1972 Addis Ababa Agreement

Page 259 Note 1 See United Nations General Assembly, Aide-Mémoire Appeal for Assistance to the Government of Sudan (New York, 1972), p. 3; and U.N.H.C.R., The Water-Road: highway to regional development at Qala en Nahal, Sudan (Geneva, 1972), p. 8, devoted entirely to the question of Eritrean refugees in the Sudan. Page 262 Note 2 The Palestine Liberation Organization opened its office in Khartoum in 1961 and received a donation of £50,000 in 1967. Although it was allowed to broadcast as the Voice of Palestine via Radio Omdurman, this permission was withdrawn after opposition was expressed to Egypt`s adoption of the UN Security Council resolution on Palestine in November 1967 and the Rodgers proposals in July 1970, a position supported by Sudan. This transfer did not resume, but in January 1971 a donation of £40,000 was made to the P.L.O. In 1972, when Sudan-Egypt relations were at an all-time low, the president reiterated Sudanese support for palestinian commandos, saying their setbacks were due to the fact that Arab states bordering Israel had obstructed their free operation. In 1971, the South Sudanese rebels, who until then had consisted of several independent commandos, were united under General Joseph Lagu, who under his authority brought together both the fighting units of the Anya Nya and its political wing, the South Sudanese Liberation Movement (SSLM). After that, in 1971, the SSLM, which represented General Lagu, held a dialogue with the Sudanese government on proposals for regional autonomy and an end to hostilities. These talks culminated in the signing of the Addis Ababa Agreement on 27 February 1972. The agreement ended the 17-year conflict between Anya Nya and the Sudanese army and established autonomy for the southern region, which was no longer to be divided into three provinces of Al-Istiwāʾiyyah (Ecuador), Baḥr al-Ghazāl and Aʿālī al-Nīl (Upper Nile). The affairs of the region would be controlled by a separate legislative and executive branch, and Anya Nya soldiers would be integrated into the Sudanese army and police. The Addis Ababa agreement brought Nimeiri both prestige abroad and popularity at home.

Page 262 Note 1 The Sudan Research Unit, established in 1964 at the University of Khartoum and expanded into the Institute of African and Asian Studies in July 1972, reflected these efforts at the university level. The publication of the proceedings of the International Conference of February 1968 was an important step in the „objective definition of Sudan`s place in Africa”. Cf. Hasan, Yusuf Fadl (ed.), Sudan in Africa (Khartoum, 1971), foreword. . when the Addis Ababa Agreement was signed on 27 February 1972. The agreement ended the 17-year conflict between Anya Nya and the Sudanese army and established autonomy for the southern region, which no longer belongs to the three provinces of Al-Istiwāʾiyyah (Ecuador), Baḥr al-Ghazāl and. The Addis Ababa Agreement, also known as the Addis Ababa Agreement, was a series of compromises under a 1972 treaty that ended Sudan`s first civil war (1955-1972) in Sudan. The Addis Ababa Agreements have been incorporated into the Sudanese Constitution. Page 252 Note 4 Khalid, Mansour, Hawar ma Al Safwa (Khartoum, 1972), p. 46, translated from Arabic. Direct negotiations between the Sudanese government and the South Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM) in Addis Ababa were preceded in 1971 by a series of discussions on mediation by the Conference of African Churches (AACC) and the World Council of Churches (WCC).

In 1972, Abel Alier led the Sudanese government delegation to Addis Ababa, led by Ezboni Mondiri, head of the Delegation of the South Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM). [1] The negotiations were moderated by Burgess Carr, then general secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches. [2] Page 267 Note 2 Joint Sudan-Tanzania Communiqué, 1972, Khartoum, S.S.U. Records, Executive Board, mimeographed. Even before the official end of the agreement, the civil war between the South and the North had resumed with even more cruelty than before. Since the signing of the Addis Ababa Agreement in 1972, there had been sporadic uprisings in the south, but they were quickly crushed. In May 1983, however, an army battalion stationed in Bor mutinied and fled into the bush under the leadership of Colonel John Garang de Mabior. The rebels were disappointed with Nimeiri and his government, which was plagued by corruption and despised the southerners. Under Garang`s leadership, the ranks of the Bor garrison that had sought refuge in Ethiopia were soon swollen by disgruntled Southerners determined to respond to their grievances with force of arms under the banner of the Sudan People`s Liberation Army (SPLA) and its political wing, the Sudan People`s Liberation Movement (SPLM). Page 263 Note 1 Babikir Awadallah, born in 1917, was Prime Minister from May to October 1969; Minister of Foreign Affairs from May 1969 to July 1970; Minister of Justice, October 1969-71, and Deputy Prime Minister, June 1970-71; and First Vice-President, October 1971-May 1972, when he resigned from his post during a trip to Cairo. Another prominent „Arabist” who left the government at that time was Major General Khalid Hassan Abbas, a member of the Revolutionary Command Council, May 1969-72; Chief of Staff from October 1969 to June 1970; Minister of Defense from 1969-72 and also Vice-President from 1971 to February 1972, when he resigned from all his posts.

In July 1975, he was appointed Presidential Adviser for African Affairs. The Addis Ababa Agreement of 1972 ended the conflict only temporarily, and over the next decade widespread fighting resumed with the Second Civil War (1983-2005). Page 255 Note 4 For a discussion of the Nigerian attitude, see Legum (ed.), op. cit. Cit. See A6. Page 270 Note 3 See Khalid, Mansour, International Symposium on Diplomacy, Deoelopment and Cooperation, 15-20 January 1974, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Khartoum, 1974. The signing of the Addis Ababa Agreement has helped to promote economic development in Sudan with funds previously allocated to the civil war. This diversion of government resources to peaceful projects coincided with the dramatic growth in oil revenues in the Persian Gulf, and Arab states began investing large sums in Sudan to make it the „breadbasket” of the Arab world. The resulting flood of development projects in the 1970s was followed by investments by private multinational corporations and generous loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The top priority was to increase Sudanese production of sugar, wheat and cotton in order to provide foreign exchange.

The new projects were accompanied by efforts to develop the national infrastructure […].