Almost fifty years ago, when working as a young physician in the Southern Sudan, I met Francis Deng for the first time. Even then, the region was a war zone. Large numbers of innocent civilians were being killed and maimed and an ancient society was being threatened with destruction; however, I also witnessed the beginnings of the noble, tenacious struggle for understanding, reconciliation, and peace embodied in the life work of Francis Deng. Over the decades I have remained in close contact with Sudan, returning for medical research, humanitarian relief, and training programs. Throughout, Francis Deng has been a wise...

After years of protracted negotiations, with regional and international mediation, the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and Army (SPLM/A) concluded the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). The settlement met with varying responses at home and abroad. Southerners responded with jubilation primarily because the agreement granted them the right of self-determination to be exercised after a six-year interim period through a referendum that would offer a choice between unity and secession. Northerners generally felt that the CPA had given the South too much by granting them full autonomy and significant participation in the Government of National Unity as...

The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the Government of the Sudan (GOS) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and Army (SPLM/A) gives the South the right to secede, but it also stipulates that all efforts be exerted during the six-year interim period to make unity an attractive option for the South. The implication of this stipulation is that the burden of making unity attractive lies with the North. The overwhelming view in the South is that the pursuit of a rigid view of unity has already cost the country as a whole and the South in particular too much...

In September, 1989, less than three months after the alliance between the National Islamic Front and Islamist elements in the Sudanese army seized power on June 30, 1989, in the name of the Revolution for National Salvation, Bona Malwal and I went to Addis Ababa to confer with Dr. John Garang de Mabior, leader of Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and Army (SPLM/A), on the developments in the country and the region. In accordance with my principle of maintaining contact with all the parties, I decided to proceed to Khartoum after our visit to Addis Ababa in order to meet and...

During the second half of 2009, intellectuals, scholars, and political activists began to engage actively in debates concerning the likely outcome of the 2011 self-determination referendum in Southern Sudan. Time was running out and while most observers maintained a neutral position on the issue of unity and Southern secession, it was becoming clear that the cause of unity which was to be promoted during the interim period to make unity attractive to the Southern voters was failing and that the South would almost certainly vote for secession. The prospects of Sudan’s partition began to ring alarm bells, and the possibility...

This note builds on the findings and observations from my recent visit to Sudan and Ethiopia. Sudan is confronted with multiple crises that, if not constructively managed, could explode in a genocidal catastrophe. These crises are not only reflected in the increasingly tense relations between North and South, as the self-determination referendum of 2011 approaches, but also in interethnic conflicts within the North and the South. Apprehensions about the implications of Southern independence are rising not only within Sudan, but also in the subregion, at the level of the African continent, and internationally. Given the large numbers of Southerners residing...

Negotiations with third-party mediation are the counterpart to violent confrontation. Since independence, Sudan has twice alternated between devastating violent conflicts and negotiations leading to the peaceful resolution of the conflicts. The seventeen-year war (1955–1972) was ended by the Addis Ababa Agreement and the twenty-two-year war (1983–2005) ended with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The search for durable peace and the prospects for achieving genuine consensual unity will continue to require an ongoing process of negotiations into the foreseeable future.

I see negotiation and the closely related field of diplomacy as essentially management of human relations involving individuals, groups, or...

During the first half of 2010, the position of the international community on the situation in Sudan has developed quite constructively in several ways. A consensus has emerged in support of the full implementation of the CPA. This includes holding the referenda in the South and in Abyei as scheduled and respecting the choice of the people, whether for unity or for partition. Accordingly, the measures needed for the conduct of the referenda, such as the demarcation of the borders and the establishment of the referenda commissions, voter registration, and other procedural requirements should be carried out diligently, credibly, and...