Social Science Research Council

The modern history of Sudan is riddled with bloodshed, destruction and squandered chances for peace and democracy. Consistently, the worst case scenario comes to pass and, just when it seems as though things could get no worse, they do precisely that. But occasionally, the Sudanese succeed in snatching an improbable victory for peace and civility [...]

The text of my presentation to the BBC’s World Tonight last week is now available online. (With a sentence added to reflect JEM’s attack on Khartoum, which occurred between my recording the piece and the time it was broadcast.) The more substantive article on which this was based was published last year in International Affairs [...]

A completely revised and updated (to January 2008) version of the book written by Julie Flint and myself is official launched this week. It’s available in both the UK (Zed Books) and the US (Palgrave-Macmillan).
Our earlier “short history” concluded in the early months of 2005, just as the phase of intense hostilities was coming to [...]

An obituary by Julie Flint and Alex de Waal.
One of the most disturbing images to have come out of Sudan in the wake of JEM’s attempt to overthrow the government has been that of the tortured body of a lawyer in his forties, Jamali Hassan Jalal al Din, apparently beaten to death by government forces [...]

As more details emerge about JEM’s assault on the national capital at the weekend, it is becoming clear that this was a solo operation by JEM directed by its leader Khalil Ibrahim. Its aim was nothing less than taking power.
The role of Chadian President Idriss Deby is now clearer. For two years, Deby armed [...]

Saturday’s battle in the streets of Omdurman was a defeat for the prospects of peace, democracy and human rights. The calculations of the leadership of the Justice and Equality Movement are puzzling–the attack looks much like an act of reckless military escalation, bold and daring no doubt, but possibly suicidal. But it would be surprising [...]

Posted on behalf of Julie Flint.
At 2 pm on Sunday 4 May, a single Antonov bomber targeted the village of Shegeg Karo in North Darfur, destroying the market and hitting the village school during classes. At least 11 people were killed outright, six of them children between the ages of five and eleven. More [...]

April’s issue of African Affairs contains an interesting article by Marielle Debos.
Entitled “Fluid Loyalties in a Regional Crisis: Chadian ‘Ex-Liberators’ in the Central African Republic” it examines a neglected pattern of the regional crisis in Darfur, Chad, and the Central African Republic, namely the cross-border activities of combatants with fluid loyalties. The trajectories [...]

Robert Bates’ When Things Fell Apart: State Failure in Late Century Africa is a seminal contribution to understanding state crises Africa.
Bates’ thesis is that in the late 20th century, sub-Saharan African states suffered a catastrophic lowering of public revenues (brought about by a combination of poverty and fiscal austerity measures), that caused rulers with relatively [...]

Overview
1. The NCP-SPLM partnership for the CPA stands at a critical juncture. The NCP sees the 2009 elections as its route to internal and international legitimacy and is hoping that problems with the census and elections can be pinned on others (the SPLM, the Darfurians). Both parties have failed to find a compromise to the Abyei [...]