LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Sudan: Sudan People
built 655 days ago
Sudan is aided by a large militia force comprising various Arab tribal peoples called the Janjaweed (“warriors on horseback”). The predations of the Khartoum government and its militia allies defy easy description. “The scale of the violence is indescribable. In every village they’re talking about hundreds of people killed,” said Coralie Lechelle, an emergency coordinator with Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) who in April returned after four months in Darfur.
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The Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) announced that it has seized three oil zones in the Banjio region in south-central Sudan. The news has ... not been confirmed by independent sources. According to a statement released by a rebel spokesman in Asmara(Eritrea), the SPLA has taken control of three areas near Heglig, base camp of the oil pipeline that supplies Port Sudan. For the moment there are no ulterior details in regard.
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The causes of the conflicts in the south, east and west of Sudan are complex: competition over resources (including oil reserves), power, and the nature of the state itself, among others. The effects are more easily described. Over two million people are dead. Six million people have been forced from their homes, giving Sudan the largest population of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the world. Some two million live in official camps or “squatter areas” around the capital Khartoum alone – the vast majority with no access to basic services. Thousands of women and children have been abducted and/or raped.
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During the 1980s, political instability in S Sudan increased, with renewed fighting by the largely Christian and animist Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). Motivated at least partly by a desire to shore up his popularity in the largely Muslim north, Nimeiry in 1983 instituted strict Islamic law, further inflaming opposition in the south. Having survived numerous earlier coup attempts, he was overthrown in 1985, and Gen. Abdul Rahman Swaredahab was installed as leader of a transitional military government. Elections were held in 1986 and a civilian government led by Sadiq al-Mahdi ruled until it was overthrown in a bloodless coup in 1989.
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Sudan contains more than fifty ethnic groups, which are subdivided into at least 570 tribes. The principal groups in the north are Arab, Beja, Nuba, Nubian, and Fur. Nearly half the population identifies itself as Arab, generally meaning peoples who speak Arabic and reflect its cultural heritage. The Arabs along the northern and central Nile valley tend to dominate Sudanese political and economic life. The Beja, who comprise 6 to 7 percent of the population, are concentrated in the east along the Red Sea and coastal mountain ranges; they are Muslim but speak a distinct language. The Nuba, residing in the Nuba mountains of southern Kordofan, are 5 percent of the population and ... speak their own languages, not Arabic; some are Muslim, others Christian or adherents of traditional African religious beliefs.
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A cease-fire was declared between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in July 2002. During peace talks, which continued through 2003, the government agreed to a power-sharing government for six years, to be followed by a referendum on self-determination for the south. Fighting on both sides continued throughout the peace negotiations. In May 2004, a deal between the government and the SPLA was signed, ending 20 years of brutal civil war that resulted in the deaths of 2 million people.
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