Social Science Research Council

The implementation of the CPA in Southern Kordofan has been subject to numerous delays in many different areas. The most significant delays have been around the formation of the state government and the passing of the state constitution. The lack of genuine integration between the NCP and the SPLM in the state government is the [...]

The US government and the American people sincerely want to do the right thing by Sudan. Help turn it into a democratic, stable, equitable, prosperous and, preferably, united country. Trouble is they don’t seem to know how. At least that’s what it looks like judging by America’s neurosis with placing new, and keeping old, economic [...]

I came across SPLA-2 while in the Nuba Mountains in April. Al Bulola had just been visiting senior SPLA commanders, in South Sudan and in South Kodofan, claiming that he had 40,000 men ready to join the movement and looking for logistical support. The SPLA’s high military command in Juba had never heard [...]

Professor Abdel Rahman Musa, leader of the SLM-Free Will group and Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs, passed away on Sunday. He was a fine Darfurian scholar and intellectual committed to peace for his people.
Abdel Rahman grew up in Kutum, a member of a well-known Tunjur family. He studied at the University of Khartoum and [...]

Jeffrey Gettleman’s article in today’s New York Times, “Darfur Withers as Sudan Sells a Food Bonanza,” is an excellent overview of the issues surrounding food production and food relief. Excepting solely the current context of high international food prices, it could have been written at any time in the last thirty years.
In the 1970s, [...]

The intense war in the Nuba in the late 1980s and early 1990s is an important piece of Sudanese modern history. The memory of this all-too-recent trauma, which culminated in an government attempt to destroy Nuba identity, is alive in South Kordofan. Confidence has not been rebuilt and the leadership in Khartoum ignores the deeply-felt [...]

Yesterday it was reported in al Rayaam newspaper that there is a new rebellion in the Nuba mountains. In fact the rebellion has been going on for some time. Two months ago one of Sudan Liberation Movement’s commanders on a visit to London told me that they have been approached by a commander from the [...]

An expanded version of the Sudan Open Archive (SOA) is now online. The new version - SOA 2.0 - features an improved user interface and open access to a thousand books and documents on all aspects of Sudan. The Archive makes a wide range of material available - and searchable - in digital form for [...]

Four dynamic factors act, instrumentally, on the fractured landscape of Southern Kordofan State (SKS) to generate serious challenges to human security, socioeconomic, administrative and political reintegration opportunities in the post-conflict phase. The expected result is that such factors work, as well, to pose immediate threats and high risk for smooth implementation of the CPA protocols [...]

After working on Darfur since 2002, it was sobering to revisit the Nuba Mountains in April. My last visit, for the arba’iin of Commander Yousif Kuwa in May 2001, was cut short when eight government columns attacked the village where the mourning ceremony was being held. Yousif Kuwa’s successor, Abdel Aziz al Hilu, succeeded [...]