When Peace Kills Politics: International Intervention and Unending Wars in the Sudans

381 Pages·2021·2.089 MB·English

by  Sharath Srinivasan

WHEN PEACE KILLS POLITICS

SHARATH SRINIVASAN
When Peace Kills
Politics
International Intervention and
Unending W ars in the Sudans
HURST & COMPANY, LONDON
First published in the United Kingdom in 2021 by
C.Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd.,
83 Torbay Road, London NW6 7DT
Copyright © Sharath Srinivasan, 2021
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United Kingdom
The right of Sharath Srinivasan to be identified as the author of
this publication is asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
A Cataloguing-in-Publication data record for this book
is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 9781849048316
www.hurstpublishers.com
The author acknowledges Oxford University Press and the Royal African
Society as publishers of an earlier version of Chapter 5 ‘Negotiating violence:
Sudan’s peacemakers and the war in Darfur’, African Affairs vol. 113 (450),
pp. 24–44, 2014.
For my parents,
Saro and Srini
‘Srinivasan brings a high level of scholarship and a salutary scepticism to
the analysis of international diplomatic intervention in Sudan and South
Sudan. A major advance in understanding the interrelated failures of external
peacemaking and the local and national conflicts besetting the two countries.’
—John Ryle, Legrand Ramsey Professor of Anthropology, Bard College
‘Srinivasan proposes a novel approach to the question of why peacemaking
efforts in Sudan have reproduced violence and authoritarianism. This is a
masterful study of why the logic of international peacemaking may subvert
the potential for “non-violent civil politics.”’
—Khalid Medani, Associate Professor of Political Science and Islamic
Studies, McGill University
‘An innovative and provocative contribution to peacemaking theory and
practice. Srinivasan provides a thorough, comprehensive, and original
perspective on war and peace in the Sudans. This will be of enormous value
to peace practitioners, policy-makers, international relations experts, and
scholars of African politics alike.’
—Severine Autesserre, author of Peaceland and The Frontlines of Peace
‘Profoundly original and disturbing, this book is an urgent call for a radical
rethinking of international peacemaking anchored in civil political action.
If you read only one book on international peace interventions, this should
be it.’
—Rita Abrahamsen, Director of the Centre for International Policy
Studies, University of Ottawa
‘When Peace Kills Politics is a detailed appraisal of the peace process in the
Sudans, drawing attention to the inherent contradictions of peacemaking
itself. The argument is clear, consistent, important and true, and should
ensure it widespread attention.’
—Christopher Clapham, Professor Emeritus, Centre of African Studies,
University of Cambridge
‘By showing how a peace process can ignite violence and close off space for
necessary political discussion, this fine book deepens our understanding not
just of Sudan and South Sudan, but of peace processes more generally.’
—David Keen, Professor of Conflict Studies,
London School of Economics
‘Sudan’s military rulers signed numerous peace deals with rebel commanders
in recent decades. This book gives a lucid, thorough and challenging account
of how they worked and why they didn’t bring lasting peace, explaining the
vital importance of “people power”—the political agency of citizens. An
excellent read.’
—Eddie Thomas, author of South Sudan: A Slow Liberation
‘A corrective to conventional understandings of war and peace, this book
shows that the failure of peacemaking in the Sudans cannot be reduced to bad
design, poor implementation or duplicitous actors. Srinivasan explains how
peace efforts reinforced the logic of violence, undermining political solutions.
A catalyst for rethinking peacemaking and international intervention.’
—Matthew LeRiche, Assistant Professor of Global Studies, Ohio
University, and co-author of South Sudan: From Revolution to Independence
‘Srinivasan sheds merciless light on the inadequacies of international actors
who attempted to end Sudan’s wars. Excluding civilians from the peace process
left them dealing with warlords and political parties, who manipulated the
conflicts for their own benefit and left communities in ruins.’
—Martin Plaut, Senior Research Fellow, School of Advanced Study,
University of London
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
If this book was a river, then its sources were many and its course to
the sea was long and winding, with many tributaries, confluences and
waystations, and some harsh deserts too. Its most important beginning
was beside the great river that one is never destined to drink from only
once, during my first period living in Khartoum during tumultuous
times in 2003 and 2004. Some will know well that it is the Sudanese
who draw you in, bring you back, and whom you ever hold close.
The subtext of this book is my own journey to disassemble
perversions and ambivalences in the relationship between
encounterers and the encountered, intervenors and the intervened
upon, solvers and those whom they problematise perhaps just to make
sense of themselves. My hope is that this study makes a contribution to
recovering a more agentic and political understanding of the Sudanese as
their own world-makers, and to nourishing new possibilities for how
outsiders might act in solidarity with this. In Sudan and South Sudan,
though in different circumstances, that matters now more than ever.
Countless people and institutions made contributions to this book’s
journey. My research, in Sudan and on Sudan, over fifteen years, has
been supported by the generosity of many. I owe a debt of gratitude
first of all to the scores of Sudanese, South Sudanese and foreign
diplomats, analysts and practitioners who, in interviews, lent me
their time, thoughts, contacts and documents for my research, most of
whom remain anonymous. How I interpreted this material is of
course my responsibility alone. In my research, I have been fortunate to
share a passion and gain insight, advice and joy from interactions
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
with a number of Sudanese, South Sudanese and fellow ‘Sudanists’,
especially: Nada Mustafa Ali, Peter Biar Ajak, Suliman Baldo, Francis
Deng, David Deng, Omer Egemi, Abdel Ghaffar Ahmed, Magdi el-
Gizouli, the late Mansour Khalid, Guma Kunda Komey, Shafie el
Khidder Saeed, Jok Madut Jok, Alfred Sebit Lokuji, Leben Moro,
Suleiman Musa Rahhal, Rabah al-Saddiq, Al-Hajj Warrag; Benedetta
de Alessi, Brendan Bromwich, Sophia Dawkins, Laura James, Wendy
James, Douglas Johnson, David Keen, Nicki Kindersley, Dan Large,
Cherry Leonardi, Gill Lusk, Rosalind Marsden, Jason Matus, Zach
Mampilly, Sarah Nouwen, Joanna Oyediran, Sara Pantuliano, Phil
Roessler, John Ryle, Gunnar Sørbø, Eddie Thomas, Jérôme Tubiana,
Chris Vaughan, Harry Verhoeven, Aly Verjee, Alex de Waal, Justin
Willis and Philip Winter. My heartfelt thanks to Aislin Baker, Mark
Bryson-Richardson, Rebecca Dale, Nadia Ali Eltom, Julie Flint, Angus
McKee, Jenny Ross, Patty Swahn and Graham Thompson for generous
help that enabled various bouts of field research. The International
Rescue Committee, the British Embassy in Khartoum, the UK
Department for International Development and Minority Rights
Group International provided logistical support or opportunities for
field research alongside professional engagements. Thanks also to the
Acropole Hotel in Khartoum.
This study began as graduate research at the University of Oxford.
During that time, I was supported by funding from the ORISHA
(Oxford  Research in the Scholarship and Humanities of Africa)
scholarship, the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway, the Oxford
Clarendon Fund, the British Chevening Scholarships programme, and
the Overseas Student Research Awards Scheme. Jocelyn Alexander
was a wise, incisive and always generous supervisor of my doctoral
work. David Anderson, Barbara Harris-White, Henry Shue and the
late Raufu Mustapha were excellent teachers. For their friendship and
solidarity from that time, I will always be grateful to Alexey Smirnov,
Virginia Horscroft, Mayur Patel, Hannah Morris, Irina Mosel, Jason
Mosley, Phil Clark, Ricardo Soares de Oliviera, Nic Cheeseman, Steph
Topp, Liz Kistin, Adam Higazi, Ben Tolley, Dot Brady, Anne Roemer-
Mahler, Ami Shah, Narae Choi, Zuzanna Olszewska and Anokhi Parikh.
I renewed and revived this project at the University of Cambridge,
in the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) and
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