Abstract EN:

We took up this research work so as to make an attempt to analyze the causes which thwarted the efforts of the Sudanese people to build a nation state. In order to demonstrate the impact of such a set back in the current Sudanese conflict, a critical analysis of north-south relations during the period of the Turco-Egyptian and the Mahdists state became crucial. Although the relations between the two regions had never been stabled since the 16th century, they were further aggravated by the introduction of slave trade by the Turco-Egyptian regime. The Mahdists did not abolish the slave trade, but it was intensified. It was during Anglo-Egyptian rule in which the conflict between the north and the south was brought under control, as the two entities were governed separately. We strongly believe that economic and social development which was carried out in the north during the condominium period had widened the gap between the two regions. As a result, the south manifested vehemently its opposition to the process of the decolonization of a united Sudan, but the British government went ahead by declaring Sudan’s independent in 1956. The British left the Sudan while it was on the verge of a civil war. The south wished to decide its future within the frame work of the principle of self-determination. The first civil war between the north and the south lasted for seventeen years. It was solved in 1972 by the military regime of general Nimeiri. The civil war broke out again in 1983, because the central government had failed to address political, economic and social problems of the south. They new southern Sudan dominated movement is not fighting to separate the region from the rest of the country, but to create a united socialist Sudan. However, the division of the SPLM/SPLA in the 1990s' has further complicated the Sudanese conflict.