, as in 1877 the British affirmed their presence within the region by appointing Charles George Gordon, an expert British General who also served in China during the Second Opium War, as Sudan’s Governor-General.130 In fact, the appointment of a foreigner as Governor-General was nothing new, as the Khedive Ismail, the Turco-Egyptian highest authority, was actually used to appoint strangers, specifically French and Americans, to serve under its directives.131 Between 1877 and 1880, Governor-General Gordon attempted to appease the region which was experiencing a period of continuous unrest due to the war with neighbouring Ethiopia (1875-76);132 to discipline the Sudanese military, which still suffered from a high rate of multi-ethnicity, insubordination and lack of discipline; finally, to put a definite end to the slave trade. However, all the considerable successes he obtained during his administration133 were progressively undermined by his inconsistent successions, which proved to be unprepared and ineffective in dealing with the situation.134 In such a context of resurrected slave trade and administrative weakness from the central government of Cairo, and social effervescence, a wave of first nationalistic sentiment flourished, posing a serious threat to the Anglo-Egyptian authority. The leader heading the and put under the continental powers’ supervision of United Kingdom and France. For further studies, see D. Halvorson, Prestige, Prudence and Public Opinion in the 1882 British Occupation of Egypt, “Australian Journal of Politics and History”, Vol. 56, No. 3, 2010, pp. 423-440; 129 A. Moore-Harell, Slave Trade..., p. 116. 130 For he served in China, Major Gordon was also known as Chinese Gordon, and was often referred to by Chinese leaders during their official speeches in Sudan to emphasize the common historical bonds linking the two countries. M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit., p. 26. 131 A. Moore-Harell, The Turco-Egyptian Army in Sudan on the Eve of the Mahdiyya, 1877-80, “International Journal of Middle East Studies”, Vol. 31, No. 1, (February) 1999, pp. 19-37. 132 Ibidem. 133 Despite his short administration time-span, Gordon managed to modernize and innovate the Sudanese army within the region by introducing different military units in accordance with the ethnic origins of each troop (Egypt, Sudanese or southern Sudanese); partly undermined the slave trade through the collaboration of reliable army members; and successfully carried on some military intervention in Kordofan, Somali coast, Darfur and Bahr al-Ghazal. See, ivi, p. 31-33. 134 M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit., p. 27. 36 movement, Muhammad Ahmed ibn as Sayyid Abdallah, was both a spiritual leader, advocating the return to the purity of the forgotten Islam, and a nationalistic patriot, encouraging his compatriots to chase the Turks.135 Originating from the Dongola region, after spending most of his life in religious asceticism, he proclaimed himself as the Mahdi, namely the spiritual descendent of the Prophet that would have headed the jihad, the holy war against the infidels, and then proclaimed his Mahadiship.136 Together with reviving the strictest rules of Islam, such as the abstention from alcohol and tobacco, the Mahdi harshly opposed the foreign dominators, as they were deemed responsible for the condition of popular oppression and custom degradation within the Muslim community. These ideas were rapidly take up by the populations, and by 1882 the Mahdist community reached up to 30’000 recruits who armed themselves with swords, marched towards the city of Al Ubayyid, and conquered the region of Kordofan, after defeating the Egyptian army.137 Feeling threatened by the growing military power of the Mahdist community, the British government under Gladstone ordered the Egyptians to leave the country, but it was soon after convinced by Gordon, just appointed as the Governor-General for the second time, to organize a military expedition to prevent the Mahdi from conquering Khartoum, as the country was deemed of outmost importance for the Egyptian security. However, the British support arrived too late, and found that the Sudanese capital had already been captured in 1885, and Gordon ferociously murdered.138 This very same destiny would shortly affect the main Sudanese cities, as actually only Sawakin and Wadi Alfa, in the northern part of the country, remained under the control of the AngloEgyptians. Hence, in 1885 the Mahdist regime (the Mahdiyya) was established, comprising the territorial areas of Kordofan, Darfur (almost completely), crossing the Ethiopian border until the Tana Lake.139 Although it lasted only thirteen years, the Mahdiyya experience left an important heritage which would affect at length the historical development of the contemporary Sudan, both in terms of religious and political influences. This was due to the fact that for the first time in the Sudanese history an Islamic unitarian state was built upon the Islamic five pillars, albeit slightly modified by the Mahdi,140 after getting rid of the traditional 135 Ibidem. L. Kapteijn, Mahdist Faith and the Legitimization of Popular Revolt in Western Sudan, “Africa”, Vol. 55, No. 4, 1985, pp. 390-399. 137 M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit., p. 28. 138 Ibidem. 139 Look at map No. 5. 140 The five traditional Islamic pillars are the following: the shahada, namely the confession that God is One and Muhammad his Prophet; the salat, namely the five-times daily prayers; the sawm, which imposes to respect the lunar month of Ramadam, during which all Muslims should fast and behave 136 37 theological books symbolizing the old order. Moreover, the death of the Mahdi, shortly after the conquest of Khartoum (1885), led his three chosen heirs to engage in a harsh conflict for the spiritual succession of the Mahdi.141 Therefore, this deeply-entrenched rivalry contributed to the formation of the Sudanese sectarianism which would take root and flourished under the Anglo-Egyptian administration. Map 5: State formation and changing boundaries. Source: J. Ryle, J. Willis, S. Baldo, and J. Madut Jok, The Sudan Handbook, Rift Valley Institute, 2012, London, p. 107, available at: www.riftvalley.net. The three caliphs kept fighting against each other until 1891 before Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, thanks to some help provided from the Arabs, imposed himself as the Khalifa, meaning “the successor”, at the head of the Mahdiyya. From a religious perspective he tried to take his predecessor’s baton, as the precocious death of the Mahdi left his pan-Islamic desire to unite all the Muslim countries unaccomplished. Hence, when Abdallahi ibn Muhammad came to power, after defeating all potential rivalries, comprising the Mahdi family, he properly; the zakat, namely the offering of a certain amount of one’s own saving to the needy; finally, the hajj, namely the pilgrimage, for those who can afford it, to visit the Holiest city of Mecca. However, the Mahdi introduced some changes to the five pillars: first he made a declaration to be added to the traditional prayers of Salat which read: “and Muhammad Ahmad is the Mahdi of God and the representative of His Prophet”; second, he replaced the pillar of hajj with the jihad, namely the holy war; third, he imposed that the Zakat should have been directed towards the state. M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit., p. 29. 141 A. S. Sidahmed, Politics and Islam in Contemporary Sudan, Curzon Press, Richmond, 1997, p.6. 38 strongly committed himself to the jihad to spread his heighted version of Islam throughout the world, therefore engaging in several ambitious expeditions.142 With these lenses we can read the invasion of Ethiopia in 1887, which also marked the zenith of the Mahdiyya strength, after which the Mahdist state progressively declined. Several factors contributed to this process: firstly, if on the one hand the replacement by the Mahdi of the traditional Islamic pillar of the pilgrimage to the Mecca – the hajj – with the holy war – the jihad – served to revive and to expand the religious fervour, on the other hand it also attracted the discontent of many Sudanese Muslims who saw the long-lasting Islamic tradition irremediably altered;143 secondly, the Mahdiyya had to face an inner uprising in region of Darfur (1888) which undermined the authority of the central government; thirdly, the serious famine affecting the Sudan between 1889-1890 created devastating effects on the population and on the state coffers.144 As a consequence, the weakened condition of the state was also reverberated into the army, as the early 1890s the Mahdist army faced several defeats: the first against the Anglo-Egyptian army, which reacted after the Mahdist attempt to invade Egypt (1889); the second against the Belgians, who managed to halt the Sudanese invasion of Equatoria region, which is located in the Southern part of the country, along the White Nile, up to the Nuba mountains; finally, against the Italian troops, which obliged the Sudanese to withdraw from Ethiopia in 1894.145 3.2. The Anglo-Egyptian administration and the Sudan on the eve of independence Given the growing presence of the European powers in the African continent, and the weakened condition of the Mahdiyya, in the early 1890s the Egyptians were already preparing for reconquering the Sudanese territory, as they “wanted to establish control over the Nile to safeguard a planned irrigation dam at Aswan”.146 Thus, an Anglo-Egyptian expedition was launched in 1896, during which the British General Kitchener guided a several thousandmixed army to head towards the city of Omdurman, next to Khartoum. The military campaign lasted until the Khalifa died in the battlefield three years later. Shortly after then, the 1899 G. Warburg, Sudan during the Mahdist State, “Middle Eastern Studies”, Vol. 47, No. 4, 2011, pp. 675-682. 143 Ivi, p. 680. 144 Ibidem. 145 M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit., p. 30. 146 Ibidem. 142 39 Anglo-Egyptian Agreement officially establishing the common administration over the Sudan was signed. According to Abdel Rahim, the decision over the legal status of the Sudanese territories was an issue of no easy resolution for the British, as they were uncertain whether to directly take control over the region or to establish a more flexible influence.147 This uncertainty was due to the fact that if on the one hand the government did not want to annex the Sudan as this would have meant to bear all the ensuing administrative financial costs, on the other hand the British were also disappointed to prefigure the country under the Ottoman Egypt. Hence, the decision to establish a “hybrid form of government” was made by Lord Cromer, the representative of the British at the negotiating table, which would have allowed the United Kingdom to “become the de facto ruler of the country, without having to shoulder the costs of his administration, and which, at the same time, gave the Egyptians the satisfaction of seeing themselves as the co-governor of the Sudan”.148 Therefore, the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement was crafted in order to make the British rule over the country and to make the Egyptians finance its costs. Contrary to what is commonly suggested by referring to the 1899 Agreement as the “Condominium” Agreement, which implies the subjugation of the Sudanese sovereignty under the two signatories countries, from a deeper scrutiny it has been argued that the agreement (officially “the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement for the Administration of the Sudan”) did not expressly refer to the country’s sovereignty and, according to some, from a strictly legal viewpoint, the Ottoman Empire’s rule over the country resulted untouched.149 However, according to the majority of the literature, the 1899 Agreement officially established a condominium, therefore it placed the country under the joint rule of British and the Egyptians.150 Whatever legal status was officially recognized in the Agreement, the substance was clearly shaped in accordance with the British willingness to overcome the Egyptians in the management of the country. This is reflected by the content of the Agreement, which reads that Her Britannic Majesty’s Government, “by right of conquest”, could participate, “in the present settlement and the future working and development of the said system of 147 M. Abdel Rahim, op. cit., p. 31. Ibidem. 149 For the sake of completeness, we must also refer to those theories which challenge the very legal capability of the Khedive to lawfully sign the Agreement, as it was officially at the dependence of the Ottoman Empire’s central authority, therefore not formally authorized to sign international treaties. See ivi, p. 32. 150 M. Abdel Rahim, op. cit., p. 10; M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit., p. 31. 148 40 administration and legislation”.151 In the Agreement’s Preamble, only incidental reference is actually made to His Highness the Khedive of Egypt, which is only mentioned in reference to the Anglo-Egyptian joint military and financial efforts that had been made to reconquer the lost territories.152 Furthermore, article III stated that the supreme military and civil command of the country would be embodied by the “Governor-General of the Sudan”,153 which shall be appointed and removed by the Khedive, on the recommendation and consent of the British government. This article represented the very essence of the Sudanese administration system, as it reflects the political balance of power between the two governments. In effect, if on the one hand the Khedive had the right to officially appoint and remove the Sudanese highest authority, it only played a formal ratifying role, while the British were the ones proposing the nominees, therefore having the substantial political power in the country. As a matter of fact, it was no coincidence that all the Governor-Generals under the Anglo-Egyptian Administration were British. From a legislative viewpoint, all Sudanese laws, orders, and regulations were to be promulgated by the Governor-General, and should have applied to all the territory of the Sudan. Besides, in order not to give the Egyptian government the possibility to take any legislative initiative, article V declared that no Egyptian law, decree, ministerial arête or other acts should apply to the territory of the Sudan, nor the Egyptian jurisdiction of the mixed tribunals shall have applied.154 The reactions to the treaty were mostly negative, as it seemed that it left no satisfied parties, except from the British. Conservative diplomats argued that they were disappointed by the artificial creation of this doubtful entity whose status was “unknown to the law of Europe”;155 likewise, the Ottoman Sultan expressed his protests, though he remained unheeded, and the Egyptian population felt it was betrayed by the Khedive élite, for it subjugated the Sudan, traditionally under its authority, to a foreign influence, paving the way 151 The Preamble of the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement, 1899, the full text of which can be found in the Appendix of M. Abdel Rahim, op. cit., p. 233. 152 To this concern, Rahim also notices that no reference is made to the precise proportions of costs which have been shouldered by the two parties. Ivi, p. 33. 153 To the purpose of the 1899 Agreement, Article I defined “the Sudan” with three categories of territory under the 22nd parallel: the first one referred to all those territories which have been never evacuated by the Egyptians since 1882, namely Wadi Halfa and Sawakin, which had always been under the control of the Egyptians; the second category comprised those territories which have been administrated, but then temporarily lost by the Khedive, and they have been reconquered by the Anglo-Egyptian joint forces; this was to exclude some territories in the Equator and the Somali coast which fell under the Ottoman Egyptian Empire as it was in 1881 (therefore nominally to be restored), but were outside of the British strategic interests in the continent; finally, the third one referred to the territories potentially conquered in the future, therefore considering the possibility for the two governments to expand the Sudanese borders. See M. Abdel Rahim, op. cit., pp. 36-37. 154 Article V and VIII of the 1899 Anglo-Egyptian Agreement. 155 M. Abdel Rahim, op. cit., p. 37. 41 to a growing discontent among the Egyptian nationalists which eventually led them to the revolution of 1919. As a matter of fact, Cromer himself was forced to admit that the treaty was “the child of opportunism”, and that it “should eventually die and make way for some robust, because more real political creation”.156 Despite these critics and the willingness to amend the treaty, the Egyptian Revolution occurring in 1919 and the ensuing declaration of independence ending the protectorate from the British in 1922 prevented the two governments from agreeing over a new formula. As a result, the system established by the 1899 Agreement, lasting untouched for more than fifty years, would provide the legal and administrative basis upon which the independent Sudan would build its institutions. As far as the territorial management under the Anglo-Egyptian administration is concerned, the pre-existent territorial partition dividing the country into provinces, districts and units remained mostly unaltered.157 Similarly, the foreign administration deemed convenient to keep both the fiscal and civil legislations in line with the traditional Sudanese customs, as they were considered to be effective in the domains of tax collection, personal disputes, marriages, divorce and inheritance; therefore, the latter was still dominated by the Sharia law. By contrast, a criminal and a penal codes were introduced in 1899 along the lines of the British colonial codes. In the immediate aftermath of the end of hostilities, the higher positions within the administrative system were firmly held by British military officials, so that the early phase of the joint condominium was described as “an autocracy on military lines for civil purposes”.158 Afterwards, moving from the pacification to the construction phase, a slow process of gradual shift of power, from the military to the civilian rule took place, as a growing number of civilians became eligible to hold the Governor position within the provincial administration. As reported by Sidahmed, in 1912 only two civilians Governors were appointed, rising to five in 1914, up to fourteen in 1933.159 However, the nationality of the higher positions was still predominantly English, as Cromer was likely to maintain what he called “an efficient” administrative and bureaucratic apparatus. From the early 1920s, in accordance with the traditional model of British colonial domination, the “Indirect Rule” was applied throughout the country, which generally differed from the “Direct Ruling” model favoured by the French insofar the British relied on the advisory relations with the local 156 Cromer, Modern Egypt, p. 33, in ibidem. Ivi, p. 39. 158 Ivi, p. 41. 159 Ivi, p. 44. 157 42 authorities, still exercising a consistent control over the territories and their communities.160 In the case of the Sudan, despite the fact that during the early pacification phase they were not considered to be an integral part of the system of power, local chiefs progressively acquired a more and more collaborative and autonomous role within the country: as reported by Abushouk, in 1920, out of more 4’000 positions in the government, more than 1’500 were held by Sudanese, while only 535 by the British and more than 1’800 by Egyptians.161 This process of “Sudanization”, namely the replacing of Anglo-British officers with Sudanese, occurring during the early 1920s was aimed at supporting the new British policy towards the country which was proclaimed after the Egyptian revolution broke out in 1919. Threatened by the Egyptian nationalists, who in 1919 issued a declaration claiming the independence of Egypt from the British Crown –and therefore of the Sudan–, the British legal interpretation of the 1899 Agreement shifted from being in favour of a joint administration to a more assertive condominium, which would allow them to legitimately claim their sovereignty over the Sudanese territory.162 However, this political experiment of Sudanization of the civil servants lasted until 1924, as it proved to seriously undermine the English authority over Khartoum, for it fuelled a Sudanese nationalistic movement strongly backing the Egyptians. Sudanese nationalism is known to be one of the most difficult topic to be properly analysed, as it implies a clear-cut definition of the Sudanese identity, whose boundaries are hard to draw. In effect, throughout history the Sudan’s territory has been subjected to a number of different kingdoms and communities which have contributed to shape new forms of identity by altering the pre-existing ones. From the Kush and Funj kingdoms to the Mahdist state, numerous and different kinds of Sudanese identities were created, at times artificially reunited under the same foreign domination, as the Turco-Egyptian or the Anglo-Egyptian experiences showed. Additionally, as already hinted upon, being the Sudanese identity one of the factor having caused the most ferocious and long-lasting civil conflict of the history of the continent, it can be rightly argued that a common nationalistic identity is hard to be found. These considerations notwithstanding, some have rightly pointed out that the common understanding of the African and Asian ideas of “nation” have historically emerged in M. Crowder, Indirect Rule: French and British Style, “Africa: Journal of the International African Institute”, Vol. 34, No. 3, (July) 1964, pp. 197-205, p. 199. 161 A. I. Abushouk, The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan: From Collaboration Mechanism to Party Politics, 1898-1956, “The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History”, Vol. 38, No. 2, (June) 2010, pp. 207-236, p. 211. 162 M. Abdel Rahim, op. cit., p. 63. 160 43 response to the colonial domination within those areas.163 Accordingly, most of the literature agrees on the fact that the historical origins of the first modern and consistent form of Sudanese nationalism date back to the Anglo-Egyptian condominium, when a patriotic spirit on the cry of “the Sudan for the Sudanese” seduced the hearts and minds of the younger generations who used an anti-imperialistic rhetoric to fuel the quest for independence from the British.164 More specifically, according to Sidahmed, the modern concept of Sudanese nationalism was influenced by the Mahdist twofold legacy, insofar it conferred both a religious dimension and the seeds of disputes and inner conflicts to the liberation struggle which developed shortly after the Anglo-Egyptian conquest.165 In addition, between the late 1910s the early 1920s, a number of historical events irreparably affected the relations between the British, Egyptians and the Sudanese by altering the equilibrium, albeit precarious and “opportunistic”, which has characterized the early period of the joint administration in the Sudan. In the aftermath of the Great War, after the British-Egyptians relations worsened following the former’s claim to establish a protectorate over the latter, and the ensuing declaration of independence issued in 1919 by Egypt marking the beginning of the Egyptian revolution, the educated Northern Sudanese started to develop an anti-imperialistic attitude against the British, which were allegedly responsible for the subjugation of the population and the religious degradation the Muslims had been reduced to. As reported by Abdel Rahim, the tension was highly perceptible as a number of forceful letters and articles circulated among the élite, which opposed the Sudanese government pro-British official policy, and which claimed that “…the aim of this [British] policy is to create divisions between the different tribes and to gain the help of one against the other…They [the English] have appropriated your lands which you possess by legal rights…They deprive you of your liberty and your rights, forcing you to sell your products to their English companies at the lowest prices…The Government is also introducing Christianity throughout the Southern Sudan. What more proofs do you wish of their bad institutions than the fact that in Khartoum itself there are six Churches and only one mosque…”.166 The nationalists were reacting against the Sudanese government and its official propaganda, which operated through the newspaper al-Hadara, keeping the populations under 163 A. S. Sidahmed, op. cit., p. 20. M. Abdel Rahim, op. cit.; M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit.; P. M. Holt, Sudanese Nationalism and SelfDetermination, Part I, “The Middle East Journal”, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Summer) 1956, pp. 239-247; P. M. Holt, Sudanese Nationalism and Self-Determination, Part II, “The Middle East Journal”, Vol. 10, No. 4, (Autumn) 1956, pp. 368-378. 165 A. S. Sidahmed, op. cit., p. 21. 166 Official Translation Milners Papers, Oxford. Extracts from the original letter, in Arabic, have been reproduced in Najila, in M. Abdel Rahim, op. cit., p. 104. 164 44 a constant and openly pro-British media bombing.167 By contrast, the Sudanese youth who had the possibility to study at the Gordon College in Sudan and experienced the flows of the British administrations, were growingly sceptical about the rhetoric of al-Hadara, and were relying on their brothers, the Egyptians, who were experiencing the same kind of foreign domination, and would supposedly leave the Sudan as soon as they managed to get the independence for themselves. This tense situation worsened as soon as the Egyptian revolution broke out in 1919 as, after unilaterally proclaiming the independence, the Egyptians also claimed their sovereignty over the Sudan, therefore compelling the English troops to evacuate the country. Given the British refusal, supported by the “condominium” interpretation of the treaty, a period of escalating conflict erupted which culminated in the violent rebellion of 1924. Actually, the casus belli was represented by the assassination of the British Governor-General, Lee Stack, taking place in Egypt, which caused the Governor-General of the Sudan to compel all the Egyptian troops to withdraw from the Sudan.168 In solidarity with the Egyptian troops, on November, 27 a handful of men from the 11th Sudanese Battalion rebelled against the British command and started to fight until they were quickly crushed by the British forces, putting an end to this early attempt of nationalistic revolt. Among the causes of this failure, there certainly was the lack of popular support. In fact, up to the mid-1920s, self-determination and nationalistic ideals were mainly confined among the most educated of the Sudanese urban intelligentsia which had created some organizations, but whose popular leverage was still very limited.169 Among the most important there was the Sudanese Union Society (SUS), and the White Flag League (WFL). As for the former, it was officially established in 1920 by graduates either of the Gordon College or the military school, mostly government officers; by contrast, the WFL, having a more militant character, was founded in 1924 by a Dinka former military officer, Ali Abd al Latif, who had been arrested some years earlier because of his nationalistic orientation. The WFL asked for the British withdrawal and, along the Egyptian line, for the Union of the Nile Valley.170 However, after the failure of the 1924 revolt, the nationalist movements’ leaders were either killed, arrested or exiled, marking the temporary end of the Sudanese irredentism. In the late 1930s, the nationalistic wave resurrected as the “Graduates General Congress” gathering the Sudanese élite was established, and advocated for the direct participation in the 167 Ibidem. A. S. Sidahmed, op. cit., p. 22. 169 Ivi, p. 21. 170 Ibidem. 168 45 political life of the country, in response of the process of negotiation of the 1936 AngloEgyptian Treaty of Alliance, which set a time for the end of the British military occupation of Egypt, but it did not solve the issue of the future status of the Sudan.171 Among the nationalists themselves, different views were supported by different groups: on the one hand there were the Unionists (Ashiqqa), who advocated the Unity of the Nile Valley with Egypt, backed by the Khatmiyya religious sect, whose leader was Ali al Mirghani; while on the other hand there were the supporters of the independence stance, backed by the Ansar sect, and led by the Mahdi’s son, Abd ar Rahman al Mahdi. The two represented the main groups within the country, which emerged in the condominium period and formed the basis for the formation of the Sudanese parties. In fact, on the eve of the Sudanese independence, these two fronts were already crystallized in two political parties comprising both some sectarian and elitist elements, namely the National Unionist Party (NUP), which emerged from the ashes of the Ashiqqa; and the Umma party, which was established in 1945 under the renovated slogan “the Sudan for the Sudanese”.172 Throughout the 1930s, the nationalists tended to keep a low profile and maintained a good relationship with the colonial rulers, until the breaking out of the World War II allowed the Congress to revive the nationalistic cause by presenting the British administration a pledge for self-determination, and to end the Southern Policy. In the light of the new international order emerged in the aftermath of the war, and given the growing stances of the supporters of the decolonization process, in 1948 the British mitigated their colonial policy by holding the Sudanese Legislative Assembly elections, which would allow the represented Sudanese population to give their contribution to the works of the advisory executive council.173 However, the strong opposition manifested by the Egyptians led the NUP to boycott the voting, therefore giving room for the Umma party to dominate both the political scenario and the process of negotiation of the self-determination agreement signed by the Egyptian, English, and Sudanese governments (1953). This Agreement, as hinted upon, has been the result of a number of different, mainly international, factors which forced the British to progressively dismantle their Empire. Officially “the Agreement between the Egyptian Government and the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland concerning Self-Government and Self-Determination for the Sudan”, this treaty foresaw the independence roadmap for the Sudan by establishing a transitional period, which was not to exceed three years’ time, during which “the sovereignty 171 M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit., p. 36. Ibidem; A. S. Sidahmed, op.cit., p. 23. 173 M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit., p. 36; see also infra. 172 46 of the Sudan shall be kept in reserve for the Sudanese until Self-Determination is achieved”.174 Therefore, in the meanwhile, the Sudan would have acquired self-government; the Governor-General’s duties would have been exercised in accordance with a mixed commission comprising an English, two Sudanese, an Egyptian and a Pakistani officers; and several other mixed bodies would have been formed aiming at “Sudanizing”, within three years, the administration, the police and all Sudanese public services.175 Once again, it is important to notice that the Sudanese political history was highly intermingled with the Egyptian one as the 1953 Agreement was signed after the Egyptian military coup d’état took place. In effect, in 1952, Colonel Muhammad Naguib and General Gamal Abdel Nasser deposed King Farouk, marking the beginning of the Republic of Egypt. In particular, the Neguib era marked a turning point of the Egyptian-Sudanese relations, as the Egyptian Colonel was convinced that so long as Egypt was ruled by a King whose realm, in theory, included the Sudan as well as Egypt, it was impossible for them [the British and the Egyptian governments] to play what they could not but regard as a British game. It seemed to me, however, that having rid ourselves of a King who had been as unpopular in Sudan as he had been in Egypt, we could beat the British at their game simply by calling their bluff.176 Therefore, when the 1953 Agreement was signed, if on the one hand the Egyptians were willing “to recognize Sudan’s right to complete independence”177 and the country’s territorial sovereignty by withdrawing all Egyptian troops within three years’ time, on the other hand, Colonel Naguib also signed an informal agreement with all Sudanese Parties aimed at furthering his nationalistic cause to unite the Nile Valley. As stated by Naguib himself, it was the right time to unite all the different pro-Egyptian Sudanese political elements into a single National Unionist Party (NUP) that “would be strong enough to defeat the pro-British coalition dominated by the Umma party.”178 Hence, on the eve of the Sudanese independence, the external influences over the country’s parties, the Egyptians and the British on opposite sides, were strong. 174 Agreement between the Egyptian Government and the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland concerning Self-Government and Self-Determination for the Sudan, the content of which can be found in Appendix IX of M. Abdel Rahim, op. cit., p. 257. 175 Ibidem. 176 M. Naguib, Egypt’s Destiny, Victor Gollancz Ltd., London, 1955, pp. 241-242. 177 Ivi, p. 244. 178 Ivi, p. 245. 47 It was in such a polarized and still fragile context that the first national elections were held in late 1953, pursuant to the Agreement, when the first Sudanese parliament and government were to be formed. In addition to some records describing the electoral process as problematic and often not abiding to the international standards,179 several complaints were made by political parties denouncing some attempts by British and Egyptians officers to influence the results.180 However, considering the fact that it was the first time the Sudanese were asked to directly participate to their country’s political life, nearly 50% of all qualified voters participated in the elections, and the opinion of the international Mixed Electoral Commission was overall positive.181 As for the results, the NUP affirmed its majority in both the Parliamentary branches: in the House of Representatives it won 51 out of 97 seats, the Umma Party 22, and the remaining ones were divided between the Republican Socialist Party (RSP) (3), the Southern Party (9), and non-party members (11); also in the Senate the NUP won 22 seats, and out of the 20 members appointed by the Governor-General, half of them were chosen among the victorious party. Shortly after the parliament was convened, in early 1954, Sayyid Ismail al-Azhari, the leader of the NUP became the first Sudanese Prime Minister, at the head of a cabinet prevailed by unionists, whose aim was now to boost the process of selfdetermination and Sudanization of the country. In the period following the parliamentary elections, a great debate over the future of the country inflamed the politicians, and the public opinion alike.182 Although the Unionists had always claimed the common history, language, and cultural bonds linking the Sudan and Egypt under the notorious slogan of “the Unity of the Nile Valley”, according to Abdel Rahim, the acclaimed political unity with Egypt was only to be considered as a preliminary step before gaining the independence of the country, instead of a goal per se.183 This ideal was the one driving the majority of the NUP members, and it explained the harsh reaction some Unionist Minsters showed by withdrawing their support from the Prime Minister in response 179 This was particularly due to the widespread nomadism and illiteracy, which caused several polls to be located outside their own constituencies; or forced the officers to adopt alternative voting methods to the traditional tickets voting, such as tokens or colors, or in some cases, the acclamation method. See M. Abdel Rahim, op. cit., p. 217. 180 J. Willis, A. El-Battahni, P. Woodward, Elections in Sudan, Learning from Experience, Rift Valley Institute, Commissioned by the UK Department for International Development, 2009, p. 16, available at: www.riftvalley.net; 181 Ibidem, p. 16. 182 This debate was fuelled by the fact that the 1953 Agreement provided for the possibility for the Sudanese government to choose after the end of the three-years transitional period the future status of their country. See Agreement between the Egyptian Government and the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland concerning Self-Government and Self-Determination for the Sudan, the content of which can be found in Appendix IX of M. Abdel Rahim, op. cit., p. 257. 183 M. Abdel Rahim, op. cit., p. 221. 48 to his hesitation to openly claim the Sudanese independence.184 Due to this kind of pressures, Prime Minster al-Azhari was eventually obliged to take an official pro-independent stance, accelerating the self-determination process. However, even though the government intensions were clearly manifested, the path towards independence was not as smooth as expected, as the Sudanese government had to face continuous Egyptian attempts to address the political life of the country in accordance to its own strategic ends. This has been, for instance, the case of the mutiny taking place in 1954 by an Egyptian-backed branch of the Sudanese army which invaded the Southern provinces to force the government to change its attitude towards the independence versus unity issue.185 Facing all these “Egyptian interferences” in the Sudanese internal affairs, in December 1955 Khartoum’s Parliament was then persuaded that the long and complex procedure enshrined in the 1953 Agreement to finally obtain self-determination was to be shortened by issuing a resolution officially proclaiming the long-sought independence. As it read: “We, the Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled, declared in the name of the Sudanese people that the Sudan is to become a fully independent sovereign state.” 186 On the 31st of December, the Transitional Constitution was approved proclaiming the independence of the Sudan, which was officially celebrated the day after, on the 1st of January, 1956. The proclamation of the Sudanese independence ultimately marked the entrance of the country in the international community of the states. Moreover, the self-determination of the Sudan, to be considered as one and independent, also marked the end, albeit not the resolution, of the British policy towards the Southern provinces, which harmfully characterized the condominium period, and which became known as the “Southern Policy” we will now briefly turn. After being occupied by the British at a later stage compared to the rest of the Sudanese territory because of the natural barriers characterizing the region, the Southern area was divided into three main provinces, namely Mangalla, Bahr al-Ghazal and Upper Nile. According to some scholars, the Southern Policy exercised over this area can be divided into two periods: the first one going from 1899 to 1919, and the second one from 1919 to 1947. Bearing in mind that this kind of policy was being exercised by the British through the 184 Ivi, p. 222. Ivi, p. 225. 186 Weekly Digest of Proceedings in the House of Representatives, No. 13, Third Session, 19-24 December 1955, p. 586, in ivi, p. 226. 185 49 Government of Khartoum, in the name of the “Indirect Rule” principle, it has been argued that in the first period the Sudanese government set up a liberal policy of laissez-faire towards the South. In particular, given the territorial difference with the Northern part of the country, no major infrastructural projects were financed by the central administration, except for the ones which were deemed necessary. Hence, the region fate was mainly left to Christian missionaries and societies, which would hopefully help the local population to acquire some form of education and development.187 With the Egyptian revolution of 1919, Khartoum and the British started to fear the potential Arab threats coming from Cairo, and decided to turn their liberal and mostly careless policy into a more assertive and defensive one. In 1922, when Egypt officially gained independence from the United Kingdom a number of Ordinances (the so-called “Close Door Ordinances”) were passed aiming at restricting both the access of foreigners in the country and the Sudanese freedom of movement.188 Hence, trading and movements were progressively reduced: Southern people going northward in order to look for a job were prevented from doing so, and Arab traders going southward were kept under scrutiny. Furthermore, Southern local traditions and the English language were encouraged at the expense of the Arab ones. The reaction to such a kind of segregationist policy was harsh, so that the in 1946, the Sudan Administrative Conference convened in Juba to decide upon the future of the South decided to administer the Sudan as one country. As such, the freedom of movement was reestablished by banning the Ordinances, the Conference reopened the Southern posts to Northerners, and introduced the Arabic as the official language.189 However, instead of welcoming the Northerners as liberators from the English oppression, the Southerners felt threatened by the replacement of the English language with the Arabic, as the educated local English-speaking élite was cut off from the public service, therefore allowing the Northerners to overwhelm them. In 1955, these social tensions broke out in a violent clash when a Southern battalion mutinied against its Northern chief-official.190 Although this revolt represented a sporadic event, it undoubtedly signalled the presence of a deep-rooted historical, cultural, and economic gap which would compromise the Northern-Southern Sudanese relations at length. 187 Ivi, p. 74. Namely the Passports and Permits Ordinance and the Closed District Ordinance. 189 M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit., p. 38. 190 Ibidem. 188 50 3.3. Sudan after independence and its “reactive” foreign policy Once the Sudanese Parliament issued the independence declaration officially proclaiming the country’s self-determination, three major issues had been left by the colonial rulers which the independent state still had to deal with: the first was the crafting of a permanent Sudanese constitution; the second one was the Sudanese economic fragility; finally, the last one was the Southern issue.191 To those, and their relating matters, the following pages will be dedicated, before turning to the analysis of the Sudanese post-colonial foreign policy. As for the first issue, the country obtained independence without the main political parties having decided over the content of a permanent constitution. In theory, the self-determination process as set up by the 1953 Agreement, foresaw that after the end of the transitional threeyear period, the Sudanese Parliament would have expressed its intention to acquire the independence through a resolution to be handed in to the Governor-General, who would have, in turn, notified to the British and Egyptian authorities. Then, the Parliament would have drafted an electoral law for the Constituent Assembly to be elected, in turn to be approved by the Governor-General.192 As previously noticed, on the eve of independence, this complex and long mechanism was bypassed by the Sudanese Parliament in response to several Egyptian attempts (more or less coercive) to make the Sudanese backing the unionist policy. Hence, the country reached independence having just a Transitional Constitution approved by the Parliament along the lines of the old Self-Government Statute. The provisional chart replaced the Governor-General with a Supreme Commission comprising 5 members, that had to be elected by a Parliament composed by an elective House of Representatives and an indirectly elected Senate. It was shaped on the “Westminster model”, therefore having the two branches of the Parliament controlling over the executive power; an independent judiciary; and a “reasonably well-staffed bureaucratic system”.193 The executive was attributed to a Prime Minister, nominated by the House of Representatives and confirmed by the Supreme Commission.194 This temporary chart was expected to be replaced as soon as the new state managed to stabilize, but the series of events quickly following 1956, above all the military 191 M. Abdel Rahim, op. cit., p. 71. Ivi, p. 224. 193 A. S. Fadlalla, The Search For A Constitution, in M. Abd Al-Rahim, R. Badal, A. Hardallo and P. Woodward (eds.), Sudan Since Independence, Gower Publishing Company Limited, Hants, 1986, p. 43. 194 M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit., p. 39. 192 51 coup of 1958, destabilized the still fragile political equilibrium, preventing a new constitution to be approved in a reasonable time-span.195 As far the Sudanese post-colonial political arena is concerned, the two traditional main parties surviving the turbulence of the independent era were the NUP and the Umma party which also played a major role in the period preceding 1956. The latter was created in the early 1950s under the influence of the Egyptian government, which aimed at consolidating the pro-unionist stance within the Sudanese intelligentsia in order to bring about the long-sought unity of the Nile Valley. At the moment of its formation, it incorporated several minor unionist groups, as well as the nucleus of the Ashiqqa, a movement originated in the 1930s comprising several graduated who favoured the political activism to pure intellectualism.196 On the other hand, the Umma Party, established in 1945, has always represented the nationalistic stance of the Sudanese intelligentsia. Among its features, it was characterized by the presence of the Ansar sect among its members, and was led by the Mahdist lineage. According to some authors, what grouped these two political parties together was the fact that, on the eve of independence, they both lacked a consistent and long-term political programme to organize the Sudanese post-colonial political arena.197 This was partly due to the fact that they emerged as combining a mix of quasi-liberal and religious-hierarchical features insofar the intelligentsia component coexisted with the sectarian one, though the two components were not always in harmony with each other. Besides, bringing together these different elements, it has also been argued that the traditional parties did not present any Islamic nor secular stance, as the Sudanese sectarianism tended to maintain its pragmatic character. 198 In addition to those traditional parties, albeit not as popular, there was also the Communist Party of Sudan (CPS) which combined the element of Marxism and political radicalism. It was created in 1945 by an educated group of Sudanese who had been introduced to the Marxist theories in Egypt, and then exported them into the Sudan after World War II. In 1946 they formed their own movement, the Sudanese Movement for National Liberation (SMNL), and spent the decade of 1940s recruiting members and organizing activities in concert with the growing Labour Movement, undergoing a process of reciprocal interaction and enrichment. By the 1970s it has been considered as the biggest and best organized Communist 195 As a matter of fact, as we will see, the Transitional Constitution will endure, albeit not uninterruptedly, until the 1972 permanent constitution was crafted, and incorporated into the Addis Ababa Agreement (1972). 196 A. S. Sidahmed, op. cit., p. 42. 197 Ibidem. 198 Ivi, p. 43. 52 Party of the Arab World, with more than half a million supporters, ranging from peasants and intellectuals to religious leaders.199 However, this party never gained as much political support as the traditionalist parties, and was destined to be part of the Sudanese political minority.200 Also the Islamic presence was consolidating in this period. In fact, the Sudanese “organic” branch of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, officially founded in 1928, was established in the country in 1945. Predictably enough, it was brought about under the Egyptian influence, which actually also appointed the first “director general” of the Sudanese branch, which was of Egyptian nationality.201 In the meanwhile, other three Islamic groups started to operate in the country: the first one under the name of the “Association of the Sudanese Students”; the second one created its “Islamic Liberation Movement” at the Gordon College, with no alleged connections with the Muslim Brotherhood; finally, the third one, the Republican party, appeared as a party having an Islamic connotation in 1951, but it would not be credible until the 1970s. In 1954, the leaders of the first three parties managed to unify under a common Islamic orthodoxy, based on the father of the Egyptian Brotherhood, Hasan al Banna, and created the Unified Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood, while the members of the Islamic Liberation Movement seceded and established another movement, al-Jamma al Islamiyya. However, the only Islamist party which would have had appeal among the younger generations was the Ikhwan, especially in the aftermath of independence, when they polarized either around the Ikhwan, or around the CPS.202 Summing up, although the presence of minority parties such as the Communist party or the Islamic Ikhwan should not be downplayed, in the aftermath of independence the traditional parties, featured by the pragmatism of the Sudanese religious sects and the organization of their intelligentsia, still dominated the Sudanese political arena, as they will be doing for a long time. As for the second post-colonial issue, it has been argued that the economic fragility characterizing the country in the aftermath of independence may be enumerated among the causes of the political crisis which erupted in 1958 and led to the military coup of General Abboud.203 In the mid-1950s, in fact, the country was far from developing its own economic strategy. Despite the fact that during the condominium the British tried to help strengthening 199 T. Y. Ismael, The Sudanese Communist Party, Ideology and Party Politics, Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, London and New York, 2013. 200 A. S. Sidahmed, op. cit., p. 44. 201 Ivi, p. 45. 202 Ivi, p. 46. 203 Ibidem. 53 the country’s revenues through some major infrastructural projects aimed at diversifying the agricultural plantations,204 the Sudanese economy was still relying on the export of cotton, gum Arabic, oil seeds and livestock, which were mostly exchanged with the United Kingdom and Egypt.205 In addition, the economic and the political spheres extensively intermingled as the two main parties had specific external trading links to honour: on the one hand, in fact, there was the Umma Party, which gathered the Sudanese businessmen mainly involved in the cotton trade with the British; while on the other hand there was the NUP, mainly comprising smaller traders, whose exchanges were highly interconnected with the Egyptians.206 In the aftermath of independence, after the Anglo-Egyptian balance of power was altered as they were not ruling the country anymore, also the political equilibrium teetered since both the countries wanted the preserve their influence over the former colony. The international crisis of the Suez Canal in 1956 contributed to exacerbate the parties’ polarization along ideological, as well as economic, lines. As a matter of fact, the Franco-English occupation of the Egyptian Canal after General Gamal Abdel Nasser announced its intention to nationalize it, and the ensuing occupation of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula by the Israeli forces, strengthened the Egyptians’ anti-Western radicalism allowing the NUP to set up a harsh antiimperialistic campaign undermining the Umma’s position.207 In 1958 this political tension concretized into a harsh argument between the Umma Party’s Secretary General, Abdullah Khalil, who was also appointed as Prime Minister after his party obtained the majority in the early 1958 elections,208 and the NUP, as they held irreconcilable views on the American offer of economic aid to face the country’s increasing difficulties. The relations between Washington and Khartoum dated back to 1956, when the US officially recognized the country shortly after its independence, and showed its favourable attitude to immediately contribute to The most important of which was the Gazira scheme, one of the world’s largest irrigation scheme provided by the British in the Sudanese state of Al Jazirah, between the Blue Nile and the White Nile, southest of Khartoum. For further information, see L. M. James, The Oil Boom and Its Limitations in Sudan, in Large D. and Patey L. A., (edited by), Sudan Looks East, China, India and the Politics Asian Alternatives, African Issue Series, James Currey, Suffolk (UK) and New York (USA), 2011; 205 Business and Politics, F. Babiker Mahmoud, Businessmen and Politics, in M. Abd Al-Rahim, R. Badal, A. Hardallo and P. Woodward (eds.), op. cit., p. 9. 206 Ivi, p. 13. 207 Ibidem. 208 After the Sudanese first elections was held in 1953, the government proved to be unstable due to sudden change of political allegiance by some party members. As a consequence, in early 1958 new elections were held, proclaiming the Umma party as the winner over the adversary NUP. However, according to the Rift Valley Report, the credibility of the elections was generally undermined by some logistic and practical problems arising especially in the rural areas, and by some “flagrant gerrymandering of constituencies, apparently intended to help Umma secure a clear majority”. In addition, the Umma Party resulted as the winner because of the weakened position of the NUP, as its leader Ismail al Azhari splitted from its historical religious sect, the Khatmiyya. See J. Willis, A. ElBattahni, P. Woodward, op. cit., p. 18. 204 54 relieve the country from its economic crisis.209 Yet, the NUP considered the American offer inacceptable as they perceived it just as an attempt to contain the Nasserist influence over the country, while on the other hand, the Umma Party preferred to keep a pro-Western stance.210 The situation collapsed as soon as the government imposed an austerity economic policy following an unforeseeable poor cotton harvest, causing the population to furiously react through street protests and popular upheavals. In light of this tense atmosphere faced by the country, the Umma called for external sources of aid. Thus, in 1958 the Khalil government signed a technical assistance agreement with the U.S., but harsh critics arouse both from inside the country – from the NUP party and the farmers, whose cotton was to be sold at a higher market price –, and from outside – from Egypt, in primis.211 This tense situation paved to way for a government crisis, the first faced by the independent Sudan, which led Prime Minister Khalil to hand over the power to General Ibrahim Abboud, at the head of a military coup orchestrated by the incumbent party, the Umma Party, in order to secure its power before the situation stabilized (what has been named a “coup by courtesy”).212 However, General Abboud quickly managed to entrench his power for some four years before the country could have come back to a civilian government. As stated by Woodward, the intervention was seen as a classic housekeeping intervention with Abboud and his fellow senior officers announcing that they would shortly hand back power to the civilians. However, the attractions of holding office, and the initial economic successes of the new regime, encouraged the officers to retain their posts.213 As a matter of fact, if on the one hand the multi-party system and all independent media organs were suppressed, the Transitional Constitution abolished, and the Parliament dissolved, setting up the basis for an autocratic regime to rule, on the other hand, the military managed to achieve some economic successes in the field of the cotton sale and in the accumulation of a surplus in the balance of payment thanks to the adoption of a pragmatic foreign-aid-relying policy. Furthermore, General Abboud managed to boost the development 209 M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit., p. 39. While since the Sudanese independence the Umma Party had maintained close relations with the United Kingdom, in light of the changing nature of the international balance of power, the AngloSudanese relations dimmed, until the British were eventually sustained (if not replaced) by the Americans with their relations with Khartoum, by virtue of their growing power in the international arena. 211 M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit., pp. 40-41. 212 A. S. Sidahmed, op. cit., p. 69. 213 P. Woodward, Military-Civilian Relations, in Willis, A. El-Battahni, P. Woodward, op. cit., p. 66. 210 55 of an indigenous private sector, “especially in the field of light industry, real estate, mechanised farming and pump schemes.”214 However, by 1964 the economic situation had worsened again, as the budget reserves were draining out, and the foreign debt was a heavy burden for the country to shoulder on its own. After months of general strikes, popular protests and civil movements asking for the military to hand over the power, in October the tensions between the government and the United Nationalist Front (UNF) gathering most of the civil society’s protesters became impossible to handle and General Abboud decided to dissolve the government and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, namely the military highest authority, and let the UNF to choose Sir al Khatim al Khalifa as a temporary Prime Minister to lead the transitional process (the so-called “October Revolution” of 1964).215 Determined to put an end to the long-entrenched factionalism which dominated the traditional parties, Khatim allowed only a restricted number of party politicians to participate in the cabinet: in fact, only 5 out of 15 posts were occupied by party members, while the others were destined to non-party Southerners, professionals and Communists.216 Under the provisional leftist government a number of innovative measures were adopted as, among other things, the right of vote was extended to women; a harsh anticorruption policy adopted; freedom of the press restored; and a land reform drafted.217 Traditional parties were cautious in dealing with this new government, as they found themselves excluded from the government for their first time since their formation. However, they were still deeply-rooted among the population, and their interests were so strong that the results of the 1965 elections confirmed their role at the head of the country. As a matter of fact, after some discussions about the timing,218 the elections attributed the majority of the seats to the Umma Party (75), followed by the NUP (52), and the People Democratic Party 214 A. S. Sidahmed, op. cit., p. 71. M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit., p. 42. 216 Ibidem. 217 A. S. Sidahmed, op. cit., p. 78. 218 The provisional government initially decided that national elections would be held in March 1965. However, the tense political situation in the South prevented the electoral process from taking place by that time, therefore a harsh discussion began to decide the timing and the methods of the polls. If on the one hand the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), namely the party formed in 1956 after a group of Khatmiyya members defected from the NUP and allied with the Umma Party under the 1956 coalition government, and the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP) opted to postpone the elections, on the other hand the traditional parties were willing to go voting as soon as possible. Later, the President of the Supreme Commission, namely the then Chief of State, decided for the second choice, and elections were then held in the Northern provinces in 1965, determining the PDP’s boycott. A different round for the national elections was envisaged to take place two years later, in 1967, in South, as the situation cooled down. The results of this “Southern round”, however, did not substantially altered the 1965 general results. See M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit., p. 42. 215 56 (PDP, established in 1956 by some previous members of the NUP). 219 Hence, a coalition Umma-NUP government was created, whose Prime Minster was the Umma leader, Muhammad Ahmad Mahjub, while the chief of state the NUP leader, Sayyid Ismail al-Azhari. However, the most considerable result was the one the Communists obtained, as they won several Parliamentary and graduated seats, most of the them coming from Khartoum’s geographical area.220 Coupling this incredible success with the growing influence of newlyborn Southern parties or movements, such as the Sudan African National Union (SANU), established in 1963, or the Southern Front, which also won a great number of seats in the 1967 elections held in the Southern regions, the incumbent government felt so threatened that pivoted its programme over two issues: the banning of the Communists and the resolution of the Southern question. As the removal of the Communist threat is concerned, Mahjub successfully made the Parliament approve a government decree officially outlawing the SCP and depriving it of its seats, causing the anger of the Communists who started to gather secretly. 221 Over the second issue, the government tried to definitely crush the Southern revolts by launching a military expedition after the failure of the 1965 Khartoum Round Table Conference seemed to prove the ineffectiveness of any diplomatic solution.222 However, the expedition was characterized by a high degree of brutality but no decisive defeat, as the major atrocities committed by the government forces against the civilians served to fuel the rebels’ desire of revenge towards the Northerners.223 In the meanwhile, the government was experiencing a situation of political volatility, as the two coalition parties disagreed over the decision of whether the Prime Minister or the President was to conduct the Sudanese foreign policy. Moreover, after Mahjub resigned in 1966, the Umma split and Sadiq al Mahdi became the new Prime Minister, supported by the 219 Furthermore, several doubts have been risen about the legitimacy of these elections, as they took place in a very tense and volatile political environment; in two different periods, as the Southern regions voted in 1967; and with a very low participation. See J. Willis, A. El-Battahni, P. Woodward, op. cit., p. 19; M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit., p. 43. 220 See J. Willis, A. El-Battahni, P. Woodward, op. cit., p. 19. 221 M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit., p. 43. 222 In the 1965 Conference held in Khartoum, no agreement was found over the future status of the Southern regions, since the traditional Northern parties, namely the Umma, NUP, PDP, strongly supported the unity option, and did not even contemplate the possibility of self-determination, or at least the federalist option, which were, by contrast, supported by the Sudanese African National Union (SANU) and by the Southern Front. See A. S. Sidahmed, op. cit., p. 84; and M. LeRiche and M. Arnold, op. cit., p. 25. 223 To further the analysis on the ongoing civil war between the North and the South see infra in this chapter. 57 majority of the Umma party, and by the NUP allies. His gradualist approach, however, was unpopular among both the army and the leftist elements, who asked for a socialist state to be established. These growing internal pressures reached their peak in 1966, as Sadiq refused to comply with a Supreme Court judgement reintroducing the SCP, and the Communists attempted to carry out a coup d’état supported by a Sudanese military unit. Although the Communists were crushed, they paved the way for a period of continuous change in the coalition formation and parties’ alliances, therefore creating a political vacuum eventually filled by the Free Officers’ Movement, which managed to seized power in May 1969 under the leadership of Jafar al-Nimairi.224 Among the main motivations which have been put forward by the Movement to justify the coup, there was the civilian government incapability to properly address the growing social-economic and political problems characterizing the Sudan from the mid-1960s; the paralysis of the decision-making process; finally, and more specifically, the failure to put a definite end to the civil war with the South which had been affecting the country for more than a decade. Over this last issue, which was also one of the most compelling question the Sudanese government inherited from the condominium period, Khartoum was actually dealing with a growing popular tension since the transitional phase started in 1953, during which the Southerners felt excluded from the process of administrative “Sudanization”, namely the replacement that was being carried out after the British withdrawal in favour of NorthernArab officers. In that context, as argued by the Southerners, Khartoum made a political choice when it imposed the Arabic as the national language, insofar it showed the clear intention of preventing the English-speaking élite from having access to the public administration of the Southern provinces. As stated by LeRiche and Arnold, more than a coherent conceptualization of “Southern-ess”, at that point “jobs” and “posts” were perceived “as a cardinal expression of enfranchisement and inclusion in the political system, arguably even more important than having representatives in an elected assembly”.225 By contrast, according to others, the root causes of the war can be traced back in the 1940s, as a proper nationalist identity was being crafted by the Southerners, who were grouped together by the fact of being English-speaking, Christian, and inhabitants of the same land, whose historical and territorial features differed from the Northern ones, as they had been at length the target of the slave trade, and they had resisted the processes of Islamization and Arabization the North went 224 M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit., pp. 43-47. M. LeRiche and M. Arnold, South Sudan. From Revolution to Independence, Hurst and Co., London, 2012, p. 15. 225 58 through.226 Since its early formation, however, the Southern identity was far from being monolithic, and such a diversity was inevitably reflected by the different ways each Southern group perceived the future political status of the region: on the one hand there were those who argued in favour of complete independence, others opted for a federal administration, but no defined orientation was defined at this early stage.227 However, no major clashes erupted between the North and the South until 1955, when a handful of Southerner soldiers placed in Torit (located in the contemporary Eastern Equatoria state of South Sudan) mutinied against a Northern official who had shot one of them as a demonstration against insubordination (the so-called “Torit Mutiny”). After seizing a munitions storehouse, they started to wipe out all the Northern soldiers and civilians they could find on their way, marking the beginning of the first Sudanese civil war (1955-1972).228 As stated by Joseph Lagu, a former junior officer of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and leading figure of the rebel group of the Anya Nya, initially the Southerners started to fight with their bare hands, loose organization and a few arms, against what they considered to be an illegitimate and unrepresentative government.229 During the late 1950s the Abboud administration contributed to worsen the situation as it strongly rejected the Southern federalist option, ending all attempts to peacefully solve the crisis.230 One of the symptoms of this growing pressure coming from the South was the creation of the more organized rebel group of Anya Nya (meaning “deadly poison” in the Mahdi language) in 1963 by a group of exiled Southern activists and military leaders, whose aim was to be integrated in the administrative apparatus of the Southern regions or avoiding arbitrary detention by the government.231 The North-South tension was slightly reduced when the Prime Minister of the October government decided to take into account the Southerners’ viewpoint by allowing some representatives to participate in the provisional government.232 However, what has been labelled as the “October honeymoon” did not last long, as the 1965 Conference held in Khartoum trying to reach an agreement between the parties proved Ø. H. Rolandsen, A False Start: Between War And Peace in the Southern Sudan, 1956–62, “The Journal of African History”, Vol. 52, No. 1, (March) 2011, pp.105-123; M. LeRiche and M. Arnold, op. cit., p. 15. 227 Ibidem. 228 J. Lagu, interviewed by Al-Jazeera, in the documentary: Sudan, History of a Broken Land, (January) 2011, available at: www.aljazeera.com/programmes/general/2011/01/201114134128217212.html. 229 J. Lagu, interviewed by Al-Jazeera, in the documentary: Sudan, History of a Broken Land, (January) 2011. 230 M. D'Agoôt, Understanding the lethargy of Sudan's periphery-originated insurgencies, “Small Wars and Insurgencies”, Vol. 24, No. 1, 2013, pp. 57-83, p. 62. 231 Ibidem. 232 See infra. 226 59 unsuccessful.233 Hence, the escalation of the conflict, coupled with the incapability of the various Umma-NUP coalition governments to face the growing role of the Anya Nya guerrilla under Joseph Lagu paved the way, in May 1969, for the seizure of power by the military junta guided by Jafar al-Nimairi. Since their birth, the Sudanese indigenous communities located in the Nile Valley have been characterized by mainly trading intercourses with their neighbours. Later on, after being influenced by the long-entrenched presence of Egypt throughout its modern history, the colonial Sudan has rarely had the opportunity to develop its own foreign policy. More specifically, under the joint Anglo-Egyptian administration (1899-1956) the external relations of the Sudan were mainly shaped by the economic and strategic interests of the foreign rulers, which contributed to develop intense trading exchanges mainly with London and Cairo. It was only after 1956 that the independent Sudan first had the opportunity to shape its own foreign policy which, however, had to balance itself between the extremely volatile political environment and the indirect influence of its former occupants, which would characterize the Sudanese political parties at length. Hence, in the period between the attainment of independence and the seizure of power of Jafar al-Nimairi (1956-1969), as some authors have suggested, the Sudanese foreign policy has been defined as a “reactive” one, as it still had to face major internal and external challenges which prevented the country from developing a more assertive and “proactive” attitude with the outside world.234 During most of its modern and contemporary history, the Sudan has been subjugated by external rulers who shaped the country’s foreign relations in accordance with their own interests. Both under the Turco-Egyptian occupation (1821-1885) and the Anglo-Egyptian condominium (1899-1956), Khartoum’s international relations were mainly directed towards London and Cairo, with whom it had consolidated profitable trading routes. As a matter of fact, in the 1920s the British heavily relied on the raw cotton supply provided by the Sudanese territory to fuel their textile industries in the Lancashire.235 To further their agricultural revenues, the British also financed some major agricultural projects, such as the large irrigated cotton-growing scheme in Gezira, Tokar, and some minor scheme in the Equatoria and Nubia 233 A. S. Sidahmed, op. cit., p. 83. P. Woodward, Sudan’s Foreign Relations since Independence, in D. Large and L. A. Patey (eds.), Sudan Looks East, China, India and the Politics Asian Alternatives, African Issue Series, James Currey, Suffolk (UK) and New York (USA), 2011; 235 L. M. James, op. cit., p. 54. 234 60 regions.236 These were also aiming at diversifying the Sudanese economy and to improve its cultivations’ supplies, however, they proved to be unsuccessful as, until the late 1970s, the Sudanese economy has mainly relied on harvesting, which proved to be highly volatile, because of its dependence on a number of natural factors such as the weather, and the international commodity market.237 It was after its independence that Sudan attempted to firstly shape its own foreign relations. At the beginning, predictably enough, it was not an easy task to balance all the indirect influences that were still being exercised by the former occupants in the Sudanese politics: on the eve of 1956, in fact, the Egyptians, seeking for the Unity of the Nile Valley, were backing the Unionist movement, then turned into the NUP; while the British, exploiting their economic leverage, were supporting the Umma Party and its nationalistic stance against the Egyptian influence.238 Hence, from the very aftermath of independence until the October Revolution, the Sudanese foreign policy has often responded to specific government interests, more than to the needs of the country as such.239 The two brief parliamentary periods following the independence (1956-1958 and 1965-1969) were mostly meaningless as far the Sudanese foreign policy is concerned, as both the civilian governments were preoccupied to mediate the different inter-parties interests and struggles for power. As a matter of fact, the first government crisis was actually provoked by divergent political views on whether the country should have accepted a US economic package or not.240 In 1969, on the eve of the coup led by Nimairi, Howell and Hamid wrote that for the most part of Sudan’s post-colonial history, the main feature of “its foreign policy was the lack of one”. 241 Under the military rule of Abboud, in fact, the Sudanese foreign policy was characterized by an “impeccable third world orthodoxy”, in the sense that the country was officially supportive of the world peace, the Arab and African unity and anti-imperialism, but it concretely remained quite shy in the actual implementation of its programme. For instance, it did not directly take part to the process of creation of the Organization of the African Unity nor it committed to set a consistent and coherent Cold War policy. In 1961 and 1964 Abboud also met President J. K. Kennedy and Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai respectively, but no political follows up 236 Ibidem. Ibidem. 238 P. Woodward, Sudan’s Foreign Relations…, p. 37. 239 M. B. Hamid, Aspects of Sudanese Foreign policy: “Splendid Isolation”, Radicalization and “Finlandization”, in M. Abd Al-Rahim, R. Badal, A. Hardallo and P. Woodward (eds.), op. cit., p. 162. 240 See infra. 241 J. Howell and M. B. Hamid, Sudan and the Outside World, 1964-1968, “African Affairs”, Vol. 68, No. 273, 1969, pp. 299-315. 237 61 ensued.242 This was due to the political fragility and the socio-economic instability characterizing the country, which made an international affairs’ low profile indispensable to quest for foreign economic aid, whatever country it could come from. As reported by Hamid, one of the first Sudanese Foreign Minister’s speeches made in 1958 sounded more like a commercial advertisement as it read: We will endeavour to further political, economic and cultural cooperation with all…We are in need of foreign loans; we shall therefore do our best to create a favourable atmosphere to attract them…In our commercial relations we shall deal with all countries of the world on the basis of mutual interest.243 Hence, during the period labelled by Hamid as the “splendid isolation” under the military dictatorship of Abboud (1958-1964), the country’s economic interests were primarily taken into account in shaping the Sudanese foreign policy both towards the West and the Eastern bloc. In 1958 the American aid package was eventually confirmed, and other cooperation agreements were signed with some Western states and institutions, namely the World Bank, West Germany and Italy which became major technical assistants to the country’s development. By the same token, Khartoum officially recognized the PRC in 1959 and several cooperation treaties were also signed with Russia, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia.244 Despite the general low profile of the regime on the international arena, a brief moment of proactivity was shown when Abboud managed to sign the 1959 Nile Waters Agreement with Egypt, providing for new allocation quotas to manage the water flows. However, the domestic reactions to this agreement were extremely harsh, as the deal was not considered profitable enough, paving the way for a series of popular upheavals challenging the authority of the regime. Furthermore, the Egyptian political radicalization brought about by the Nasserist regime (1956-1970) strained the Sudanese-Egyptian relations once more. On the Southern front, the continuation of the civil war was causing continuous flows of Southern refugees in the neighbouring countries of Uganda and the Central African Republic, which started to support the rebels by providing arms to the Anya Nya group.245 242 Ivi, p. 300. R. First, The Barrel of a Gun: Political Power in Africa and the Coup d’Etat, Penguin, London, 1970, in M. B. Hamid, op. cit., p. 162. 244 Ivi, p. 163. 245 Ivi, pp. 163-164. 243 62 Once the Provisional Government was established in the aftermath of the October Revolution of 1964, an attempt to radicalize the Sudanese foreign policy was made by its Prime Minister, al-Khalifa. As showed above, the very fact that the members of the Cabinet were mostly professionals and Communists determined a sudden shift in the attitude of the leftist government.246 Unlike Abboud, who had instrumentally proclaimed itself as a strenuous supporter of the non-interference policy, al-Khalifa, under the influence of the Communists, was strongly committed towards influential and assertive external relations which concretely translated into the Sudan’s support for the Yemenite anti-Royalist revolutionary government; for the pro-Nasser revolutionaries in the Arabia Peninsula; and for the Eritrean liberation movement and Congolese rebels (the Simba). In addition, the government showed an open anti-Western attitude as it denied the British the lending facilities in 1964, and officially condemned the Belgian intrusion in the Congolese internal affairs.247 However, this radical stance proved counterproductive in the long run, as both the Ethiopian and the Congolese government, in retaliation, started to fuel the Anya Nya rebel group, as their neighbours did, therefore undermining the possibility for Khartoum to settle the question. Given the decreasing popularity of the Provisional Government, the political experiment of radicalization of the Sudanese foreign policy was concluded in 1965, as the traditional parties took over with the appointment of Muhammad Ahmad Mahjub (Umma Party) as Prime Minister, and Sayyid Ismail al-Azhari (NUP) as Chief of State.248 Although the political circumstances in which this government operated were extremely precarious, Mahjub, quite unexpectedly managed to normalize the tense relations with the neighbouring countries by committing himself to the non-interference principle, and signing an agreement with Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda to make sure they would not permit Sudanese exiles to engage in subversive activities from their countries.249 Finally, the SudaneseCongolese relationship recovered as soon as the Congolese rebellion collapsed, towards the end of 1965.250 In the following period, another noticeable effort characterizing Mahjub’s government before its collapse, was his diplomatic activity aimed at securitizing the Sudanese ties both with the Arab world and with the Western powers. This was clear in 1967, when he organized an international conference in Khartoum to repair the intra-Arab relations after the devastating P. Woodward, Sudan’s Foreign Relations…, p. 37. J. Howell and M. B. Hamid, op. cit., p. 301. 248 See infra. 249 Ivi, p. 308. 250 Ibidem. 246 247 63 impact of the 1967 Six-Day War.251 As a matter of fact, in the aftermath of the war, Mahjoub’s interests driving his actions were twofold: if on the one hand he wanted to show his pro-Arabic commitment by hosting the conference and by ending diplomatic ties with both the United States and the United Kingdom, on the other hand it also pragmatically chose to keep the economic relations with the British unaltered,252 and to look for different sources of support from the Eastern Europe, which were found in strengthening the relations with the Soviet Union.253 Hence, on the eve of the 1969 coup, we may argue that the Sudanese external relations were still characterized by a mild ideological profile aiming at maximizing the country’s capability of attracting foreign investments. Although diplomatic ties with the Sudan’s traditional Western allies, in primis the United Kingdom, were highly affected by the impact of the 1956 Suez Crisis and by the 1967 Six-Day War, their economic relations were preserved. In addition, the Sudanese government successfully took advantage of other allies both from the Eastern bloc and the Arab world in order to manage its internal instability. Summing up, the post-colonial Sudanese foreign policy has been mostly characterized by the attempt of both the civilian and the military governments to exploit their international relations to manage the country’s socio-political and economic volatility. Except for the more radical stance took by the October government between 1964-1965, this attitude has concretely taken the shape of a mainly low-profile and “passive” foreign policy, as it pragmatically reacted to major internal issues by projecting them on the international arena. 3.4. Nimairi’s era and democratic Sudan (1969-1989) Since the Free Officers Movement led by Jafar al-Nimairi seized power in 1969, the Sudanese internal and international orders underwent three temporarily consecutive major phases: the first one was characterized by Nimairi’s “rhetorical radicalism”, going from 1969 to 1971; the second one shaped by a centralizing policy and pragmatic international shift from 1971 to the late 1970s; finally, the third one marked by an Islamic “neo-conservatorism” 251 M. A. Mahjoub, Democracy on Trial, Reflections On Arab And African Politics, Andre Deutsch, London, 1974. 252 By contrast, the relations between Khartoum and Washington were abruptly broken off until the second period of Nimairi’s era. See infra. 253 Ivi, p. 222. 64 lasting until 1985.254. As far as the Sudanese foreign policy is concerned, Nimairi’s era was characterized by a shifting attitude throughout the Cold War period. From a pro-Soviet orientation following the cooling down of the relations with Washington in the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War, in the second half of the 1970s Nimairi sought to re-align the country along pro-Western lines until the early 1980s, when the Islamization of the country and the reopening of the conflict with the South led the Westerners, once again, to take the distance from the African country. After analysing the Islamic influence over the Sudanese domestic environment in the aftermath of the coup, we will be focusing on the changing face of the country’s external relations during both the aforesaid periods. As far as the Free Officers’ origins and inspiration are concerned, they emerged in the early 1960s in Khartoum, and took inspiration from the political experiment brought about by Nasser who managed to merge ideological socialism with pragmatic nationalism.255 In the period between 1969 and 1971 they strategically sought to ally with the Sudanese Communists (still officially outlawed), in order to securitize their seizure of power. This was made possible as the SCP, after having adopted the new directives coming from the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party suggesting to ally with the Arab nationalists, was acting along the same political lines as their comrades in Egypt, Syria or Iraq, where new parties, such as the Egyptian Arab Socialist Union, were created.256 However, the case of the Sudan proved to have its own specificities, as the Sudanese Communists, with their relatively long tradition in the country and their strong popular appeal, were not satisfied with the subordinate role they were to play in the Sudanese context, and claiming a more active role in the process leading to a socialist revolution in the Sudan. In the immediate aftermath of the coup, this aim was shared by the Free Officers, insofar they claimed to be acting in the name of the Sudanese socialism, with the ultimate aim of establishing a democratic republic. Hence, after establishing a ten-members Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) with executive powers under Nimairi’s chairmanship, several Communists were appointed as Ministers of the new government.257 D. M. Wai, The Sudan: Domestic Politics and Foreign Relations Under Nimeiri, “African Affairs”, Vol. 78, No. 312, (July) 1979, pp. 297-317. 255 A. Gresh, The Free Officers and the Comrades: The Sudanese Communist Party and Nimeiri Faceto-Face, 1969–1971, “International Journal of the Middle East Studies”, Vol. 21, No. 3, 1989, pp. 393409. 256 Ivi, 394. 257 M. H. Fadlalla, op. cit., p. 45. 254 65 However, the Communists were soon to challenge the military authority of the Officers, as in 1971 they ultimately tried to establish the long-sought socialist state through a military coup, which was, however, immediately thwarted by Nimairi’s army. As for the motives underlying the coup, it has been argued that since they were banned in 1965, the Communists had been looking for the proper moment to oust the incumbent government and to bring about a socialist revolution within the country. However, on the eve of Nimairi’s military coup, a branch of the SCP considered the possibility of joining the Officers’ movement as the right opportunity to take over and successfully spread the Marxist word, while several members of the Communist Political Bureau warned their comrades they would be against what they defined as an expression of the Sudanese “petty bourgeoisie”.258 The decision over the proper strategy to follow with respect to the Free Officers – either manoeuvring the new government from outside, or directly supporting it from within – was eventually took by Nimairi himself, who, without even asking the SCP’s leadership, appointed several Communist Ministers, therefore crystalizing a de facto alliance between the Officers and the Communists, who were officially still outlawed.259 On his side, Nimairi profited from the Communist influence over the Sudanese population, namely the trade unions, the army and the civilians, without which he ran the risk of either being overthrown by a wave of popular discontent as it was the case of the military led by General Abboud, or to be ousted by the traditional sectarian parties, as happened to the October government in 1965. Thus, the combination of a rooted popular support with a strong hold over the country’s institutions sounded to Nimairi as a solid basis to retain power. Nevertheless, as already noticed, this “convenience marriage” had a short way to go as the early rift symptoms between the two components of the governments already manifested themselves in 1969, when Nimairi, reacting to a declaration made by the Sudanese Prime Minster on the indispensable role the Communists had in the progress of the country along the revolutionary path, deposed the Prime Minister and took his post, therefore giving a clear political warning to the SCP.260 Furthermore, in the aftermath of the so-called “Aba plot”, namely a Mahdist revolt breaking out in the South of Khartoum in 1970, the Communist Secretary General, Abd al- Khaliq Mahjub, was exiled in Egypt, presumably because of his growing anti-Nimairi sentiments. In the same year, Nimairi officially announced the creation of a Sudan Socialist Union (SSU), which was to gather all the “revolutionaries”, and which patently aimed at suppressing all political parties, as they were considered to have taken the 258 A. Gresh, op. cit., p. 400 Ibidem. 260 Ivi, p. 401. 259 66 “circuit of imperialism”.261 Concerning the SSU’s ideological inspiration, Nasser influence, once again, was undeniable; however, Nimairi was also aware of the Sudanese specificities, as he stated I knew, of course, of Jamal Nasser ideas and admired him as a great Egyptian and Arab leader. But I also had reservation about him. […] the political movement I planned for the Sudan was to be in some respects similar to Nasser’s Arab Socialist Union. But it was to be really something specifically Sudanese, by no means a copy of ASU. Our Sudanese Socialist Union is a broad-based, democratic organisation, the Egyptian model is more like an extension of the Government, dominated by bureaucracy.262 Concretely, the smaller political unit of the SSU was the “Basic Unit”, based on villages or town neighbourhood, which aimed at linking the national leadership and the grass-root level. In turn, the Basic Unit was dependent upon larger entities, namely the Section (District), the Area, and Province. The higher political body was the SSU General Congress, comprising more than a thousand people which gathered every three years. The General Congress would elect a Central Committee of almost two hundred members, which would be discussing about major political addresses. Despite this complex architecture of power, the decisional core of the SSU resided in the Political Bureau, comprising some 17 officers, appointed by the Chairman, with the approval of the Central Committee.263 Hence, on the eve of the communist coup attempt, the country had undergone the path of a single-party dictatorial system, where the former opposition leaders were put under arrest or exiled, all civil liberties suppressed, the Sudanese Transitional Constitution suspended, and several industries, businesses, and banks nationalized.264 When the Communists attempted to seize power, and actually managed to put Nimairi under arrest and to form a new RCC for a short time-span, they committed the mistake to underestimate the bonds Nimairi had tightened with neighbouring Libyan and Egyptian governments, 265 which dispatched a mission to free Nimairi and eventually crushed the Communist regime shortly after.266 261 Ivi, p. 403. A. Sylvester, Sudan Under Nimeiri, The Bodly Head, London, 1977, pp. 61-62. 263 Ivi, p. 92. 264 P. M. Holt and M. W. Daly, op. cit., p. 168. 265 Between the three countries a political unity proposal was also drafted some time earlier, albeit with no concrete results due to both the Communists’ and the Southerners’ resistance. Following abortion of the political unity, the relations with Libya strained. See infra. 266 Ivi, p. 169. 262 67 After the suppression of both the Mahdist revolt and the Communist coup, Nimairi’s personality was attracting more and more popular consent. To profit from this favourable atmosphere, he decided to strengthened his position at the eyes of both the Sudanese population and the international community by legitimizing his authority through a referendum on the presidency. This was held in September 1971, and resulted in an overwhelming majority for Nimairi (98.6%), who was elected for a six-year term as the Sudanese President.267 Since then, on the model of Egypt under Nasser, he eventually established a one-party government, with periodical national and regional elections (held in 1970, 1974, 1978, 1980, 1984 and in 1973, 1980, 1981 respectively), national and regional referenda (held in 1971, 1977, 1983), and intra-party elections.268 Of course, despite the official rhetoric on the possibility for the Sudanese to express their voice through “a new form of democracy, free from the comedy of party politics”,269 the system of special representation established in certain graduate constituencies, the electoral colleges or delegation instead of the universal suffrage and, above all, the one-party system which had been established since 1970, heavily undermined the quality of the country’s politics for almost two decades. The increasing consent enjoyed by Nimairi after the referendum allowed him to give both his domestic and international policies a more definite and conservatory mark. This was due to the fear that, having lost its political pillars, namely the Communists, his government was perilously exposed to the social and political volatility which caused the Abboud military regime to be overthrown.270 Despite the fact his presidency had been officially approved by a popular referendum, in fact, several doubts rose on the correctness of the voting procedures, for which the country was negatively known.271 Therefore, the popular support for Nimairi’s regime revealed to be fragile, especially after he broke with the Communists. Hence, during the second period of his rule, his politics was characterized by a more pragmatic and conservative stance. As far as the Sudanese foreign policy of this early military period is concerned, Nimairi showed a great emphasis on ideological nationalism and radicalism, especially under the influence of the Nasserist regime. Hence, some authors have highlighted that in the early 1970s, this attitude led the Sudan to strengthen its relations with both the Eastern bloc, and the 267 Ibidem. J. Willis, A. El-Battahni, P. Woodward, op. cit., p. 21. 269 Gaafar Bakheit, quoted in As Sahafa, (October) 1972, in ibidem. 270 A. Sylvester, op. cit., p. 88. 271 J. Willis, A. El-Battahni, P. Woodward, op. cit., p. 23. 268 68 Arab world.272 By contrast, it has also been argued that, despite his official rhetoric, Nimairi has always thought the Sudanese relations with the outside world would have to be characterized by the quest for national independence, the consolidation of territorial unity and the country’s socio-economic enhancement.273 Thus, once again, beyond the official ideological radicalism, the country’s foreign policy was to be used with the paramount purpose of managing the Sudanese domestic issues. As a matter of fact, during the early 1970s, if on the one hand the relations between Sudan, the Soviet Union, Egypt and Libya flourished and consolidated because of alleged ideological affinities, on the other hand Nimairi also managed to gain military and economic aid from them in order to tackle the internal threats which challenged his power. Among the most compelling ones, there undeniably was the long-standing Southern issue. In the early phase of his rule, in fact, Nimairi had also to face the evolving nature of the civil war in the South, which kept hardening, and whose prospect of resolution was reducing progressively. On the eve of the coup, one of the motivations leading the military to ousted the civilian government was its very incapability to effectively tackle the Southern question.274 As a matter of fact, after the creation of the Anya Nya movement in 1963, the rebels managed to ensure their presence in much of the Southern countryside, while the government forces controlled the populated areas. However, until the late 1960s, the degree of factionalism and disorganisation characterizing the movement prevented the rebels from successfully taking control of the Southern urban centres. By the same token, the Southern politicians sustaining the civil war lacked internal cohesion, as they held completely different views on the future status of the region: some argued for full independence, others supported the federalist option, others for autonomy in a reformed state. 275 Moreover, there also were those supporting the unity proposal, as long as the Northerners would have been willing to share power with the Southerners.276 By 1967, a number of different Provisional Government in exile had been created, such as Southern Sudan Provisional Government, the Nile Provisional Government and the Anyidi Provisional Government, but no one was able to catalyse the popular consent or to formulate a relevant proposal to Khartoum. From 1969 things gradually started to change as the Anya Nya leader Joseph Lagu, a former SAF officer, managed to get substantial military and economic aid from Israel to 272 D. M. Wai, op. cit., p. 300. Ibidem. 274 See infra. 275 M. LeRiche and M. Arnold, op. cit., p. 26 276 Ibidem 273 69 support the guerrilla against the Sudanese government. Additionally, he imposed himself at the head of the insurgents, and worked hard to establish a more cohesive and organized structure on the movement, which proved considerably strengthened, and decided to re-name itself as the Southern Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM) in 1971.277 Given the increasing international support gained by the insurgents and their renewed structure, Nimairi asked the Soviet to support him in his war against the South. Hence, in the early 1970s the economic relations between Khartoum and Moscow revived, as the latter become a major supplier of small arms and missiles to use against the insurgents. 278 The Soviet Union was also to provide for consistent loans to finance infrastructural projects, and the Soviet-Sudanese cotton trade substantially increased.279 Similarly, in the same period the relations between Sudan and neighbouring Libya and Egypt considerably improved. In particular, taking the distances from the Sudanese previous administrations with regards to Egypt, Nimairi established with Cairo a special relation, that has been dubbed as the “Finlandisation”, named after the special relation the Soviet Union had with Finland.280 Concretely, this policy was translated into the signature of the Tripoli Charter, namely a proposal to establish an Arab federation comprising Sudan, Egypt and Libya;281 into the Sudanese backing to the peace process between Egypt and Israel; and in the concrete support given by Egypt, as well as Libya, in helping Nimairi to crush the Communist coup and to regain power. More generally, it has been argued that the early stage of Nimairi’s “rhetorical radicalism” has been mostly shaped by the Nasser’s influence in terms of radical pan-Arab nationalism.282 By the same token, the seizure of power of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 1969 and the socialist inspiration of the Green Revolution in Libya paved the way for a great friendship to flourish between the two leaders.283 Given the quest for internal stability sought by Nimairi, and considering that previous attempts to violently crush the rebellion proved to be ineffective, in 1972 negotiations between Khartoum and the SSLM led by Lagu began under the mediation of the Ethiopian 277 M. LeRiche and M. Arnold, op. cit., p. 26. D. M. Wai, op. cit., p. 300. 279 As reported by Wai, the total trade with Eastern Europe rose to one-quarter of Sudan's exports and 18% of its imports. See, ibidem. 280 M. B. Hamid, op. cit., p. 169. 281 As a matter of fact, in 1972 the basis for an Arab federation comprising the three countries were laid through the signature of the Tripoli Charter. However, the political resistance coming from both the Sudanese Communists (who were at the time still into the government under Nimairi), and from the Southerners prevented the political project to materialize. This caused some tensions between Khartoum and Cairo, which, however, did not compromise the special relation between the two. See ibidem. 282 Ivi, p. 170. 283 Ibidem. 278 70 Emperor Haile Selassie.284 Having to bear the Emperor’s ideological pan-Africanism and antisecessionist attitude, Lagu pragmatically managed to ensure the Southern provinces the greatest degree of autonomy ever. In February 1972, then, the Addis Ababa Agreement was finally signed and in March it became part of the Regional Self-Government Act for the Southern Provinces, followed by a ceasefire in the South.285 The Agreement provided for the creation of an autonomous political entity in the South through the Southern Regional Government (SRG); some disputed regions, namely Abyei, would have held a referendum in order for the population to decide whether to be included either in the North or in the South; the insurgents would have been absorbed in the national army; finally, some Southern regional entities, such as the Regional Assembly, and a High Executive Council were to be formed.286 Although it was considered to be a great achievement, as it was the first comprehensive agreement signed since the outbreak of the first civil war, some flows and limitations soon emerged, as the rebels had to be satisfied with the mere recognition of a “self-governing Region within the Democratic Republic of the Sudan”, and the SRG had limited power, as Chapter III clearly stated that issues concerning national defence, external affairs, currency and coinage, transport, communications, customs and foreign trade, nationality, economic and social development, education and public audit were still under the competency of Khartoum.287 Moreover, the issue concerning the management of the former Southern insurgency forces proved the most problematic. This was due to two main factors: first, the Agreement did not establish a regional force to supervise on its implementation – except from the maintenance of a Southern Command comprising several thousand locallyrecruited officers – as the Sudanese army was to remain under the central direction of Khartoum; and second, according to the Agreement, the Anya Nya militias were to be merged with the national Sudanese Armed Forces, against which they were harshly fighting until no long before.288 This growing tension among the former rebels was worsened by the fact that the Southern High Executive Council, presided by Abel Alier, was experiencing a period of instability due to the fragmented nature of the Southern society, whose ethnic lines and patron-clients relationships, blew up in the aftermath of the 1972 Agreement signature, 284 J. Lagu, Sudan: Odyseey, p. 252, in M. LeRiche and M. Arnold, op. cit., p. 27. For a full text of the Agreement, see: www.peacemaker.un.org/documentsearch?keys&field_padate_value[value][date]&field_pacountry_tid&field_pathematic_tid[]=32&=Sea rch+Peace+Agreements. 286 M. LeRiche and M. Arnold, op. cit., p. 27. 287 Addis Ababa Agreement, 1972. 288 M. LeRiche and M. Arnold, op. cit., p. 29. 285 71 undermining the future prospects for a peaceful environment for the Southern Sudanese politics.289 From a domestic perspective, the second phase of Nimairi’s administration was characterized by several steps towards the decentralization of the administrations which was to be achieved through depriving the tribal leaders of their power and replacing them with public officers directly depending upon the government. Furthermore, a new constitution was adopted in 1973 establishing a presidential system with a directly-elected President via national referenda to be held every six-years. The judiciary was made directly responding to the President, and the issue over the very nature of the state, whether Islamic or secular, was temporarily postponed.290 Despite this centralization policy, the following period was characterized by a number of coup d’état orchestrated by the leaderships of traditional parties which still survived under the one-party state surface. In particular, in 1976 a coup was organized from London by the former leader of the Umma Party, Sadiq al-Mahdi, with the support of the Libyan government, but it was eventually blocked by the military and several participants sentenced and executed. The 1978 elections’ results were another clear symptom of the grass-rooted support for traditional parties and the decreasing popularity of the military, as the candidates associated with the former Umma, DUP and Muslim Brothers won 80 out of 304 seats of the People’s Assembly while the independents won another 60.291 The mid-1970s were then featured by an increasingly destabilizing political atmosphere, taking the concrete shape of “constant manoeuvring, tentative and temporary alliances, cabinet reshuffles, and highly publicized new beginnings”292 made by Nimairi in order to retain power. As for this change of attitude was reflected in the Sudanese foreign policy, the mid-1970s were characterized by the pragmatic attempt made by Nimairi to secure its special relations with Egypt, although it caused some tensions with the Arab world; to recover his relations with the West; and to develop its ties with emerging powers such as China. As a matter of fact, after Nasser’s death, the Sudanese-Egyptian relations progressively lost their ideological character, but still managed to preserve their closeness by shifting towards the Western camp. In addition, a joint defense agreement was signed in 1976 sealing their mutual cooperation.293 In the late 1970s, Nimairi made an Arab tour in order to appease the tense relations among the 289 Ibidem. P. M. Holt and M. W. Daly, op. cit., pp. 173-174. 291 Ivi, p. 174. 292 Ivi, p. 175. 293 M. B. Hamid, op. cit., p. 170. 290 72 Arab countries arising from the 1979 Camp David Agreement between Egypt and Israel. To this concern, despite the fact that the official Sudanese statement remained ambiguous on the matter,294 Nimairi has always tried to maintain the special relation he had established with Egypt, though in the long run it proved to be causing a growing discontent, both from the international and the internal sides. Internationally, in fact, the support showed by Khartoum towards the Egyptian pro-Western attitude caused the Arab countries to react against the two countries. This was, for instance, the case of Iraq, which decided to cut oil supplies to Khartoum in 1978; or the 1981 Lebanese missile attack on the American, Egyptian and Sudanese embassies; or the joint Saudi-Libyan attempt of conspiracy against Khartoum and Cairo.295 Internally, this special relation was opposed by the National Front Opposition, whose formerly exiled leader, Sadiq al-Mahdi,296 ultimately resigned to openly manifest his dissent to Nimairi’s policy. Nevertheless, the relations between the two countries were never officially broken up until Sadat’s assassination in 1981. According to Hamid, this was due to a number of different factors: firstly, the Sudan and Egypt’s pro-Western alliance could have balanced the increasing diffidence shown towards the Soviet Union; secondly, SudaneseEgyptian relations would have boosted their ties with the Americans and the Saudis; and thirdly, despite that their special bond would have compromised the Sudanese relations with the rest of the Arab world, Egypt was more likely to provide for profitable military and economic assistance as it did in 1971.297 As far as the Sudanese relations with the Soviet Union are concerned, the support provided by Moscow to Ethiopia and Libya in the 1970s disappointed Nimairi, whose relations with the Communists soured after the 1971 Communist coup. According to Nimairi’s view, Moscow was plotting against both the Sudanese and the Egyptian regimes which were allegedly undermining the Soviet expansionism in Africa.298 Hence, in the late 1970s the SudaneseSoviet economic partnership broke off and their diplomatic relations consistently dimmed. 294 If on the one hand Nimairi manifested his support for the process as it would have granted the Egyptians to regain their territories, he also officially showed his doubts about the “vagueness, ambiguity and sovereignty and omissions on some of the fundamental issue such as the status of Jerusalem, sovereignty over the West Bank, the future of the Israeli settlements, and the problems of the refugees”. See ivi, p. 170. 295 Ivi, pp. 172-173. 296 After being involved in the attempt of coup d’état in 1976, Sadiq al-Mahdi secretly met Nimairi in order to agree over several reforms. In 1977, an amnesty was signed which allowed Sadiq to be appointed in the Political Bureau of SSU, after the 1978 elections. This move can be explained by Nimairi’s willingness to secure his power by seeking the support of the Sudanese traditional parties. 297 M. B. Hamid, op. cit., p. 175. 298 C. Legum, Africa Contemporary Records, 1977-78, Methuen, London, 1978, in ivi, p. 170. 73 By contrast, the American-Sudanese relations, after being severed in 1967, recovered from the early 1970s, as soon as Nimairi’s strategy shifted towards a more pragmatic stance. On their side, the Americans had to face the growing tension of the Cold War, and proved interested into securitizing a pro-Western allegiance in the Horn of Africa, especially given the growing Soviet support to Ethiopia.299 Hence, a grant of several million of US dollars was conceded by Washington to contribute to the Resettlement and Rehabilitation Fund, which eventually reached some $30 million.300 Moreover, since the beginning of the decades, several oil fields had been discovered in the Southern regions of the country, and the American oil companies Chevron was already planning to develop the Southern Sudanese basins near Bentiu, southwest to Abyei region.301 On the wake of the American enthusiasm, also the British-Sudanese relations revived insofar the UK was pleased with the liberal policy Nimairi’s was adopting since the second half of the 1970s. Hence, several loans were granted by London and their commercial activities improved. This was followed by the restoration of economic ties with West Germany after they took distances in 1967 due to Bonn’s support for Israel.302 As for the relations with the emerging countries, in the 1970s Khartoum also strengthened its ties with Beijing, after the latter had taken the distance from the USSR. As a matter of fact, although the Sudan has been one of the first African country to officially recognize the PRC since its proclamation in 1949, it was only in the 1970s that the two countries started to come closer, grouped together by the same suspicion towards Moscow. Representing an example of serious and efficient commitment towards the African continent, Khartoum wanted to keep his relations with the PRC lively in order to profit from its last socialist supplier of both military and economic assistance. On their side, the Chinese were interested in challenging the Soviet influence over the continent. Hence, in the early 1970s this mutually beneficial relationship concretized into the supply of several fighter aircrafts and China-made tanks to arm a Sudanese division; a 28 million Sudanese pounds loan; and some infrastructural projects, such as the construction of a major bridge in Wad Madani, and a spinning and weaving mill in Hasaeissa.303 299 For further reference on the relations of the US and the USSR in the Horn of Africa during the Cold War period, see P. J. Schraeder, The Horn of Africa: US Foreign Policy in an Altered Cold War Environment, “Middle East Journal”, Vol. 46, No. 4, (Autumn) 1992, pp. 571-593. 300 D. M. Wai, op. cit., p. 306. 301 P. Woodward, Sudan’s Foreign Relations..., p. 39. 302 D. M. Wai, op. cit., p. 309. 303 Ivi, p. 311. 74 Although Nimairi’s foreign policy during the 1970s was mainly characterized by a pragmatic and liberal stance aimed at retaining his power and attracting foreign investors, by the beginning of the 1980s, his decreasing popularity within a context of political and economic uncertainty led Nimairi to shift his policy, once again, in a desperate attempt to secure what was left of his declining power. Hence, giving the growing pressure coming from the traditional parties, Nimairi eventually embraced Islam by turning to the Muslim Brotherhood. This was clear already in 1977, when a political reconciliation process took place, and several leaders of opposition parties were readmitted in the Sudanese territory, as it happened to Sadiq al-Mahdi, and Hasan al-Turabi, the leader of the Islamic Front,304 who was also appointed Attorney General of the country. In addition, in 1983 Nimairi emanated the socalled “September Laws”, with which he declared the formation of an Islamic state, based on the Sharia law, marking the abrogation of the Addis Ababa Agreement.305 This move provoked the reaction of the Southerners, which interpreted it as a new attempt to subjugate the South, paving the way for a second civil war. Together with this political instability, the Sudan was also suffering from a serious economic crisis. In fact, the country’s economy did not manage to face the 1973 oil crisis, which led the world prices of the crude to increase dramatically, and found itself severely exposed. Currency devaluation, decreasing revenues, black market and high-level corruption therefore prevented the country from meeting its economic obligations with regards to International Monetary Fund (IMF), which decided not to renew a standby credit promised to Khartoum. As Holt and Daly noticed, “by 1984-1985, the Sudan’s economic problems had become insoluble, the urban riots and rural famine that marked the final phase of the Nimairi era were the inescapable evidence of political as well as economic collapse.”306 In 1985, while Nimairi was in Washington, some military officers headed by General Siwar al-Dahab mutinied against their leader and reacted to the anti-Nimairi wave of massprotests which were ravaging the country in order not to lose their power. Then, they quickly formed a Transitional Military Council (TMC) under al-Dahab’s direction to replace Nimairi 304 More specifically, al-Turabi has been a founder of the Islamic Charter Front, namely a branch of the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood, operating in the country since the early 1960s. After Nimairi’s coup, al-Turabi, as every other political leaders within the country, was exiled. However, from 1977 Nimairi, seeking for strategic political alliances, tried to bring about a reconciliation process with the Islamic parties, and allowed their leaders to come back. For further information, see A. A. Ibrahim, A Theology of Modernity: Hasan al-Turabi and Islamic Renewal in Sudan, “Africa Today”, Vol. 46, No. 3-4, 1999, pp. 195-222. 305 M. LeRiche and M. Arnold, op. cit., p. 30. 306 P. M. Holt and M. W. Daly, op. cit., pp. 177-178. 75 and the Parliament. In light of Nimairi’s destitution, the old parties claimed to be legitimized through national elections. These were held in 1986, and attributed the majority of the seats to the Umma Party (100) which united into a coalition with the DUP (63 seats), against the main opposition party, the National Islamic Front (NIF), officially founded in 1985 by al-Turabi, which won 28 seats.307 After almost twenty years of dictatorship, a new civilian government under the leadership of Sadiq al-Mahdi was finally formed. During the period 1986-1989, despite the government’s willingness to tackle the longstanding issues which have been eroding the Sudanese history since its independence, namely the North-South civil war, the approval of a national constitution, and the recovery of the Sudanese economy, the features characterizing the traditional parties’, such as sectarianism, animosity and personal interests resurrected, and no substantial progress was made in none of the three issues.308 As for the Sudanese international dimension, the period between 1983 and 1985 was characterized by a general deterioration of Sudanese external relations mostly due to Nimairi’s radicalized domestic politics, which compelled the new coalition government under Sadiq to resort to the Sudanese old “reactive” policy.309 As a matter of fact, during the final stage of Nimairi’s regime, the introduction of the Islamic law hampered the relations with the Western countries, which became suspicious about the Sudan potentially backing international terrorism. This concern was later supported by the revived relations between the Sudan and Libya following Nimairi’s deposition, having the latter being defined by the US as a dangerous enemy.310 As a consequence, due to the political pressure exercised by Washington, in 1986 the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) declared the Sudan ineligible for other credits, worsening the economic crisis experienced by the country in that period. Likewise, the Sudanese relations with Egypt severed under Sadiq after the Umma Party revived its traditional anti-Egyptian stand. Hence, in 1989 Sadiq abrogated the joint defence agreement signed under Nimairi, and not even the Egyptian diplomatic attempt to mediate between Khartoum and the Southern rebels was useful to restore ties with its neighbour.311 Summing up, despite the anti-Nimairi critics made by his political opponents, the Sudanese internal and international environment under the civilian government of Sadiq 307 J. Willis, A. El-Battahni, P. Woodward, op. cit., p. 27. P. M. Holt and M. W. Daly, op. cit., pp. 182-183. 309 P. Woodward, Sudan’s Foreign Relations..., p. 42. 310 Ivi, p. 41. 311 P. M. Holt and M. W. Daly, op. cit., pp. 184-185. 308 76 was more similar to the ones under Nimairi’s dictatorship than what everyone would have expected, and probably hoped for.312 3.5. The National Islamic Front In June 1989, a new Revolutionary Command Council headed by General Omar al-Bashir overthrown the Sudanese civilian government and paved the way for a decade characterized by the radicalization of the Sudanese politics. Although the RCC has always claimed it had no link with the Islamic fundamentalists,313 by the early 1990s it became clear that the NIF, and more specifically al-Turabi, masterminded the coup. By 1993, in fact, the RCC was dissolved, al-Bashir made President, and the cabinet formed with most of the Ministries coming from the NIF.314 In the following period, a slow process of political tidiness was perpetrated against any regime opponents: several army officers, the Khartoum University teaching staff, as well as the civilian society representatives were repeatedly purged through hasty processes and executions; Islamic policies were openly adopted, such as the prohibition of women’s public life, and the adoption of Islamic punishments; and 26 regional states were created, therefore turning the country into a federal state. Furthermore, in 1991 al-Bashir announced the Sharia law was going to be applied in the whole country except from the Southern regions.315 It was the first time an Islamic state was officially established in the Arab and Sunni Muslim world, and the reactions of the international community to this radicalized shift of the Sudanese politics were anything but smooth. This was due to the general feeling of suspicion generated by the wave of radicalism which shook the Middle East from the late 1970s. Among others, in 1979 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini guided the Iranian Revolution towards the destitution of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, leading to the establishment of a Shia Islamic Republic; in 1981 the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was assassinated by a fundamentalist Muslim in response of the signature of the Camp David accords with Israel; finally, in 1983 the US Embassy in Lebanon was the target of a major bombing attack causing the death of several hundred of US military officers.316 The seizure of power of the Omar alBashir was just another piece of the puzzle which contributed, to the Western eyes, to further 312 Ivi, p. 185. As a matter of fact, in the immediate aftermath of the coup d’état al-Turabi was arrested, as most of the Sudanese parties’ leaders. However, it has been argued that the detention was just a fake in order to mask his role in masterminding the coup. See ivi, p. 189. 314 P. Woodward, US Foreign Policy and the Horn of Africa, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2006, p. 39. 315 P. M. Holt and M. W. Daly, op. cit., p. 188. 316 J. Miller, Faces of Fundamentalism, Hassan al-Turabi and Muhammad Fadlalla, “Foreign Affairs”, Vol. 73, No. 6, 1994, pp. 123-142. 313 77 the Islamic threat in the Arab world, and which was already experienced by the Sudan in the last phase of Nimairi’s administration. Read from the viewpoint of his ideologue, al-Turabi, all this events were functional in bringing about the deconstruction of the corrupted social and political orders which had progressively affected countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other Middle-Eastern countries falling under the Western influence. Within their countries, Islamic leaders as al-Turabi or Hussein Fadlalla (Lebanon) were catching a growing popular consent as they were perceived as representing “the militant Islamic revival feared by conservative rulers and prayed for by the millions of unhappily ruled, the futureless young, the poor, the dispossessed – those the Muslims call the disinherited.”317 They saw themselves as “a symbol” of Islam, and were absolutely convinced about the role their credo would play in filling the political vacuum left by the failure of the Western-inspired model of nationalism and of other imported ideologies in the Arab world.318 Hence, from his pan-Islamic perspective, al-Turabi’s aim was the creation of an Islamic Commonwealth which would have overturned the international balance of power in favour of the Islamic states. This was partially achieved through the creation of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) in 1969, recently renamed as the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation,319 which was established with the aim of strengthening the relations among the world’s Islamic countries from a committed anti-Western perspective.320 In addition, in 1991 the Popular Arab and Islamic Conference (PAIC) was created under the Secretariat of al-Turabi, which would have contributed to the future victory of Islam and on the ensuing defeat of the West by calling for the mobilization of the world’s Muslims. Historically, according to al-Turabi, this already proved to be possible in the case of the Afghani mujahidin, who successfully managed to react to the 1979 Soviet invasion and eventually liberate their country.321 Similarly, the same radical stance was to be maintained during the Gulf War of 1990-1991, which saw the Westerns interfering, once again, in the Middle-Eastern affairs with the backing of several Arab countries against Saddam Hussein invasion of Kuwait. This radical pro-Saddam position 317 Ivi, p. 126. Ibidem. 319 During its 38th Council of Foreign Ministers meeting, the Organisation of Islamic Conference changed its name into the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. According to its Secretary General, the new name better reflects the aims and objectives of the organization, focusing on the hold talks and consultations for a close cooperation in the economic, cultural and spiritual fields. See The Pakistani Observer, OIC Rightly Changes Its Name, (June) 2011. 320 P. Woodward, Sudan’s Foreign Relations..., p. 42. 321 Ibidem. 318 78 contributed to hamper the Sudanese relations with most of the Arab countries, which openly opposed the Iraqi imperialism.322 By the same token, this radical NIF’s assertiveness in shaping the Sudanese foreign policy also contributed to further compromise the country’s relations with the US, which were already straining from the early 1980s.323 This was due to Sudan’s connection with different kinds of fundamentalist group worldwide, ranging from the Iranians and Afghanis Talibans, to the Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas and Palestinian Liberation Organization, which in 1993 led Washington to officially proclaim the country as a supporter of international terrorism alongside Libya, Iran, Syria, Iraq, North Korea and Cuba. Despite the official position denying all terrorist claims held by the Sudanese government, a growing concern was being showed by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which provided for strong evidences supporting this charge.324 In addition, the US were growingly committed towards the serious human rights abuses perpetrated both by the government and by the Southern rebels, who did not spare tortures, unjustifiable detentions and inhuman treatments. Following a US Congress Resolution condemning all kind of abuses, a UN special representative for Sudan was appointed to follow the situation on the ground. The Western perception of the Sudan in 1994 was that, with the words of the Secretary of States, Madeleine Albright, Sudan has set himself apart from the community of nations by its support for international terrorism, its gross human rights violations, and its failure to take steps to resolve the civil war that has created a massive humanitarian crisis throughout Sudan.325 This led to the immediate withdrawal of the US development aid, as well as the banning of any arms sales towards Khartoum; only US humanitarian assistance was allowed in the country through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and several NGOs.326 In addition, all American diplomatic personnel was evacuated, and the country was prevented from being granted further loans from the IFIs.327 Despite a direct intervention was never backed by the US Congress,328 in 1998 Washington launched a missile against al-Shifa Pharmaceutical Factory in Khartoum, allegedly containing chemical weapons, P. Woodward, US Foreign Policy…, p. 47. See infra. 324 Ivi, p. 53. 325 D. Petterson, Inside Sudan: Political Islam, Conflict and Catastrophe, Boulder West View, 1999, in ivi, p. 54. 326 Ivi, p. 54. 327 See infra. 328 D. Petterson, op. cit., in P. Woodward, US Foreign Policy…, p. 54. 322 323 79 in retaliation for the attacks carried out in 1998 against the US Embassy in Dar es-Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya.329 Also along its borders the Sudan was furthering enemies: in the North, the Egyptian government revived the long-standing territorial issue of the Halayeb Triangle area,330 which was occupied by the Egyptian forces in response of the support Khartoum showed towards some militant Islamic groups.331 The relations between the two further strained in 1995, when Egyptian President Mubarak visited Addis Ababa for a OAU meeting and miraculously survived an attempt of assassination carried out by an Egyptian member of Islamic Jihad who was trained in the Sudan. To this concern, the thing which most shocked the world and contributed to the inevitable worsening of the international position of the Sudan, was alTurabi’s official statement, who in the aftermath of the attack seemed to justify the jihadist by declaring that “when Mubarak dared to get to Addis Ababa to attend the OAU summit, the sons of the Prophet Moses, the Muslims, rose up against him, confounded his plans, and sent him back to his country.”332 Following the Sudanese refusal to extradite the suspects of Mubarak attempt of assassination, in 1996 the country was also the target of UN sanctions providing for a no-fly zone.333 On the Eastern border, the Sudanese-Ethiopian relations were no less complex. Khartoum was in fact involved in the 1991 falling of Ethiopian President Mengistu Haile Mariam as it had been financing since the 1960s the liberation movements (the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front and the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front) leading to the coup;334 however, 329 A wide debate over the real presence of chemical weapons has followed the US attack. For further references, see M. Barletta, Chemical Weapons in the Sudan: Allegations and Evidence, “Nonproliferation Review”, (Fall) 1998, pp. 115-136. 330 This area constitutes a disputed portion of territory between Egypt and Sudan, upon which both claim their sovereignty since independence. At the core of the dispute there was the difference between the “political boundary” and the “administrative boundary” established under the AngloEgyptian Condominium. As a matter of fact, if the Sudanese Northern boundary was officially established along the 22nd parallel, the British conceded the administration of the Triangle to the Sudanese in 1902. In 1958, therefore, the Sudanese claimed the territory under their sovereignty by virtue of the administrative boundary, while the Egyptians wanted the official political boundary to be respected. In 1992 the Egyptian forces occupied the area and, despite the protests made by al-Bashir, have maintained the control over it ever since. See Sudan Tribune, Sudan’s Bashir reiterates sovereignty over disputed area of Halayeb, June 2010. 331 P. Woodward, Sudan’s Foreign Relations..., p. 44. 332 D. Petterson, op. cit., p. 199, in P. Woodward, US Foreign Policy…, p. 52. 333 UN Security Council Resolution 1070/1996. 334 This has to be coupled with the fact that the falling of Mengistu had serious consequence for the Sudanese civil war, as the Ethiopian government had been providing arms to the SPLA for a while. Hence, losing its source of external support, the SPLA turned Westwards seeking the support of the government of Kampala. In response to this, Khartoum started to back a Northern Uganda armed 80 after the Ethiopian regime-change, and the creation of independent Eritrea, Sudanese radicalism went at odds with the leftist governments presiding over the two countries, which decided to break off their diplomatic relations with Khartoum.335 Hence, by the mid-1990s, the Sudan was deemed as a pariah state, and piled up enemies among the international community. As soon as the Sudanese political élite realized that the Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and Development (IGADD), namely an organization of East African states created in 1986 aiming at furthering development and environmental issues among its members,336 was increasing its external pressure towards the resolution of the long-standing North-South civil war, as well as the Sudanese international isolation was leading the country’s economy to the umpteenth collapse, a shift in the NIF leadership occurred. By 1999, the popularity enjoyed by what has been defined as the eminence grise of the NIF, al-Turabi, was fading away, and he was permanently ousted from power after he attempted to challenge al-Bashir’s authority.337 Under the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mustafa Osman, the Sudan tried to recover the relations with some neighbouring countries such as Egypt, Ethiopia and Eritrea, and to open to some European powers, such as France.338 However, from the late 1990s a different economic address was underlying the NIF new policy: after the discovery of major oil fields in late 1970s, the Sudan officially became an oilexporting country.339 This allowed the Sudanese government to look for emerging economies seeking to catch the industrialization process and to develop Sudan’s underground potentials. Hence, countries like India, Malaysia, and China dramatically burst into the Sudanese scene, with all the political implications this would have produced, predictably or not. movement, namely the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), guided by the Catholic William Kony. See P. Woodward, Sudan’s Foreign Relations..., p. 44. 335 P. Woodward, US Foreign Policy…, p. 49. 336 The organization comprised the countries of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Kenya and Uganda. It was later renamed as the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). 337 P. Woodward, Sudan’s Foreign Relations..., p. 45. 338 Ivi, p. 46. 339 Ibidem. 81 82 4. China’s policy towards Sudan Despite the official rhetoric of non-interference traditionally characterizing Chinese foreign relations, the political involvement of Beijing in the internal affairs of the Sudan, and more recently of the South Sudan is currently challenging Beijing’s compliance to its proclaimed Panch Sheela principles. In fact, the role the Sudanese natural resources, specifically oil, have played (and are still playing) in shaping the Chinese policy towards the two countries since the late 1990s clearly showed how compelling strategic interests, as well as international pressures, have reshaped the nature of Sino-Sudanese relations after the discovery of oil, leading both contemporary Western and Chinese analysts to reconsider China’s non-interfering mantra. Predictably enough, the main driver of the PRC’s engagement in the Sudan was primarily strategic, as the Chinese companies were looking for new markets where to pursue the country’s “go out” policy inaugurated by Chinese President Deng Xiaoping, while Khartoum was attempting to finally develop its untapped oil reserves. Over the years, this convergence of interests paved the way for China’s growing involvement in the Sudan until a more comprehensive a consequential role was further developed ranging from an economic to a more diplomatic engagement, as the management of the Darfur crisis will show. Together with the country’s growing interests at stake, an increasing pressure coming from the international community attempting at keeping Beijing up with its growing responsibilities compelled the PRC to redefine its rhetorical principles in light of its role on the global stage. 4.1. Sino-Sudanese relations before oil Sudan was one of the first African countries to officially recognize the PRC in 1959, and Chinese early engagement in the 1960s was characterized by mild trade interests. It was only under Nimairi that the two countries started to further their bilateral relations, until China became one of the major trading partner and soft aid contributor of Sudan among the socialist countries.340 As many authors have argued, this early presence was motivated by Mao’s increasing interests towards Africa, and framed within the ideological lenses of the Cold War, which led the Chinese Chairman to strongly commit himself to the anti-imperialistic and anti- 340 A. Abdalla Ali, The Sudanese-Chinese Relations, Before and After Oil, Sudan Currency Printing Press, Sudan Serial Book Number 159/2006, p. 11. 83 colonial causes by supporting the national liberation movements in the continent.341 Despite the fact that Sino-African relations revived after a period of cooling down due to Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) occurring at home, it was not until the early 1990s, as we will see, that Sino-Sudanese relations were permanently sealed with the first Chinese companies entering the country and starting to develop the Sudanese oil industry. According to many, the two countries’ relations before Chinese discovery of the Sudanese oil in the late 1990s was mostly characterized by a “thick” ideological foreign policy in compliance with rhetorical principles such as state sovereignty, non-interference, and solidarity, within a general “thin” framework of concrete trade, aid and political relations with Khartoum.342 This was mainly due to China’s lack of major economic means with which it could substantially exercise its influence. Throughout the period preceding China’s active engagement in the Sudanese affairs, Sino-Sudanese relations were thus to be framed within a general Chinese policy toward the continent of significant ideological commitment and mild, albeit still important, economic ties. Hence, in the very aftermath of Sudan’s independence, and even before the countries’ bilateral relations were officially inaugurated, several trading agreements were signed between the PRC and Sudan. In 1956 Khartoum concluded an economic agreement which was followed by other two agreements: the 1958 barter and the 1962 trading agreements, whose economic impact was still limited, as they served the purpose of laying the basis for the future cooperation between the two countries.343 The rationale of the recently-formed PRC early involvement in the African continent, and more specifically in the Sudan, in fact, was mostly shaped by its strong ideological drive which, however, was undeniably affected by a fragile economy characterizing China’s post-conflict economy. On the other side, the signature of these bilateral arrangement by Khartoum was due to the pragmatic character of the early post-colonial Sudanese governments under Khalil and later under General Abboud, who tried to shape the country’s foreign relations in accordance to their domestic priorities.344 Being the economic situation of independent Sudan still highly volatile, early Sino-Sudanese relations were thus mainly characterized by trading interests aimed at boosting the Sudanese 341 L. Anshan, African Studies in China: a historiographical survey, in A. Harneit-Sievers, S. Marks and S. Naidu (eds.), Chinese and African Perspectives on China in Africa, Pambazuka Press, Kampala, 2010, pp. 2-5. 342 D. Large, China’s Sudan Engagement…, p. 611. 343 Ivi, p. 12; D. H. Shinn and J. Eisenman, China and Africa, A Century of Engagement, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2012, p. 250. 344 See infra. 84 economy while strengthening diplomatic relations with a socialist country which was undergoing a quick developmental path. On the eve of independence, the Sudan was mainly an agricultural country, as its economy was relying on the exports of cotton, sesame, livestock and nuts. As a consequence, its economic growth was still highly dependent on a number of volatile variables, such as the weather conditions capable of unpredictably bringing about a certain level and quality of the harvest; the fluctuations of the prices on the international non-oil commodity market determining either the country’s growth or recession; and the amount of government investments in the improvement of the agricultural sector, which in turn were uncertain as they depended on the country’s annual balance of payment.345 Except from some infrastructural projects financed by the British aiming at diversifying the agricultural plantations, such as the Gezira irrigating scheme and some smaller projects in the Southern provinces of the Nubia and Equatoria, under the condominium era no major progresses had been achieved neither in the agricultural, nor in the Sudanese industrial sectors. According to Hopkins, three major trends characterized the country’s economic environment in that period: firstly, the absence of a strong private sectors, except for some local craftsmen, boat-builders, soap-makers and textile workers; secondly, the impossibility for both the Sudanese and the British firms to openly enter the market of foreign direct investments (FDI), therefore preventing them from seeking for international sources of financing, undermining their capability to grow; thirdly, remarkable dependence on indirect taxes (still present today) imposed by the government which attempted to secure its revenues, without realizing to be heavily hampering the country’s productivity. After a brief period during which the cotton international price was high and the country was able to sell its agricultural exports gaining huge revenues, by the mid-1950s the demand of cotton shrank, therefore determining decreasing prices and, in turn, decreasing revenues.346 As a consequence, the Sudanese government reacted by shifting from an economic policy of multilateralism towards a bilateral trading policy to be employed with alternative partners.347 An official survey by the Sudanese Ministry of Finance and Economics reported that 345 L. M. James, op. cit., p. 54. A. Abdalla Ali, The Sudanese Economy Since 1956, in P. G. Hopkins (eds.), The Kenana Handbook of Sudan, Kegan Paul, New York, 2007, p. 565. 347 A. Abdalla Ali, The Sudanese-Chinese Relations..., p. 12. 346 85 The difficulties of disposing of stocks of cotton experienced by the Sudan since 1955 inevitably led to a reconsideration of the principle of multilateralism on which Sudan’s has been based. Multilateralism certainly ensures that the country obtains its imports from the cheapest source of supply, and sells its products at the best prices. The Sudan was faced, however, with general overproduction of long staple cotton, and the resulting difficulties of selling all its output to its old customers. New markets had to be found. On the other hand some of the countries representing potential markets (e.g. China and Eastern Europe) adhered to the principle of bilateral trade as their fundamental system of trading. This explains why in the course of last year the Sudan entered in the bilateral agreements.348 Moreover, in light of the Sudanese enduring economic fragility, in 1956 the government under Khalil approved an Investment Encouragement Act, aiming at boosting both foreign and local investments as the country’s post-colonial economic means proved to be insufficient on their own to successfully undertake the development path. Hence, several economic agreements were signed in the period immediately following the attainment of independence, regardless the ideological stance of the signatories. This was, for instance, the case of the 1956, 1958 and 1962 economic agreements signed with the PRC, as well as the 1958 technical assistance and aid package provided for the Sudan by the US.349 In the case of China, the 1958 barter agreement made a deal providing the PRC with the Sudanese cotton in exchange for Chinese textiles, sugar, iron and steel for the same quantity, which kept increasing until 1974.350 Although alternative partners were sought among the Eastern Europe countries, and many economic bilateral agreements were signed, for instance, with Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland, and Hungary, we may notice that the PRC has proved to be by far the Sudanese most favourite economic partner in the long run. The nature of China’s early engagement toward the African continent was officially in line with the principles of peaceful coexistence which had been proclaimed at the Bandung Conference in 1955 and later further by the NAM’s countries. According to those guidelines, China’s attitude towards the Sudan, and more generally towards the less-developed countries (LDCs), was to be supportive and positive regardless each country’s internal political affairs.351 This attitude was positively perceived by most African leaderships insofar they 348 Economic Survey, Ministry of Finance and Economics, Khartoum, 1985, in ibidem. Ibidem. 350 Ivi, p. 14. 351 See infra. 349 86 were granted unconditional economic support with “no political string” attached. As stated by Abdalla Ali, Throughout Sudan’s relations with China, the major emphasis was mainly economic and trade relations. China never interfered in the alternating political system in Sudan, i.e. alternating between the military and civilian, as well as between varying ideologies. The Chinese showed enthusiasm for every Sudanese government, no matter what the ideology of the government was.352 However, despite this official “all-weather” friendship, several authors have highlighted that throughout its early engagement, Beijing proved to be susceptible to the nature of the various Sudanese governments.353 It has been claimed, for instance, that the October government formed in 1964, with its remarkable communist character, resulted more positive for the PRC than the previous one under General Abboud. Although China’s first official visit to the African country dated back to January 1964, when Prime Minister Zhou Enlai held a meeting with General Abboud during which he revived their anti-colonial struggle,354 and despite the fact that their bilateral ties also endured the diplomatic incident occurring during the Congo crisis (1960-1966), as the Sudanese government prevented some Chinese arms from reaching the Congolese rebels to which they were directed,355 Beijing proved to be more favourable to the communist component of Sudan’s civilian government under Khatim, rather than to the pragmatic approach held by General Abboud.356 However, this ideological affinity was not to last long, as a new cabinet was formed in the aftermath of the 1965 elections, which restored the power of the traditional Sudanese NUP and Umma Party, and resurrected 352 A. Abdalla Ali, op. cit., p. 55. D. H. Shinn and J. Eisenman, op. cit; D. Large, Sudan’s Foreign Relations With Asia, China and the politics of looking East, Institute for Security Studies, Paper 158, February 2008, p. 2, available at: www.africaportal.org. 354 D. Large, Sudan’s Foreign Relations With Asia, China and the politics of looking East, Institute for Security Studies, Paper 158, February 2008, p. 2, available at: www.africaportal.org. 355 As previously stated, the pragmatic attitude towards the resolution of the Sudanese domestic issues led General Abboud to keep a low profile on the international arena from 1958 to 1964. As a consequence, to an assertive and ideologically-driven foreign policy, he preferred a mild and neutral approach, aimed at keeping good relations with his neighbors and pleasing all potential international investors. Hence, the above-mentioned diplomatic incident between the PRC and the Sudan did not prevent Abboud from welcoming Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai in 1964, and from being hosted in Beijing the same year. See infra. 356 This was notwithstanding the pro-Soviet character of the Sudanese Communists. As a matter of fact, Sino-Soviet relations started to strain from the early 1960s. Thus, the pro-Soviet stance showed by the SCP was perceived as a factor potentially hampering the relations between the two countries. See D. H. Shinn and J. Eisenman, op. cit., p. 250. 353 87 the sectarian and pragmatic character of the Sudanese traditional leadership, therefore bringing the Sino-Sudanese relations to a temporary low ebb.357 During this phase of Chinese early engagement, Sino-Sudanese ties remarkably improved in the late 1960s, until they reached their peak under Nimairi. Their bilateral ties furthered as soon as Nimairi officially visited Beijing, as it was the first time a Sudanese President ever landed on the Chinese soil.358 More specifically, their relations dramatically boosted in the second phase of Nimairi administration, when he banned the SCP after the coup attempt in 1971, therefore distancing himself from the USSR, which was allegedly involved in it. Predictably enough, given the Sino-Soviet split, Beijing enthusiastically welcomed the changing nature of Sudan’s relations with Moscow, as it provided the right opportunity to consolidate its presence without fearing any threats from other socialist countries.359 Hence, from that moment onwards, the Sino-Sudanese relations took a more comprehensive dimension as the PRC not only furthered its role of trading partner, but it also became one the major source of development assistance for the African country. In the period 1970-1992, in fact, several consistent free-interests loans were granted to Khartoum: in 1970, the Sudan was granted a first 100 million Yuan loan, with easy terms of payment, to be invested in certain infrastructural projects in line with Khartoum’s priorities. In 1972 a second Chinese loan was offered worth the same amount of money, followed by a third even more consistent loan before the end of the decade.360 These loans were directed towards some infrastructural projects such as the construction of a conference hall (the so-called “Friendship Hall”); a textile mill (the “Hassa Heissa Friendship Mill”); a bridge on the Blue Nile; a road from Medani to Gedarif, two cities South-East of Khartoum; the upgrade of the Gezira scheme; a fishing project in the Nasser Lake; and a surveying of chrome at the Al-Angasana Hills.361 From a comparison of the overall amount of development assistance provided by other countries from the socialist area to the Sudan in 1974, we may notice that the Chinese assistance was more profitable, as it was interest-free, instead of an average of 2,5-3% provided by countries such as the USSR, Yugoslavia, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia; and it was by far the most consistent, amounting to 51% of the total Sudanese foreign assistance.362 357 Ivi, p. 251. D. H. Shinn and J. Eisenman, op. cit., p. 251. 359 Ibidem. 360 A. Abdalla Ali, op. cit., pp. 26-56. 361 Ivi, p. 27. 362 Ivi, p. 28. 358 88 Not only the PRC was emerging as the greater donor in terms of development assistance magnitude, but it was also exporting a different approach aimed at providing immediate and concrete results. This was because, together with the financing, the above-mentioned projects were also carried out by Chinese engineers and workers. The very fact that Chinese firms were sent to Sudan in order to concretely bring the project to completion was, from an African perspective, a tangible proof of the fact that the PRC cared about the results, unlike the Western or Eastern European countries.363 Furthermore, a number of factors contributed to favour Chinese instead of other countries’ development assistance: firstly, the preliminary phase of project appraisal comprising the feasibility and cost-benefit studies, which is usually the most time-consuming part of a project, was downplayed in favour of the much more important production phase; thus, after concretely providing for a prototype of the infrastructural project to build, such as a mill or a bridge, the Chinese workers started to build it straight away, adapting it to the local weather and working conditions. Secondly, Chinese labour-intensive technology proved to be easier both to learn and to use by Sudanese workers than the sophisticated and capital-intensive instrument and machineries provided by the Western countries, which required highly developed technical skills and regular updating processes. Thirdly, and more importantly, the Chinese aid was oriented towards the acquirement of a certain level of local expertise which would allow the LDCs to emancipate themselves from economic dependency in the long run. Thus, according to the official Chinese rhetoric, as metaphorically conveyed by an Oriental proverb, the Africans would be finally able to catch their own fish, instead of being provided one.364 For all these reasons, the development assistance provided by Beijing during the 1970s, deemed to be more effective than other countries’ aid, contributed to lay fruitful basis for the PRC to deepen its relation with the Sudan for the years to come. Alongside with the economic trade and assistance agreements, the 1970s were also characterized by the signature of other important pacts marking Beijing’s willingness to extend the Sino-Sudanese cooperation to other dimensions. This was the case, for instance, of the 1970 Cultural, Scientific and Technological Protocol, providing for the first Chinese medical team comprising doctors, nurses and administrators to be sent to the African country for a two-year period, during which the Oriental expertise was at the Sudanese disposal, specifically aiming at providing relief to the people coming from the rural areas.365 Another factor which contributed to further the Sino-Sudanese ties at the grass-root level was Chinese 363 Ibidem. Ivi, p. 31. 365 Ivi, p. 35. 364 89 new way of personal interaction, namely that kind of highly disciplined, honest, self-denial and respectful behaviour performed by the Asian workers which was appreciated by the local population, and which was far distant from the Western approach, perceived as more detached and contemptuous.366 Not only cotton and medical agreements, however, featured the early phase of SinoSudanese relations. Also the transfer of arms has been at the centre of the Chinese strategic cooperation with the continent from the late 1950s, when many African freedom-fighters and rebels were trained, as well as several liberation movements consistently financed with money and arms alike.367 In the case under current scrutiny, the early 1960s were shaped by the harsh civil war between Khartoum and the Southern rebels, to which the Sudanese government responded by seeking military help from both the Soviet Union and the PRC.368 From the latter, the Sudan got $5 million worth of arms comprising fighter aircrafts (MiG-17s) and tanks, and some 200 military personnel trained from 1967 until the 1972 Addis Ababa Peace Agreement was signed, determining a temporary suspension of the arms flows.369 In the aftermath of its proclamation, the PRC was pursuing a foreign policy characterized by a “thick” ideological commitment towards the third world community.370 During the early phase of the Cold War, given the affinities between the PRC and the USSR, some authors have suggested that there was no substantial difference in the Chinese and the Soviet approach towards the African countries.371 During that period, in fact, some members of the China’s Communist Party (CCP) had the chance to meet the then South African Secretary General of the African National Congress, and other representatives of the few already independent African states such as Liberia, Egypt and Libya, during international meetings mostly financed by the USSR and aimed at strengthening their reciprocal ties against the Western camp.372 Then, as the Sino-Soviet split deepened and the PRC wanted to get away from the Soviet marker, the African continent became an integral part of Beijing’ foreign policy. Following the fruitful encounters Chinese and African leaders had in Bandung in 1955, a Chinese delegation was sent to the first Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organization (AAPSO) held in 366 Ivi, p. 39. D. H. Shinn and J. Eisenman, op. cit., p. 164. 368 See infra. 369 D. H. Shinn and J. Eisenman, op. cit., p. 166. 370 See infra. 371 W. A. C. Adie, China and Africa Today, “Race and Class”, No. 5, Vol. 3, 1964, in D. H. Shinn and J. Eisenman, op. cit., p. 32. 372 Ibidem. 367 90 Cairo in 1957. This organization was specifically created in order to further Sino-African solidarity in a specific anti-Western perspective (from which the USSR was excluded), and by 1960 it represented the cornerstone of Beijing’s commitment towards the continent. As stated by China’s Chairman of the Committee for Afro-Asian Solidarity, Liao Cheng-chih, on the eve of the second AAPSO to be held in 1960 To thoroughly defeat all new imperialist plots, the peoples of Asia and Africa must strengthen their solidarity still further. Unity among the Asian and African peoples is the basic guarantee for their liberation. Five years ago the Bandung Conference prepared the groundwork for this solidarity. Since then, a link has been forged between the national independence movements on the two continents. They influence and give impetus to each other, and surge forward together like successive waves in a rising tide.373 Thus, from the formal establishment of their diplomatic ties in 1959, China’s early engagement in Sudan has to be framed in this wider context of mutual collaboration and cooperation between the PRC and the African continent, in which a number of bilateral trade and assistance agreements were signed.374 However, as argued by Shinn and Eisenman, the magnitude of the economic exchange between the PRC and the African continent until the 1990s was “small and roughly in balance”,375 due to China’s socio-economic instability brought about by the Cultural Revolution and by the post-Maoist restructuring era, which led the country to a first period of international isolation and then to the reshaping of its foreign policy’s priorities from the late 1960s to the late 1980s.376 Hence, this seems to confirm Large’s argument according to which the Maoist era was characterized by a strong foreign policy rhetoric towards the African continent within a thinner economic and political framework. To wait for the Chinese foreign policy to “thicken” with respect to Sudan in terms of both economic and political terms, we will have to wait until the late 1990s, after the first Sudanese oil was discovered, and the PRC fully plunged in the African context. L. Cheng-chih’s speech, “Peking Review”, No. 29, 13 March 1960, p. 12. D. H. Shinn and J. Eisenman, op. cit., p. 37. 375 Ibidem. 376 B. Onnis, China in the International Relations, (original title: “La Cina nelle Relazioni Internazionali”) Quality Paperbacks, Carocci, Roma, 2011, p. 49. 373 374 91 4.2. The discovery of Sudanese oil and Chinese early engagement Sudan’s oil reserves were firstly discovered in the early 1970s, when President Nimairi, attempting to face the serious Sudanese economic crisis, sought for international assistance to explore the country’s underground potentialities.377 In the early 1970s, in fact, the international oil market was experiencing several price fluctuations due to a number of historical events, such as the end of the Gold Standard proclaimed by Nixon in 1971, and the 1973 Yom Kippur War which caused the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)378 to cut oil production and to proclaim an embargo on exports towards the US and the pro-Israeli countries.379 This led the oil price to quadruplicate by early 1974, and the oil-importing countries to look for alternative suppliers rather than the OPEC countries due to the serious effects of this sudden increase on their internal economies.380 In particular, the Sudan, whose economy was already suffering from several setbacks due to major problems in its agricultural productive system, suddenly saw its oil bill rising from an annual US $1 million to more than $ 4 million. This, in turn, caused the country’s foreign exchange to wide, as it had to import much more than it could export, and its balance of payment to be highly imbalanced towards the outflows at the expense of its inflows.381 This, to put it with the words of Abdlalla Ali, was due to the fact that Sudan has always produced mostly goods which it does not consume (for instance cotton and agricultural products), and consumes mostly what it does not produce (namely hydrocarbons and natural resources).382 Hence, to face this rampant crisis, in the early 1970s President Nimairi looked for foreign partners to help the country exploring its subsoil. Given the special relation which Khartoum had developed with Beijing, he decided to firstly ask the Chinese who, however, proved to be incapable of offering the required technology, and uprightly suggested him to turn to the 377 Ivi, p. 8. The OPEC organization was founded in 1960, and comprises Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela as the founding members. Several countries later joined, such as Qatar (1961), Libya (1962), the United Arab Emirates (1967), Algeria (1969), Nigeria (1971), Ecuador (1973), and Angola (2007). For further information, see OPEC’s website: www.opec.org. 379 S. El Tuhami, Oil in Sudan. Its Discovery and Industrial Development, in P. G. Hopkins, op. cit., p. 657. 380 C. Issawi, The 1973 Oil Crisis and After, “The Journal of Post-Keynesian Economics”, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Winter), 1978-1979, pp. 3-26. 381 S. El Tuhami, op. cit., p. 657. 382 A. Adballa Ali, op. cit., p. 13. The content in brackets is added. 378 92 US.383 It was then that the American oil Company Chevron entered the Sudanese scene by officially getting an exploration agreement signed with Khartoum in November 1974.384 At that time, the Chevron Corporation, as many other Western energy multinationals, were looking for new oil-producing areas in order to undermine the hegemony of the OPEC countries. The company’s historical ancestor was the Pacific Coast Oil Corporation, founded in 1879 after an oil discovery at Pico Canyon, California. After acquiring the assets of Star Oil, the Pacific Coast became the biggest oil company of the whole California. 385 In 1900, it was then acquired by Standard Oil led by John D. Rockefeller, but continued to be independent until it was merged with a Standard Oil subsidiary, and become known as the Standard Oil Company (California). Later on, after a US federal decision obliged the Standard Oil Corporation to split because of its non-compliance with an anti-monopoly law in 1911, the company acquired an independent status under the name of Standard Oil Co. of California. It then bought out the Gulf Oil Corporation in 1984, and finally became Chevron Corporation, to be known as one of the “Seven Sisters”,386 namely the Anglo-Saxon companies dominating the oil industry from the aftermath of World War II to the mid1970s.387 A factor, among others, which contributed to the Seven Sisters’ lengthy hegemony on the oil market was the use of their high-tech and sophisticated equipment to look for new and potentially fruitful oil-rich areas. As a matter of fact, in the early 1970s, Chevron geologists could took advantage of new earth’s images acquired after the launch of the Landsat satellite in 1972 by the American National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In light of these, new explorations projects were launched in East Africa to look for untapped oil fields which apparently the area was rich of. At that time, Chevron was actually working in Kenya when a geologist suggested the company’s managers to head towards Khartoum to seek for 383 From 1976, the national oil company of China was in Yemen after the a six-month initial survey was agreed between the China’s Ministry of Petroleum and the Yemenite government looking for potential fields to be developed in the Southern part of the country. See infra. 384 L. Patey, The New Kings of Crude. China, India, and the Global Struggle for Oil in Sudan and South Sudan, Hurst & Company, London, 2014, p. 14. 385 J. Karliner, The Corporate Planet, Ecology and Politics in the Age of Globalization, A Sierra Club Book, San Francisco, 1997, p. 61. 386 The term “Seven Sisters” was first coined by the founder of the Italian energy company ENI, Enrico Mattei in the 1950s, and was used to refer to the major Western companies leading the oil industry at the time, namely the English Anglo-Persian Oil Company; the American Gulf Oil, Standard Oil of California (today’s Chevron), Standard Oil of New Jersey (today’s Exxon), Standard Oil Co. of New York (today’s Exxon-Mobil), Texaco (recently acquired by Chevron); and the AngloDutch Royal Dutch Shell. 387 Al-Jazeera Documentary, The Secret of the Seven Sisters, April 2013, available at: www.aljazeera.com. 93 investment opportunities in the Sudan.388 From a geological viewpoint, the most striking feature of the Sudanese territory was its extensiveness and its plainness, with the highest uplands reaching only 800 metres above sea level in the far West and South of the country.389 Some researches proved that the Sudanese territory had been subjected to major extensional rifting causing the formation of source rocks over the centuries. At the time of the satellite’s launch, the images seemed to suggest that the temperature and time conditions of the alluvial rocks covering half of the Sudanese territories were suitable for the formation of oil basins.390 In that period, as previously stated, Nimairi was desperately looking for international partners able to assist the country in its quest for natural resources. This happened after a first exploration mission was sent in 1959, when the Italian company AGIP gained a concession in the Red Sea basin. However, in that case the results were negative, both because of an inadequate level of drilling and insufficient technological means.391 Hence, in 1974, after sending a successful expedition to seek for further information on potential sedimentary basins, Chevron won its first exploration concession, and decided to start from where AGIP left, namely Red Sea littoral zone, stretching from the Egyptian border to the Khor Baraka River near Tokar, and South of Suakin, on the Red Sea shores South of Port Sudan, convinced that with its improved technological means it would have succeeded.392 However, this geographical choice proved to be unsuccessful once again, as only minor non-commercial natural gas basins were discovered by 1975.393 Chevron then decided to turn Southwards, and began the exploration of the Sudanese interior.394 From 1975, when the company made what has been called a “geologically educated guess”395 by starting to explore the Southern territories, it took two years for the Chevron experts to establish all the required equipment into the sedimentary basins they were assigned to, namely the Muglad and Melut basins, and to adjust working in the Southern hostile climatic conditions. There was no certainty on whether the company would manage to get L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 14. A. Y. Mohamed and W. A. Ashcroft, The Petroleum Geology of Sudan, in P. G. Hopkins, op. cit., p. 683. 390 A. al-Jazz, The Oil of Sudan. Challenges and Achievements, in ivi, p. 671. 391 A. Abdalla Ali, op. cit., p. 71. 392 S. El Tuhami, op. cit., p. 658. 393 L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 15. 394 As a matter of fact, within a few years the concession reached several hundred thousands of Km2 stretching from the Southern Darfur, Kordofan and the Upper Nile to the Blue Nile provinces. See P. Nyot Kok, Adding Fuel to the Conflict: Oil, War and Peace in the Sudan, in M. Doornbos, L. Cliffe, A. Ghaffar M. Ahmed and J. Markakis (edited by), Beyond Conflict in the Horn, The Prospects for Peace, Recovery and Development in Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan, The Red Press, Inc. Trenton, 1992, p. 105. 395 A. G. Hatley Jr. (edited by), The Oil Finders. A Collection of Stories About Explorations, Utopia, TX: Centex Press, 1995, in L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 15. 388 389 94 anything out of it, as no previous drillings had been made. As also confirmed by a former Sudanese oil official, “no one thought oil could be found in Sudan’s non-marine sedimentary basins”.396 However, Nimairi trusted the company’s striking capability of “smelling oil”, and eventually got rewarded.397 As a matter of fact, in 1977 the first oil-drill pierced the Sudanese soil, and in 1978 scattered oil traces were found in the Muglad area. Moreover, in 1978 the first commercial discovery of oil was made in the Northern area of Abu Gabra, along the border between contemporary West Kordofan and South Darfur provinces. However, this was only the beginning as in 1980s a major oil well was found in the Greater Upper Nile province, near the village of Bentiu (the so-called Unity oil field), followed by the discovery of the Adar and Yale oil fields, in the Eastern Upper Nile region; the Heglig oil field, between Kordofan and the Upper Nile; finally, some minor discoveries in the Upper Nile and Kordofan regions. Given the geographical location of the major oil fields, all in the South, Chevron’s main camp was then established in the Greater Upper Nile village of Bentiu.398 On the Sudanese side, the first oil discovery was welcome with enthusiasm, both by the Sudanese authority and by most of the local populations. Actually, the American company was warmly welcome by the Sudanese from its very arrival, as it showed a great economic and technical commitment towards the project. In fact, it provided high-tech and large scale both drilling and administrative facilities; it also employed international contractors, which in turn hired local subcontractors therefore benefiting the local population; it made several geological and geo-physical studies, and agro-magnetic surveys.399 Despite having an initial commitment towards the Sudanese government of US $ 15 million, during the first four years, Chevron spent US $ 90 million, and by late 1982 it has been calculated that it was spending half a million dollars a day.400 Furthermore, several scholarships were offered to Sudanese students, and a US $ 100’000 bonus cheque was granted to Nimairi to improve the Sudanese capital.401 The good relations between Khartoum and the American company were actually framed in a context of general positive Sudanese-American official relations, as Nimairi’s pragmatic 396 Ivi, p. 14. As a matter of fact, at that time Chevron was also working in Saudi Arabia where the successful oil enterprise ARAMCO was established. 398 L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 16. 399 S. El Tuhami, op. cit., p. 661. 400 Sudan, “Quarterly Economic Review”, No. 1, 1982, Economist Intelligence Unit, in L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 22. 401 Ivi, p. 14. 397 95 anti-Soviet shift adopted in aftermath of the coup attempt in 1971 paved the way for a fruitful cooperation to flourish between the two countries. Given the historical context of the Cold War, in fact, Washington was highly favourable to strengthen ties with a country so close to the Horn of Africa, where some dynamics reflecting the Cold War’s rivalry were taking place.402 After one of the first American visits by the then US Ambassador to the United Nations George H. W. Bush in the Sudan, we know he was a strong supporter of furthering the ties between the two countries, as he had the impression that Nimairi was displaying a collaborative attitude towards Washington. As reported by George H. W. Bush “The Sudan could assist any initiative which the US might undertake, provided he (Nimairi) felt it was serious and genuine and provided that any actions he was called on to take would not embarrass or weaken Egypt”.403 Hence, in 1972, full diplomatic relations with the US were restored after being severed in the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War.404 Although the first symptoms of danger appeared already in 1973, when the American chargé d’affairs, the American and the Belgian ambassadors were taken hostages by the Palestinian terrorists residing in the Sudan, better known as Black September, and eventually killed, the relations between the two countries were overall stable.405 This was also proved by the fact that the Sudanese government backed the US in sponsoring the peace negotiations between the Israeli and Egyptian authorities leading to the Camp David Accords in 1978, although it gave rise to a strong resentment among the Arab countries against both Khartoum and Cairo.406 Under Carter and Reagan’s administrations also the military ties were strengthened as the African country purchased military equipment such as aircrafts, tanks, firearms and ammunitions worth hundreds of millions of dollars. This made the Sudan the single largest recipient of US economic and military assistance in the whole continent, until the official bilateral relations strained again in the early 1980s, as the radical shift of Nimairi’s policy, together with the 402 As a matter of fact, the Ogaden War of 1977-78 between Ethiopia and Somalia may be listed among the Cold War’s proxy wars due to the involvement of both the US and the USSR in the warfare. For further information, see P. Woodward, US Foreign Policy and the Horn of Africa, Ashgate, Hampshire, 2006. 403 T. Naftali, Blind Spot: The Secret History of American Counterterrorism, Basic Books, New York, 2005, p. 69. 404 See infra. 405 The then US President Nixon excluded the idea of giving up to the terrorists’ demands, as they included the liberation of both the murderer of Robert Kennedy, and several Palestinian prisoners in Jordan and Israel. For further information, see Intelligence Memorandum, Document No. 217, Washington, June 1973, available at: history.state.gov. 406 See infra. 96 presence of a large contingent of Libyan terrorists within the Sudanese territory, led the American diplomatic staff to reduce progressively.407 Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, Chevron’s oil activities were strenuously ongoing, as the Americans were developing the recently discovered fields. Although from 1980 the Sudanese-American official ties began to strain, the relations between Khartoum and the American company managed not to be directly affected, as Chevron reached a certain degree of autonomy from Washington’s diplomatic channels. As stated by Chevron’s first country manager, “I opened the Khartoum office in late 1974 and had good relations with the US embassy, but received little other than moral support from its staff.”408 After the discovery of major oil wells in the South, Khartoum was even more willing to keep the Americans investments within the country, as Khartoum was now pushing Chevron to build an oil refinery.409 This request was motivated by the dramatic increase of the international oil price: as a matter of fact, despite the oil discovery, Sudan was still an oil-importing country, and the GoS was convinced that developing the local refinery capacities would have relieved its external dependence. However, this time Chevron’s aims were different from the Sudanese, as the Americans wanted to focus their efforts on the construction of an oil pipeline going North towards Port Sudan.410 In fact, the increased oil prices recorded in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution (1979) coupled with new oil findings in the South, led Chevron to look for big money to be made through oil exports. To reach the international oil market, then, a pipeline going from the main Heglig and Unity fields to the Red Sea was to be quickly built. Hence, at the Sudanese request of building a big refinery handling 25,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the North, they answered by proposing the construction of a smaller 5,000 bpd refinery just outside Bentiu. A tug of war negotiation process followed between the Sudanese Minister of Energy and Mining, Sharif El Tuhami, and Chevron’s executives which ended up with the decision taken by President Nimairi in 1982 to go ahead with the pipeline project, which officially started the ensuing year, but was not destined to see the light in the short run.411 In 407 Sudan 10/09; Previous Editions of Sudan Background Notes, US Department of State, available at: www.state.gov/outofdate/bgn/sudan/129311.htm. 408 L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 21. 409 S. El Tuhami, op. cit., p. 662. 410 L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 21. 411 As a matter of fact, this decision was taken against the willingness of El Tuhami, who wanted to convince Chevron executives to empower the local refining capabilities by building the refinery instead of satisfying the company’s quest for oil exports. In addition, he also claimed that Chevron officers were exercising a dishonest propaganda aiming at persuading President Nimairi to agree over 97 fact, Chevron’s oil-workers remained in the country only until February 1984, when a sudden attack at the Rubkona base camp in Southern Sudan by the rebels of Anya-Nya II led the Americans to withdraw. As a matter of fact already in the early 1970s, following the signature of the Addis Ababa accords, a group of Nuer military leaders, mostly Anya-Nya old veterans, decided to revive the nationalistic spirit characterizing the original rebel group, and formed the Anya-Nya II under the traditional slogan of the Southern independence.412 However, the Anya-Nya II was not the only rebel group to occupy the Southern Sudanese political scene, as after the adoption of the so-called September Laws providing for the Islamization of the country, another armed group called the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) started to mobilize under the leadership of John Garang paving the way for the second Sudanese civil war to start. Predictably enough, the same problems which had affected the different Southern groups and movements during the first Sudanese civil war, namely the lack of internal cohesion, interethnic rifts and grievances, were far from being solved and the two major groups, the AnyaNya II and the SPLA (together with its political wing, the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement, SPLM), were soon at odds with each other.413 After some years of violent conflicts, the SPLA/M eventually emerged as the leading movement of the Southern guerrilla under the Sudanese second civil war which started in 1983 and lasted for more than twenty years. In the early 1980s, the Anya Nya II guerrillas developed a hit-and-run tactic against Northern merchants and government representatives alike. Moreover, several casualties also affected Chevron’s oil workers, as they were perceived to connive with the GoS.414 the pipeline project. As he stated, “Chevron privately whispered in the corridors of the Ministry of Energy and Mining that should the refinery project proceed, Sudan’s government would not have enough foreign currency to repay its foreign exchange debt, as well the refined products would be assigned for local consumption.” By contrast, President Nimairi wanted to see concrete results as soon as possible, hence he decided to authorize the pipeline project depriving the Minister of his authority. According to Patey, at the origin of the two conflicting views there was also the fact that the Energy and Mining Minister belonged to the traditional Umma Party, with which Nimairi established a temporary political truce in 1977, but with which he had nothing to share. L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 22. 412 M. LeRiche and M. Arnold, op. cit., p. 61. 413 This was due to a number of different reasons. If on the one hand the Anya-Nya II members aimed at reviving the original Southern Sudanese pro-independent stance, on the other hand, Garang, who supported the unity option, perceived them as parochial reactionaries, backing a broader vision of reformed unity. Regarding the conflict arising between the two movements, Garang was heard saying that “Our objective was to convince the Anya Nya Two to join us. The Anya Nya Two also attempted to convince us to join them. The failure of the two groups to join together as one organization, unfortunately led to the start of the war as two movements that brought untold sufferings and setbacks to the people of Southern Sudan they had wanted to liberate.” Ivi, p. 64. 414 L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 41. 98 Hence, in February 1984 a small Anya Nya II commando assaulted Chevron’s Rubkona camp in the South, killed three Chevron’s workers and wounded other seven. This violent resurgence of the Sudanese civil war took the Americans by surprise, and found them absolutely unwilling to shoulder the risk of losing human lives, notwithstanding whatsoever future earnings. Hence, after the Rubkona attack Chevron’s executives visited Khartoum in order to make clear that the oil-pipeline project was going to be carried out only if the Sudanese government was to provide for safety measures against other potential armed attacks. However, given the lack of any reassuring answer by Khartoum, the company repatriated its fellow countrymen and stopped the work under force majeure reasons.415 Since its discovery, oil has always been at the core of both the economic and the political rivalry between Khartoum and Juba, as the Southern authorities were firmly kept excluded from the shaping of the national oil policy, despite the major oil-fields being Southern. In order to overcome any potential source of acrimony, since the 1974 exploration concession was granted, Chevron’s executives used to visit the Southern High Executive Council (HEC) based in Juba on a regular basis to keep its members updated of the situation on the ground.416 However, from the first meeting with Abdel Alier, HEC’s President, it was clear that Khartoum tried to keep the Southern authorities in the dark. As Chevron’s country manager recalled, “it was soon obvious that they knew an agreement had been made by Khartoum, but they knew little else about the matter.”417 Since the discovery of the first oil basins, the atmosphere got extremely tense, as any event coming from the fields tended to assume a political connotations exacerbating the relations between Khartoum, willing to preserve its total control over the oil-fields, and the Southern authorities, trying to find some room to make their voice heard. The atmosphere got even tenser as President Nimairi announced his intention to build an oil refinery in Kosti, in the North, dismissing Bentiu as its originally planned location because, to put it with El Tuhami’s words, it would be “in the middle of nowhere”;418 moreover, the Sudanese President denied the Southern authorities tax revenue from the refinery construction. As a consequence, the initial enthusiasm shared by the Southern population as soon as the first signs of oil were discovered turned soon into frustration and anger. Not even the attempts made by the American company to appease the Southerners by providing new jobs and technical courses sufficed to prevent Chevron from 415 S. El Tuhami, op. cit., p. 664. L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 33. 417 Ibidem. 418 P. Nyot Kok, op cit., p. 108. 416 99 being involved into the civil war’s violent dynamics which culminated in the 1984 Rubkona armed attack.419 The rationale motivating the Anya Nya II rebels was to give both the Sudanese government and the company’s executives a clear warning against what was perceived to be a complicit anti-Southern attitude shared by the two actors. As a matter of fact, the Sudanese army, in its hunt for Southern rebels, often used the company’s facilities and infrastructures, and the rebels claimed that technical assistance was provided by Chevron to fuel Khartoum’s intelligence.420 Once the security issue proved to be more difficult for the company to solve than expected, the Americans first decided to stop working on the oil-fields and had several meetings with the Sudanese authorities trying to have things diplomatically sorted out with the rebels. This request was also to be balanced with the fact that the company was not willing to have its camps protected by the Sudanese army, as it did not want to give the impression of taking side in the civil conflict, nor because the local military officers were considered to be hair-trigger people.421 Given the impossibility to ensure a viable diplomatic solutions with the rebels, but at the same time seeking for Chevron to restart its work as soon as possible, President Nimairi then started to provide the ethnic nomadic group of Misseriya with arms in order to protect the oil camps in the Southern Kordofan area, where they periodically migrated. Similarly, he attempted to exploit the ethnic cleavages characterizing the rebels groups in order to persuade the Anya Nya II members to became government militias and to protect the Southern oil fields in exchange for arms and munitions supplies.422 Although his long-term strategy proved to be successful, as Nimairi made some Anya Nya II components to shift political allegiance and fight against the SPLA/M, he did not manage to convince the American executives to stay, as they perceived Nimairi’s political momentum was also fading on the Sudanese scene under its incapability to both handle the civil war resurgence and the country’s harmful economic woes. Therefore, three months after the attack, Chevron’s officers had no other possibility but to leave the country. As a matter of fact, it was not the first time Chevron’s workers were the target of Southern rebels attacks. In fact, in 1982, a Chevron officers reminded that “during the last six months a large percentage of my time was spent dealing with security problems and employee and government relations.” In 1982, five Chevron’s contractors were kidnapped by the Anya-Nya II rebels at the Bentiu fields, the ensuing year two more workers were held hostages, and another worker was shot and killed in a robbery attempt at the Rubkona camp. 420 L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 42. 421 Ibidem. 422 The Anya Nya II members, in fact, were mostly Nuer, while the SPLA/M were Dinka. See ivi, p. 43. 419 100 From an American perspective, the decision taken by Chevron’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to withdraw from the Sudan was not an easy one, and till the early 1990s several meetings were held and initiatives taken with the purpose of restoring peaceful conditions to allow the company to come back. As a matter of fact, in order to effectively tackle the security issue, Chevron hired an international security firm providing for US Vietnam veterans to protect the oil fields, but they proved incapable to accomplish their task.423 In addition, in the aftermath of the Rubkona attack several official as well as unofficial meetings were held between Chevron executives and Nimairi, in Khartoum and Washington alike, motivated by the same interest: namely restoring the drilling activities. On the one hand the Americans did not want to leave the Sudanese territory after investing so much money and resources without fully benefited from the country’s potential in terms of economic revenues, while on the other Nimairi was in desperate need of stabilizing the country’s balance of payment, which was starting to crumble again. By the same token, after Nimairi’s overthrown, the civilian government of al Mahdi found itself in the same economic difficulties he would not able to face without Chevron’s external help. Despite these compelling requests, however, the Americans made their return stubbornly contingent upon an improved security situation on the ground, which did not materialize.424 Nor Chevron was backed by the US government, which started to feel uncomfortable from the Nimairi’s Islamic shift in the second phase of his administration. In fact, things got even worse as soon as the NIF came to power in 1989. The radicalization of the country, in fact, was pushed further, and the Sudanese-American diplomatic relations dramatically strained. Although Washington has been providing economic aid to Khartoum throughout the 1980s as it was worried to lose its Sudanese strategic ally, several international events, such as the coming to power of Gorbachev, the growing presence of terroristic cells within the Sudanese territory, and the NIF backing of Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War made the relations between the two countries progressively at odds, until Sudan was officially proclaimed as a country sponsoring international terrorism, and all diplomatic and economic relations broke off.425 423 Ibidem. L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 48. 425 As argued by Woodword, in the 1980s the US policy found itself in a sort of dilemma, as the Sudan proved to be a strategic ally to balance the presence of the Soviet Union in Ethiopia, and with respect of Libya, with which Khartoum had a lengthy, albeit ambiguous, relation. At the same time, however, by 1985 the Cold War’s tension was increasingly cooling dawn, and the radicalization of the Sudanese government in the aftermath of the NIF coup d’état heavily undermined the American strategic interests in supporting Khartoum. P. Woodward, US Foreign Policy…, p. 32. 424 101 Similarly, Chevron first contact with the NIF was far from being helpful in restoring the old harmony. When the company’s country manager visited Sudan after the coup he immediately perceived the atmosphere has suddenly changed, as he reported that “doing work in Sudan changed from being safe and stable to dangerous and unfriendly” as there was “huge anti-West and particularly anti-American sentiment in the end.”426 Furthermore, the company had also to face a new and “difficult breed” among the country’s leadership which, by contrast, tended to exacerbate the civil war dynamics by adopting a systematic policy of exclusion of the Southerners in the management of oil within their territories.427 In light of all these considerations, and given the growing interests of Chevron’s new CEO towards untapped oil basins in Angola and Kazakhstan, the final decision to withdraw from the Sudan was taken in 1990. From then on, the GoS resumed its direct control over the oil fields through its Ministry of Energy and Mining. Shortly after, the Ministry divided the oil-rich Sudanese territories into 15 different areas or blocks to be assigned to future oil companies, all approximately located along the contemporary border between Sudan and South Sudan, and on the Southern Sudanese territory.428 In order to face this production abrupt stop, already in 1992 Chevron’s concession rights were sold to a small Sudanese firm, Concorp International, owned by a local businessman and senior NIF party member holding personal contacts with Al Turabi.429 From an overall investment of nearly US $ 1 billion, Chevron had to content itself with less than US $ 25 million it gained from the sales of its rights to Concorp. This company was originally established in 1976 and had worldwide experience having worked in the Sudan, the US, Uganda, the United Arab Emirates, India and Saudi Arabia. However, as it would later emerge, its main field of expertise was infrastructure building, since it “ventured into” oil extraction not long earlier. After gaining rights over more than 170’000 km2, the company started to develop the abandoned Abu Gabra and al Sharaf fields in Darfur and, with a production of 2’000 bpd, it first seemed that in one year it successfully did what Chevron was incapable to obtain in eight years. Yet, Concorp’s success was only limited to those fields, and nothing more got out of the more promising Unity and Heglig fields. 430 Hence, in 1993 Concorp turned its concession back to the government, which did not wait long to sell them to L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 49. P. Nyot Kok, op cit., p. 107. 428 A. Abdalla Ali, op. cit., p. 73. 429 Coalition for International Justice, Soil and Oil: Dirty Business in Sudan, Washington DC, 2006, p. 9. 430 Ivi, p. 10. 426 427 102 a new company, the Canadian State Petroleum Corporation of Vancouver (SPC), with which a 25-year Production Sharing Agreement was signed, although the way an almost unknown Canadian company managed to get the concession remains unclear.431 The SPC was not the only international oil company looking for investment perspectives in Sudan. Another Canadian oil company, Arakis Energy, in 1992 announced it had the intention to buy the SPC and to invest in the country.432 Given the huge amount of economic resources needed to implement the extractions as well as the long-sought pipeline project, eventually the two companies joined as they considered sharing the economic burdens more profitable in the long run, and were granted the long-dormant Blocks 1, 2, and 4 previously held by Chevron.433 However, the amount of economic resources to successfully developed the oil-fields was still not enough, as from the time that the SPC/Arakis took over Concorp’s concession in 1993 little progress was concretely made on ground. The Sudanese government was well aware of the fact that the SPC/Arakis company was only a small-size company comparing to Chevron or other international corporations; however, in the early 1990s, the main problem remained the security issue to be solved by the GoS, and they openly use the SPC/Arakis as a vehicle to demonstrate the international companies there was nothing to fear anymore. 434 As reported by the Arakis’s CEO, security “looks 100% different inside the country than it does from outside the country. Whether you like the politics or not, (Sudan) does appear to be relatively stable. The government does appear to have things under control” and “Muslim Fundamentalists are like everyone else, and those who speak ill of them have a cultural bias.”435 Whether these comments reflected the true reality or not, Arakis’s perspective, totally different from the one conveyed by Chevron some years earlier, was motivated by the new clearance policy adopted by Khartoum with respect to the populations living near the oil fields. From the early 1990s, in fact, it was true that the security situation dramatically improved, as the Canadian company worked without incidents for three years and managed to produce up to 24’000 bpd.436 This was due to the fact that in the aftermath of Chevron’s departure, the Sudanese government decided to further its divide and rule policy towards the According to some speculations, the SPC’s CEO, Lutfur Khan, was close to some Sudanese political leaders. However, Khan always denied. See ivi, p.12. 432 Ivi, p. 15. 433 Human Rights Watch, Sudan, Oil, and Arms, 2003, p. 125, available at: http://www.hrw.org. 434 L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 63. 435 Ivi, pp. 60-61. 436 Ibidem. 431 103 Southern rebels, and exploited their internal divisions in order to fuel the lines of its militias. Hence, Khartoum continued to arm nomadic groups such as the Misseriya and Rizeigat living near the oil fields in Kordofan and Darfur regions in order to protect those areas from the Southern rebels. This also happened with a branch of Southern defectors led by Dr. Riek Machar, a Nuer rebel from the Upper Nile region, who in 1991 attempted to seize power at the expense of the SPLA’s historical leader, John Garang.437 Although the coup attempt failed, Machar and his followers became an easy target for the GoS, which started to provide them with arms in order to regain control over the oil fields. Then, they formed the Sudan’s People’s Defence Force (SPDF) and remained apart from the SPLA/M until the two groups reconciled in 2002. Predictably enough, inter-ethnic rivalries, political and security issues soon intermingled, with the consequence that Khartoum’s policy of controlling and protecting the Southern oil fields through both nomadic groups and local guerrillas ended up in a series of harsh human rights abuses such as forced displacements, looting, burnings, killings and people abduction by the government-supported militias and the civilians. As reported by Human Rights Watch, from November 1992 through April 1993 around the town of Heglig, in Block 2, there were at least 213 deaths, sixty-three abductions, instances of rape, and 1’237 head of cattle stolen.438 Several governmental offensives followed around other oil-rich areas causing the local population to hurriedly leaving their lands. As a consequence, Khartoum managed to have two birds killed with one stone, as while retaining control over the oil fields partially solving the security issue, it also managed to exacerbate the ethnic divisions between Nuer and Dinka people, igniting a lengthy and harsh civil conflict within the Southern regions causing several hundred thousand deaths by the end of the 1990s. Hence, the NIF government paved the way for other international oil companies to enter the country to finish the work Chevron had started. As SPC/Arakis was looking for potential partners to improve its extracting activities, several oil companies started to line up in order to join the venture with the Canadians. Together with some American and European companies, such as Total, Royal Dutch Shell, Occidental, and the International Petroleum Corporation of the Lundin family, the first Asian companies appeared, namely China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the Malaysian Petronas, the Indian ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), and the 437 The two held different views on the future of the region: if on the one hand Garang backed the unity option, namely a revolutionary government to guide a unique country, Machar was a strong supporter of independence for the South. See M. LeRiche and M. Arnold, op. cit., pp. 44-45. 438 Human Rights Watch, op. cit., pp. 125-126. 104 Japan National Oil Corporation.439 At first, Sudanese oil officials were very keen on restoring good relations with the Americans, therefore the US company Occidental was deemed as the favourite to enter into the joint venture.440 However, the rumour in Khartoum that Washington was financing Ethiopia, Eritrea and Uganda with non-lethal military packages, which in turn would be used to support the SPLA’s militias, made the GoS change its mind, and it was rapidly decided that the Westerns were to be excluded. The choice was then made for the Chinese CNPC, which from the beginning proved to be available to efficiently finish what the Americans had started. As stated by the CNPC’s VicePresident, Wu Yaowen, to the Sudanese government, “China is a nation that honours its commitments. Unlike your previous investors, we will not take out our investment before the end of the project.”441 Moreover, what was also striking about the Chinese attitude was the fact that the CNPC was prone to invest although the international market prices of oil were even lower than when the Americans left, hence the potential income was a limited one. In this respect, it was evident that “the Chinese oil company was playing by a different set of rules; it demonstrated little concern with the calculated rate of return on its proposed investment. Instead, the Chinese incorporated additional benefits to the Sudan government, which essentially got them their participation.”442 Nevertheless, the Sudanese government did not want the CNPC to hold the majority of the oil consortium, as it wished to diversify the risk involved in the pipeline project, therefore it also allowed the Malaysian Petronas in. This was due to the fact that Malaysia and Sudan supposedly shared some cultural, religious and political links, which made feel the Sudanese at their ease while working with the Malaysians.443 Hence, in December 1996, SPC/Arakis’s 75% of its project was sold and the oil consortium Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC) made up by the Canadian SPC/Harakis, the Chinese CNPC, the Malaysian Petronas, and the Sudanese small state-owned enterprise (SOE) Sudapet Limited established.444 The GNPOC Exploration and Production Agreement was planned to last some thirty years, the percentage of the project’s assets was weighed in accordance with the dimension of the company, as the three SOEs were L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 63. As a matter of fact, in the early 1990s the US-Sudanese relations were strained. After Khartoum officially backed Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait during the First Gulf War, in 1994 the Sudan was officially listed among the countries supporting international terrorism. By the mid-1990s all economic and diplomatic relations were broken off. In addition, in 1996 the US imposed sanctions against the country. See infra. 441 L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 64. 442 Ivi, p. 65. 443 As a matter of fact, the Sudan had long sought to bring the Malaysian in the country since the early 1990s, but the latter never looked interested beforehand. 444 Human Rights Watch, op. cit., p. 124. 439 440 105 to hold 40%, 30% and 5%, respectively, and the Presidency of the consortium was given to CNPC’s member Zhou Jiping.445 After almost ten years of inactivity, the Sudanese oil industry was finally to revive under a new Asian drive. After acquiring the rights over Blocks 1, 2, and 4 (including the old Unity and Heglig fields), already in 1996 the Consortium started to work upon the completion of the 1’500kilometre oil pipeline going to from Blocks 1 and 2 to Port Sudan which would finally allow the Sudanese oil to reach the country’s exporting door to the international oil market. In 1998, given the economic difficulties faced by SPC/Arakis, it was eventually bought out by its fellow Canadian oil company Talisman which, by contrast, was far from being a neophyte to the oil industry, as it had been the Canadian branch of British Petroleum.446 After the quick restoration of the Sudanese oil activities and the completion of the pipeline in May 1999, on 30 August the first 600’000 barrels of Sudanese oil reached the Bashair Terminal on the Red Sea destined to Shell.447 The Sudan finally became an oil-exporting country. This event was welcome with great enthusiasm by both the civilian population and the Sudanese government, which felt it had win over all foreign detractors which had always tried to undermine the country’s development, and was already looking forward to recovering its economy with future oil revenues. As stated by President al Bashir at the time, “we have defeated all the foreign enemies wishing to stop the export of the oil. We must now defeat the internal enemy who may try to halt the full utilisation of the oil revenue.”448 Although the government had signed the 1997 Khartoum Peace Agreement establishing a truce with some of the SPLA’s defectors, among which Riek Machar, the political situation in the South was still very critical, and the exportation of oil, as happened at the time of its first discovery, was likely to exacerbate the Southerners’ grievances against the government in Khartoum. Shortly after the first Sudanese oil had successfully reached the Red Sea, in fact, John Garang publicly announced that the pipeline, oil fields, and oil company workers would have to be considered as legitimate military targets from then on.449 As a matter of fact, the first attack on the pipeline started in September 1999, when a section of 350 km North of Khartoum blew up. In the meanwhile, massive people displacements and human rights abuses perpetrated by the government militias, or at least with Khartoum’s connivance, continued throughout the early 2000s. Given the changing nature of the Sudanese economy, which by 2002 turned from 445 Ibidem. L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 66. 447 Coalition for International Justice, op. cit., p. 21. 448 BBC News, Sudan Begins Oil Exports, (August)1999, available at: www.news.bbc.co.uk. 449 Coalition for International Justice, op. cit., pp. 21-22. 446 106 being mostly agricultural and unstable into richly oil-reliant, Khartoum had the possibility to invest in its military capacity to face the long-standing civil war. As reported by Human Rights Watch, from 1999 to 2001 the Sudanese military expenditures almost doubled reaching 43% of the total country’s expenditures.450 In 2000, the Sudanese defence expenditures were approximately US $ 250,9 million, while the following year they reached the unprecedented amount of US $ 345 million. According to recent data, from being the sixth bigger importer of arms in the African continent in the period between 1996-2000, Sudan become the first in the following 2000-2005 period, mostly purchasing arms from the former USSR.451 In 2002, in fact, Khartoum acquired twenty-two combat vehicles and four helicopters from Russia, which at the time still was the first arm supplier within the continent; and fourteen large-calibre artillery systems from Belarus, at the time the sixth major supplier.452 In addition, according to Agence France-Press, Al Turabi was reported claiming that the Sudanese government was also using its oil-revenues to build several army factories to produce its own weapons, tanks and missiles to defend itself from conspirators.453 In response to the several news and reports on the increasing human rights abuses which were becoming more and more publicly stigmatized, a wave of political activism started to lobby the Western companies operating in the country. In particular, Talisman was the main target of public reprobation as the continuation of its activities was perceived as a symptom of the Canadian involvement in the governmental misdeeds. According to a number of grassroots organizations, Western countries and international NGOs, such as Human Rights Watch, Christian Aid and the European Coalition on Oil in the Sudan, it was clear that oil was exacerbating the civil war’s dynamics within the country.454 As stated by Christian aid, companies from Asia and the West, including the UK, have helped build Sudan’s oil industry, offering finance, technological expertise and supply to create a strong and growing industry in the centre of the country (…). Oil industry infrastructure – the same roads and airstrips which serve the companies – is used by the army as part of the war. (…) Exports of Sudan’s estimated reserves of two billion barrels of oil are paying for the build-up of a Sudanese homegrown arms industry as well as paying for more arms imports. Without oil, the 450 Human Rights Watch, op. cit., p. 343. P. D. Wezeman, S. T. Wezeman and L. Béraud-Sudreau, Arms Flows to Sub-Saharan Africa, Sipri Policy Paper, (December) 2011, p. 7, available at: www.sipri.org. 452 Human Rights Watch, op. cit., p. 353. 453 Sudan to Manufacture Tanks, Missiles: Assembly Speaker, AFP, Khartoum, (April) 1999, in ibidem. 454 Human Rights Watch, op. cit.; Christian Aid, The Scorched Earth, (March) 2001, London, available at: www.img.static.reliefweb.int/; Coalition for International Justice, op. cit. 451 107 civil war being fought between the government of Sudan and the main opposition force, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), is at a stalemate; with oil, it can only escalate.455 By the same token, the UN Commission of Human Rights Special Rapporteur claimed that the oil issue lied at the very core of the conflict and affected the civilian populations living in the oil-rich areas, which remained the most affected ones. Hence, he suggested that oil facilities should not be used for military purposes and that, theoretically, the end of the war would have resulted upon the agreement on the oil issue by all the different parties at stake.456 Given the growing pressure both by the international public opinion and by the Canadian and US governments threatening to impose economic sanctions on the oil company, Talisman was obliged to admit the relation between oil activities and the human rights abuses perpetrated by the GoS,457 and eventually withdrew from the country after selling its share of the GNPOC in 2003. The company assets were then sold to the Indian OVL, which started to make profits from the fruitful fields of Heglig and Unity worth US $ 262 million in 2004 and US $ 377 million the ensuing year.458 By the same token, also Swedish Lundin and the Austrian OMV companies operating in the country since the early 1990s became the target of major activists’ campaigns, which eventually led the two companies to find the same withdrawal path taken by Talisman. Hence, they also sold their stakes in Block 5A to Petronas for US $ 142,5 million, and in 5A, 5B to OVL for US $ 115 million, respectively.459 As a consequence, by the early 2000s, the Sudanese oil market was dominated by Asian companies still enduring the pressure coming both from the international activists, and from the Southern rebels. As a consequence, by the turn of the century, what was firstly perceived by the international public opinion to be an immediate success, namely the demise of all oil-related activities by the Western companies, in the ensuing years would prove to turn into its exact opposite, as the withdrawal of Western actors paved the way for the establishment of a monopoly of Asian firms which proved less sensitive to external influence. 455 Christian Aid, The Scorched Earth, (March) 2001, London, in European Coalition on Oil in Sudan (ECOS), Documentation on the Impact of Oil in Sudan, May 2001, p. 9. 456 Commission on Human Rights, Situation of human rights in the Sudan, Summary of the draft report of the Special Rapporteur, Fifty-sixth session, Agenda item 9, E/CN.4/2000/36, Geneva 2000, in ivi, p. 7. 457 As a matter of fact, after the Canadian government issued the so-called Harker Report in 2000, the truth about the relation between the government-backed militias perpetrating the abuses and the companies’ oil facilities which served upon their purpose was already emerging clear. Hence, in 2002 Talisman issued its own research showing that the Sudan Armed Forces had actually used oil field airstrips for military purposes, and claimed it was lobbying the GoS to stop them. 458 L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 72. 459 Ivi, p. 75. 108 4.3. China’s quest for Sudanese oil Sino-Sudanese relations dramatically boosted as the PRC deemed the African country as the right opportunity to satisfy its quest for natural resources and its national oil companies’ need to internationalize. The Sudanese case, considered as an early testing ground to export both Chinese expertise and working force, finally proved to be highly rewarding. Since the first barrel of Sudanese oil arrived on the international market in 1999, Sino-Sudanese relations has increasingly improved, as the development of the Sudanese oil industry lied (and still does) at the very core of both country’s strategic interests. As argued by several authors, this new partnership should be framed within a new Chinese approach toward the outside world which started to take shape from the late 1980s.460 In fact, the policy of “Reforms and Openness” implemented by Deng Xiaoping from the late 1970s paved the way for the re-addressing of China’s foreign policy, whose ideological drivers were mitigated in favour of the strengthening of more pragmatic economic and political principles. As stated by Wenping, as of the late 1980s, the guiding principle of Chinese approach toward Africa turned from “ideological idealism to pragmatic idealism and from the unconditional internationalism to the priority of the national interest”.461 Furthermore, despite some authors arguing that the shift had occurred even earlier,462 the heavy reaction manifested by the international community in the wake of the Tiananmen Square incidents in 1989 led the PRC to look for alternative political allies from the developing world, more specifically from Africa, where an increasing engagement policy was enthusiastically inaugurated.463 Initially driven by the development of the local oil industry, China’s presence in the Sudan from the early 1990s started to get thicker and deeper in terms of both strategic and political implications, therefore challenging China’s official rhetoric of non-interference and state sovereignty. In 1989, in fact, Beijing started to deal with the recently-formed NIF regime led by General al-Bashir, and the preservation of its strategic interests became more and more 460 D. H. Shinn and J. Eisenman, op. cit., pp. 44-45. H. Wenping, Moving Forward with the Time: the Evolution of China’s African Policy, Paper Presented for the Workshop on “China-Africa Relations: Engaging the International Discourse”, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Center on China’s Transnational Relations, 11-12 November 2006, p. 1. 462 L. Anshan, Transformation of China’s African Policy: When, Why and What, Paper presented at China-World Conference “Made in China vs. Made by Chinese: Global Identities of Chinese Business”, University of Durham, Britain, 19-20 March, 2007, p. 1. 463 B. Onnis, op. cit., p. 65. 461 109 entwined with the survival of the NIF and then the National Congress Party (NCP) regime.464 Hence, the PRC was incorporated in the conduction of both the Sudanese internal affairs and foreign policy with the result that its official rhetoric proved to be inadequate to the growing magnitude of its engagement within the country. As far as China’s oil diplomacy is concerned, which has also been defined as “by far the most significant and consequential area where China impacts in Sudan”,465 as China’s oil interests have mostly shaped its policy towards the country, in particular respect with noninterference and sovereignty, after dealing with the NIF regime at a time when the NorthSouth civil conflict was still ongoing and the country was suffering from heavy economic sanctions and international isolation, the PRC not only proved to be willing to take greater security risks than its American predecessor in the name of its national interests, but also to be offering a reliable and competent alternative to the third world community wanting to emancipate themselves from their Western dependency. In the development of the Sudanese oil industry, in fact, China showed it had acquired an impressive technical expertise and working capabilities which made the Sudan a successful example of what the highly promoted South-South cooperation should look like. However, the case of Sudan also showed how China’s increasing investments allowed an authoritarian regime such as the NCP to retain its power while fuelling the Sudanese war economy in the context of the long-standing NorthSouth civil conflict. By the beginning of the new century, Sino-Sudanese relations were thus increasingly furthering in a mutually interested marriage which based its pillar on oil, but went well beyond it. As a consequence, as many authors have argued, Chinese strategic imperatives were the motives underlying most of the country’s policy towards the Sudan, which have also shaped its consequent policy with specific respect with sovereignty and non-interference.466 In 1997 China entered the African territory by purchasing 40% of the GNPOC’s rights, therefore becoming an active player in the Sudanese oil industry. As warned by many authors, however, the symptoms of China’s quest for international resources were already looming in 464 The National Congress Party was established in 1998 as the only officially recognized party, and kept the same ideology and leadership of its predecessor NIF. In the early 2000s, after an increasing divergence between al-Bashir and al-Turabi, the latter was removed by the NCP’s ranks. 465 R. Bradbury, Sudan, The Hollow State: What Challenges to China’s Policy?, “Journal of Politics and International Studies”, Vol. 8, (Winter) 2012, pp. 362-410, p. 371. 466 D. Large, China and the Changing Context of Development in Sudan, “Development”, Vol. 50, No. 3, 2007, pp. 57-62; C. Zambelis, The Swan Song in Sudan and Libya for China’s “Non-Interference” Principle, “China Brief”, Vol. XI, No. 15, (August) 2011, available at: www.jemestown.org; R. Bradbury, op. cit. 110 the late 1970s, as the new Chinese President Deng Xiaoping inaugurated the policy of “Reforms and Openness” which, by the first decade of the 2000s, would have led the country to become the second largest economy after the US in terms of both nominal Gross Domestic Production (GDP), and purchasing power parity (PPP).467 In the aftermath of Mao’s death in 1976, the failure of both the economic experiment of the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s, and the Cultural Revolution ten years later paved the way for an economic, social and political environment of extreme volatility. In such a critical context, the political figure of Deng Xiaoping emerged first as Vice-Premier and, after overcoming Mao’s designated heir Hua Guofeng, as Chinese President in 1978, successfully leading the country out of the mud inherited by the previous administration in less than twenty years’ time. This remarkable achievement was made possible thanks to Deng’s new focus on technical expertise, instead of communist loyalty (“better expert than red”),468 specifically in the areas of agriculture, industry, science and technology, and the military (the so-called Four Modernizations”).469 As a result of the strong pushes towards industrialization and economic expansion carried out in the late 1970s, by the early years of the following decade Chinese annual growth rate reached 9,1% and 10,9% in 1982 and 1983, respectively. Furthermore, thanks to a revised Sixth Five-Year economic Plan (1981-1985) setting for an annual growth rate target between 4-5%, a major focus was put on energy and transport, and improved funds were promised for education, science, culture and health care.470 Given an increasing growth rate and a stronger industrial system, in 1984 the Chinese economy was strengthened enough to allow Deng to launch the Reforms of the Economic Structure in the name of the new “socialism with Chinese characteristics”, namely the adaptation of the socialist ideology to the market rules, which paved the way for a national socialist market economy to be forged. According to recent statistics, as of 2012, China’s economy recorded an annual GDP growth rate of 7,8%, slightly in decline with respect to 2010 and 2011, when it reached 10,4% and 9,3%, respectively.471 However, if we consider the country’s outstanding performance facing the world financial crisis,472 and the general economic trend of the current first world economy, the US, which in 2012 recorded an annual 467 International Monetary Fund, Data and Statistics, 2012, available at: www.imf.org. E. F. Vogel, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011, p. 352. 469 Ibidem. 470 Ivi, p. 452. 471 The World Bank Data, 2012, available at: www.data.worldbank.org. 472 Xinhua, China’s Economy Slows to Improve Endurance, Quality, (July) 2013, available at: www.xinhuanet.com. 468 111 growth rate of 2,8%, it can be rightly stated that China is destined to become the largest world economy very soon.473 Given the magnitude of its growing industrial system and private consumption sector, in 2005 Zweig and Jianhai reported that the country’s “combined share of the world’s consumption of aluminium, copper, nickel and iron ore more than doubled within only ten years, from 7% in 1990 to 15% in 2000”, and that the country alone “accounted for 31% of global growth in oil demand”.474 As a consequence, rising this new security issue at the national level, the PRC growth depends more and more on the future capability to satisfy its natural resources growing needs, therefore to securitize its resource-rich international suppliers, with a specific focus on oil, which lied at the basis of the industrialization of the country. According to Kambara, the presence of oil within the Chinese territory has been known since a long time. Early signs may be found in a manuscript of some 2’000 years ago, providing for some information on a rudimentary technique of oil extraction in the Xinjiang, Shaanxi, Gansu and Sichuan provinces.475 However, due to the lack of a stable political environment and proper technical skills and tools, before the establishment of the PRC no major exploration discovery or extraction activity were successfully undertaken. In 1914, some years after its very foundation, the American Standard Oil firstly attempted to carry on some extraction activities in the newly discovered oil field of Yenchang, in the Shaanxi province, but no successful results were achieved.476 The largest oil field was reported to be the Yumen one in Gansu province, which was discovered in the late 1930s, and by 1948 was producing up to 70’000 metric tons of crude oil per annum.477 As far as oil consumption is concerned, Kambara stated that the country’s oil requirement has always been superior to its inner production, thus, until the local industry was fully developed, China needed to import almost 90% of its total consumption from outside.478 With the proclamation of the PRC in 1949, under both the ideological and economic supportive wing of the USSR, the Chinese oil industry was dramatically boosted, as the 473 C. Matthews, When Exactly Will China Rule the Economic World?, The Time, January 2014, available at: www.business.time.com. 474 D. Zweig and B. Jianhai, China’s Global Hunt for Energy, “Foreign Affairs”, September/October Issue, 2005, available at: www.foreignaffairs.com. 475 T. Kambara, The Petroleum Industry in China, “China Quarterly”, No. 60 (December), 1974, pp. 699-721. 476 The Straits Time, Standard Oil in China, (March) 1914, available at: www.newspapers.nl.sg; 477 T. Kambara, op. cit., p. 700. 478 Ibidem. 112 Soviets directly supported an intense exploration activity both through huge investments and technical assistance. In this period, several oil fields were developed, namely Numen, Karamai, Lenghu and Lanchow, and other rehabilitated, such as the Yenchang one, which contributed to a dramatic increase in oil production totalling more than two million metric tons during the first Five-Year Plan period (1953-1957).479 From a Chinese perspective, after facing the invasion of the Japanese during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and the war against the nationalists led by the Chang KaiShek, Mao’s need to quickly develop the country’s national oil industry was primarily motivated by a security issue as he wanted to strengthen his military capacity against external threats.480 Under Chinese second Five-Year plan (1958-1962), the national oil production reached its peak with an overall production of six million metric tons per annum. This made Mao more confident in the capability of Chinese military; however, the country was far from reaching a complete self-reliance over the crude, as the USSR still represented a great oil supplier for Beijing. In fact, in 1959 the exports of Soviet oil to the PRC amounted to three million tons, which contributed to fuel Chinese industrial plans of the early 1950s.481 Between the late 1950s and the early 1960s, China’s oil industry got affected by the draining of both Russian economic resources and technical assistance following the SinoSoviet split. Although the Chinese had managed to acquire some expertise from Russian oil experts on how to work with oil, productivity decreased in both oil fields and refineries. In fact, many infrastructures got damaged as a result of insufficient maintenance, and Chinese attempts to compensate with oil imports from Algeria got frustrated.482 It was in this critical moment that Chairman Mao shaped the so-called policy of self-reliance, aiming at definitely emancipating the country from foreign dependency through further financing exploration and extraction activities.483 Hence, already in 1955 some geological and physical surveys started in the Heilongjiang region, and by 1963 the preliminary indigenously-designed oil facilities were ready.484 And it was in such a region that the Chinese got the chance to get across the Daqing oil field in 1959. Welcome with huge enthusiasm, the discovery of Daqing’s oil field represented the symbol of success, which would have allowed the country to concretely implement the dreamed self- 479 Ivi, p. 702. L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 84. 481 Ibidem. 482 T. Kambara, op. cit., p. 703. 483 K. Lieberthal and M. Oksenberg, The Case of Petroleum, in Policy Making in China, Leaders, Structures and Processes, Princeton University Press, 1988, pp. 172-173. 484 T. Kambara, op. cit., p. 703. 480 113 reliance policy. After some three years working in the field, in fact, China eventually managed to reach oil self-reliance in 1962. As stated by Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai during the second CCP’s National Congress because of the discovery and construction of the Daqing oil field, our country’s economic construction, the oil needs for defence and civilian application which had depended on foreign imports in the past, are now basically self-reliant, whether in volume or in variety.485 Chairman Mao was equally excited by this major achievement, which was not just economic and technical but also social,486 and decided to set a new economic Chinese agenda by naming the then Minister of Petroleum Industry and First Party Secretary at Daqing, Yu Qiulu, at the head of his new government planning commission in late 1964.487 This decision came as a result of the disappointment towards his top planners in casting the third Five Year Plan which, in Mao’s opinion, should have aimed at quickly developing an industrial base in the South-West, while raising the quality and increasing the supply of insufficient commodities.488 During the following decade, Qiulu and his collaborators, colloquially referred to as the “petroleum group”, managed to survive the “dark years” of the Chinese petroleum industry under the early administration of Mao’s successor, Hua Guofeng, and eventually proved to be capable of orienting the Chinese government towards the quest for the foreign technology necessary to keep China’s oil industry profitable.489 In the late 1960s, in fact, oil production started to slow down shortly after the Cultural Revolution was launched, and the petroleum group’s main concern was to turn outwards in order to acquire foreign expertise and technology to develop the Chinese offshore oil potentialities. Between 1966-1967 a first delegation of the China National Oil and Gas Exploration and Development Corporation was then sent to Japan and in 1967 some technical equipment purchased from France.490 D. Xiaoping, Speech to the Second National People’s Congress, 17 November-3 December 1963, in L. T. Wei, Oil in China, From Self-Reliance to Internationalization, “Series on Contemporary China”, Vol. 18, World Scientific, Singapore, 2010, p. 4. 486 In fact, the myth of the Daqing success already emerged, as Mao argued that this major achievement was made possible by the fact that Daqing was not just an oil field, but a whole society, with its own ethos and identity, representing the successful application of the Maoist doctrine to the problem of industrialization. For further details, see K. Lieberthal and M. Oksenberg, op. cit., p. 178. 487 L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 85. 488 K. Lieberthal and M. Oksenberg, op. cit., p. 186. 489 Ibidem. 490 Ivi, p. 193. 485 114 However, in the aftermath of Mao’s death, the country was still facing the economic, social, and political consequences of the failing policies of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution which negatively affected the national oil industry. Nor the situation improved after President Hua announced his ten-year plan to recover the Chinese economy. In the wake of increasing economic, social and political pressures, time was mature for Hua to hand over his power to the then Vice-Chairman of the Central Committee, Deng Xiaoping, who emerged as the supreme leader of the PRC in 1980. Once China’s economy showed its early recovery’s symptoms in the 1980s under the effect of Deng’s reforms, the country started to grow impressively. As a consequence, the rising level of its energy consumption made the country’s capability of oil-exporter shrink, paving the way for an alternative oil strategy to be necessarily shaped by the Chinese leadership. As a consequence, Deng decided to downsize the petroleum group power in order to bring the oil industry under direct state control: he replaced Qiula with one of his men at the Head of the State Planning Commission, and he created three main national oil companies (NOCs) as branches of government Ministries, namely China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec), and China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) in order to directly control the management of natural resources.491 CNPC was founded in 1988 for upstream activities (exploration and production) from the Ministry of Petroleum Industry’s (MPI) assets; Sinopec was created in 1983 for downstream activities (refining and marketing) from the assets of both MPI and the Ministry of Chemical Industry; and finally, CNOOC was established in 1982 under the MIP as corporation to form joint ventures, specifically focusing on Chinese waters and upstream offshore activities.492 It soon emerged that the CCP held a very tight hold on the appointment, promotion and dismissal of top corporate leaders through the so-called nomenklatura system, and through a number of other bureaucratic mechanisms going from the investment approval, to the control over the credits granted by the state-owned banks, to the direct Party’s involvement in the day-to-day decision making process of the NOCs.493 The political consequence of this phenomenon was that top corporate leaders, appointed by the CCP, had to carefully balance their business interests with those of the Party if they wanted to preserve their position within both the company and the CCP.494 491 E. S. Downs, Business Interest Groups in Chinese Politics: The Case of the Oil Companies, in C. Li (eds.), China’s Changing Political Landscape, Prospects for Democracy, Brookings Institution Press, Washington D.C., 2008, p. 121. 492 Ivi, p. 122. 493 Ivi, pp. 124-125. 494 L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 89. 115 This strong connection between corporate and Party members actually lied at the core of the stagnation affecting China’s national oil industry throughout the 1990s. This was because the corporate businessmen who had been appointed by the CCP, had to struggle to implement their own market-based corporate strategies which were at odds with the CCP state-centred priorities.495 According to recent statistics, in fact, during the 1990s Chinese oil consumption grew five times faster than its production.496 The historical site of Daqing and other fields discovered afterwards, namely Bohai Bay or some oilfields in the Xinjiang province, then proved to be insufficient to fuel China’s running economy, leading the country to become an oil-importing country after several decades of self-reliance. After turning from being an oilexporting to an oil-importing country, the energetic issue started to be seriously discussed among the Party top-level leadership, representing a major security concern still today.497 During a public speech, President Jian Zemin affirmed that “we must closely watch the trend of international oil prices and their impact on the economic and social development of our country. We must take precautions and earnestly work out our strategy.”498 As a result of this increasing energetic demand, according to Lai, from the 1990s three main steps have been taken by the country to face this major concern: firstly, the PRC expended overseas, primarily to the Middle Eastern countries in order to ensure good-quality and immediate supplies of crude oil; secondly, it diversified its external suppliers by reaching out Africa, the Americas, Russia and Central Asia; thirdly and finally, it securitized its oil transport routes by adopting the so-called “string of pearls” strategy, namely strengthening its relations with the littoral countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Thailand and Cambodia in order to look for alternative sea-routes which would be safer than the long and narrow Straits of Malacca.499 Within the framework of these new directives, Chinese corporate members coming from the oil industry, who previously had to refrain from contravening the Party diktat, started to 495 Ibidem. British Petroleum Statistical Review, 2013, available at: www.bp.com. 497 China’s rising demand of energy and its international quest have recently generated much attention. On the matter we may suggest some interesting introductory references: L. T. Wei, Oil in China, From Self-Reliance to Internationalization, World Scientific, Singapore, 2010; B. Kong, China’s International Petroleum Policy, ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, 2010; H. H. Lai, China’s Oil Diplomacy: is it a global security threat?, “Third World Quarterly”, Vol. 28, No. 3, 2007, pp. 519-537. 498 J. Zhang, Catch-up and Competitiveness in China: the Case of Large Firms in the Oil Industry, Routledge Curzon, London, 2004, in L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 88. 499 As of 2007, 75% of China’s oil imports went through the 1100-km-long Straits of Malacca, which are geographically located between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesia Island of Sumatra. Four different routes were planned in order for China to avoid any threats potentially disrupting the flow of Chinese tankers through the Straits. For further references, see H. H. Lai, op. cit., p. 528. 496 116 emerge and pushing for the internationalization of China’s oil industry.500 This was, for instance, the case of Zhou Yongkang, who was an oil technician at the time of the Daqing oil field, and soon emerged as the paramount promoter of Sino-Sudanese oil relations during the early 1990s.501 Facing China’s increasing oil needs, in fact, Zhou, as CNPC General Manager, exercised his political influence to persuade the Chinese leadership to expand its oil policy overseas, and he successfully promoted the first international investments in the African country. From a Sudanese perspective, in November 1990, while struggling to look for potential external investors, Sudanese President al-Bashir visited the PRC, and soon discovered that the two countries’ strategic interests were, by any chance, complementing one another. In fact, if on the one hand China was attempting to diversify its external oil suppliers, on the other hand, the Sudan was looking to develop its long-dormant oil industry after the Western companies left the country. Despite some early doubts on the Islamic orientation of the recently-formed NIF government displayed by President Jian Zemin,502 by virtue of the official rhetoric of noninterference, Chinese economic interests eventually prevailed over political allegiance, and an Iranian-funded arms deal worth some US $ 300 million agreed between Beijing and Khartoum in 1991 smoothened the decision for the PRC to finally enter the Sudanese oil industry.503 After several official high-level meetings had been held throughout the early 1990s, in 1995 CNPC signed an agreement with the GoS to explore and develop Block 6 along the Darfur-Kordofan border, which was previously occupied by Chrevon oil company.504 In September, a concessional loan worth some US $ 1,84 billion was granted to the African country by China, followed by another US $ 12 million loan conceded by the Chinese state-owned EXIM Bank to finance some preliminary test explorations for CNPC to be carried out in Sudan.505 The early Chinese geological activities in the field proved to be 500 As a matter of fact, more recently the NOCs have managed to acquire a certain degree of independency and autonomy from the Communist Party. For further details over the management of the relation between the corporate policy and the CCP, see also E. Downs, Who’s Afraid of China’s Oil Companies?, in C. Pascual and J. Elkind (eds.), Energy Security: Economics, Politics, Strategy, and Implications, Brookings Institution Press, Washington D.C., 2010. 501 L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 91. 502 D. Large, China and the Contradictions of Non-Interference in Sudan, “Review of African Political Economy”, Vol. 35, No. 115, 2008, pp. 93-106. 503 Ivi, p. 95. 504 Look at map No. 6. 505 Officially founded in 1994, EXIM Bank had been specifically founded with the aim of promoting Chinese exports overseas, rather than granting foreign investments. In the case under current scrutiny, 117 successful as the Muglad Basin in Sudan was discovered having similar characteristics to the Bohai Bay field which was previously developed in China. This first Chinese success, coupled with the Sudanese dissatisfaction with respect to the Canadian slow progress in Blocks 1, 2 and 4, paved the way for the Chinese oil company to partly take possession of the Canadian concessional rights and to enter the newly-formed GNPOC consortium. Hence, by 1997, NCPC, owing 40% of the rights, was officially part of the consortium, partnered with the Malaysia Petronas (30%), the Canadian Talisman (25%), and the Sudanese Sudapet (5%), and started to operate in the more promising Blocks 1, 2, and 4.506 In particular, Chinese geologists were specifically asked to focus on the Unity fields (in Block 1), supposedly the richest among the ones occupied by the consortium. the loan granted in 1995, despite being directed towards the Central Bank of Sudan, went directly to CNPC. L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 95. 506 L. Jakobson and Z. Daojiong, op. cit., p. 66. 118 Map 6: Oil concessions in Southern and Central Sudan as of 2002. Source: Michael S. Miller, 2003, available at:www.rightsmaps.com. Thanks to the remarkable personality of the Chinese geologist Su Yongdi, whose ability was associated to the mythic figure of the first oilman discovering the Chinese field of Daqing in 1959, out of nine sites proposed to be drilled, all of them turned out to be fully exploitable.507 The oil production kept constantly increasing as new oil fields were discovered, and in 2000 the country’s production reached 180’000 bpd, making Khartoum as the fifth sub-Saharan oil producer.508 By the turn of the century, Sudan was considered to be the “the stove of the world”, and China’s involvement was constantly growing, as were its economic interests and the strategic importance of the African country to Beijing.509 More recently, according to some 2007 data, with a production of nearly 500’000 bpd and oil L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 105. Ivi, p. 106. 509 Ivi, p. 103. 507 508 119 reserves worth 6,7 billion barrels, the country has become the third largest sub-Saharan producer after Nigeria and Angola. Moreover, between 2003 and 2007, the Sudan represented over 40% of CNPC’s overseas oil production, and 6,7% overall CNPC’s production.510 This profitable economic partnership was not limited to the oil industry, as a great number of Chinese subsidiary companies were encouraged to enter the country and profit from the width of the market and the country’s growing needs of infrastructures or oilfield surface facilities. This was, for instance, the case of the Zhongyuan Petroleum Engineering Co. Ltd. (ZPEB), the Bureau of Geophysical Prospecting Ltd. (BGP), and the Great Wall Drilling Company (GWDC), which entered the African country through CNPC and ended up dominating all levels of the Sudanese oil industry. As reported by Patey, by 2007 some 12’500 Chinese workers were working in the Sudan, involved either in the oil, construction or service industry.511 Moreover, Chinese firms were also involved in the planning and construction of dams in the wake of Khartoum willingness to develop an ambitious “Sudan Dam Programme”.512 Things got even better from 1999, when the project comprising a 1000-mile-long pipeline stretching from the Heglig fields in Western Kordofan to the Bashaier port city on the Red Sea was finally inaugurated, and the marriage between the Sudan and the Asian countries, which made possible for Khartoum to become an oil-exporting country, was finally ratified.513 As a direct consequence, the first petrodollars started to flow into the Sudanese coffers, and the country’s political economy got fundamentally revised. Since the first barrels of Sudanese oil reached the international market in 1999, there was a dramatic increase of foreign direct investments, and the African country turned from being an agricultural to a one-resource-reliant country.514 By the turn of the century, in fact, from having no oil revenues, the Sudanese government turned out to have 45% of its overall revenues coming from oil in 1998.515 Moreover, due to the dramatic increase of the international oil prices in the first decade of the new century (when they went from US $ 510 Ivi, p. 111. Ivi, p. 113. 512 For further details on the construction of dams in the Sudan by Chinese firms, see H. Verhoeven, Dams are Development, China the Al-Ingaz Regime and the Political Economy of the Sudanese Nile, in D. Large and L. Patey, op. cit., pp. 120-138. 513 Associated Press, Sudan Inaugurates Oil Pipeline, (May) 1999, available at: www.apnewsarchive.com. 514 L. M. James, op. cit., p. 56. 515 Human Rights Watch, op. cit., p. 343. 511 120 25/barrel in 2002 to $ US 100/barrel in 2008) the Sudanese industrial sector, the public infrastructures and the public spending were dramatically fostered.516 The most prominent effect of this running economy was on the country’s real GDP growth rate: before the discovery of oil, in fact, the Sudanese real GDP growth rate was recorded to be highly volatile and averagely low, going from the -10% in 1979 to almost +15% in 1987, while from the 1990s, it never fell below 5%.517 Moreover, in the aftermath of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in 2005 between the North and the South, the country’s real growth reached the remarkable peak of 10% and above in 2006-07. This was due to a second increase of oil international prices, and new fields discovered by CNPC.518 From a political viewpoint, the most remarkable consequence of China’s massive engagement in the Sudanese oil industry was that the PRC strategic interests growingly intermingled with the fate of the NCP leadership. This was confirmed by the continuous highlevel meetings and official gatherings between the CCP members and their Sudanese counterparts occurring throughout the 1990s and 2000s aiming at strengthening their cooperation and mutual interests.519 After President al-Bashir visited Beijing in 2006 during the Forum of China-Africa Cooperation, Chinese President Hu Jintao went to Khartoum in 2007. Besides, on the eve of South Sudanese secession, in June 2011 Chinese President invited al-Bashir to his fourth official visit to the Asian country, during which the Sudanese leader reiterated that they “have kept on exchanging visits at all levels, from the presidential level to the ministerial level and other different levels”, and that the visit was “a continuation of the distinguished relations between Sudan and China, which have remained friendly and progressive”.520 Similarly, Beijing was incorporated in the Sudanese internal political dynamics, as it provided an influential external support capable of relieving the African country from the international isolation and economic stagnation it was reduced to in the late 1990s.521 As a consequence, being the Sudanese history characterized by the long-standing NorthSouth civil conflict, Beijing turned out to be fully embedded in the perpetuation of Khartoum 516 L. M. James, op. cit., p. 56. Ivi, p. 57. 518 Ibidem. 519 D. Large, Sudan’s Foreign Relations…, p. 3 520 Al-Bashir commends China as "strategic partner", hopes to boost ties through visit, China’s Daily, (June) 2011, available at: www.english.peopledaily.com.cn. 521 D. Large, Sudan’s Foreign Relations…, p. 3. 517 121 policy with respect to the Southern issue.522 This because, according to Nyot Kok, “the conflict itself was a conflict over the control, access to and the use of state power in the Sudan. But since oil like all other strategic resources, is a source of power, it logically becomes an important element in the conflict”.523 As previously argued with regards to the Western oil companies, in fact, Chinese presence within the country was far from being perceived as neutral and non-interfering by the Southern rebels. Although the 1997 Khartoum Peace Agreement had been signed establishing a temporary truce between the GoS and the Southern militias, SPLA’s historical leader John Garang considered all oil companies as “legitimate targets” by virtue of their complicity with the Islamist regime.524 Hence, during the early 2000s also Chinese oil facilities became the target of several sabotages and bombings by SPLA rebels mainly directed to the oil pipeline with the aim of disrupting the oil flows to Khartoum. This was, for instance, the case of the 2001 sabotage of the CNPC exploration rig by the rebel forces at Tamur, in the far South of the country, or the same year strikingly attack carried out in the Heglig field, considered to be a “safe heaven” because of the presence of the governmental forces in the area.525 Recent statistics claim that in 2000 the Sudanese government was losing around US $ 1 million of oil revenue every two hours due to the oil-spilling of the damaged pipeline going from Heglig field to Port Sudan.526 All these considerations notwithstanding, the Chinese proved to be more risk-taking than their American predecessors, and decided to keep, for the moment, their presence stable in the country. Another factor which contributed to challenge Chinese official policy of non-interference was the fact that facing, once again, the security issue with respect to the Southern rebels, the GoS provided the Chinese company with the Sudanese army official protection, therefore strengthening the idea of a growing convergence of interests between the NCP and the CCP leaders at the expense of a peaceful resolution of the North-South issue, which partly was linked to the management of the national resources. According to Bradbury, in fact, China’s engagement in the Sudan can only be understood as a part of an interrelated narrative between the economic, political and social features governing the post-colonial African state.527 As 522 R. Bradbury, op. cit., p. 366. P. Nyot Kok, op cit., p. 104. 524 L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 107. 525 Ivi, p. 108. 526 D. Large, China’s Involvement in Armed Conflict and post-War Reconstruction in Africa: Sudan in Comparative Context, in L. Patey (eds.), Oil Development in Africa: Lessons for Sudan After the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, Danish Institute for International Studies, Report No. 8, 2007, p. 61, available at: www.en.diis.dk/home/search. 527 R. Bradbury, op. cit., p. 366. 523 122 such, furthering an “authoritarian-cum-predatory state building pattern”528 developed by the government of Khartoum and inherited from the condominium, the PRC proved to exacerbate these post-colonial uneven dynamics by fuelling the GoS main source of revenues, namely its oil industry. As agreed by many, oil played a paramount role in entrenching the ruling Sudanese élite in power therefore “worsening division between centre and periphery, leading an already conflict-prone nation to further strife”.529 Hence, being Beijing increasingly embedded into this context, it inevitably turned out to be essential in solidifying Khartoum leadership therefore indirectly furthering its policy which, according to the author, should be considered at odds with Chinese official sovereign non-interference rhetoric. To confirm this convergence of interests, in the aftermath of the 1992 split led by the rebel leader Riek Machar, who posed himself at the guidance of a paramilitary group (the Southern Sudanese Defence Forces, SSDF) against his previous SPLM/A companions, CNPC also relied on these new government-supported militias for protection, therefore worsening the Asian alleged neutral position with respect to the North-South conflict.530 Summing up, Chinese presence in Sudan was firstly driven by the pursuit of the country’s energetic security. Over the time, however, the increasing role of the Chinese oil companies in the development of the Sudanese oil industry led the interests of the two countries to be growingly intermingled and to reinforce one another, with the result that a mixture of political, economic and geopolitical factors added complexities to the mere development of oil trade, paving the way for a policy of reciprocal interdependence and mutual interference between the two countries.531 4.4. China’s diplomacy: the case of Darfur Together with China’s involvement in the development of the Sudanese oil industry, another case that came to patently challenge Chinese official rhetoric of state sovereignty and non-interference was the Darfur crisis erupted in the early 2000s. Born as an issue over scarce resources, the war in the Sudanese Western province of Darfur has increasingly developed political and economic connotations throughout its recent 528 Ivi, p. 369. Ibidem. 530 L. Patey (eds.), Oil Development…, p. 61. 531 L. Jakobson and Z. Daojiong, China and the Worldwide Search for Oil Security, “Asia Pacific Review”, Vol. 13, No. 2, 2006, pp. 60-73. 529 123 evolution, from which external actors could not depart. As stated by Holslag, the nature of China’s position over the Darfur issue shifted from being rather passive, to a more clear, and finally to a proactive mediatory role aimed at resolving the conflict, therefore representing a challenging exercise for China’s diplomatic agility.532 As a matter of fact, China had to disentangle its official rhetoric from the accusations of complicity with respect to Khartoum’ genocidal policy through massive arms sales notwithstanding the UN arms embargo, risen by the international community in light of the exacerbation of the conflict, which left at least 200’000 civilian deaths, some 2,5 million displaced people, and which has recently led the International Criminal Court to indict the Sudanese President al-Bashir for genocide and crime against humanity. On its side, while defending its choice to veto several UN Security Council sanction and intervention proposals by relying on non-interference and sovereignty principles, China was eventually compelled to change its policy in response both to a growing wave of political activism rising among the Western countries threatening to boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and to its fear that the continuation of the violence would undermine its strategic long-term interests. The root causes of the Darfur conflict can be traced back to the colonial era, when the British conquered the sultanate of Fur, established in the region from the 15th century, by killing its last independent sultan, Ali Dinar, during the Beringia Battle (1916).533 Since then, the region was annexed to Anglo-Egyptian colony, and its population subjugated under foreign rule until the Sudan’s independence. No major attempts to challenge the foreigners were recorded in the period prior independence, as the British, by imposing a Pax Britannica, favoured the development of indigenous agricultural activities and commerce.534 Nor the indigenous populations, comprising non-Arab sedentary farmers in the West and nomadic Arab pastoralists in the North and South,535 ever tried to object to Sudanese central administration under the early years of independence. This situation of relative stability came J. Holslag, China’s Diplomatic Manoeuvring on the Question of Darfur, “Journal of Contemporary China”, Vol. 15, No. 54, 2008, pp. 71-84. 533 R. Bradbury, op. cit., p. 376. 534 A. S. Natsios, Sudan, South Sudan, and Darfur, What Everyone Needs to Know, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012, p. 117. 535 Regarding their ethnic affiliation, Northern Darfur is populated by nomads comprising a small group of Meidab Arabs, and non-Arab Zhagawa; in the Western part of the region is home to the sedentary farmers of non-Arab Fur, Masalit, Daju and Berti ethnic groups; finally, the South is populated by the nomadic pastoralists of Baqqara, claiming to have Arabic origins. Despite their different ethnic identities and origins, all people living in Darfur are Muslim. See R. O. Collins, Civil Wars and Revolution in the Sudan, Essays on the Sudan, Southern Sudan, and Darfur, 1962-2004, Tsehai Publishers and Distribution, Hollywood, 2005, p. 149. 532 124 as a result of the marginalization policy which was first adopted by the colonial rulers, later perpetrated by the independent government, which denied the region access to most state services and resources.536 These conditions of general poverty and political marginalization did not cause local populations to rise against Khartoum until the late 1980s, when some major geo-economic changes, coupled with the government mismanagement to face them paved the way for the three serious and violent conflicts to break out. The main cause at the origin of the first Darfur crisis erupting in 1987, to put it with the Secretary of the UN Ban Ki Moon’s words, was not social nor political, but climatic. As he stated Almost invariably, we discuss Darfur in a convenient military and political shorthand – an ethnic conflict pitting Arab militias against black rebels and farmers. Look to its roots, though, and you discover a more complex dynamic. Amid the diverse social and political causes, the Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change.537 From the mid-1980s, in fact, the Sahara desert’s physiognomy has been periodically affected by slow movements towards the South, causing huge flows of Northern Darfur’s population to migrate to the Southern Darfur looking for a less hostile environment where to live. As a consequence, this led the population density to dramatically rise in a relatively short time-span: as reported by Collins, from being 1 million in 1950, the Southern Darfuri populations reached 6,5 million in 2000 therefore heightening tensions over the access to scarce resources such as land and water. Moreover, since the 1970s, the region was also affected by repeated droughts and famine which proved to be hard to face by the Sudanese government, whose protracted policy of marginalization towards Darfur left the region with no proper facilities, nor resources to face these periodical crisis. Being described as a function of Sudanese post-colonial state, thus, the historical drivers of the Darfur crises primarily relied on the scarcity of resources, and on the independent state’s negligence to implement a proper policy to face such a growing challenges. The situation got particularly tense in the mid-1980s, as a severe drought came to question the authority of the traditional leaders’ conferences, the ajaweed/muatamarat al-sulh, which were usually to resolve the disputes over land and water arisen between conflicting groups, 536 R. Bradbury, op. cit., p. 377. Ban Ki Moon, A Climate Culprit in Darfur, The Washington Post, (June) 2007, available at: www.washingtonpost.com. 537 125 therefore paving the way for a situation of chaotic mismanagement of resource issues.538 In addition, foreign countries’ interests came into play insofar Chadians rebels seeking to overthrow the then incumbent Chadian President Hissène Habré, established their camps in Darfur with the external support of Libyan President Gaddafi, interested in expanding the boundaries of its “Libyan Empire”, with the acquiescence of the then Sudanese Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi.539 This military occupation caused the local Fur populations to react by forming a several-thousand fighters militia, the Federal Army of Darfur, to face the growing threat represented by the Libyans and Chadians rebels. In response to the Fur taking up arms, local Arab tribes requested the central government for weapons to defend themselves in return. Hence, between 1987 and 1989, the first Darfur crisis erupted between the Darfuri Arab militias under the wing of the so-called “Arab Gathering” and the non-Arab Fur militias, whose military capacity, however, was comparatively so disproportioned that by the end of the conflict the Fur lost 2’500 people, 40’000 head of cattle, some 400 villages burned and several tens of thousands people were displaced. Despite this first Sudanese crisis had little international resonance, it was clear that the GoS, furthering the long-standing divide and rule policy it was already adopting in the North-South civil conflict, supported the Arab components of the populations by providing them with arms and munitions against the nonArabs. 540 In 1989, the conflicting parties gathered at a tribal peace conference held in Khartoum, where it soon emerged that an effective resolution would be hard to find due to their opposite stances. On the one hand the Arabs claimed that the Fur were willing to further the so-called “African Belt” by undermining their own rights over land and resources, while on the other hand the Fur claimed that the atrocities committed towards the non-Arab populations had a clearly genocidal intent.541 While the former could not provide any evidence of the Fur’s alleged conspiracy, the latter could actually prove that the indiscriminate targeting of civilians infrastructures such as schools, clinics, wells and irrigation pumps, amounted to war crimes and held patent genocidal characteristics. Despite their opposite claims, an agreement was eventually reached providing for the both parties’ disarmament, the return of displaced 538 R. O. Collins, op. cit., p. 152. As a matter of fact, General Gaddafi provided the Chadians rebels with arms, trainings and financial support, as did with others rebel groups in Africa aiming at overthrowing the governments hostile to Tripoli. This expansionistic policy adopted by Gaddafi also affected the Sudan, as in 1974 he armed two rebels groups against the Nimairi government, one of which was led by the next-to-be Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi. See A. S. Natsios, op. cit., p. 122. 540 International Crisis Group, Darfur Rising: Sudan’s New Crisis, ICG Africa Report No. 76, Nairobi/Brussels, 25 March 2004, available at: www.crisisgroup.org. 541 Ivi, p. 6. 539 126 people, the re-establishment of the local authorities and people’s rights over their land and resources. In addition, all Chadian militias were to be deported from the country. 542 However, the Sudanese government did not manage to have the agreement concretely implemented, and all these neglected promises contributed to fuel further resentments and grievances by nonArab Darfuri populations which would lead in less than 5 years time to the second Darfur crisis. The political temperature in the region started to heat again in 1995, after the non-Arab Masalit tribe, located in the Western part of the region and bearing links with the Umma Party, was targeted by the NIF repressive policy aimed at undermining the Umma presence within Darfur.543 As soon as the NIF seized power in 1989, in fact, the new government arbitrarily redrew the administrative boundary of the region by splitting it up into three subregions, namely the Northern, Southern and Western Darfur, and by imposing new mainly Arab authorities with the explicit aim of undermining the Masalit power. Hence, in the mid1990s, the appointment of an Arab Amir (“prince”) at the head of the province of Western Darfur, mostly inhabited by non-Arab populations, led a second Darfur crisis to virulently break out. Once more, the government decided to support the Arabs by arming the tribes of Marhariya, the Um Jalul of the Rizaiqat, Beni Halba, and the Misiriyya against the non-Arab components of the local population.544 According to the 2004 International Crisis Group report, from 1996 to 1998 both parties suffered from heavy losses, both in terms of human lives and livestock alike, leading some 100’000 people to flee towards neighbouring Chad; nevertheless, no media attention contributed the shed lights on the exact dynamics and clear responsibilities of the crisis.545 Nevertheless, what proved to be sure was that a new hideous tactic – to be later improved during the third and most recent Darfur crisis – was developed by Khartoum which provided for the military disarmament of the Masalit villages through its national army, shortly ensued by the looting, destruction, and burning of those same villages by the Janjaweed militias (coming from the Arabic nouns of “man”, “gun” and “horse”) namely lawless Arab militias hired by the GoS specifically to fight non-Arab villages.546 By using these tactics, the Sudanese government contributed to further entrench the ethnic Arab/non-Arab divide, which would eventually lead to the most violent and serious Darfur conflict to erupt in the early 2000s, in which a number of other political and economic factors entwined with the ethnic issue, by that time heavily exacerbated. This second conflict lasted 542 A. S. Natsios, op. cit. p. 127. Ivi, p. 130. 544 Ivi, p. 131. 545 International Crisis Group, op. cit., p. 7. 546 A. S. Natsios, op. cit. p. 131. 543 127 until 1999, when the GoS had to give up to the Masalit request to balance the local government councils by appointing an equal number of Arab and non-Arab representatives.547 One of the spill-over consequences of this second civil conflict was that in the neighbouring Kordofan region some mutinies arose, followed by the local leaders pressures to Khartoum to receive their due share revenues coming from the oil extracted within their territories. In addition, they have also recently asked for the inclusion of some Dinka and Misseriya representatives in the negotiations for the disputed area of Abyei, still contended between Sudan and South Sudan, and the right for the region to self-government.548 Despite the third Darfur crisis is usually deemed to have started in 2003, in effect it officially began in July 2001, when the leaders of two non-Arab tribes, namely the Fur and Zaghawa signed an agreement with which they promised to resist the growing Arab supremacy over the region.549 This came as a result of a period of growing tensions and civil unrest provoked by the publishing in 2000 of a pamphlet (the “Black Book: Imbalance of Power and Wealth in Sudan”) confirming the same SPLM’s claims on the predominance of the Arab minority over the whole country since independence. According to the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) which had been conducting the research since 1996, the so-called “Three Arab Tribes” comprising the Shaiqikka, the Ja’aliyiin, and the Danagla, despite representing only the 5,4% of the whole Sudanese population, have been dominating the country’s institutions since 1956, preventing not only the Southerners from acceding to the highest governmental posts but also all Sudanese population coming from all other regions except for the Arab Triangle.550 As we can read from an English version of the Black Book, the pattern of injustice remained almost the same throughout, irrespective of the political orientation of incumbent government: secular, theocratic, dictatorial, or – presumed – democratic. They all displayed blatant favouritism of one particular circle in the Sudan to detriment of all others. The favoured part of the Sudan attracted disproportionate attention, care, services, and developmental resources from those successive governments. That favoured part of the Sudan is the Northern Region (which, for the purposes of the book, meant the Current River Nile and Northern States) where most of the ruling élite come from.551 547 Ibidem. International Crisis Group, op. cit., p. 8. 549 A. S. Natsios, op. cit. p. 135. 550 Ivi, p. 132. 551 Justice and Equality Movement, The Black Book, Imbalance of Power and Wealth in Sudan, English Version, (the content within brackets has been added), available at: www.sudanjem.com. 548 128 The spreading of these pieces of information caused the social pressure to dramatically increase at the expense of the government capability to keep the situation under control. Although the regime attempted to confiscate all the pamphlets to prevent what has been called “tribalistic propaganda” from further spreading, the first military joint offensive carried out by the Zaghawa-Fur militias took place in 2002, when they attacked a Sudanese Army’s garrison, defeated the SAF, and looted its arms.552 Predictably enough, the government responded by mobilizing the Janjaweed, which started to destroy, burn and loot every non-Arab Western Darfur village they encountered on their way, summarily executing local chiefs, murdering young men, raping the women in front of their helpless relatives at gunpoint.553 As a result of these protracted massacres, the Fur representatives at the National Assembly asked the Sudanese President to be held accountable for what was happening in the Western part of the country. At first al-Bashir answered positively by agreeing to put under arrest the leader of the Janjaweed militias under the proposal of the new governor of the North Darfur, General Ibrahim Mohamed Suleiman, a non-Arab moderate officer whose recent appointment by the government wanted to prove its willingness to appease the situation within the region.554 In addition, a number of internal mediating initiatives were launched, both at the national and at the local level aiming at settling the situation between the conflicting parties. Among the most prominent, we can list the Al-Fashir Conference held in 2003, where the government-established Mechanism for Extending the Authority of the State (MEAS), chaired by Suleiman, was gathered together with local chiefs and élites to work out for potential solutions; and the Nahar/Masar Initiative launched in 2003 and named after the two promoters of the event, namely the Sudanese Minister of Education and the governor of the Northern River Nile State, who tried to adopt a “personal” approach to ease the dialogue with the rebels.555 However, all initiatives were destined to fail due to the government incapability to give up to certain rebels’ positions. Furthermore, this early peace-making attempts were made even more complex by the “divide and rule” policy adopted by government from the mid-1980s aimed at co-opting some tribes to fuel pro-government militias against non-Arab populations.556 By contrast, in 2003 the peace process between Khartoum and the SPLM leaders to finally end the long-standing North-South civil war was showing some signs of improvement. If on the one hand this allowed Khartoum to take a breath from over twenty years of war against 552 A. S. Natsios, op. cit. p. 137. Ibidem. 554 Ibidem. 555 International Crisis Group, op. cit., pp. 12-13. 556 Ivi, p. 12. 553 129 the South, on the other hand these improvements compelled the government to maintain an even stronger hold on Darfur, as the GoS feared that reaching a peace agreement with the South might have led the Darfuri rebels to seize the momentum for possible regime overthrowing in Khartoum.557 Hence, instead of pursuing a peaceful path towards the resolution of the civil conflict with the Darfuri rebels, Khartoum decided upon the release of the Janjaweed’s leader, the forced retirement of the Northern Darfuri governor, and to carry on a harsh ethnic cleansing campaign mainly against Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa villages. As a consequence, in February 2003 the third and most awful Darfur crisis officially erupted, which saw the non-Arab Darfuri troops under the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the JEM opposing the Sudanese official forces, backed by government-financed Janjaweed militias.558 Despite the quite effective tactic of hit-and-run employed by the Darfuri rebels at the expense of the SAF units, as soon as the GoS started its retaliation tactic by carpet-bombing the villages from above and then sending the Janjaweed militias to loot and burn those villages from the ground, it was clear that that Khartoum’s strategy actually amounted to a real ethnic cleansing policy and that the rebels could nothing against the massive atrocities which were being perpetrating against Darfuri militias and civilians alike.559 The first reactions of the international community to what was happening in Sudan came over the summer 2004, when a group of Western organizations and political activists started to draw the world’s attention towards what the then UN Human Rights Coordinator for Sudan called as “the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis”.560 In 2004, in fact, the first comprehensive organization aimed at stopping the massacre in Darfur was created under the name of the Save Darfur Coalition (SDC). It was no coincidence that the establishment of this organization marked the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, as a lot of public manifestations and campaigns were held around the world by human rights activists and advocacy groups in order to prevent another Rwanda from happening again. Hence, the SDC, comprising more than 190 US faith-based, advocacy and human rights organizations was founded in New York under the joint impulse of the United States Holocaust Museum and the 557 A. S. Natsios, op. cit. p. 139. On the way the Darfuri rebels were able to arm themselves, we can here briefly say that they were backed by the Eritrean government, which has opposed al-Bashir since its independence in 1993; by the SPLM forces, which offered weapons and trainings; and finally, by Chad and Libya, which provided for most of the rebels’ weapon supplies. For further details on the external backing of the rebel militias, see ivi, pp. 144-146. 559 Ivi, p. 148. 560 A. C. Budabin, Genocide Olympics, How Activists Linked China, Darfur and Beijing 2008, in D. Large and L. Patey, op. cit., p. 139. 558 130 American Jewish World Service, and its mission was to raise public awareness a worldwide response to the atrocities committed in Darfur.561 Starting to mobilize the American public opinion from 2004, the SDC at first pivoted its strategy around lobbying the American Congress. At an early stage of the lobbying activity, the main activists’ strategy was to target the foreign investments in the African country, and to use a divestment campaign as an economic weapon against Khartoum.562 Hence, in 2006 the first comprehensive Sudan Divestment Task Force was established thanks to the previous contributions of some Californian students who forced their own universities to sell all Sudan-related investments.563 After some years of intense political lobby, the campaigners managed their voice to be heard at the US Congress, and in 2007 obtained a “Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act” to be passed, though it was not amounting to a proper obligation to divest upon local, state or private fund managers working in the Sudan.564 By the same token, other pieces of legislation were successfully approved by the Congress,565 and USAID was also granted hundreds of millions of dollars to face the dramatic humanitarian crisis of the region.566 In the meanwhile, the Sudan Task Force grew bigger and caught the international attention after it received huge support from Bennett Freeman’s Calvert Investments, a well-known US firm specialized in providing for social responsible investments. Freeman, as an expert into the field of social responsibility immediately identified the oil companies working in Sudan as the main targets of the divestment campaign, namely CNPC, Petronas and OVL.567 As a consequence, he provided the Task Force with analytical and advocacy support aiming at holding the Asian companies responsible for what was happening in the country, and at 561 www.savedarfur.org. L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 163. 563 Ivi, p. 164. 564 This was due to the fact that at the end the US economic interests prevailed over moral and human rights-related concerns. In fact, in 2007 the US President G. W. Bush signed the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act authorizing “state and local companies to divest assets in companies that conduct business operations in Sudan, to prohibit United States government contracts with such companies, and for other purposes.” Hence, the law limited itself just to authorize to divest under the legal protection of the federal government, and not to impose it. This came as a result of the fact that the US had a long list of rogue countries they were engaged with, and passing such a law would have damaged the economic interests of the nations. In addition, when President Bush signed the divestment law he also added a signing statement according to which “he was reserving the authority to overrule state and local divestment decisions if they conflicted with foreign policy”. See the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act of 2007, available at: www.govtracks.us; and S. G. Stolberg, Bush Signs Bill Allowing Sudan Divestment, The New York Times, (January) 2008, available at: www.nytimes.com. 565 To see all the pieces of legislation approved by the US Congress, go to: www.savedarfur.org/takeaction/legislation/. 566 United States Agency for International Development, available at: www.usaid.gov. 567 Ivi, p. 165. 562 131 pressing them to make Khartoum change its genocidal policy. Hence, given the political constraints of the domestic pressure, and the limited economic impact of the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act on the Asian oil companies,568 in the second phase of the pro-Darfur lobbying campaign, the activists decided to shift outwards, directly targeting the major accomplices of the GoS at the time, namely the oil companies furthering the Sudanese war economy on the ground. From 2004 onward, what can be colloquially refer to as the “China campaign” was then inaugurated.569 This campaign was supported by the grass-root civil society organizations and movements, and by high-level government spheres alike. Since the very beginning of this change of strategy, in fact, the US government proved to be keen on putting pressure on Beijing with the aim of appease the situation in Darfur. China’s increasing involvement in the African continent was actually one of the most debated topic in Washington, as it provides a growing concern for the US security interests, therefore leading the Bush administration to leverage Beijing towards the compliance of international human rights standards.570 According to the Holslag, the case of Darfur proved to be the right opportunity for the PRC to test its diplomatic ability, as it had to carefully balance its foreign policy traditional principles with growing pressures coming both from the international community and from the exacerbating dynamics of the civil conflict potentially undermining its strategic interests in the country.571 Hence, according to many, from being neutral and rhetorically driven by a strict interpretation of the principles of non-interference and protection of state sovereignty, the PRC’ attitude shifted towards a more clear and assertive stance, until a mediatory and persuasive role was upheld with respect of the Darfur crisis. As a matter of fact, in the aftermath of the conflict outbreak, China’s reaction to what was happening in Darfur was mild. In fact, under the official heading of non-interference, the PRC was continuing working in the country, fuelling the war economy which allowed Khartoum to 568 As a matter of fact, the US divestment legislation did not particularly affect the Asian oil companies operating in the African country, as they were state-owned companies, therefore holding only small capital shares on the international financial market. By contrast, it heavily affected Western private companies, as they held their capital positions on the international market, and they are dependent on consumer reputation in home markets. See L. Patey, The New Kings…, p. 170. 569 With this label we can refer to the number of initiatives undertaken by international NGOs, human rights activists and so forth aimed at making pressure on the PRC to have the Sudanese genocidal policy revised. This very same term is also adopted by A. C. Budabin in her article, Genocide Olympics, How the Activists Linked China, Darfur, and Beijing 2008, in op. cit., pp. 139-156. 570 H. Wenping, The Darfur Issue and China’s role, in A. Herneit-Sievers, S. Marks and S. Naidu (eds.), Chinese and African Perspectives on China in Africa, Pambazuka Press, Kampala, 2010. 571 J. Holslag, op. cit., p. 71. 132 devote an increasing amount of its public expenditure to arms and munitions purchase. At this early stage, in fact, although the Sudanese government was reporting misleading information on the conflict in Darfur, Chinese authorities tended to believe that the situation would have recovered in a short time-span, and that Khartoum would be able to peacefully solve the crisis anyway.572 Thus, when asked about China’s involvement in the perpetration of the massacre, PRC officers would shield themselves with the self-interested rhetoric of “business is business”, and that they were trying “to separate politics from business”.573 In 2004, the Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Zhou Wenzhong claimed that the internal situation in the Sudan was an internal affair, and that they were not in the position to impose upon them. 574 By the same token, CNCP officers tried to defend themselves from the growing critics risen by the international campaigners by arguing in favour of the historical friendship between the two countries which had shaped their mutually beneficial relations since Sudan’s independence: in addition to developing the “hardware” capacity of the country, namely its energetic and infrastructural facilities, the Chinese claimed to have paid great attention also to its “software” capacity building through the improvement of the technical and management skills of the local workers, which could benefit from training courses provided by CNPC.575 Moreover, several civilian buildings were established for the benefit of the whole population, such as schools and hospitals, and some millions of dollars had been provided by the Chinese oil company to finance training and masters’ courses for African students in China.576 As a consequence, according to CNPC’s general manager for the Sudan project, the bilateral relations between the two countries were to be considered “mutually beneficial, providing a win-win situation”, perfectly in line with Chinese grand strategy towards the continent.577 As a result of this early reliance on its mutually beneficial and sovereignty-respectful relations, several resolution drafts presented by the US before the UN Security Council aimed at putting pressure upon the African country through the adoption of multilateral economic sanctions were systematically watered down by the PRC successfully exercising its veto power.578 According to some scholars, however, this came as a result of China’s broader understanding of the multilateral organization aims and functions, and not as a clear sign of 572 G. K. Ahmed, The Chinese Stance on the Darfur Conflict, South African Institutes of International Affairs, Occasional Papers No. 67 (September), 2010, available at: www.saiia.org.za. 573 D. Zweig and B. Jianhai,op. cit. 574 Ibidem. 575 H. Wenping, op. cit., pp. 182-183. 576 Ivi, p. 183. 577 Ibidem. 578 G. K. Ahmed, op. cit., p. 6. 133 China’s complicity towards Khartoum regime.579 As argued by Wenping, for instance, China has always preferred such a peaceful and dialogical way of dealing with regional and international crisis, instead of adopting sanctions, which are only useful, according to the author, to deepen poverty, therefore triggering other conflicts.580 As confirmed by Chinese Special Envoy for Darfur, Liu Guijin, “Too much pressure or expanding sanctions will not be helpful for the peaceful settlement of the issue.”581 This early approach seemed, then, to confirm China’s coherence of the well-proclaimed principles with its factual behaviour, as it apparently only cared about its business disregarding all sorts of political involvement. However, according to other views, also at this early stage, China’s involvement in the ongoing onslaughts was more than patent, as it has been argued that not only China’s government was helping the GoS to increase its revenues through the development of the oil fields therefore fuelling the Sudanese war economy, but the PRC was also concretely providing Khartoum with both political and military support with respect of its policy towards the Darfuri rebels.582 In July 2008, the BBC channel reported it had found the first evidences of China’s involvement in the Darfuri conflict, as some Chinese-made military equipment and weapons were found in the region of the West Darfur allegedly exported by the PRC in 2005. Additionally, China was also charged with the accusation of training Sudanese fighter pilots using Chinese-made fighter jets.583 The strict correlation between the increasing government revenues due to the country’s booming oil industry and the purchasing of arms by Khartoum should not come as a surprise. According to Manyok, between 1991 and 2000 the military cooperation between China and Sudan was furthered, as increasing oil revenues caused the country’s military expenditure to rise. As the southern crisis was still ongoing, Khartoum decision to spend its increasing revenues in its defensive apparatus led the PRC to look for further businesses to be concluded. Human Rights First reported that since the first Sudanese oil was exported to the international market, the country’s purchases of small arms dramatically increased: by 2005, Sudan’s imports have risen to more than 680 times their 1999 levels, and from 2003 to 2006 the country purchased from China small arms worth over N. P. Contessi, Multilateralism, Intervention and Norm Contestation: China’s Stance on Darfur in the UN Security Council, “Security Dialogue”, Vol. 41, No. 3, 2010, pp. 323-344. 580 H. Wenping, op. cit., p. 185. 581 Sudan Tribune, Sanction Not Helpful for Resolving Darfur Crisis – China, May 2007, available at: www.sudantribune.com. 582 H. Andersson, China is fuelling war in Darfur, BBC News, July 2008, available at: www.bbc.co.uk; Amnesty International, Sudan, No End to Violence in Darfur, Arms supplies continue despite ongoing human rights violations, Amnesty International Publications, 2012, available at: www.amnesty.org. 583 H. Andersson, China is fuelling war in Darfur, BBC News, July 2008. 579 134 US $ 55 million.584 Although Beijing officially denied its involvement as a supplier of arms and trainings to Sudanese military, as it formally abided by the UN Security Council resolution 1556 providing for an arms embargo,585 since 2004 the PRC proved to be the nearexclusive supplier of small arms to Khartoum, accounting for 90% of the country’s annual imports.586 Moreover, as far as the purchase of Chinese-manufactured aircrafts and heavy weapons is concerned, in 2003 the PRC sold some 20 fighter bombers to Sudan, together with some hundreds military trucks in 2005, and 6 advanced trainer aircrafts one and two years later, respectively.587 After it resulted clear that Khartoum was purchasing arms from China with the clear purpose of perpetrating its ethnic cleansing policy towards the Darfuri rebels, in 2005, from being initially applied to non-governmental entities and individuals, the arms embargo was expanded to include the agents of the Sudanese government operating in the region with the UN Security Council resolution 1591.588 However, the strong military ties linking Chinese oil interests to the internal stability of Sudan, would lead a massive Chinesemanufactured arms flows to continue, albeit to a minor extent, until today. To this concern, as argued by Large, Chinese contribution to finance the Sudanese arms industry should by no means “considered devoid of political implications”.589 According to the author, in fact, the essence of Chinese approach with regard of Sudan, as well as elsewhere in the continent, “is to pursue business as a form of applied politics”, insofar behind every form of economic interaction there is a pursuit of realist interests.590 The same view was also shared by international campaigners and organizations, whose growing resentments toward China’s blind-eye policy with respect to Khartoum was all but neutral and non-interfering. The Canadian-based advocacy organization Dream for Darfur, for instance, on its website Human Rights First, The Facts: China’s Arms Sales to Sudan, available at: www.humanrightsfirst.org. 585 The UN Security Council Resolution 1556 (2004, § 7) officially read the Security Council “decides that all states shall take the necessary measures to prevent the sale, or supply, to all non-governmental entities and individuals operating in the states of North, South, and West Darfur by their nationals or from their territories or using their flag vessels or aircraft, of arms and related material of all types, including weapons and ammunition, military vehicles and equipment, paramilitary equipment […] whether or not originating in their territories”. Concerning the violation of the arms embargo, the international lawyer Da Silva claimed that the evidences found on the field confirmed China’s patent violation of the UN resolution, insofar the terms embargo was meant to cover all military activity related to the conflict, therefore also comprising training of foreign pilots. See H. Andersson, China is fuelling war in Darfur, BBC News, July 2008. The content of the resolution is available at: www.un.org. 586 Human Rights First, The Facts: China’s Arms Sales to Sudan, available at: www.humanrightsfirst.org. 587 Ibidem. 588 Ibidem. 589 D. Large, China and the Contradictions…, p. 98. 590 Ibidem. 584 135 explicitly pointed its finger against China as the main responsible for what was going on in Darfur. It claimed that No country has done more to support the regime in Khartoum than the People’s Republic of China: no country has offered more diplomatic support, nor done more to provide money to buy the weaponry that fuels the engine of genocidal destruction. And no country has done more to insulate Khartoum from economic pressure or human rights accountability.591 This became even clearer from 2004 onwards, as China’s approach towards Khartoum started to take a more effective stance, therefore revealing the country’s attempt to balance its official rhetoric to strategic pragmatism. In August 2004, in fact, the PRC appointed a Special Envoy for Darfur, Luo Guozeng, who started to hold several meetings with Sudanese President al-Bashir to persuade Khartoum to change its strategy towards the resolution of the conflict. Similarly, other official visits of high-level Chinese representatives took place between 2004 and 2005 aiming at reassuring the Chinese leadership of the steps that were being taken by the GoS to resolve the situation.592 Chinese representatives became also more prone to publicly challenge Khartoum policy when deemed ineffective and to direct its strategy by giving recommendations. This was, for instance, the case of President Hu Jintao’s 2007 four principles suggested during his visit to Sudan according to which the Darfuri crisis primarily arose from a development problem, thus, it was necessary “to improve the situation in Darfur and living conditions of the people.”593 As suggested by Large, by referring to the Sudanese populations and suggesting Khartoum to face the humanitarian crisis present in Darfur, Chinese President’s words went beyond Chinese traditional state-directed approach, therefore showing its willingness to progressively erode the general profile of its official discourse.594 In the same fashion, China softened its position in the UN Security Council by allowing a number of resolutions to be approved, albeit often just with its abstention, arguing that Sudan proved to be sincere in its attempt to solve the crisis in Darfur. 595 Hence, a number of resolutions was finally approved providing for a crescendo of pressure towards Khartoum. In Dream for Darfur, China’s Role, available at: www.dreamfordarfur.org, in A. C. Budabin, op. cit., p. 147. 592 G. K. Ahmed, op. cit., p. 7. 593 H. Jintao, He puts forward four point principle on solving Darfur issue, Xinhua, (February) 2007, in D. Large, China’s Sudan Engagement…,p. 619. 594 Ibidem. 595 R. Bradbury, op. cit., p. 380. 591 136 2004 China abstained to vote resolution 1556 recognizing the role of the GoS as a perpetrator of human rights abuses, and called for Khartoum to disarm all militias; China also abstained from vetoing resolution 1564 (2004) which threatened to impose oil sanctions if Khartoum continued to disregard its obligations pursuant the previous resolution, and paved the way for a joint AU-UN peace-keeping mission to be deployed; in 2005 another resolution (1593) passed with China’s abstention providing for the referral of those suspected for having committed crimes against humanity to the International Criminal Court (ICC); and finally, after years of pressures, in 2006 the Security Council finally passed resolution 1706 calling for the expansion of the Sudan peace-keeping mission’s mandate to the Darfur region as soon as possible.596 The Sudanese official reaction was far from being accommodating with respect to the changing face of China’s diplomacy. As reported by Ahmed, after the passing of resolution 1564 (2004), the Sudanese Minister was reported to say that this “was disappointing to the aspirations of the Sudanese people and their government […] it withdraws power from the African Union despite the bright words that were used, for the support and strengthening of the mission of the African Union in Sudan.”597 Things got even worse with resolution 1706, as the GoS attempt to persuade China to exercise its veto power failed, therefore officially allowing a comprehensive international presence to intervene in Sudan. As a consequence, a diplomatic campaign arose in Sudan aimed at pressing the Asian friend to return to its traditional style of state sovereignty protection.598 This kind of political pressure, coupled with the one exercised by the CNPC on the ground, made China decision to support a foreign intervention only contingent upon the Sudanese approval. Hence, after UNSC resolution 1679 (2006) was adopted, China’s diplomatic role to convince the country to accept the deployment of the peace-keeping mission proved to be fundamental. With this purpose, China then called for the establishment of high level dialogue with Sudan in order to create such a consent.599 This bilateral dialogue started in 2006, during a meeting to celebrate the so-called Chinese year of Africa, during which President Hu Jintao met al-Bashir and confronted him 596 An initial AU monitoring mission to Sudan (AMIS) was actually deployed after the signing of the Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement by the GoS and the main Darfuri rebel factions. However, due to the lack of funds, this early mission soon revealed its limits, and from 2006 the EU, US, and the PRC itself started to pressure to have AMIS officers replaced with the UN ones. After the GoS granted its initial consent to the deployment of the joint mission in 2005, however, it withdrew it shortly after therefore leading to the tug-of-war process between Beijing and Khartoum which is further described, at the end of which the joint AU-UN mission UNAMID was passed with resolution 1769 (2007) and accepted by Khartoum. See J. Holslag, op. cit., pp. 75-76; G. K. Ahmed, op. cit., pp. 7-8. 597 Ivi, p. 7. 598 G. K. Ahmed, op. cit., p. 8. 599 R. Bradbury, op. cit., p. 381. 137 over the Darfuri issue. Similarly, in 2007, the Chinese diplomatic veteran Zhai Jun was sent to Khartoum, where he pressured the GoS to accept the UN Secretary General’s plan (the socalled Annan three packages plan) envisaging the deployment of a joint AU-UN mission in the Darfur, while promoting the disbursement of 80 million yuan (approximately US $ 10,4 million) in humanitarian aid for the region. However, all this efforts proved to be frustrated by al-Bashir, whose reaction was initially surprised, as he felt betrayed by his historical ally. According to some records, he was heard saying that the Sudanese high-level officials “were convinced that China was not, and did not expect, to be an instrument for the American pressure against Sudan”.600 The climax of the diplomatic tension between the two countries was reached on the eve of the Beijing Olympics, in May 2007, when a special representative for Darfur issue was appointed with the aim of further handling with the ongoing humanitarian crisis. Considering that China previous appointments of special representatives for regional issues were just a few, namely those for the Middle East conflict and the Democratic Republic of Korea’s nuclear issue, the PRC diplomatic involvement proved to be considerable at this stage.601 Moreover, it was announced that a team of almost 300 Chinese military engineers was going to join the UN mission in order to provide with their technical expertise in the field of construction and infrastructure building.602 Thanks to the increasing Chinese pressure, in July 2007 Khartoum finally accepted the deployment of the hybrid AU-UN mission within its territory, comprising some 20’000 UN soldiers and several hundred of Chinese experts.603 These conciliatory efforts were eventually recognized by the Western community, which praised China’s commitment with respect of the Darfur crisis. For instance, the then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated that the “US highly appreciate[d] the positive role play[ed] in Darfur”, and the US special envoy for Sudan, Andrew Natsios, was also grateful for the influence China exerted to make Khartoum accept the Security Council resolution for the deployment of the AU-UN hybrid peacekeeping mission.604 This proved that China has finally turned to a multilateral and mediatory approach between the Khartoum and the international community at large. 600 South China Morning Post, (January) 2008, in G. K. Ahmed, op. cit., p. 9. H. Wenping, op. cit., p. 188. 602 G. K. Ahmed, op. cit., p. 9. 603 This was made possible to the unanimously passing of UNSC Res. 1769 (2007), available at: www.un.org. 604 G. K. Ahmed, op. cit., p. 18. 601 138 The active involvement of China’s diplomacy trying to firstly persuade Khartoum to find a political and sustainable solution to the Darfur issue and then, given its failure, to take a more assertive and then mediatory stance towards Khartoum confirmed China’s commitment to take “a more diplomatic role in the resolution of internal conflicts”.605 Although Chinese official non-interference rhetoric still stood as a paramount principle of its foreign policy, several authors argues in favour of a more flexible interpretation, a “flexigemony” approach driven both by China’s growing responsibilities among the international community, and by its increasing security interests, which are directly linked to the country’s rise as a global power.606 Around the reasons which have led the PRC to progressively shift its attitude from official sovereignty non-interference, despite its continuous political and military support to Khartoum, to interfering assertiveness and mediation, a wide debate has arisen. According to most of the literature, China’s changing attitude could be explained by highlighting the growing pressures the country was being subjected to, both from the internal and from the external fronts. As argued by Large, since China’s companies first put their feet on the Sudanese soil, the influence of the Asian country has been indispensable to the perpetuation of the Sudanese NIF and then NCP leaderships.607 As a direct result of this link, Chinese interests have become more and more entwined with the evolution and faith of the Sudanese internal politics, insofar the former’s strategic interests were connected with the latter’s ability to manage its postcolonial economic and socio-political issues. Hence, as soon as the third Darfur conflict broke out, in the early 2000s, Chinese primary concern was to safeguard its strategic interests, namely the possibility to keep the Sudanese oil flowing. Given the doubtful capabilities of Sudanese institutions to maintain a proper security level on its own, the PRC initially contributed, as we already shown, to enhance it through massive military support.608 At this early stage, the artificial shield of non-interference was instrumentally used by Beijing as a rhetoric excuse hiding strategic and consistent interests. Things began to change in 2004, when a commando of SLA member kidnapped two Chinese oilmen while they were working on the construction of well for the benefit of the Saferworld, China’s Growing Role in African Peace and Security, (January) 2011, available at: www.saferworld.org.uk, p. iii. 606 P. Carmody and I. Taylor, Flexigemony and Force in China’s Resource Diplomacy in Africa: Sudan and Zambia Compared, “Geopolitics”, Vol. 15, No. 3, 2010, pp. 496- 515. 607 D. Large, China’s Sudan Engagement…, p. 618. 608 See infra. 605 139 local population in the Buram area of Western Sudan.609 Although the abduction did not immediately provide for a source of major concern among Chinese high-level spheres, it certainly contributed to rise the security issue among the CCP’s members.610 Later on, after Khartoum proved to be incapable to effectively solve the situation and several other casualties occurred involving Chinese workers and oil facilities alike, Beijing started to fear for its interests, and a heavy diplomatic campaign to lobby the GoS to revise its policy was inaugurated. This was, for instance, the case of the assessment mission sent from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the aftermath of two particularly violent incidents taking place in 2007 and 2008 causing the disruption of the oil flow, and the abduction of nine Chinese oilmen, respectively.611 As previously hinted upon, Chinese high-level party members started to persuade the Sudanese government to find a diplomatic solution to the security issue within the region. This was to be instrumental to keep the Sudanese oil to flow, for the mutual benefit of both Beijing and Khartoum. Indeed, the African country had recently become the centre of China’s strategic interests, and oil remained at the very core of this mutually beneficial relation.612 The security concern directly affected CNPC as a result of the identification process of the oil company with the interests of the GoS by the Sudanese rebels, the SPLM/A members and Darfuri militias alike. Since CNPC’s heavy involvement in the Sudanese oil industry from the late 1990s was instrumental for the entrenchment of NIF and then the CNP regime, the rebels tended to associate China’s presence and long-term interests with the ones of the incumbent political leadership they contributed to maintain in power.613 As a matter of fact, what was initially characterized as a purely economic bilateral partnership mostly based on oil, later turned into a more comprehensive and consequent relation leading the Chinese strategic interests to be more and more closely associated with the destiny of the Sudanese political regime. Indeed, the association of foreign companies with the interests of the Sudanese government was nothing new, as in the early 2000s several evidences proving the involvement of Western companies’ facilities as a support for the government-backed militias against the civilians were provided.614 609 China Daily Online, Two Chinese abducted by rebels in Sudan, (March) 2004, available at: www.chinadaily.com.cn. 610 G. K. Ahmed, op. cit., p. 6. 611 D. Large, China’s Sudan Engagement…, p. 618 612 Ivi, p. 618. 613 Ibidem. 614 See infra. 140 As a consequence, the further development of Sino-Sudanese relations, according to some authors, inevitably determined the politicization of the China’s policy towards the African country, evolving from being purely economic to a harbinger of deep geopolitical implications. As skilfully argued by Large, In contrast to the militarized creation of Sudan’s oil export industry in the late 1990s, China’s more politicized role occurred in the context of established, functioning oil operations. These expanded after 2005 and fuelled an oil-boom that visibly further concentrated economic benefits in Khartoum, sharpening the discourse of economic marginalization and political domination mobilized by rebel groups in Darfur. Like the SPLA previously, Darfurian rebels group regarded China’s role not just as partisan, but also politically inseparable from the central state under the NPC and its leaders, the architects of a brutal counter-insurgency campaign in Darfur.615 Another factor which contributed to the reactive shift of Beijing policy was Khartoum general resistance to external pressures. The more the humanitarian situation in Darfur was getting worse, and consequently the international pressure stronger, the more Khartoum proved resistant to every kind of diplomatic manoeuvre or humanitarian intervention whatsoever.616 This resulted clear from the long-lasting diplomatic pressures exercised by the PRC aiming at persuading Khartoum to accept the UN Security Council peacekeeping mission, while officially preserving the Sudanese sovereignty. Furthermore, the Sudanese international diplomatic isolation brought about by the radicalization of the NIF policy in sponsoring the international terrorism and severe authoritarianism allowed Beijing to play a pivotal role in affecting the GoS, insofar the Sudanese leadership had incorporated the PRC as the major, if not the only, international sponsor to the promotion of its own interests.617 As a consequence, with respect to the confrontational attitude shown by Khartoum towards the Darfur conflict, China’s traditional principles shaping its foreign policy which had previously ensured the Chinese loyalty to Khartoum, began to strain with the pressures coming from the international community, compelling China’s “diplomacy to diverge from policy”.618 Finally, international pressures upon Beijing undoubtedly played a major role in reshaping China’s policy. To this concern, several scholars have argued that the general pressure from 615 Ibidem. R. Bradbury, op. cit., p. 383. 617 Ibidem. 618 Ibidem. 616 141 the international community proved to be highly effective on the eve of the Olympics, as the PRC was perceiving the Games as the right opportunity to be fully accepted by the international community of the states as a reliable and trustworthy country. 619 Hence, downplaying the discontent coming from the very community the PRC was willing to join would have meant to commit a strategic mistake for the country’s future position on the global scenario. From the activists’ front, as soon as they realized the limits of their domestic strategy, they started to directly target the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, which have been redubbed as the “Genocide Olympics”, to draw the international opinion’s attention on the genocide which was being perpetrated by Khartoum with the support of the hosting country of the games.620 Thanks to the official support of high-level state representatives and important celebrities, such as Mia Farrow and Steven Spielberg, backing the Olympics boycott as well as international athletes, aiming at rising the international community’s awareness about what was going on in Darfur, the campaign proved to be wholly successful, although it did not prevent the atrocities from being immediately halted.621 Moreover, another source of external pressures was provided by the restoration of diplomatic relations between Beijing and Sudan’s neighbouring Chad insofar N’Djamena was looking for a quick resolution of the Darfur crisis in order to halt the massive Sudanese refugee flows towards the country.622 Although it has been argued that this shift should not be overemphasized as China, while accepting to readdress the trajectory of its foreign policy, continued (and still does) to officially safeguard the principles of non-interference and state sovereignty in its relations with third countries, it is undeniable that the Darfur crisis represented a challenging ground for the PRC to test its own capabilities to balance its traditional approach with the pragmatic needs to both protect its growing strategic interests and to compromise with increasing external pressures from the international community.623 619 A. C. Budabin, op. cit., p. 140. For a full history of the “China Campaign” see A. C. Budabin, op. cit., pp. 139-156. 621 A. C. Budabin, op. cit., p. 147. 622 R. Bradbury, op. cit., p. 384. 623 Ibidem. 620 142 5. China’s policy towards the South: turning enemies into friends? In contrast to the mainstream opinion according to which the low-profile Chinese involvement in the negotiating process prior to the CPA should be considered in line with the country’s bilateral non-interfering foreign policy, the following paragraphs will attempt to argue that in the aftermath of the agreement the country was consolidating, slowly but continuously, its presence in both the Sudan and the Southern Sudan through strengthened economic ties paving the way for a more consequential role to be played in the following years. Once Beijing realized the inevitability of the Southern secession, in fact, it pragmatically shifted from supporting the unity option to enhancing its relations with Juba’s leadership. After being one of the first countries to recognize the world’s newest state, Beijing’s interests converged more and more with Juba’s in the areas of energy, infrastructure, telecommunication and agriculture. As a consequence, the PRC managed to play an increasingly important, albeit complex, role at the outbreak of the oil crisis which saw the collision between Khartoum and Juba’s respective interests. Maintaining good relations with Khartoum while pleasing the growing requests of Juba, however, proved to be no easy task for the Asian country whose interests were already highly intertwined with the GoS, but at the same time inevitably linked to Juba, under the administration of which now lied 75% of all Sudanese oil reserves. In accordance to this argument, far from considering the management of the Darfur crisis as a temporary deviation from China’s traditional rhetoric, the country’s increasing involvement in the North-South relations in the aftermath of the signing of the CPA, as well as the previously analysed case of Darfur, represented the initial step of a path of “creative” or “conditional” interference characterizing Beijing’s contemporary relations with both Sudan and South Sudan.624 5.1. Sino-Sudanese relations between the CPA and Southern independence In the context of the ongoing conflict between North and South, the 1990s have been described by Garang as the “years of darkness, serious struggle and negotiations”.625 As a 624 These are two adjectives employed by Chinese scholars to describe the changing role the Asian actor regarding its relations with third countries. T. Rafferty, China challenged over Sudan referendum, Asia Times, (January) 2011, available at: www.atimes.com. 625 J. Garang, interviewed in 2011, in M. LeRiche and M. Arnold, op. cit., p.89. 143 comprehensive history of the dynamics of the longest African conflict would fall outside the purposes of this dissertation, suffice it to say that after the outbreak of the second civil war in 1983, the situation did not substantially improved nor degenerated for either of the belligerent parties throughout the 1990s.626 Although the split occurring in the early years of that decade led Riek Machar to form the splinter group of SPLA-Nasir therefore weakening the rebel position with respect of the SAF military force, the territorial strongholds remained almost unaltered on both sides. If on the one hand, despite the effective offensives carried out in 1991-2 and 1993-4, the SAF and other government-supported militias held their tight over the Northern provinces and some isolated Southern garrisons, on the other hand, the core of the SPLA/M’s officials comprising, among others, Salva Kiir, Kuol Manyang and Oyay Deng still managed to resist along the frontier of the provinces of Northern Bahr al-Ghazal, Southern Kordofan/South Darfur, and on the majority of the vast Southern countryside.627 The economic and political developments achieved first by the NIF and then by the NCP governments throughout the decade allowed Khartoum to create the conditions for a selfsustained conflict to potentially endure for an indefinite time to come. This situation, as we showed, came as a result of the development of the long-dormant national oil industry which, despite the periodical sabotages and disruptions by the rebels, assured the GoS growing oil revenues to be invested in the purchase of arms to fuel the civil conflict. Behind these major achievements, there was the rising power of the PRC, whose growing involvement in Khartoum’s politics was the target of harsh critics reaching their peak during the early 2000s. During this period, in fact, the Darfur crisis violently broke out, and Beijing was accused of supporting the GoS therefore insulating it from international economic sanctions and political pressures which would have allegedly forced the country to comply with international human rights standards.628 All these factors compounded together to fuel what Martin called the “perfect war”, whose unlikely perspective of a short-term military breakthrough paradoxically led both the warring parties to find room for a shared deal from the 1990s. After the NIF coup in 1989, in fact, alBashir managed, quite unexpectedly, to break the international isolation he was reduced to and to further the country’s economy through the national oil industry paving the way for the perfect equilibrium conditions, both internally and internationally, which would have likely 626 For a detailed analysis of the conflict dynamics, see M. LeRiche and M. Arnold, op. cit.; A. Breidlid, A Concise History of South Sudan, Fountain Publishers, Kampala, 2010. 627 M. LeRiche and M. Arnold, op. cit., 90. 628 See infra. 144 allowed the civil conflict to last at length.629 This was due to an equivalent military capability characterizing the belligerent fronts, which kept fighting without gaining any substantial advantage over the other, and to the balanced external support coming from actors such as the PRC for Khartoum, and, among others, Uganda, Israel, Ethiopia and Eritrea, for the Southern rebels.630 In this context of perpetual conflict, after several failed attempts of peace negotiations carried out in the 1980s, the one which would ultimately survive and serve as the basis for the CPA dated back to 1993, when the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which had replaced the IGADD some years earlier, took the lead of the peace negotiation process.631 After hosting the warring parties in order to make them compromise on some shared founding principles through meetings and talks, the first concrete result achieved by the organization was the agreement by the SPLA/M members and the IGAD hosting governments on a Declaration of Principles (DoP) issued in 1994 providing for the right for the Southerners to self-determination through a referendum, and a form of secular democracy while preserving the unity of the Sudanese state.632 As far as the reception of the DoP in Khartoum, due to the pressure exercised by Kenya’s President Moi over the GoS and the lack of major military watersheds, the general framework of the document was accepted by al-Bashir who, however, declared that he would not consider it as a binding document to adhere to. Indeed, during the early 1990s, the terms of the DoP were subjected to an infinite number of disagreements and renegotiations over core issues, such as the length of the interim period preceding the referendum (two years for the SPLA/M, four years for the government), the areas where the referendum should be held, the interim arrangements over the confederal or federal nature of the administration, and on religious matters.633 Thus, because of this great number of disagreements, for some time the IGAD peaceprocess got stuck. This came also as a result of the deteriorating relations between Khartoum and most of the organization’s members, which were not perceived to be impartial anymore, and prevented the GoS from finding a common base to peacefully solve the disagreements over the framework of the document. In the case of Eritrea, in fact, Khartoum severed the diplomatic relations with Asmara in 1994, when it was accused of hosting a network of R. Martin, Sudan’s Perfect War, “Foreign Affairs”, Vol. 81, No. 2, 2002, pp. 111-127. I. Salehyan, K. Skrede Gleditsch, D. E. Cunningham, Explaining External Support for Insurgent Groups, International Organization, Vol. 65, 2011, pp. 709–744. 631 M. LeRiche and M. Arnold, op. cit., 90. 632 Ibidem. 633 Ivi, p. 106. 629 630 145 Eritrean anti-governmental Islamic terrorists; as for Uganda, the two countries cooled their relations down in 1995, as the proxy war fought by Khartoum and Kampala supporting the LRA and the Southern rebels, respectively, reached a critical peak; finally, also the SudaneseEthiopian relations got worsened after the assassination attempt of the Egyptian President Mubarak occurred in 1995 during a OUA summit in Addis Ababa, in which the Sudan government was later discovered to have been involved.634 As a consequence, for the following three years from 1994, Khartoum insisted to further its bilateral relations with the organization’s members instead of pursuing the multilateral approach, therefore patently showing the limits of the peace-making capability of the regional organization.635 After this brief breakdown of the diplomatic activity, under the revived initiative of the IGAD organization, the DoP’s core principles were finally accepted in 1995, during the international conference held in Asmara, after which the “Asmara Declaration on Fundamental Issues” was issued with the agreement of the international community and by the members of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).636 In accordance to the Declaration’s provisions, the country was divided into five Northern territorial entities – Kordofan, Darfur, Centre, North and East –, and one Southern – South –, as decentralization was deemed to be the best form of administration for the country. Moreover, the basis for the form of governance, economic system, security and military arrangements were also laid, as well as the right for the Southerners to self-determination through the possibility of holding a referendum to choose between confederation, federation or secession.637 Despite the diplomatic success, the Declaration was agreed upon by a limited number of stakeholders, as the talks gathered the IGAD states and the NDA members, namely the main Sudanese opposition forces fled to Eritrea once the NIF seized power. As a consequence, the GoS’s initial reaction was negative, as it decided to boycott the agreement by holding parallels initiatives with splinter rebels groups.638 After a while, however, the warring parties managed to compromise over the 1997 Khartoum Peace Agreement which was signed by the GoS, the SPLM and other minor rebels groups such as the South Sudan Independence Movement, the Union of Sudan African Parties, the Equatoria Defence Force, the South Sudan Independents 634 See infra. A. El-Affendi, The Impasse of the IGAD Process for Sudan, the Limits of Regional Peacemaking?, “African Affairs”, Vol. 100, No. 401, 2001, pp. 581-599. 636 International Crisis Group, Sudan: Major Reform or More War, Africa Report No. 194, November 2012, available at: http://www.crisisgroup.org/. 637 Ivi, p. 6. 638 A. El-Affendi, op. cit., pp. 587-588. 635 146 Group, and was used as a suitable basis for the future negotiations which dramatically accelerated since then.639 In the early 2000s, the resumption of the negotiations under the guidance of IGAD led to the approval of the Machakos Protocol in July 2002.640 The protocol represented the first comprehensive act signed by the NCP and the SPLA/M members which agreed to commit themselves towards the final resolution of the long-standing North-South conflict. Under the leadership of President Moi, the warring parties finally reached an agreement over what has been defined as a “grand compromise” laying the basis of a sustainable accord which would later be implemented through the CPA.641 The Machakos Protocol established the binding nature of the GoS commitment towards the concrete possibility of the Southern independence; it provided for the Sharia law to be the basis of the national constitution; it envisaged a sixyear interim process leading to a referendum to be held in the South on unity or independence; finally, it also affirmed that “the unity of the Sudan…is and shall be the priority”, and that “making the unity of Sudan attractive to the people of South Sudan” would be of primary interest for the both the SPLM/A and the NCP members.642 The Protocol came as a result of a revived engagement of the international community, which was interested in dealing with Khartoum in order to both find a durable solution of the long-standing crisis affecting the country and to handle with the problem of terrorism which had affected the country at length. After the terroristic attack of 9/11, in fact, the US, among others, forced Khartoum to re-open a dialogue with the rebels and to commit itself towards the global war on terror, as the Bush administration feared the special relation between the NIF and Osama Bin Laden, who had also been hosted in the country some time earlier, could have led Khartoum to revive its support for Al-Qaeda.643 Also Western countries such as UK and Norway, as well as neighbouring African states, such as Egypt and Eritrea, were pressing for a final resolution to the civil conflict.644 In addition, the conflict was also heavily affecting the GoS management of Sudan’s natural resources as the growing number of attacks to the oil 639 Khartoum Peace Agreement, the content of which can be found at: http://www.incore.ulst.ac.uk/services/cds/agreements/pdf/sudan2.pdf; For further details on the negotiation process leading to the CPA, see D. H. Johnson, The Root Causes of the Civil War, Fountain Publishers, Kampala, 2011. 640 M. LeRiche and M. Arnold, op. cit., p. 108. 641 Ibidem. 642 Machakos Protocol, Part A (Agreed Principles), Artt. 1.1, 1.10, available at: http://www1.chr.up.ac.za/chr_old/indigenous/documents/Sudan/Legislation/Machakos%20Protocol%2 02002.pdf; Ibidem. 643 M. LeRiche and M. Arnold, op. cit., p. 108. 644 International Crisis Group, Sudan: Major Reform or More War, Africa Report No. 194, November 2012, available at: www.crisisgroup.org. 147 facilities were causing major disruptions in the oil flows, which in turn were threatening the certainty of GoS’s revenues.645 As a result of these increasing both national and international pressures, during the period between 2003 and 2004 other five protocols were negotiated in Naivasha, Kenya, and compounded to form the final Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which was finalized in January 2005 by the SPLM/A leader John Garang for the Southern side, and by the Sudanese Vice-President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha for the government side. The agreement was then made up of six chapters corresponding to the different accords, namely the Machakos Protocol, providing for a general framework over the country’s future government and governance; the Power-sharing agreement, according to which a Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) was established to rule over the South during the interim period, and a Government of National Unity (GoNU) formed at the national level “reflecting the need of inclusiveness, the promotion of national unity, the defence of national sovereignty, and the implementation of the CPA” (establishing the so-called “one Sudan, two systems”);646 the Wealth Sharing agreement, which envisaged, among other provisions, that “at least 2% of oil revenue shall be allocated to the oil producing states/regions in proportion to output produced in such states/regions”, and that “50% of net oil revenue derived from oil producing wells in South Sudan shall be allocated to the GoSS…and the remaining 50% to the National Government and States in Northern Sudan”;647 the Resolution of Abyei, Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile Conflicts Agreements, providing for the holding of a local referendum and consultations to let the population decide over the future status of their states; and the Security Arrangements, dealing with the management of the armed forces to be integrated in a national Joint/Military Units.648 Although the CPA was not exempt from major critics, the most prominent being the one regarding the non-comprehensiveness and non-inclusiveness of the agreement, the accord had the merit of posing an end to the longest-running African civil war.649 This was, to most 645 Ibidem. This was reflected by the allocation of posts at the national level, as the GoNU’s Presidency was attributed to the NCP, while the vice-presidency to the SPLA/M. Moreover, during the first four years of the interim period 52% of the institutional seats (government and parliament) were granted to the NCP while 28% to SPLA/M members. See M. LeRiche and M. Arnold, op. cit., p. 109. 647 Wealth Sharing Agreement, Artt. 5.5, 5.6 in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the full content of which is available at: https://peaceaccords.nd.edu/site_media/media/accords/SudanCPA.pdf. 648 Ibidem. 649 The major critics were directed on the non-comprehensiveness and non-inclusiveness of the CPA, as the agreement was allegedly dominated by the diarchy of the SPLA/M and the NCP members therefore excluding minor but still important actors which had taken part in the hostilities, such as the 646 148 protagonists of the Sudanese history of that period, “a matter of necessity and practicality” after years of protracted violence, catastrophes and death, compounded with the outbreak of the Darfur crisis in the same years.650 Moreover, it was only thanks to the CPA that the Southerners were provided for the first time with the concrete possibility of affirming their right to self-determination and potentially secede through a referendum, as it actually happened in January 2011.651 As far as China’s involvement is concerned, it has been rightly argued that no direct role was played by the Asian country during the process leading to the final signing of the CPA, as Beijing proved, instead, to be more involved in dealing with the simultaneous crisis occurring in Darfur.652 This would explain Beijing’s reticence to be fully involved in the multilateral forums which were held during that period therefore confirming, in line with its traditional approach, the country’s preference towards bilateralism. Accordingly, the management of the Darfur crisis, which by contrast seemed to show an early step towards the revision of Beijing’s traditional foreign policy, might be considered as a temporary deviation from the country’s behaviour driven by the contingent pressure from the international community. However, as we will try to argue hereinafter, despite the low-profile diplomatic involvement in the negotiating process, from the signing of the CPA Beijing has continued to further its economic ties both with Khartoum and, given the inevitability of its secession, with Juba therefore paving the way for a more consequential role to be played in the two countries in terms of geo-strategic, economic and political interests. Although this proved to be no easy task for the PRC, which had to balance its historical Northern Sudanese partnership with its new friends in Juba, China’s management of the Darfur crisis, far from representing a temporary deviation from its approach, appeared to be in line with a broader strategic framework of a more comprehensive and consequential role played by the Asian giant in the two countries, and more extensively in the African continent. According to many, the “thin” diplomatic engagement showed by the PRC in the process leading up to the signing of the CPA should be framed within the country’s traditional SSDF led by Riek Machar, and the NDA political opposition. See M. LeRiche and M. Arnold, op. cit., pp. 110-111. 650 J. Garang at the signing of the CPA, in ivi, p. 112. 651 Ibidem. 652 D. Large, Between the CPA and Southern Independence: China’s Post-Conflict Engagement in Sudan, South African Institutes of International Affairs, Occasional Papers No. 115, (April) 2012, available at:www.saiia.org.za. 149 preference for the bilateral over the multilateral approach.653 This resulted clear from the fact that, although China’s special envoy attended the official CPA ceremony in Nairobi in January 2005 and the country dispatched several hundred Chinese contributing to the United Nations Mission in the Sudan (UNMIS) aimed at supporting the implementation of the agreement,654 the PRC government was not a signatory nor a formal guarantor, unlike other countries which had been actively involved in the negotiating process and signed the agreement as formal witnesses, such as Kenya, Egypt, Uganda, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, the UK and the US.655 As confirmed by Large, in fact, The Chinese government has not proactively sought to involve itself in peace processes; rather, it has affirmed the primary responsibility of the international community and engaged as and when its interests have been threatened.656 In fact, rather than showing its diplomatic involvement during the various international meetings and negotiations, the Asian country was at first more prone to further its bilateral ties with Khartoum through the enhancement of their partnership in the field of oil and infrastructural industries and development cooperation. This is confirmed by the dramatic increase of the level of Foreign Direct Investment, which reached a peak of US $ 3,5 billion in 2006, and a rising level of GDP reaching 10% in the period 2006-2007, which also coincided with the beginning of the oil price boom and the discovery of new productive fields. 657 The Sudanese oil industry was enhanced by the upgrading of the Khartoum refinery in 2006 which boosted the country’s export to some 100’000 bpd,658 and from the signing of the CPA, a number of Chinese firms were also encouraged to enter the Sudanese market supporting the African infrastructural, telecommunication and agricultural sectors. From the Sudanese side, this revived Chinese involvement was also supported by the promulgation of several pieces of legislations aimed at favouring Chinese investments. This was, for instance, the case of the Ibidem; D. Large, China’s Involvement in Armed Conflict and post-War Reconstruction in Africa: Sudan in Comparative Context, in L. Patey (eds.), Oil Development in Africa: Lessons for Sudan After the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, Danish Institute for International Studies, Report No. 8, 2007, p. 61, available at: www.en.diis.dk/home/search. 654 For further details on the mission, go to: www.unmis.unmissions.org. 655 Three countries in particular, the US, Norway and the UK, were known to have formed a sort of Troika leading the negotiating process. See Ivi, p. 10; P. Woodward, Sudan’s Foreign Relations…, in D. Large and L. Patey, op. cit., p. 47. 656 D. Large, China’s role in the mediation and resolution of conflict in Africa, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, The OSLO Forum Network of Mediators, 2008, p. 36. 657 L. M. James, op. cit., pp. 57-58. 658 Sudan’s Tribune, Sudan’s Khartoum refinery expanded, sees gasoline exports, June 2006, available at: http://www.sudantribune.com. 653 150 Eastern Sudan Reconstruction and Development Fund (ESRDF), established under the 2006 Eastern Sudan Peace Agreement signed between the GoS and the Eastern Sudanese rebels, which strongly privileged Chinese business to carry on development projects.659Alongside fostering their mutual economic ties, Beijing also sponsored a number of humanitarian and development bilateral projects, the most important of which being the financing of the Sudanese water project, intended to provide the capital of the region of South Darfur and the surrounding villages with water supply through a 85-km pipeline from Giraida, and China’s support for a road building project in the Darfur region.660 As argued by many, this preference for economic bilateralism with respect to Khartoum might be deemed as a demonstration of the PRC compliance with the principles of “business without politics” or “no strings attached” typical to the non-interference policy traditionally characterizing the country.661 According to this vision, a great number of factors has been listed to explain this attitude: first, Beijing considered this approach to be more effective and cost-efficient for a country willing to do more things with a small amount of money; second, having the PRC acted within such a framework for decades, it had developed a limited experience in multilateralism; third, this emphasis on economic development was perceived to be an attempt to legitimize, once more, China’s main form of engagement in the country. 662 This consideration stemmed out from the PRC’s firm belief that at the origin of all kind of war there was substantially a problem of development.663 Hence, once resolved the issue of underdevelopment, peace would be successful achieved. In accordance with this same view, we would have to wait for some years before the PRC decided to further its involvement by expanding its leverage towards Khartoum beyond the economic dimension. As argued by Large, in fact, it was only from 2008 that the Asian country, feeling its strategic interests threatened and its international position undermined on the eve of the Beijing Olympics, decided to exercise its political influence by making Khartoum change its policy towards the acceptance of the hybrid AU-UN mission in Darfur. By the same token, with respect to the peace process between the North and the South, the Asian country eventually started to embrace the multilateral approach, albeit quite mildly, by joining the Sudan Consortium’s third meeting held in 2008, during which the PRC’s representatives showed for the first time their active commitments towards a sustainable D. Large, Between the CPA…, p. 12. Ivi, p. 13. 661 Ibidem; D. Large, China’s Involvement in Armed…, p. 67. 662 D. Large, Between the CPA…, p. 12. 663 See infra. 659 660 151 peace on behalf of the Chinese government.664 Additionally, as the prospects for a Southern secession were ostensibly approaching, this was also the period when Beijing started to get its first contacts with Juba, as next section will further explore. As a consequence, on the changing nature of China’s involvement in the Sudan, it has been concluded that the country’s approach between the signing of the CPA and the Southern independence was mainly focused on strengthening the Sino-Sudanese economic ties in line to its traditional approach, and that it was only from the worsening of the situation in Darfur that the drivers of China’s involvement changed by encompassing a more comprehensive and interfering political stance. To this concern, it has been stated that the nature of the early phase of China’s engagement in the negotiating process of the agreement was characterized by a “quiet paradox: despite the high stakes for China’s economic and political interests […], Beijing did not appear to publicly invest anything like the political will on the CPA as it had devoted to its pre-Olympic Darfur diplomacy.”665 In our opinion, however, this vision seemed to downplay the essential strategic and political implications underlying broader economic ties. Starting from the same premises previously analysed on the changing role of China in the period leading to the signing of the CPA, we suggest that, despite China’s early low-profile diplomatic involvement, the magnitude of its economic relations with Khartoum hid an inherently strategic and political commitment since the very beginning of the 2000s, paving the way for a further and more comprehensive role to be played in the Sudanese context both in the Darfur, and in the NorthSouth issues in the years to come. After entering the Sudanese market by developing the local oil industry in the late 1990s, in fact, over the years China’s strategic interests got more and more entwined with the changing Sudanese political landscape as, though officially abiding to its traditional principles, the PRC strategic interests proved to be inextricably dependent on the future of the NIF and then the NCP regimes. This caused, as previously explored, Beijing to help the incumbent Sudanese leadership to entrench its power by fuelling the country’s war economy through increasing investments which allowed Khartoum to perpetuate its marginalization and genocidal policies towards Southern Sudan and the Darfur region, respectively. Concerning the former, as soon as the international community started to further the negotiations in order 664 The Sudan Consortium was an international donor forum established after the 2005 Oslo Conference aimed at dealing with the implementation of the CPA. D. Large, Between the CPA…, p. 10; For further details on the Sudan Consortium, go to: http://www.sudanconsortium.org/index.html. 665 Ivi, p. 11. 152 to finally solve the civil conflict, Beijing, while not taking a significant part in multilateral forums aimed at planning or implementing the CPA, pursued its bilateral economic interests by enhancing its engagement in the oil industry and renewing the presence of Chinese firms within the country.666 In line with its historical behaviour, the PRC was thus using its traditional instruments of foreign policy, certainly pivoted on bilateralism, to preserve and potentially enhance its partnership with the GoS. This, in turn, paved the way for a Chinese more consistent involvement in the internal affairs of the Sudan, which would eventually materialize in the ensuing period both in terms of strengthened economic ties, high-level official meetings and party-to-party exchanges between several CCP’s and NCP’s members. This was also confirmed by the PRC official language addressed to Khartoum in the aftermath of 2005 stressing the importance of “peace and stability” to be achieved “in the interests of all parties, domestically and internationally”.667 Hence, if it is true that what was considered to be a proactive engagement started to manifest itself only in the late 2000s, it is also worth noticing that the seeds of China’s consequential involvement in the Sudan had already been planted from the early years of the decade, when the country’s foreign policy attitude started to gradually change in response to growing internal and international pressures. The Chinese growing economic involvement, far from being deprived of deeper implications, was thus functional to the achievement of the country’s long-run political objectives, a strategic behaviour which has characterized China’s approach towards the developing countries from the years under Deng Xiaoping.668 From such a different perspective, we might also argue that China’s management of Sino-Sudanese relations in the interim period between the signing of the CPA and the 2011 referendum was not at odds with the management of the Darfur crisis, insofar both the situations, though with different causes and modalities, were a clear (and, for some aspects, unavoidable) manifestation of China’s willingness to define a more involved and growingly interfering role in the African country. In the meanwhile, once the secession was perceived to be inevitable, Beijing also started to engage with the emerging Southern leadership in order to secure its investments. However, as we will see in the next section, preserving China’s historical relations with Khartoum while pleasing Juba’s development interests proved to be no easy task for Beijing insofar this L. Patey, China’s Involvement in Armed…, p. 67. Personal Interview, January 2011, in ivi, p. 8. 668 See infra. 666 667 153 balancing process came to dramatically challenge the last bulwark of China’s traditional rhetoric, therefore revealing the country’s deepest and most consistent interests. 5.2. Sino-South Sudanese relations and contemporary triangular ties After the signing of the CPA, once the PRC realized that secession would be the most likely option for the Southerners to opt for at the 2011 referendum, Beijing officially started to engage with Juba in order to protect its paramount strategic investments, namely oil reserves and concessions. This was primarily due to pragmatic considerations, as Chinese main oil fields were located in the Southern areas or in the disputed bordering territories, such as the Abyei region. However, far from being smooth and straightforward, this new partnership was also to be carefully balanced with the historical friendship between Beijing and North Sudan, where most of the oil facilities were still located. Moreover, things were further hampered by the South Sudanese leadership who was willing to quickly develop the new country and looking for potential partners to meet the Southern expectations while distancing from its eternal rival. Hence, after pragmatically turning its initial support for the unity option into an open baking for the Southern secession, from the signing of the CPA Beijing started to further its relations with the GoSS through several economic agreements, high-level meetings and official state visits which paved the way for a fully-fledged Chinese engagement with the next-to-be world’s newest country.669 Although it has been argued that Beijing held an ostensible passive stance toward Juba throughout the period leading to the final 2005 agreement, from a better scrutiny it can be suggested that its attitude of “wait and see” actually hid a deeper and self-interested engagement towards Juba which, similarly to what happened with Khartoum, led the country to develop a more consequential role in the world’ s newest country. From the very aftermath of the Southern secession, in fact, Beijing presence in the South proved to be quite consolidated, and further enhanced in the contemporary years due to an increasing pressure coming both from the South Sudanese leadership willing to boost the country’s development, and from China’s own strategic interests at stake. The earliest China’s official contact with SPLM’s leader Salva Kiir dated back to 2005, as the dual position held by the President, who was at the same time both the Vice-President of Sudan and the President of the GoSS pursuant the CPA provisions, allowed him to visit 669 D. Large, Between the CPA…, p. 14. 154 Beijing while moving the first steps towards a more active engagement with the emerging Asian power.670 Indeed, according to some commentaries, it was in the very aftermath of the signing of the agreement that a number of Chinese enterprises fled to the new African country and started to develop their business, while profiting from a relatively peaceful environment and the new provisions of the CPA.671 However, it was during Kiir’s second high-level visit to the Asian capital in 2007 that the countries’ bilateral relations were officially and permanently inaugurated. During the visit, in fact, the Southern Sudanese President had the opportunity to talk about a wide range of issues, such as energy and development cooperation, which would form, among other things, the basis of their strategic partnership. According to most scholars, it was this second official meeting that marked the turning point in Chinese policy on the African country, as Beijing realized it had to pragmatically adapt its foreign policy principles, suggesting to back unity against any sort of centrifugal forces, to its strategic interests whose future resides in Juba and in its new leadership.672 On the other side, also Salva Kiir and his political entourage realized the importance their country had in the Chinese eyes, and they did not wait long to profit from this advantageous situation. At the core of their mutual relations, in particular, still laid the energetic issue as most of the oil fields lied now under a different government. To this concern, Kiir clearly made Beijing understand it had to reshape its engagement with respect to both Khartoum and Juba: during the 2007 visit, in fact, the main message to Beijing was meaningfully summarised by the action of President Kiir who was reported to have brought a copy of the Sudanese oil map and a copy of the recently signed Machakos protocol envisaging the right to selfdetermination and to have put them on a table saying “you figure it out”.673 The rationale of this action was thus clear: if on the one hand Juba wanted to foster the country’s development by welcoming China’s investments, on the other hand it also wanted Beijing to recognize its right to self-determination that in some four years’ time would have led the country to secede from the North. This forced Beijing to redefine its engagement with both the GoS, towards 670 Salva Kiir Mayardit, one of the most committed army man in the Anya Nya group during the first Sudanese civil war and then in the SPLA, emerged as a prominent figure of the Southern movement after the death of John Garang during a mysterious helicopter crush in 2005. After being Garang’s Deputy in the years of the second civil war, from 2005 Kiir replaced him as Sudan’s Vice-President pursuant the provisions of the CPA. Moreover, he was elected as the first South Sudanese President in the 2010 Sudanese elections, and as of March 2014 he still holds the position of South Sudan President. For further information on Salva Kiir, see BBC, South Sudan President Salva Kiir in profile, available at: www.bbc.com; International Crisis Group, China’s New Courtship in South Sudan, Africa Report No. 186, (April) 2012, available at: www.crisisgroup.org, p. 3. 671 Ibidem. 672 L. Patey, China’s Involvement in Armed…, p. 67. 673 D. Large, Between the CPA…, pp. 14-15. 155 which the PRC had always showed its loyal support, and towards the newly-established GoSS, which was emerging as the most prominent strategic partner in the resource-richer Southern Sudan. However, in the period preceding the referendum, finding a political equilibrium between Khartoum and Juba proved to be no easy task for Beijing. A sequence of evolving phases characterized the growing engagement of the PRC towards Southern Sudan ranging from China’s initial support for the unity option to the quick recognition of the new country in the very aftermath of independence. In fact, in line with its traditional principles opposing independent forces, China’s first support for the unity of the Sudan under the CPA was firm.674 This position aimed at pleasing Khartoum and endured in the official discourses of China’s representatives for some years: in 2010, for instance, during a high-level meeting between some Chinese and Sudanese representatives, Beijing’s special envoy to Darfur, Liu Guijin, while praising the NCP and the SPLM efforts towards a fair implementation of the CPA, claimed that the PRC was in favour of the unity of the country.675 From its side, Khartoum warmly welcomed China’s commitment: as stated by al-Bashir’s adviser on Darfur, Ghazi Salahedden, “China is a friendly country and supports Sudan's unity and stability, and therefore, the activities of the Chinese envoy reflect the level of this distinguished relation”.676 Nonetheless, as the 2011 referendum was approaching, and given that, despite the CPA official provisions, neither Khartoum nor Juba was making any effort to “make unity attractive”,677 the PRC realized that the Southern secession was more and more likely, and gave a boost towards the recalibration of its relations with the GoSS. Indeed, during the years leading up to the referendum, a number of events occurred confirming this slow but irreversible trend. Among the most prominent, in September 2008 China’s opened a consulate in Juba with the aim of sending “a positive message to the outside world that China wants to do more to improve people’s lives in the south and support the peace process between the 674 Ibidem. South Sudan News Agency, China supports unity of Sudan, urges transparent and credible referendum, July 2010, available at: www.southsudannewsagency.com. 676 Ibidem. This positive attitude, however, was not devoid of occasional arguments caused by divergent interests between Juba and Beijing. This was, for instance, the case of the project of construction of an alternative oil pipeline passing through Kenya at length requested by Salva Kiir to the Chinese companies. The pipeline would have finally freed Juba from Sudanese oil facilities, but its financing had always been denied by Beijing because of its dubious benefit and its willingness not to ruin Sino-Sudanese relations. For further information on this matter, see International Crisis Group, China’s New Courtship in South Sudan, Africa Report No. 186, (April) 2012, available at: www.crisisgroup.org, p. 25. 677 See infra. 675 156 North and the South”;678 in February 2010 a group of GoSS officials attended a workshop organized by the Chinese consulate whose purpose was to educate the Sudanese to the economic practices traditionally employed by Beijing in its foreign relations; in September, a South Sudanese delegation was hosted in the Asian country to take part to an agriculture and infrastructural study tour, and in the same month the governor of Unity State was invited to Beijing in order to discuss about oil-related topics.679 Moreover, concerning China’s development assistance to the African country, in the aftermath of South Sudan independence an economic package was being discussed comprising several million of US dollars in accordance to the GoSS priorities and other organizations’ programs.680 This increasing diplomatic (and more broadly economic) commitment showed by the PRC on the eve of the referendum was the tangible sign of the country’s willingness not to lose the investments it had previously done in the Sudanese oil industry, and more generally to establish solid basis for a fruitful and fully-fledged partnership. After the results of the 2011 referendum were officially released by the Referendum Commission in January paving the way for the creation of the Republic of South Sudan on the 6th of July, China’s engagement was further strengthened through a series of state official meetings, diplomatic exchanges and economic agreements in line with the changing attitude which characterized Beijing in the previous years.681 From being a strong supporter of the unity option, in fact, the PRC turned into being one of the first nations to recognize the new state, together with neighboring Sudan, Israel, Egypt, the US and the UK.682 In July 2011, Chinese Housing and Infrastructure Minister, Jiang Wei Xin, was actually dispatched to Juba to attend the very independence celebrations, and to convey his commitment towards the infrastructural development of South Sudan. Afterwards, several bilateral exchanges followed, such as the official visit of China’s Foreign Minister in August 2011; the signing of a memorandum of understanding in the area of agriculture and technology in October; other bilateral agreements were finally concluded in the fields of energy, telecommunication and construction in the following years.683 D. Large, Between the CPA…, p. 15. International Crisis Group, China’s New Courtship in South Sudan, Africa Report No. 186, (April) 2012, available at: www.crisisgroup.org, p. 6. 680 Ibidem; D. Large, Between the CPA…, p. 17. 681 International Crisis Group, China’s New Courtship in South Sudan, Africa Report No. 186, (April) 2012, available at: www.crisisgroup.org, p. 7. 682 BBC News, South Sudan backs independence – results, (February) 2011, available at: www.bbc.co.uk. 683 D. Large, Between the CPA…, p. 10. 678 679 157 Nevertheless, albeit far from being the only one, it was the energy sector that lied at the core of the countries’ mutual interests, as Beijing was primarily worried about the security of its oil assets due to the difficult management of the issue between Khartoum and Juba. In the aftermath of the referendum, the Sudanese oil industry and its revenues were administrated in accordance to the 2004 Wealth Sharing agreement provided for a 50-50 arrangement, which allowed both the capitals to improve their national wealth due to increased investments from Asian oil firms and the growing international price of the crude.684 However, after the South reached independence, Salva Kiir put his foot down and official announced the Southern control of the shares previously owned by Sudan’s oil firms while he started to manage its oil independently from Khartoum.685 This triggered an upset reactions from the North, where alBashir threatened to turn off the pipelines preventing the Southern oil from reaching Port Sudan unless a new agreement was found. To this concern, while presenting some alternatives, he claimed that “either the north continues getting its share, or we gets fees for every barrel that the south sends to Port Sudan”, otherwise he will have been obliged to shut down the pipeline.686 In this critical context, China was thought it could play a decisive role for it being among the most involved foreign actor in the dispute.687 However, on its side Beijing was deeply involved in another complex issue, namely the renegotiation of the oil contracts with the South. Being most of the oil reserves not only under a new leadership, but also under a different country, the contracts previously governing the commercial relations between Khartoum and the oil firms had to be redefined. Worried about potential demanding Southern requests, at the negotiation table CNPC and other Chinese firms acted to preserve the previous Production Sharing Arrangements, pursuing the way of “continuation” rather than revision of the existing provisions.688 Although Juba was acting from a position of relative strength, to the companies’ relief, at the end it agreed to keep the financial terms, as well as the ownership More specifically, the agreement read that “The sharing and allocation of this wealth shall be based on the premise that all parts of Sudan are entitled to development” and that the revenues should have been divided equally between the GoNU and the GoSS, and that the oil industry should have been governed by a National Petroleum Commission, therefore both the authorities should have acted together in the marketing and selling the country’s oil. See E. Grawert and C. Andra, Oil Investment and Conflict in Upper Nile State, South Sudan, Bonn International Centre of Conversation (BICC) Brief No. 48, March 2013, available at: http://www.bicc.de/. 685 International Crisis Group, China’s New Courtship in South Sudan, Africa Report No. 186, (April) 2012, available at: www.crisisgroup.org, p. 20; see also infra. 686 Sudan Tribune, Kiir says South Sudan will share some oil with North, June 2011, available at: www.sudantribune.com. 687 International Crisis Group, China’s New Courtship in South Sudan, Africa Report No. 186, (April) 2012, available at: www.crisisgroup.org, p. 20. 688 International Crisis Group, China’s New Courtship in South Sudan, Africa Report No. 186, (April) 2012, available at: www.crisisgroup.org, p. 22. 684 158 shared distribution of revenues unaltered, while it imposed minor contractual changes on environmental regulations, social protections and transparency.689 Thus, things seemed to be going in the right way for the PRC’s final signing of the new regulations in December 2011, until the GoSS inserted a last-minute article (Article 19) envisaging the possibility for South Sudan’s oil Minister to unilaterally proclaiming an oil shutdown in the case Khartoum persisted with its vexatious policy. This provision worried the Chinese as in the case of an oil shutdown, the government would have been freed from any compensatory obligations with respect to foreign oil companies. Despite the strenuous efforts made by the Chinese delegation to revise some of the terms of the contracts, among which Article 19, in the early 2012 Li Yuanchao, a high level Politburo member who had been sent to Juba to preside over the moment of signing of the new contracts, had to give up to the terms agreed upon the previous December.690 The root causes of the tense situation still characterizing oil relations between Khartoum and Juba may be traced back to management of the oil revenues during the interim period between 2005 and 2011. As previously hinted upon, in fact, despite the Wealth Sharing Agreement’s provisions, tensions continued to grow due to the lack of implementing mechanisms (and political willingness) from both sides granting an even resource allocation between the two governments. Indeed, if on the one hand the GoSS soon started to accuse Khartoum to hide production figures and official documents because they were allegedly protected by secrecy, on the other hand, Juba “largely squandered the opportunity of oil”691 as it proved to be more interested in planting the seeds of social resentments against the North instead of concretely acting to foster the oil production in the areas under its control.692 In the aftermath of the partition, things got worse and worse, until the prospect of an oil shutdown became reality in the early 2012. In the period between November 2011 and February 2012, three different rounds of negotiations were held in neighbouring Ethiopia aimed at achieving a deal over the oil transit fees Juba would have to pay to Khartoum in order to use its exporting facilities.693 However, the continuous sabotages of Southern Sudanese shipments by Khartoum piled up with other grievances and revived hostilities, 689 Ibidem. Ivi, p. 23. 691 L. Patey, Crude Days Ahead? Oil and the Resource Curse in Sudan, “African Affairs”, Vol. 109, No. 437, 2010, pp. 617–636, p. 628. 692 E. Grawert and C. Andra, op. cit., p. 22. 693 For further details on the different negotiating positions see International Crisis Group, China’s New Courtship in South Sudan, Africa Report No. 186, (April) 2012, available at: www.crisisgroup.org, pp. 26-28. 690 159 causing the negotiations to dramatically failed, and the GoSS to shut down its oil production from January to September 2012.694 During this period, both countries got heavily affected by this abrupt interruption of oil flows: according to the deputy governor of Sudan’s Central Bank, the country lost US $ 5 billion out of US $ 20 billion worth of oil that was not exported; out of the total amount, US $ 11 billion belonged to Juba, while US $ 4 billion were oil companies’ share.695 By the same token, lacking the necessary facilities to reach the international oil market and providing oil for 98% of its total revenues, also the GoSS would have found itself in serious difficulty if an oil agreement had not been found soon.696 However, the prospect for a short-term peaceful resolution was still far, as in the following months the conflict escalated into a military confrontation between the SAF and SPLA forces in the area of the Heglig oil field, Southern Kordofan. 697 In March, some SPLA troops occupied the area – one of the few vital oil fields left to Khartoum – and damaged some oil facilities in response to a previous aerial attack by the North. 698 In the very aftermath of the Southern Sudanese attack, the UN Security Council called for the parties to cease all hostilities, withdraw from the area and resume the negotiating process under the guidance of the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP).699 Hence, under the threat of international economic sanctions, in August 2012 the warring parties compromised over a temporary three-and-a-half year agreement envisaging the payment of reduced transit fees to Khartoum (US $ 9,48 per barrel), and a US $ 3,038 billion una tantum payment for assisting the recovery of Sudan’s economy.700 Similarly, in September 2012 under the auspices of the AUHIP, some nine agreements were also signed providing for the creation a safe demilitarized zone along the border between the two country, the resumption of both the oil production in the South and the oil flows through Sudan’s pipeline. Accordingly, although the violence between the countries’ army forces were lengthened throughout the early months of 2013 and the problems over some bordering disputed areas are still far from being solved, in 694 According to some Southern Sudanese officials, between December 2011 and January 2012, Khartoum kept the revenues of more of 6 million of Southern Sudanese barrels because of Juba’s failure to pay its due transit fees. This, in turn, was caused by the fact that Khartoum requested the payment of US $ 36 per barrel, which was considered by Salva Kiir to be an exorbitant amount. E. Grawert and C. Andra, op. cit., p. 26. 695 Sudan Tribune, Khartoum says it lost $5 billion as a result of Juba’s oil shutdown, September 2013, available at: www.sudantribune.com. 696 Ibidem. 697 BBC, Sudan troops 'advance on Heglig oil field', (April) 2012, available at: www.bbc.com. 698 E. Grawert and C. Andra, op. cit., p. 27. 699 UN Security Council Resolution No. 2046 (2012), available at: www.un.org. 700 E. Grawert and C. Andra, op. cit., p. 27. 160 March 2013 the agreements’ provisions started to be implemented through the withdrawal of the countries’ troops and the final resumption of oil production in the ensuing April.701 In light of China’s engagement with South Sudan, and its more recent triangular relations with both Juba and Khartoum, at the outbreak of the oil crisis between the African countries the PRC was deemed to be the right actor to mediate the different interests.702 However, it was only after Juba shut down its oil production that the PRC decided to actively intervene in the dispute trying to persuade the two countries to compromise. This once again showed that China, while attempting to balance its official non-interference rhetoric, today appears relentlessly challenged by its growing status of global power which compels the country to inevitably take a more active stance whenever its interests are at stake. In the aftermath of the signing of the CPA, as previously showed, the Asian country was busy finding an equilibrium between Khartoum and Juba while expanding both its economic and political ties. As a consequence, it played no active role in trying to mediate between the two African actors once the oil dispute arose.703 Later on, in the aftermath of the Southern independence, Chinese companies started to further their relations with Juba as new contracts were to be redefined.704 Once the situation got tense as a result of the lack of political willingness to compromise on shared commercial provisions regarding oil export, China felt its interests to be in danger, and decided to intervene more actively in the dispute. Although no major stance was taken by the PRC during the various rounds of talks held between November 2011 and February 2012, its role was more than once invocated during the negotiating process. In November 2011, in fact, during the discussion of a compromise proposal issued by Khartoum, the international community hoped the PRC would have proved inclined to support the GoS in providing the economic financing to cover the gaps of the above-mentioned proposal.705 This supposition was to be framed within a broader context of economic cooperation between the two countries: as reported by the 2012 International Crisis report, the PRC was continuing to extend credit to its traditional ally and in the early 2012 offered Khartoum a concession to 701 E. Grawert and C. Andra, op. cit., pp. 27-28. International Crisis Group, China’s New Courtship in South Sudan, Africa Report No. 186, (April) 2012, available at: www.crisisgroup.org, p. 26. 703 Ibidem. 704 See infra. 705 International Crisis Group, China’s New Courtship in South Sudan, Africa Report No. 186, (April) 2012, available at: www.crisisgroup.org, p. 26. 702 161 suspend its repayment obligation for a temporary period.706 Nonetheless, at first China proved to be unwilling to surrender to this kind of pressure as it considered it a poor deal to make with a non-resource rich country such as Sudan.707 From the African side, both Juba and Khartoum were also hoping the Asian actor would have intervened to break the deadlock;708 however, Chinese Ambassador Li Zhiguo on behalf of Beijing’s government clearly affirmed that any kind of external inputs or proposals were counterproductive “because the issue is an internal affair of the two brothers of Sudan”.709 Hence, no major role was played by Beijing until the crisis reached its peak in December 2011. After Juba accused Khartoum to have diverted several cargos destined to the international market in Port Sudan and other ones suffered from severe delays, in fact, Khartoum officially announced that all shipments were stopped until an agreement was found, and some Northern officials confirmed that the Southern cargos had been confiscated. In response to this major breakthrough, China’s Ambassador in Khartoum, in a rare public manifestation of disappointment judged Sudan’s action to be “very serious and unjustified”.710 Moreover, also Juba contributed to press Beijing to take a more proactive stance in the dispute: in December, some Chinese companies’ representatives were convened in the Southern capital, and were asked to report Beijing some messages with which it threatened to undermine the relations with the Chinese working on the ground if the PRC was not to act more directly.711 Hence, perceiving its interests to be dangerously threatened, the PRC sent its special envoy for African affairs to encourage the parties to agree on an interim AU proposal, and Chinese companies were drawn in the rounds of negotiations held in Addis Ababa with 706 Ivi, p. 27. Ibidem. 708 As a matter of fact, in the aftermath of the Southern independence, despite the official favourable position held by Juba towards the Chinese companies, which were deemed as the right investors to quickly enhance the country’s development, some critical voices were also warning about the PRC’s involvement due to its lengthy partnership with Khartoum during the civil conflict. In addition, some others were strongly opposing the monopoly of Sudan’s business in the country, supporting an open policy with respect to all kind of international partners. This attitude was also supported by the US decision to free Southern Sudanese oil from economic sanctions in December 2011, and by the 2012 announcement made by President Obama declaring the new African country to be eligible to receive defence articles and services from the US. These positive premises, however, were to be counterbalanced with reticence showed by the Western companies to be involved in a country which still suffered from a damaged reputation. In light of these different considerations, although Juba was generally prone to welcome all interested countries, Chinese companies were the ones working on the ground and historically more risk-adverse. International Crisis Group, China’s New Courtship in South Sudan, Africa Report No. 186, (April) 2012, available at: www.crisisgroup.org. 709 Xinhua, China trains petroleum workers in South Sudan, (July) 2011, in ivi, p. 26. 710 Africa-Asia Confidential, Pipeline Problems, Vol. 5, No. 2, (December) 2011, in ivi, p. 28. 711 International Crisis Group, China’s New Courtship in South Sudan, Africa Report No. 186, (April) 2012, available at: www.crisisgroup.org, p. 28. 707 162 the purpose of safeguarding their investments while trying to keep and equidistant position between the two Sudans. Indeed, during the meetings, CNPC technicians objectively presented to the convenors the situation and warned about the heavy consequences of the impasse; in addition, they showed their clear intention to avert any further crisis by offering Khartoum a package worth US $ 600 million of crude oil, which was highly appreciated, but not useful to solve the dispute in the medium term.712 In January 2012 the inevitable finally happened, and Juba decided to shut down its oil production for more than a year. Facing a situation getting more and more complex to handle both from an economic and diplomatic viewpoint, CNPC representatives intimated al-Bashir to release South Sudanese oil hoping that this would break impasse.713 However, Juba was getting increasingly upset about the balancing stance held by Beijing, and in February decided to react by expelling Petrodar’s President Liu Yingcai on the ground of “non-cooperation” due to an alleged complicity manifested by foreign companies to steal and market someone’s else crude.714 In the end, the final 2012 deal allowing the restoration of all activities was signed under the praises of Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman who claimed that “China appreciates the practical, flexible and responsible manner the two sides showed during the negotiations as well as the efforts made by the African Union”. 715 The deal came as a result of the efforts not only by the PRC, which offered to fill the economic gaps within the agreement, but also by a number of other different countries such as Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the US, willing to finally break the lengthy deadlock which was dangerously foreshadowing the beginning of another harmful conflict between the two countries. Summing up, once the oil crisis between Juba and Khartoum reached its peak threatening Chinese strategic interests first through the diversion of Southern Sudanese oil exports in December 2011, and then with Juba’s shutdown of its production the ensuing month, the Chinese companies, while attempting to preserve the country’s traditional non-interfering principles, were drawn in and forced to develop a more encompassing involvement towards Juba. This process, however, proved to be no easy task as the Asian actor had to carefully balance its historical partnership with Khartoum while pleasing its new friends in Juba. The oil dispute has recently ended up with what everyone hopes to be a long-lasting accord agreed 712 Ivi, p. 30. Ibidem. 714 Sudan Tribune, Head of Petrodar oil company expelled from South Sudan, (February) 2012, available at: www.sudantribune.com. 715 Xinhua, China welcomes oil deal between Sudan, South Sudan, (August) 2012, available at: www.news.xinhuanet.com. 713 163 between the parties thanks to the efforts of the international community as a whole. The uncertainties displayed by the PRC in taking a direct stance during the negotiating process confirmed the difficulties the country faced in balancing its own position with respect of both Khartoum and Juba. Once again, this showed that over the time China’s increasing interests led Beijing to comprehensively and consequentially engage with its African partners, old and new, while necessarily stretching its understanding of non-interference and state sovereignty under the pressure of its growing geopolitical strength on the global scenario. 164 6. Conclusion This dissertation attempted to argue that China’s management of the relations with Sudan and South Sudan provides a concrete example of the PRC growing engagement in the African countries and the consequent need to redefine the Principles of Peaceful Coexistence which have traditionally featured (and still do) the country’s foreign policy in light of both its more consequential geostrategic interests, and the expanding clout of a global great power. After being officially launched at the 1955 Bandung Conference, the so-called Panch Sheela Principles, the bulk of which comprises the safeguard of state sovereignty, noninterference in other states’ internal affairs, and the protection of national integrity, have survived throughout the decades, and today still lie at the core of China’s official foreign policy in the international arena. Beijing, in fact, continues to strenuously uphold them through official discourses and concrete practices guiding the country’s behaviour both in its bilateral and multilateral forums. More specifically, these principles were firstly used by Chairman Mao Zedong to gain an ideological foothold in the African continent, as the Cold War game was being played on the global scenario, and the PRC was seeking to further its ties with the Third World community to be recognized as the only representative of China at the United Nations in 1971. Afterwards, despite the period of Reforms and Openness launched by Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s, China’s rhetoric endured and allowed the Asian actor to develop its relations with a wide range of African leaders willing to emancipate themselves from the lengthy Western dependency. Emerging as an alternative economic and developmental model, in fact, Beijing stressed the distance of its “no political strings attached” approach – inaugurating the socalled Beijing Consensus – from the neo-liberal Western approach mainly characterized by political conditionalities – the traditional Washington Consensus – paving the way for a mutually rewarding cooperation based on economic benefits in exchange for natural resources supplies. According to some scholars, however, since they were first proclaimed, China’s guidelines, more specifically the principle of non-interference, have often substantiated in their contrary, allowing the PRC to provide Third World countries with military support, arms supplies, as well as economic assistance and diplomatic interferences leading to a progressive stretching of the principles’ official contours. Moreover, during the most recent decades, due to its increasing role on the global scenario both in terms of economic and political power, the 165 PRC is struggling to make the principle of non-interference compatible with its expanding economic, political and strategic interests. In the case under scrutiny, after offering a brief overview of the Sudanese ancient, modern and contemporary history aimed at providing the reader with a general context in which the different actors operated, we argued that although Sudan was one of the first African countries to officially recognize the PRC in 1959, it was only in the early 1970s that the two countries started to develop their bilateral relations. This came as a result of Nimairi’s anti-Soviet shift which determined Sino-Sudanese ties to “thicken” both ideologically and economically allowing the country to become one of the major trading partners and soft aid contributors among the socialist camp. After a period of temporary cooling down, what allowed the two countries to further enhance their relations in the late 1990s was a fortuitous capability of getting the timing right. Once consistent oil fields were discovered in Sudan in the late 1970s thanks to the assistance of some Western companies, things apparently started to change for President Nimairi, who seemed to foretaste the possibility to finally recover the economic crisis affecting the country for decades. In the early 1980s, however, all dreams disappeared under the pressure of a threatening security issue triggered by a revived outbreak of North-South hostilities, causing the Western companies to leave the country and huge quantities of Sudanese oil to remain untapped until the early 1990s, when the Chinese came in. Then, if on the one hand Khartoum was looking for international partners willing to invest in the rising Sudanese oil industry, on the other hand, under the effect of the Dengist new course, the PRC deemed the African country as the right opportunity to satisfy its growing quest for natural resources and its national oil companies’ need to internationalize. Hence, from the exportation of the first Sudanese barrel on the international market in 1999, China’s interests became more and more intertwined with the survival of the Sudanese leadership, and consequently dependent upon Khartoum’s ability to manage its unsolved post-colonial issues, which necessarily became an integral part of Beijing’s own security strategy. The concrete results of this growing interconnection clearly emerged from China’s management of both the Darfur crisis and the North-South issue in the early 2000s. The case of Darfur, in fact, proved to be the right opportunity for the PRC to test its diplomatic ability, as it had to carefully balance its traditional foreign policy principles with growing pressures coming from both the international community and from the exacerbating dynamics of the civil conflict threatening the country’s strategic interests. Given the dangerous perspective of 166 undermining its investments, the Asian country decided to take a proactive stance aimed at persuading President al-Bashir to accept the deployment of the AU-UN hybrid mission in the region confirming its commitment to take an unusual diplomatic role in the resolution of internal conflicts. By the same token, as far as the management of the North-South issue is concerned, we argued that in the aftermath of the signing of the CPA Beijing was consolidating its economic presence in Khartoum while starting to engage with Juba pragmatically adapting its traditional pro-unity stance to the evolving political context. This paved the way for a more consequential role for the PRC to be played in the years to come. Hence, in contrast to the mainstream opinion claiming that the low-profile diplomatic involvement in the negotiating process prior to the CPA should be considered in line with China’s traditional neutrality, we showed how the magnitude of its economic engagement, far from being considered devoid of political implications, represented a preliminary step for the consolidation of Chinese presence in the Sudanese and South Sudanese context. Accordingly, the management of the Darfur crisis should not be deemed as a temporary deviation from its traditional rhetoric, insofar China’s interests in the African countries, together with its growing responsibilities on the global scenario allowed a number of scholars to claim a new concept of “creative” or “conditional” interference is de facto emerging in substitution of the traditional one. Having said this, it is also worth noticing that the official rhetoric of non-interference, state sovereignty and political neutrality lies at the core of the country’s contemporary foreign policy and still guides Beijing’s actions in a number of international forums, as its position on the Libyan and Syrian cases have recently showed. However, in this dissertation we attempted to argue that the country’s rhetoric seemed to be subjected to a slow but continuous process of adjustment in response to the strategic interests proper to a rising global power. South Sudan has been recently troubled by political tensions erupting after President Salva Kiir decided to fire some cabinet members in July 2013. The situation escalated in December 2013, as violent clashes broke out in the capital between some Dinka army officials loyal to the President and some Nuer elements near to Vice-President Riek Machar. Despite a ceasefire was agreed by the warring parties last January, as of the time of writing (March 2014), the political situation still appears very tense since the early signs of an ethnic conflict are dangerously looming, although Kiir has always dismissed the ethnic component of the 167 crisis.716 Given the changing political circumstances, it will be very interesting to understand the role the different actors are playing and will play in the Southern Sudanese crisis, as it is most unlikely that the PRC will remain silent on the matter. 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La ringrazio per l’infinita pazienza e dedizione dimostratemi in questi anni, per i nostri colloqui sempre stimolanti ed il supporto costante anche a distanza. E’ soprattutto a lei che devo la mia maturazione di stampo africanista. Ringrazio anche i professori e ricercatori della Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, in particolare Andrea de Guttry, Barbara Henry, Anna Loretoni ed Emanuele Sommario, che hanno influenzato in modo determinante il mio percorso quinquennale. A loro devo il mio arricchimento accademico ad ampio raggio, così come la consapevolezza di essere in grado di lavorare in ambienti “ostili”. Infine, vorrei ringraziare i professori Giorgio Colombo e Paola Volante, per la loro passione e competenza. Perché il campo, oltre ad un buon lavoratore ed un buon tempo, necessita anche di un buon seme. Passando ai ringraziamenti personali, vorrei esprimere la mia gratitudine a tutte le persone che mi sono state vicine durante questo percorso di vita, senza le quali non sarei la persona che sono oggi. Ai miei genitori, per essere tutto ciò che mi ha sempre motivata ed ispirata, ma anche destabilizzata e messa in discussione. Perché, grazie al loro esempio, sto lentamente imparando la preziosa arte del vivere felici. A mia sorella, Maria Chiara, per la nostra diversità e complementarietà. Perché è grazie a lei se riesco a sdrammatizzare anche le situazioni più disperate. Ad Enrico, per essere il senso di ogni mio biglietto “andata e ritorno”, senza per questo smascherare i miei sogni di cui è, anzi, immancabile coprotagonista. Per tutta la spontaneità e bellezza di questi anni passati insieme. A mio zio Andrea e mia zia Claudia, a mia nonna Vera e mio nonno Nedo, per avermi sempre sostenuta con amore smisurato. Agli amici storici, Cristiano ed Alessandro, per le nostre cene ed i discorsi infiniti, che cambiano forma e colore, ma che conservano la stessa intensità di quando avevamo 15 anni; a Federica ed Isotta, per essere amiche preziose con cui condividere bellissime giornate e serate livornesi, come se non fossi mai partita; ad Amir e Marta, perché, nonostante gli anni, è sempre piacevole ritrovarsi. 185 Agli amici meno storici ma altrettanto sinceri: Andrea, David, Davide, Diego, Roberta e Veronica, perché è grazie a loro se mi sono sentita a casa anche a Londra. Infine, alla comunità del Sant’Anna, ai compagni d’anno e di settore, per aver reso l’esperienza pisana degna di essere vissuta, con tutte le sue mille luci e le sue ombre. Un grazie particolare lo dedico a Francesca, per essere stata una compagna di stanza speciale; a Chiara, perché senza di lei il soggiorno inglese non sarebbe stato possibile; a Giorgio, Giulio, Marco e Matteo per avermi tenuto la mano, ognuno a suo modo, durante tutto il cammino. 186

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