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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Sudan
Index
During World War II, some British colonial officers
questioned the economic and political viability of the southern
provinces as separate from northern Sudan. Britain also had
become more sensitive to Arab criticism of the southern policy.
In 1946 the Sudan Administrative Conference determined that Sudan
should be administered as one country. Moreover, the conference
delegates agreed to readmit northern administrators to southern
posts, abolish the trade restrictions imposed under the "closed
door" ordinances, and allow southerners to seek employment in the
north. Khartoum also nullified the prohibition against Muslim
proselytizing in the south and introduced Arabic in the south as
the official administration language.
Some southern British colonial officials responded to the
Sudan Administrative Conference by charging that northern
agitation had influenced the conferees and that no voice had been
heard at the conference in support of retaining the separate
development policy. These British officers argued that northern
domination of the south would result in a southern rebellion
against the government. Khartoum therefore convened a conference
at Juba to allay the fears of southern leaders and British
officials in the south and to assure them that a postindependence
government would safeguard southern political and cultural
rights.
Despite these promises, an increasing number of southerners
expressed concern that northerners would overwhelm them. In
particular, they resented the imposition of Arabic as the
official language of administration, which deprived most of the
few educated English-speaking southerners of the opportunity to
enter public service. They also felt threatened by the
replacement of trusted British district commissioners with
unsympathetic northerners. After the government replaced several
hundred colonial officials with Sudanese, only four of whom were
southerners, the southern elite abandoned hope of a peaceful,
unified, independent Sudan.
The hostility of southerners toward the northern Arab
majority surfaced violently when southern army units mutinied in
August 1955 to protest their transfer to garrisons under northern
officers. The rebellious troops killed several hundred
northerners, including government officials, army officers, and
merchants. The government quickly suppressed the revolt and
eventually executed seventy southerners for sedition. But this
harsh reaction failed to pacify the south, as some of the
mutineers escaped to remote areas and organized resistance to the
Arab-dominated government of Sudan.
Data as of June 1991
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