Sudan is a vast country in terms of land. “Its total area was reduced from 2,500,000 km2 to 1, 88200 km2 following the independence of South Sudan in 2011” (Mahgoub 2014)2 . It is located in the Northeast part of the continent and extends from latitude 3 degrees to 23 degrees north and from longitude 22 degrees to 39 degrees east. It is 2100 km from north to south and about 1800 km from east to west (The Ministry of Economic and National Planning 1991). Thus, it is located at the cross road of Africa, this vast land provides a meeting place for various civilizations and cultures such as the Pharonic, Christian, and Islam with indigenous ones (The Republic of Sudan 1983). Moreover, the country shares its border with seven African countries; Egypt and Libya to the north, Eritrea, Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, Central African Republic and Chad to the west (The Nile Basin Capacity Building Network 2015). The Red Sea forms part of the eastern border (The Republic of Sudan 1983). Generally, Sudan has an assortment of ecological and climatic conditions; the landscape variations are remarkable indeed. The country is divided into five distinct zones: desert, semi-desert, woodland savannah, fold region and montane (Mahgoub 2014). The important geographical feature of the Sudan is the River Nile, which traverses this vast territory from south to north and divides the country into two parts (Caas 2007). The White Nile enters Sudan from Uganda (south) and the Blue Nile flows from Ethiopia (east), the confluence is at the capital, Khartoum, from where the River Nile travels north to Egypt and Mediterranean Sea (Collins 2008).

Fragile States, Resource Governance and Civil Conflict

Following to the end of cold war and occurrence of multilateral sources of insecurity conditions to a country, visibly, there is a growing body of literature focusing on the characters of the fragile states and their influences on state capacity, resource governance and political turmoil. However, majority of active civil wars in developing countries such as in Sudan, Afghanistan, and Yemen contribute their elements to state fragility, poverty and slow economic and political development. While there is no uniformly, commonly accepted definition of fragile states, yet, a variety of the current definitions reveal similar kinds of fragility and failures, these including lack of the state capacity in terms of service delivery, providing security to its citizens and resource governance. The Centre for Research on Inequality and Social Exclusion CRISE (2009), defines fragile states as “states that are „failing, or at danger of failing, with respect to authority, comprehensive socioeconomic entitlements or governance legitimacy”. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development OECD (2011) similarly defines fragile states as those characterized by limited capacity to perform development and securing basic needs to its citizens. Others extend the definition of fragility beyond the delivery of services to include lack of a state capacity in terms of providing security and protect its border. Nay (2012) provides that fragile states are those unable or unwilling to respond to the challenges of security and governance within their national boundaries. The United State Agency for International Development USAID (2005) offers that:

fragile states as those in which the central government does not exert significant control over its own territory or its unable or unwilling to assure the provision of vital services to significant parts of its territory where legitimacy of the government is weak or non-existent, and where violent conflict is a realty or a great risk.

Regarding resource governance and conflict nexus, the majority of current definitions consent on similar kinds of failure and fragility. Accordingly, Bates (2008) defines that fragile state is a state which has weak governance system, weak institutions and failed to govern its available resources, distribute their generated wealth, and thus experienced long civil wars. The good examples of those states are countries like Serra Leone, Liberia, Sudan and Indonesia. Moreover, Silve (2012) approves that a fragile state is a country which witnesses political competition over resource revenue; the failure in developing of property right institutions, resource management capacity and sharing of revenue cause political competition among individuals, groups in mineral –rich countries. In an interesting way Collier and Venables (2010) argue that weak governance occurs when a discovered mineral resource has a negative impact on governance and institutions performance, due to sever of political corruption in mineral sector, lack of accountability and rule of law. In the same way Ushie (2013) reveals that “low revenue transparency, weak regulatory institutions, public corruption, resources driven conflict and political crises are all linked to poor extractive sector governance”. Some made a link between fragility, misuse of resource and instability to that of poor resource governance sustainability and security in fragile states due to misuse of mineral revenue. However, in different countries mineral revenue is used to empower illegal government and illegal armed activities similar to the case of Southern Rhodesia, DR Congo (Loraine and Rickard-Martin 2013).

Fragile states are therefore, the states that are characterised by the lack of capacity in terms of providing basic goods to their citizens, (e.g. security, protect territory, socioeconomic services), often lack of legitimacy, failed to manage their available resources and eventually prone to conflicts. This broad definition of fragile state distinguishes between the concepts of fragile and failed states. However, the later concept refers to the states are those that are: “marked by the collapse of central government authority to impose order, resulting in loss of physical control of territory, and/or the monopoly over the legitimate use of force. Crucially, it can no longer reproduce the conditions for its own existence” (The Crisis States 2007).

Or failed states are those that are mired in or at a risk of conflict and instability; where the persistence of violence causes state structures to become ineffectual (Huria 2008). Such failed states are among poorest and unstable countries in the world, countries including some African, Asian and Latin America countries. As the Global Policy Forum (2005) offers that:

Failed states can no longer perform basic functions such as education, security, or governance, usually due to fractious violence or extreme poverty. Within this power vacuum, people fall victim to competing factions and crime, and sometimes the United Nations or neighbouring states intervene to prevent a humanitarian disaster. However, states fail not only because of internal factors. Foreign governments can also knowingly destabilize a state by fuelling ethnic warfare or supporting rebel forces, causing it to collapse.

From these definitions, observations made were that, the meaning of fragile state is different from failed or failing state. Though, the two concepts meet in one or two characteristics (i.e. weak performing in basic services delivery). The concept of failed state often refers to a state that is living a state of war and failures in terms of loss of control of its borders, use of legitimate power and force. While, fragile state is a state that is at risk to collapse and fails in responding to one or two of its constituted functions (e.g. providing basic goods, border protections or lack of legitimacy) and vulnerable or suspected to conflict and crisis.

The above assessed literature provided a good explanation of fragile state which is often prone to political disorder. Moreover, the literature focusing on the relationship between fragility situation, resource governance and conflict, illustrate the case of current study. Nevertheless, the points argued by Silve (2012); Ushie (2013) and Collier and Venables (2010) provide a more interesting and promising account, and are in agreement with the researcher. Yet, in all countries which witnessed resource conflict including Sudan, it appears that natural resources issue directly hinder the development of political stability due to political and armed struggle between governments, regional armed or organized groups over control and benefit of mineral resources and their wealth. However, poor resource governance, lack of transparency and accountability in mineral sector, unfair distribution of mineral revenue among regions and people, cause natural resources driven conflict and lasting instability in vast countries with available resources.

The history of modern Sudan goes back to thousands of years B.C. Its composition came as a result of combined internal and external factors, and several immigrations. The country was under the colonialist condominium rule (The Anglo- Egyptian rule 1899-1956), and granted independence in 1956 (Report 1971). Owing to its independence, Sudan has experienced different political-administrative systems ranging between single-unitary and regional one. At present day, Sudan is a sovereign federal state that is ruled by presidential system since 1994. Administratively, a regional division reflects ethnic and cultural diversity of the country. Before the secession of south Sudan, the country contained nine regions; northern Sudan consists of six regions and southern Sudan consists of three regions. Khartoum is the national capital in the north and always referred to as the centre of power. Lately, these nine regions were divided into 26 states with sixteen in north and ten in south (The Presidency of Sudan government 1995). Prior to the current military regime for salvation (Al‟engaz) 1989, the country experienced different types of ruling systems; these included military regimes (i.e.1958-1964 and 1969-1985) and electing civilian one (i.e. 1964-1969 and 1985-1989). However, the totalitarian regimes are dominated through its short-lived independent age. The later has lived more than two decades.

Source: Ndulu, B.J. et al (2008).

In addition to an incessant governance change, the political history of Sudan has been marked by political disarray and regional rivalry for most of the past sixty years. Since independence prolonged conflict rotted in political marginalization, ethnic diversity and regional disparities have slowed Sudan‟s political, economic development and nation building. In fact, the political instability and ethno-regional strive against the central government dates back to the era of national movement in the 1940s. Elements of weak governance in terms of govern its diversity and its addressing of regional‟s political, economic grievances; have stimulated the emergence of the regional political movements appealing to ethnic-regional loyalties. These included, for the example, Sudan African National Union of southern Sudan in 1947, Beja movement in east Sudan in 1950s, Union of north and south Funj in Blue Nile area 1953 (Beshir 1984 ). After the independence, these movements developed into armed groups with deferent political, economic demands centred on power and wealth sharing. This is manifested in current armed movements in the south, west and eastern Sudan since 1955 up to date (Suleiman 2012). Table 4.4 below depicts the most historical and modern parties and movements involved in the armed conflict in Sudan.

Table 2

Northern parties armed groups	Southern parties and armed groups
National Congress party (NCP). The ruling party. Found in 1998.	Anya Nya 1955-72
The national Democratic Alliance (NDA ) was founded in October 1989 to unite the opposition against the then n NCP government	SPLM/A 1983- 2005
Sudan alliance forces	Union of Sudan African Parties (USAP):
SPLM/A – N Nuba mountains 1985	South Sudan Defence Forces (SSDF): founded in 1997

Source: Komey (2010).

Major Conflicts in Sudan

The independent Sudan has been at violent conflicts with itself; often occurring between its various ethnic groups in one region and between regional-armed groups and the central government in the capital (Khartoum). “These conflicts have affected over 60 percent of the country mainly in regions of south, west and east Sudan” (The United Nations Assessment 2007). Unrest over political marginalization and economic issues has continued to motivate conflicts in these areas, where the central government historically denies their demands regarding power and wealth sharing. This resulted in the development of regional demands for federal, autonomy governance and secession. This will be reviewed in detail.

The war between North and South Sudan

North and south Sudan experienced extended periods of civil war as was the longest conflict in the continent. It was broke out in 18/8/1955 just before formal independence in Torit, south (The British Documents on the Sudan 1956). The conflict has often been presented as one between an Arab/Muslim north and an African/Christian south (Jadyin 2002). In the modern history of Sudan there were two wars between north and south from 1955-1972 and from 1983-2005. The first phase of war was settled in 1972 following the signing of Addis Ababa accord. After ten years of peace the second phase was started in 1983 and eventually came to an end in 2005 following to the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). Some sources of the wars can be traced back to the political marginalization, uneven development, ethnic and cultural difference between the north and south (Beshir 1968). However, the south region is considered totally different and undeveloped in comparison to the north (The British Documents on Sudan 1947). Beyond these obvious sources, the root causes of the war dated back to colonial administration in Sudan (1899-1956). The British administration, had adopted the southern policy (1920-1947). The political objective of this policy was to achieve a division between the south and the north (MacMichael 1954). Therefore, the earlier policies to separate the south dated back to the early 1920s, when the general- governor of the colonial‟s administration declared the closed district area ordinance. Under this act, all the areas of Darfur, Equatorial, and Upper Nile, part of southern Kordofan, Elgazeera and Kassala are

considered closed zones (Beshir 1968). The aim was to limit the spread of Arabic and Islamic culture, by limiting the movement of northern traders (Abd-Rhim 1969). However, the southern policy was the aim of the colonial‟s administration to encourage, as far as possible, Christian, Greeks and Syrian traders rather than the northerners, Arab -Muslim traders (MacMichael 1954). Indeed, this policy succeeded to develop two conflicting cultures which served enmity between the two parts of Sudan, also encouraged conflict that erupted even before Sudan gained its independence.

In addition to the colonial‟s administration role in the Sudanese war, the external intervention played by the third parties (i.e. neighbouring countries) is considerable in prolonging civil war duration in Sudan. In both Sudanese wars, external intervention played an important role in the organization and financing of rebel movements. However, external intervention in the second insurgency led by the SPLM/A has been particularly high (Johnson and Prunier 1993 cited in Adel Gadir etal 2005). Countries such as Ethiopia, Uganda and Eritrea have all been involved in support of SPLA/M. Until 1991, Ethiopia provided the main launching and training grounds and military supplies for SPLA/M (The Human Rights Watch 1998). Eritrea offered training bases in its western region starting 1995 and publicly supported Sudan opposition forces; Eritrea also gave the National Democratic Alliance official headquarters (Adel Gadir et al 2005). Similarly, Uganda supported the SPLA by providing access to arms and at times sending its own troops across the Sudan border in military campaigns involving actual combat (The Human Rights Watch 1998). The Sudanese civil war has also attracted the interest of Israel and several Arab and African countries as well as the USA, since the 1990s, either being supported the central government or rebels due to political, cultural and religion allied factors (Adel Gadir et al 2005).

In short, the war in the south has yielded negative consequences in the country‟s political relations; it caused the country to split into two parts, north/south, Arabs /Africans, Muslim/ Christian. In addition to regional disparity between the north and south, the role played by external actors in the war, may all be considered as the main reasons that had fuelled the civil wars and encouraged a secession sensation among the southerners.

During 1990s, the spirit of animosity became less rigorous and the chance towards peace had enhanced between the Sudanese. This is because the two conflicting parties understood that victory is difficult to either party. Additionally, a lot of efforts had been undertaken by various regional and international bodies to support peace and stability in Sudan. Several peace initiatives and rounds were set out, hosted by African countries, since the late of the 1980s. Among the major efforts are the Addis Ababa meeting 1989, Abuja Peace talks 1992, Abuja Peace negotiation (2) 1993, Nairobi talks 1993, Peace Negotiation 1994, the Igad Declaration of Principle 1994 and Machakos Protocol 2002. As a result, these collaborated efforts had paved a way towards the signing of the CPA in 2005. This agreement was between the central government and SPLM/A brought to an end two decades of war in Sudan. The peace partners agreed to a democratic transformation, equal development, enhancement of peace, sharing of wealth and power, self-determination of the south Sudan after six years interim periods (The Comprehensive Peace Agreement 2005).

The war in Northern Regions (South Kordofan, Blue Nile and West, East Sudan)

There are currently several conflicts in Sudan, including those in South Kordofan / Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile, Darfur and East Sudan regions. These conflicts are attributable to several root causes, including political marginalization, as people in these regions were neglected to participate in governance affairs, and economic disparity, which is due to uneven development between the centre and regions as well as ethno- cultural disparity which is due to regard Arab race, culture and beliefs as dominant characteristic in diverse Sudan. This element feature of the Sudanese political realm has continued to plague conflict between central governments and regional movements since 1980s to date (The Humanitarian Policy Groups 2012).

Basically, the conflicts in Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile are dated back to 1980s. Both regions inhabited by blacks – non Arab descent and divided into dozens of sub-groups, they co-exist with number of Arab

pastoral tribes such as Baggarah, Hawazma and west Africa people; believe in both Islam and Christianity (Komey 2008 and Delmet 2004 ). In the past, the colonial‟s administration attempted to integrate them with the south Sudan, but their administration has always been affiliated to the north since the independence in 1956 (The Sudan Government Gazette 1956). Moreover, the colonial‟s administration attempted to split the people of the two regions from the northern part of Sudan. According to the Closed Districted Area act (1922) as parts of these two areas were considered closed zone, equal to the southern region (The Government of Sudan 1922). In fact, the people of both Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile areas shared the southerners‟ some negorid features, African culture and beliefs. A matter lately, has led to strong relationship with southern rebels, this, in addition to political and socio-economic marginalization that illustrate the situation in these areas, Nuba Mountains in particular (The International Crisis Group 2013). Such marginalization of the two areas had encouraged their people to join the southern rebellion under the leadership of the SPLM/A when the war resumed in 1983 (The Africa Watch 1991).

It‟s very important to mention that, during the second phase of war (1983 to 2005), the SPLM/A‟s strategy was to bring the war to the north and seize certain key areas of which it did when it succeeded in the mid of 1980s in finding footsteps in the two areas (The Africa Watch 1992). Both the Nubba Mountains and Blue Nile are regarded as important areas over which the conflict is currently ongoing between SPLM and the National Congress Party. This is due to their strategic location and rich resources such as oil and gold (The International Crisis Group 2013). After signing the peace agreement in 2005, the two areas have been relatively safe, and their issues were addressed in a special protocol that agreed to estimated autonomy and development as well as the sharing of national wealth (The Protocol on Conflict Resolution in South Kordofan / Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile 2004).

Elsewhere, in west Sudan, the resource-rich region of Darfur remains as the most recent contested area in the country, ever since it has been wrecked by violent conflict since 2003. The conflict in the region is a typical north-south Africa civil war, consisting of multiple overlapping conflicts turning into a large – scale offensive moves by the government army, militias, proxies and rebels, during the 2001-2003 and to date (The Max-Planck Institute 2010). In Darfur, the conflict is common as the region experienced a history of a series of prolonged violence. Essentially, the conflict was mostly tribal one that occurred as a result of competition over pastures, land ownership and use; due to the scarcity of natural resources, usually happened between sedentary and nomadic tribes since 1980s (The International Commission Report 2004). Unlike the past, the violence has gradually evolved to become more complex and spread to other regions and unresolved by traditional means found decades ago in the history of the region as an easy peaceful means to settle conflict between the rivals. Nonetheless, the violence had grown into a civil war since February 2003, with the rebels; the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM/A) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) fighting against the government and its backing militias (The Human Rights Watch 2004). At present- day, the conflict turns into political confrontation between the government and rebels demanding greater self-rule and increased share of national wealth. This is due to inadequate allocation of wealth, power to the region, even though it‟s rich in natural resources which included minerals and animal wealth which contributes to the national wealth (Adamu 2008). Therefore, the root causes of the conflict in the region can be categorized into:

Source: Elzain (2003).

As conflict in the region grew complicated, and involved many actors and reasons. Moreover, it has influenced human, local, national and regional security such that the issue of Darfur became an international affair. The Security Council of the United Nation concerned; more attention was given to this issue where pressure was applied on the conflicting parties; both the central government and rebellion groups. At long last a number of resolutions were reached aiming towards bringing an end to the violence in the region in order to achieve stability and ensure security for the civilian. These included, for the example, the UN resolution No. 1593 (2005), the UN resolution No. 1679 (2006), the UN resolution No. 1706 (2006) and UN resolution No. 1663 (2006). As a result of regional and international efforts, two peace agreements were signed, in Abuja 2006 and Doha 2011, under the auspices of African Union and Qatar government, however, the final peace is yet to be reached.

Whereas the conflicts in South Sudan, Darfur, Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile got a majority of the focus and were viewed as the contemporary political unrest in Sudan. A parallel conflict has also grown in Sudan‟s eastern region. The region‟s three states (Al-gadarif, Kassala and Red Sea) witnessed a conflict spiralled from low degree violence to armed conflict under the command of Beja group since the mid of 1990s, owed to grievances, historically enclose a need for political participation and sharing of the national wealth (Assal and Ali 2007). The region is of paramount strategic importance to the central government. “It includes Port- Sudan, the country‟s economic lifeline, through which most of its foreign trade passes, including oil exportation pipeline, many irrigated and semi-mechanized agricultural schemes” (The International Crisis Group 2006). Like all marginalized areas in Sudan, the east Sudan suffered from poor, mal-development and lack of representation in Sudan government. Thus, the people of the eastern Sudan have struggled with the successive governments in Khartoum for greater political autonomy and wealth sharing since independence (The International Crisis Group 2006). Since founded in 1950s, the Beja Congress has started working on political and economic development of the Beja, a dominant ethnic group in the region. For a period of time, the struggle was peaceful. However, “dictatorial successive regimes in Khartoum led Beja Congress (BC) politicians to move to Eretria, join the National Democratic Alliance, and launch an armed struggle in the early 1990s” (Young 2007). Moreover, the Beja Congress politicians have endeavoured to develop their political platform to other groups living in eastern Sudan. This led to the formation of the Eastern front; an alliance joined the Beja Congress and the Rashida Free Lions in 2005 (Pantulinao 2005). Under the umbrella of eastern front the Beja Congress and the Rashaida Free Lions Group raised their campaigns against the central government in the east region. The two sides of the Alliance declared that the sharing of power and wealth would pave the road towards realizing peace and stability in the region (The International Crisis Group 2006). Recently, the conflict was brought to its end by the signing of the Eastern Sudan Peace Agreement (ESPA), between the central government and the Eastern Front (The Beja Congress and the Free Lions) in 2006. The agreement promised the region of wealth and power sharing, security arrangement and establishment of the East reconstruction fund (The East Peace Agreement 2006).

Figure 1

Source: Adapted by the Researcher

Note: 1= East front, 2= Darfur, 3= Nuba mountains and 4= Blue Nile

Source: CPA (2005); ESPA (2006) and DPA (2006).

Generally speaking, although peace is signed between the central government and rebels in 2005-2006, it has failed to reduce tension between many of the Sudanese mostly in the regions of Darfur, south Kordofan and Blue Nile. Unrest over power and wealth sharing between the centre and the region has continued to plague the country, where peace was fragile and failed to address these issues and to bring the conflict to an end. Apparently, in Sudan there are many political and socio- economic challenges interacted together to threat Sudan‟s political realm. The centre still dominates over power and wealth and the regions continue with their demands for fair political representation in the Sudanese government and adequate share of the country‟s wealth. This required major reforms in areas of governance and fiscal relationship between the centre and the regions as well as balance development between the entire-regions. This is because; the failure to address these historical challenges will simply resurface the conflict in any part of the country and thus threaten its unity and stability.

1. Russell K. H., Roth B. J. (2019). Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology. Elsevier.

2. Rubin B. A.:(2014). Fundamentals of Biophysics. Wiley, Scrivenes P.

3. Békésy G. Experiments in hearing. NewYork ,Toronto, London: McGraw-Hill Book Comp;1960

4. Wu MY, Yiang GT. Curent mechanistic concepts in reperfusion injury. Cell Physiol Biochem. 2018;46(10):1650–1667

5. Waigh T. A. (2007). Applied Biophysics: A Molecular Approach for Physical Scientists. Per. P.

6. Hamilton W. J. (2018). Textbook of human anatomy. Oxford P.

7. Berne R. M., Levy M. N. et all. (2014). Physiology. 7th Mosley, Elsevier.

Sudan was the Africa‟s largest country, after South Sudan‟s secession and reduction of its total area from 2,500,000 km2 to 1, 88200 km2 , it became third after Algeria and Democratic Republic of Congo (The Sudan Tribune 2015).