Sudan Recent History

Sudan Recent History

In the presidential elections in April 2010, Bashir was confirmed in office with around 68.2% of the votes, according to the election commission. The NCP won around 73% of the votes in the parliamentary elections that were held at the same time. In South Sudan, S. Kiir Mayardit was elected President with around 93% of the vote. In July 2010, the International Criminal Court also issued an arrest warrant against Bashir on charges of genocide. In January 2011, in a referendum in South Sudan, 98.8% of voters were in favor of independence. President Bashir promised to accept the referendum result. Inspired by the Arab Spring protestsand in response to rising food prices, the end of subsidies and the secession of the South, riots broke out in Khartoum and other cities in mid-January 2011. The police broke up the demonstrations with tear gas and rubber truncheons. In the period that followed, there were disputes with the south about the future course of the border. Troops from the north advanced into the disputed region of Abyei between North and South Sudan and also captured the city of Abyei on May 21, 2011. The residents of the southern Sudanese tribe of the Ngok-Dinka were expelled.

On July 9, 2011, South Sudan became independent. On September 8, 2011, Sudan and South Sudan agreed to withdraw their troops from the Abyei area, their positions were taken by Ethiopian soldiers of the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA). In the provinces of South Kordofan and Blue Nile, fighting broke out between government troops and suspected members of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement North (SPLM / N) from June and September 2011. In early September 2011, the military occupied the capital of Blue Nile, Damazin, and deposed the provincial governor there, a member of the SPLM / N. Darfur was also the scene of clashes between the government in Khartoum and rebel groups. In May 2011, peace talks between various rebel factions and the government took place in the Qatari capital Doha. However, Khartoum only reached an agreement with the relatively insignificant group Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM). Various rebel and opposition groups from Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan, including JEM, SPLM / N and SML / A, formed the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) in November 2011.

According to loverists, the main problem for relations with South Sudan remained a mutually acceptable division of oil revenues and the associated amount of transit costs from the south to the port of Port Sudan. In January 2012, Sudan confiscated South Sudanese oil as compensation for allegedly lost transit fees, whereupon South Sudan stopped oil production. After military clashes with South Sudan over the Heglig oil field in April 2012, negotiations took place in Addis Ababa with the mediation of the African Union. On September 27, 2012, a cooperation agreement to solve the disputed problems (oil production and drawing of boundaries) was signed, but its implementation remained difficult. In the meantime, fighting between government troops and rebel units continued in the two states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile. The summer of 2012 saw the largest protests in Khartoum since the Arab Spring spread to Sudan in early 2011. The first, consistently resolved demonstrations in mid-June 2012 came from students in Khartoum who complained about nepotism at their institutes. Given the sharp rise in the cost of living as a result of the government cutting subsidies on gasoline and sugar to offset the drop in revenue following the collapse in oil exports, other population groups joined the protests. There were protests in September 2013 as well, resulting in numerous deaths. At the beginning of January 2013, Sudan and South Sudan agreed on the rapid implementation of the agreement signed in 2012. In March 2013, Sudan signed another agreement with South Sudan to resume oil production. Relations between the two states, however, remained prone to failure. The violent clashes between rebels and government troops as well as between different ethnic groups in Darfur also cost numerous lives in 2013/14. In January 2014, President initiated Bashir initiated a “national dialogue” for political reforms, but important opposition forces stayed away from it. In October 2014, the ruling NCP party elected incumbent President Bashir as the top candidate for the 2015 presidential election, which took place in mid-April 2015 together with the parliamentary elections. The elections were boycotted by most of the opposition parties. Well over a hundred people were killed in violent clashes. Bashir emerged from the election as the winner with over 94% of the votes. The ruling NCP won the parliamentary elections clearly and won 323 of the 426 seats. Despite an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for war crimes and genocide in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, the President traveled unmolested in mid-June 2015 to the summit of the African Union in South Africa, which, as a member state of the International Criminal Court, would have been obliged to execute the arrest warrant. In October 2016, Bashir stated the »National Dialogue« started in 2014 is over. As a result, the office of Prime Minister was established in 2017, 65 members of parliament were appointed from among the forces involved in the dialogue process and a government of national consensus was formed. To this end, it was decided to draft a new constitution. In order to stabilize the conflict hotspots in Darfur, South Kordofan and the Blue Nile, the government and the rebel groups agreed on a so-called roadmap for a peace solution in 2016 with the mediation of the African Union. However, implementation proved difficult.

When the government tripled the price of bread in December 2018, it triggered prostates against the 30-year rule of O. al-Bashir. During the demonstrations, people were neither provoked nor intimidated by the police and secret services, although an estimated 70 deaths have been counted and there have been over 2,500 prisoners since the beginning of the protests. After months of protest, the military took long-term rule into custody on April 11, 2019 and seized power for the next two years. The constitution was suspended, borders and airspace were closed. After the coup, the secret service announced that it would release all political prisoners.

Sudan Recent History