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Middle Eastern Studies

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Sudan, Global Security Watch

Gabriel Warburg Available online: 03 Mar 2011

To cite this article: Gabriel Warburg (2011): Sudan, Global Security Watch, Middle Eastern Studies, 47:2, 438-441 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2011.544106

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438 Book Reviews Arab states more dependent on the US ignores the point that it also increased Arab inuence and access on the world stage to an unprecedented level. Nor does Peterson directly explain how his thesis ts with the Arab plan, at the time of the ArabIsraeli war of 1973, to use the oil embargo to punish the US. In particular, Saudi Arabias decision to halt oil supplies to the US was accompanied by a demand that Washington modify its Middle East policy. The focus of the boycott only switched to Europe when it became apparent that it was far more vulnerable than the US because it relied far more on oil imports and used a higher proportion of imported oil for essential consumer and industrial needs. But even here, the Arab hope was that if Europe began to feel the impact of an oil shortage it would pressure the US into rethinking its policies towards the Middle East. Or, if that did not work, then the aim was to isolate the US and place it in an untenable position among the western states. In other words, it is one thing to downplay the geo-strategic importance of cheap oil to the Nixon administration; to make the case that Nixon decided to take on big oil as part of his global strategy; and to argue that oil did not dominate Anglo-American concerns. But it is quite another to underestimate the importance of oil as a political or economic factor in the Gulf or wider Arab world or in AngloAmerican relationships during the 1970s. RORY MILLER 2011 Rory Miller

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Sudan, Global Security Watch Richard A. Lobban, Jr. Santa Barbara, CA, Praeger, 2010. Pp. xvii 207, bibliography, map, and index. (hardback) ISBN 978-0-313-35333-8 The author of this book, Richard A. Lobban, Jr., has been studying Sudan for some 40 years; the present volume is a kind of a summary of these four decades of study. He rst started as a researcher for his PhD thesis, later carrying on as a journalist and a tour leader, spending much of his time in Sudan. He and his colleague and wife, Dr Carolyn Fleur-Lobban, also a Sudan expert, lived in a houseboat, oating down the Nile and falling in love with its people and the country. It was there that they decided to found the Sudan Studies Association and it was in Cairo, in the 1980s, whilst I was heading the Israeli Academic Center, that I rst met them, and have been a devoted member of the Sudan Studies Association ever since. Richard Lobban spent his professional academic career at Rhode Island College, as a professor of anthropology and ethnographer. However, the present volume is of a dierent nature. Whereas the author is an anthropologist, he wrote this book for the Global Security Watch series, which implies his interest in and knowledge of Sudanese contemporary aairs. As an adjunct-professor at the Naval War College in Newport Rhode Island, since his retirement Professor Lobban has placed his vast expertise on Sudan and the Horn of Africa at the disposal of his countrys departments of state and defense, whose students at the naval war college required his expertise.

Book Reviews 439 In the Preface Dr Lobban lets his readers know that we are faced with a book which deals with the contemporary Sudan and not with its anthropological past, of which we are however given a brief summary. In chapter 1 of the book (pp.127), the modern and contemporary Sudan is introduced. I am familiar with this period of Sudans history and politics, since my own familiarity with the Sudan started towards the end of the nineteenth century. The Sudan was conquered by England and Egypt in 1898, putting an end to the Mahdiyya, a Muslim religious messianic regime which had ruled Sudan since 1881. As I noted already, during my own research, which was undertaken at the Sudan Archives at Durham University and supervised by the late Professor Peter Holt at School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. The Mahdist state was the centre of Holts research; consequently my own expertise of that period may have been inuenced by him. I soon came to the conclusion that while the Mahdist state may have ended in 1898, the involvement of religion in Sudanese politics has been a fact ever since. As Dr Lobban rightly states in his preface: Once Sudan regained its authority as a sovereign state in Africa, it was generally satised as a postcolonial state, but in the case of the training camps for units of al-Qaida, ambitions of reconstructing the Islamic Umma were clearly in the minds of Hasan al-Turabi and his guest, Osama bin Laden (p.xvii). We are thus confronted with a book which deals with a topic which I have researched for most of my academic life. My only mistake, though rather grave, was that I had assumed that the neo-Mahdists, rather Hasan al-Turabi and his Muslim Brothers, would gain the upper hand in whatever regime rules Sudan. As it stands, since June 1989 Sudan has been ruled by a military regime headed by Hasan Omar al-Bashir and assisted until 1999 by Dr Hasan al-Turabi who helped the military to overthrow the democratic government headed by the Mahdis grandson, al-Sadiq alMahdi, since the general elections held in 1986. To begin with, al-Turabi was imprisoned alongside other political leaders; however, quite soon it transpired that he was a co-leader of the military coup and a close ally of Hasan Omar al-Bashir, who had been a participant in one of the seminars conducted by the NIF (Muslim Brothers), for army ocers. Quoting from my own book, Islam, Sectarianism and Politics in Sudan, al-Turabi viewed this Islamic victory as a dream come true and stated that in case he passed away, he would die contented, knowing that the cause I have worked for all my life has been fullled and that Islam will continue to be strong and well established in the Sudan (p.210). As we now know, the Bashir-al-Turabi honeymoon soon came to an end. It started with the partnership between Hasan al-Turabi and Osama bin Laden and his alignment with other Islamist fundamentalist groups, rejected by al-Bashir, especially after the rst bombing of the World Trade Center, when the United States listed Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism. Consequently, al-Bashir appointed himself President of Sudan and disbanded all political parties, including the Revolutionary Command Council. In 1998 he put into eect a new constitution which allowed limited opposition to Bashirs National Congress Party. In December of that year, al-Bashir used tanks and military force to oust Hasan al-Turabi his one-time ally and the speaker of Parliament from his position and put him under house-arrest. Consequently, in both 2000 and 2010, al-Bashir won a majority of over 85 per cent in the presidential elections (p.157).

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440 Book Reviews According to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), signed in 2005, the general elections were scheduled for 2009, but were then postponed to 2010. A referendum determining Sudans future as a united or partitioned state is to be held in 2011, whether it will be held as decided, or will be postponed or cancelled, remains to be seen. Tragically, Dr John Garang, the leader of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army & Movement (SPLA/M), and a signatory of the CPA, was killed in a helicopter accident in the southern Sudan a few months after the CPA was signed. Even more signicant was the fact that several factions, both in the South and in Darfur, were still ghting, which made the agreement less comprehensive. In northern Sudan, both the NIF and the other northern traditional parties like the Umma or the DUP (Democratic Unionists) were sidelined and we are uncertain of their position on the forthcoming referendum. Salva a leading Dinka from the Bahr al-Ghazal region of southern Sudan, who was deeply involved in the negotiations leading to the CPA, is now president of the South (p.45). The South seems to be willing to move towards independence and demand its right of self-determination when the referendum takes place in 2011, as promised in the CPA. However, if the referendum is either postponed or cancelled for security reasons, this could increase the possibility of a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) by the South and renewal of war (p.50). The Political Economy of Sudanese Oil (pp.10331), is the fth chapter of Professor Lobbans book, it deals with the problem of addiction to oil, which sometimes leads to wars between those who have access to oil, and others who have none. In Sudan there were many oil explorations long before the CPA and as early as 1979, when Standard Oil of California (later Chevron), discovered some signs of oil in Abu Gabra in southern Darfur. However, in 1983 the NorthSouth war resumed . . . and the reserves sought by Chevron were in the South, precisely where the war was intensifying . . . In February 1984, guerilla units attacked the Chevron drilling site at Bentiu, and its oil workers were withdrawn. Following many ups and downs Chevron oil nally stopped its eorts there was too much risk and too little return (p.104). Once the present military-Islamist regime assumed power in June 1989, it faced the very same problems as its predecessors. Al-Turabi had hoped that the ow of oil would fuel the regional Jihad, however the more the quest for oil intensied, the more the SPLA sought to block it. Finally, in 1998, the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC) came into being, as a result of companies from China, Canada, Argentina, and the United Kingdom coming to an agreement to nance it. By 1999 additional backers joined the GNPOC, including Austria, France, Croatia, Germany, Malaysia, Qatar, Romania, and Spain. When it nally functioned, it pumped 185,000 barrels per day (p.106), consequently regional wars intensied and the new pipeline was blown up on several occasions, as were oces of the oil companies in Khartoum. Following several southern attacks and retaliations by the government, the GNPOC nally succeeded in 2000, to extract a full years production surpassing all its projections by nearly 122 per cent, and its revenue was over US$540 million. More splits and wars both within the SPLA and between it and central government in Khartoum, were required before the CPA was nally signed in January 2005. Although the war did not end, the world breathed some . . . collective but cautious relief that Sudan might be at peace and could nally develop (p.117). It

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Book Reviews 441 soon transpired that although comprehensive peace was agreed upon, demonstrations with many killed or injured continued unabated, in both Khartoum and PortSudan, as well as civil wars in Darfur and in southern Sudan; with additional refugees as well as many casualties. Khartoum stays preoccupied with regime security, and it has been in power for a very long time compared to other post independence regimes (p.125). In case the referendum is held and it leads to separation, there is little doubt that the Islamist regime will be toppled, therefore President Hassan Omar al-Bashir with his regime legitimized through the 2010 elections, will probably do his very best to stay as the legitimate President of the united Sudan and cancel the promised referendum, even if it costs Sudan more civil wars both in the South and Darfur. Professor Lobban concludes his study stating that despite the failure of all previous peace accords Sudan has managed to avoid all-out war the clock is ticking towards . . . the disputed questions of the 2011 referendum on unity (p.124). Neither the author nor we have a clue whether the referendum will ever take place, however Lobban forever an optimist seems to believe that it will take place and he ends his book by stating: Rather than dwell on the Afro-pessimist paradigm, it is worth recalling that the days of outright colonialism are over and although local conicts will continue to occur, Sudan may be spared any open state-to-state war, as it has since independence (p.152). Though fully aware of Lobbans abilities both as a researcher and a lover of Sudan, I have my own doubts regarding his nal analysis, and tend to agree with a prominent Sudanese scholar (in exile since 1989), who responded to my query regarding the promised referendum by stating: Separation is a logical conclusion of the disastrous insanity of the current so-called Islamist regime. He too would prefer a true referendum; however, like me he seems to believe in the insanity of Sudans government which will most probably lead Sudan to one more disaster, namely partition, followed by war. During November 2010 the BBC world service seemed as pessimistic as my colleague and I, stating that there was little interest in the northern Sudan regarding the 2011 referendum. In the southern Sudan nearly all those interviewed or recorded stated without any doubt that the South was heading for independence; they even sang the new anthem of the new state, as yet non-existent, with the crowds present in the market of Juba joining in enthusiastically! As stated above, this is no proof of what is to be, however, indications seem overwhelming. GABRIEL WARBURG 2011 Gabriel Warburg

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