What comes next is a summary of the debacle.
Sudan won its independence from both the United Kingdom and Egypt on the first of January 1956 ("Sudan"). At that time the government was taken over by Arabic/Islamic leadership. This take-over was immediately met by opposition from the Christian/non-Islamic population of Sudanese people. The Christian vs. Islam standoff is where the battle began. The country would not see any sign of peace until almost twenty years later.
Sudan adopted its" first constitution in 1973 ("Sudan"). This was followed by a ten-year period of relative peace that lasted until 1983 ("Oil in Sudan - Deteriorating Human Rights") The war then raged on, coming to a boiling point in 1987, marked by over 320,000 southern Sudanese refugees fleeing to nearby Uganda (Nduru, Moyiaga).
The civil war being waged in Sudan is essentially a two-sided battle. The Islamist-led national government of the north, through the use of various armed forces, is attempting to virtually "wipe-out" the mostly Christian south. The central government is currently under the control of the National Islamic Front, or NIF ("Oil In Sudan - Deteriorating Human Rights"). The NIF is led by president/general Omar Hassan al-Bashir ("Oil In Sudan - Deteriorating Human Rights"). The party took control in a 1989 coup, and has since retained power ("Sudan"). The government strives for Sudan to become an Islamic state. An excerpt from an interview conducted in the International Crisis Group report on the subject of Sudan sums up the current goals of the central government.
The National Islamic Front wants to mould Sudanese society into a modern .
Islamic state, whose mission is internationalist. They seek to rebuild a true .
Islamic Society. This entails social engineering, reducing the diversity and .
multiple elements into a single conception of true Islam, which is their own .
version. It is the regimentation of all society into one vision (41).
