The Sudanese Civil War: A Local Conflict in the Tides of Global Imperialism Pt. 1

Historical Roots

In order to fully grasp the developments of the current events and the brutal civil war—which, as of October 2024, has claimed over 15,000 lives and displaced 8.2 million people—it is essential to briefly trace the thread of the relatively recent history of the troubled region now known as Sudan.

Ottoman Conquest

In 1821, Mehmet Ali, the viceroy of Ottoman Egypt, launched an invasion of the Sultanate of Sennar, following a series of military campaigns that expanded Ottoman control across the region. The objective of the invasion was to seize a territory both rich in gold and crucial to the slave trade, while also reinforcing the Ottoman army with fresh recruits. Although the Shaigiya tribe initially resisted the invasion, they were eventually subdued and were later used in raids on the Nuba Mountains and southern Sudan (in order to expand the slave trade). The Egyptian invasion played a significant role in the regional balance of power, bolstering the Arabic-speaking Sunni Muslim tribes of the Nile Valley at the expense of the tribes in the country’s peripheral regions.

The Mahdist Regime

In 1881, Muhammad Ahmad spearheaded a nationalist uprising that resulted in the creation of the Mahdist State. Confronted by this threat, the Egyptian Khedivate, led by Pasha Tawfiq, sought assistance from the British Empire. The united forces attempted to fortify their position in Khartoum, but the city ultimately fell. The Mahdist State succeeded in bringing nearly all the tribes of the region under its control, implementing new slavery laws that deviated from traditional Islamic practices. These laws permitted the enslavement of Muslims who refused to pledge their support to the new state, while offering protection to non-Muslim tribes—who had historically been targeted by Egyptian raids—on the condition that they swore loyalty and accepted the Mahdi’s protection.

The Anglo-Egyptian Condominium

Following the death of Muhammad Ahmad, Anglo-Egyptian forces, under the command of Lord Kitchener, occupied Sudan. In 1899, the country was officially established as a shared colony between Egypt and the United Kingdom, though it effectively remained under British control until 1956. Kitchener oversaw the construction of a railway linking Wadi Halfa to Abu Hamad, a strategic initiative designed to address logistical challenges posed by the Nile’s frequent flooding. It is worth noting that, during this period, the railway network was used solely for military purposes. In 1906, Port Sudan was established to serve as a key logistical hub for the region. Positioned on the Red Sea coast, it was designed to replace Suakin, the former primary port, which faced challenges due to its location and limited accessibility for modern steamships. Port Sudan was equipped with state-of-the-art infrastructure for the time, including a deep harbour capable of accommodating larger vessels with direct rail connections to major inland cities such as Khartoum. This new infrastructure not only facilitated the export of goods, such as cotton and gum arabic, but also played a strategic role in strengthening British control over Sudan. Port Sudan’s strategic location along the Red Sea routes increased its value, turning it into a crucial hub for trade and military operations. In the early 1900s, British industry struggled to secure enough cotton to keep the textile mills of Lancashire running.

This shortage was worsened by the United States’ move to drastically cut cotton exports to focus on its domestic needs. Facing this crisis, the British Empire turned to Egypt, funding the construction of the “Old Aswan Dam.” This project enabled the expansion of extensive cotton plantations along the Lower Nile, helping to partially satisfy the demands of the British Empire’s market. In 1911, the colonial period witnessed one of its most significant economic and social transformations when the Sudan Plantations Syndicate (SPS), a private enterprise, began constructing a vast system of dams in the Gezira region. This irrigation system enabled large-scale cultivation of premium-quality cotton. Completed in 1925, the project brought about a significant reorganization of the region’s landscape.

At the same time, the Sannar-Port Sudan rail line was built, facilitating the transport of cotton to international markets. This work of agricultural engineering transformed Gezira into Sudan’s most densely populated region, attracting a population of about 150,000 people. Cotton, which had become the main product of the local economy, quickly established itself as the country’s primary export. As early as 1924, it accounted for 76% of Sudan’s total exports, cementing Gezira’s central role in the national economy. To understand the impact of the Sudan Plantations Syndicate (SPS), it is necessary to analyse the social structure introduced during this period. The British government radically transformed the artificially irrigated area, expropriating land traditionally belonging to local tribes. Traditional smallholder farmers were forced into a sharecropping system, where they were tied to a rigid allocation of the cotton harvest: 40% was allotted to the sharecroppers, 25% to the SPS, and the remaining 35% to the Sudanese government. In addition to managing agricultural production, the SPS also acted as a banking institution for the development of the territory.

However, the loans provided to sharecroppers came with strict conditions: the funds could only be used for cotton cultivation, effectively barring investment in essential food crops like dura, an essential grain. Although the villages in the region had experienced moderate economic development from 1925 to 1929, a series of failed harvests severely affected dura production. The inability to access food loans, coupled with famine and the subsequent global economic downturn, triggered severe social crisis, exacerbating the indebtedness of sharecroppers. In the early expansion phase, Gezira became a magnet for immigrants from nearby regions, many of whom found work as wage laborers in the fields. However, the economic crisis drove numerous sharecroppers to abandon their lands, while the displaced laborers, left destitute and starving, resorted to banditry as a means of survival. This phenomenon generated extensive social unrest, exacerbating tensions and igniting conflicts among various ethnic and tribal groups. The Great Depression of the 1930s brought significant changes to farming practices.

A standard sharecropping farm, spanning 30 feddans (approximately 16.5 hectares), was originally divided into three sections: 10 feddans for growing cotton, 5 for cultivating dura and lubia (green beans), and the remaining 10 left fallow to recover the soil. However, intensive farming practices and irrigation systems caused severe land degradation, frequently leaving it overrun with weeds and plagued by disease. This led to the complete replacement of lubia production with dura. Moreover, as soil degradation issues became more acute during the economic crisis, the SPS imposed new management of the rotation system that required the fallow period to be doubled to one year⎯a fact viewed with suspicion by the sharecroppers, who considered the new policy designed to further disadvantage dura production. A slight recovery would only occur in 1934, but the social and economic scars left by the system imposed by the SPS continued to disfigure the region.

Nonetheless, the recovery period would see a significant rise in agricultural mechanisation. The economic crisis of the 1930s forced the British Empire to reevaluate its policies in Sudan. By 1939, nearly four decades after the occupation, the colony’s economy remained precarious. Despite substantial investments in the Gezira region, British capital acknowledged that the project had fallen short of expectations. British imperialist policy, geared exclusively towards satisfying its own economic needs through cotton production, systematically ignored the structural needs of Sudan. This policy, which lacked incentives to modernise the production of essential consumer goods, contributed to the fragility of the Sudanese social system.

Positioned between Egypt and Ethiopia, Sudan played a pivotal role in World War II. On one front, Egypt faced the threat of Axis forces, while on the other, the British Empire used its foothold in Sudan to help restore Haile Selassie to power just five years after the Italian invasion. The war’s aftermath saw Port Sudan emerge as a key military and logistical hub. Sudanese officers would also be integrated into the colonial army—but of course from the most influential northern families. The need to sustain both the army and the civilian population, necessary to prevent uprisings, prompted the Sudanese colonial government to introduce a new model of agricultural production in the Qadarif region, located east of Gezira.

Renowned for its fertile clay soil, Qadarif became a key hub for dura cultivation, essential for feeding much of Sudan, especially the cities, which were undergoing rapid urbanization during the war. Traditionally, dura farming relied on rainwater and a rotation system that allowed land to lay fallow. However, the introduction of mechanization transformed this dynamic. Wealthier farmers, equipped with the first government-financed agricultural machinery, adopted a more advanced form of rotational farming: they cultivated specific areas intensively, only to abandon them for untapped virgin lands when yields began to drop. This practice led to severe soil erosion and, in some cases, outright desertification. While the new production methods sought to maximize agricultural yields by exploiting the country’s extensive reserves of unused arable land, they showed little concern for long-term sustainability.

With the war over and the British cotton industry in decline, Sudan’s economic significance to the Empire greatly diminished. In response, the British sought to cultivate a sense of nationalism among the local elite, aiming to lay the groundwork for a decolonization process that, while unavoidable, would remain at least partially aligned with their own interests (favourable to the alternative).

Independence

The 1952 anti-colonial revolution in Egypt was a crucial stepping stone in Sudan’s journey towards independence. Egypt’s new leaders, Mohammed Naguib—whose mother was Sudanese—and later Gamal Abdel Nasser, recognized that ending British rule in Sudan required Egypt to formally renounce its claims of sovereignty over the country. Historically, Sudan has always been viewed as a “Lesser Egypt,” occupying the southernmost reaches of the Nile.

Naguib and Nasser recognized that relinquishing Egypt’s claims over Sudan would bolster their efforts to counter British influence in the region. To this end, they pursued a favorable strategy that framed Sudanese independence as a means of undermining British colonial control. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom, though mostly uninterested in retaining direct rule over Sudan, sought to curtail Egyptian influence by backing local leaders like Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi, a key figure and descendant of the Mahdi.

In light of these developments, both sides agreed on the need for a free and transparent referendum to decide the future of Sudan, setting the stage for its formal independence. As we wrote in 1971: “The oldest power in the world supported—what might seem a paradox—the independence of countries previously under its political and military control, convinced that in doing so, it could maintain and perhaps strengthen economic and financial dependencies. After all, it is well known that in the imperialist phase, historical colonialism becomes a contradiction.”