The United States, Sudan, and Senator Obama

In January 2005 the Sudanese government and SPLM/A signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). In addition to ending the long Second Civil War, national multiparty elections were required by 2009, and by January 2011 the South would decide in a referendum on the matter of secession. Though SPLM/A leader John Garang became president of the Southern Sudanese government (and first vice president of Khartoum’s National Unity government), he died in a helicopter crash later that year (2005). Salva Kiir, Southern Sudanese vice president, became the interim South Sudan government’s new president.⁸ The CPA, signed just before President George W. Bush’s second inauguration, was considered a victory for US diplomacy. According to Herman J. Cohen—former secretary of defense for the Clinton administration—Bush could take pride in the fact that he had achieved his primary political objective of ending the oppression of English-speaking southern Sudanese Christians by the Arabic-speaking government. “He had merited the trust invested in him by the evangelical base of the Republican Party in the Bible belt states.”⁹ Due to the massive killing in Darfur, the Bush administration labeled the Sudanese government guilty of genocide within the Geneva Convention’s definition. In May 2007 Bush imposed new economic penalties on Sudan: these blocked the assets of those Sudanese implicated in the violence and sanctioned government-owned or -controlled companies. It is worth noting that under President Bush, Black Americans held the government’s highest positions in shaping foreign policy. Jendayi Frazer served as Bush’s assistant secretary of state for African Affairs from 2005 until President Obama entered office, and Bush appointed two African American secretaries of state in succession (Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice).¹⁰

Preceding this foreign policy work by African Americans in the Bush administration was the labor of one Susan Rice. A graduate of Stanford University and Oxford University, Rice served as special assistant to President Clinton and senior director for African Affairs at the National Security Council from 1993 to 1997. She subsequently served as US assistant secretary of state for African affairs from 1997 to 2001. While Clinton’s choice of the relatively inexperienced and young Rice for that position did not fit the typical profile, it did with respect to race (as a post typically held by African Americans). In the absence of an established record, race became more salient for Black Americans and Africans responding to her selection and appointment as assistant secretary of state for Africa. Rice successfully encouraged the Clinton administration to impose sweeping sanctions on Sudan, barring any American or corporation from doing business in the country. Rice left the State Department upon Bush’s arrival in the White House, and for the next few years she was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. In that capacity, she conducted research and published extensively on matters that included US foreign policy, transnational security threats, and weak states.¹¹

In time, Rice would play a formative role in the Obama administration’s relationship with South Sudan. Before that, however, Sudan occupied a central place in Obama’s rise to the presidency during his years as a US senator.

As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2005 to 2008, Obama was at the forefront of the effort to end the genocide in Darfur. On April 30, 2006, he spoke at Save Darfur: Rally to Stop Genocide. Held on the National Mall before the US Capitol, the event aimed to raise awareness of the genocide and apply public pressure on the Bush administration to act. Thousands of protesters attended the rally, along with politicians and celebrities carrying signs demanding that the administration to take greater steps to end the slaughter. Kweisi Mfume (former NAACP president and CEO), Joe Madison, and Rev. Al Sharpton were among those who attended the rally along with Senator Obama.¹² “Today,” Obama shared, “we know what is right and what is wrong. The slaughter of innocents is wrong. Two million people driven from their homes is wrong. Women gang raped while gathering firewood is wrong. Silence, acquiescence, paralysis in the face of genocide is wrong.”¹³ “If we care, the world will care,” he said. “If we act, then the world will follow.”¹⁴ The NAACP’s Crisis reported that Obama was a major voice at the rally, and Jet reported that he and actor George Clooney had attended a news conference at Washington DC’s National Press Club to draw awareness to the situation in Darfur. “The notion that we are going to stand by in the face of this is unacceptable,” Obama shared.¹⁵

As the summer of 2006 waned, Obama embarked on a two-week fact-finding tour of Africa. He stopped in Chad—which borders Sudan to the west—to highlight the worsening situation in Darfur. Fighting had resumed between government forces and Darfur rebels despite a May peace agreement. The senator visited refugees from Darfur at a camp in eastern Chad and called for the United States to take the lead in getting peacekeepers to Darfur. “I think what struck me was how anxious and eager the people in the camps are to get the U.N. protective force on the ground,” Obama said at the time. “I think there’s a sense that without that U.N. protective force, they will never be able to go back home. And they continue to feel vulnerable because the border is so porous.” While his trip coincided with a UN Security Council resolution calling for a 20,000-strong peacekeeping force to Darfur to replace the African Union troops struggling to keep the peace, the resolution stipulated that the Sudanese government would have to give the UN its blessing. It did not.¹⁶ Senator Obama worked with Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) to pass the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act. Passed by the Senate on September 21, 2006, the act conveyed Congress’s sense that the horrors in Darfur constituted genocide and that US and international involvement was needed in that region. Among other measures, the act directed President Bush to block the assets of anyone complicit or responsible for the genocide and to and deny them visas. It also expressed Congress’s sense that President Bush should sanction anyone who impeded the peace process and authorized him to help reinforce an expanded African Union Mission in Sudan.¹⁷

When Obama announced that he was running for president, he stated that his first priority was ending the Iraq War.¹⁸ Sudan also figured into his platform. His campaign website said: “[I am] deeply concerned by reports that the Bush Administration is negotiating a normalization of relations with the Government of Sudan… . This reckless and cynical initiative would reward a regime in Khartoum that has a record of failing to live up to its commitments.”¹⁹ In May 2008 candidate Obama joined in a statement demanding that the genocide in Darfur be ended and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement completely implemented.²⁰ During his campaign Obama called the Darfur crisis “a collective stain on our national and human conscience” and said that on the first day of his administration he would prioritize ending the tragedy. He promised to appoint a special envoy concerning Darfur and to implement the CPA.²¹

Perhaps the most compelling Sudan-related moment during his campaign occurred at a San Francisco fund-raiser where two men—Dave Eggers and Valentino Achak Deng—presented Obama with a signed copy of their book What Is the What. Eggers was a best-selling author, and Deng was a Lost Boy. (The term “Lost Boys of Sudan” was given to some Sudanese refugees who resettled in Canada, Australia, and the United States.) What Is the What chronicles Deng’s life from the time he was separated from his family, including years in Ethiopian and Kenyan refugee camps and encounters with Western culture beginning in Atlanta.²² “We had a brief talk about what has happening in Sudan,” Eggers remembered later. “Some of the book takes place in a part of the continent [Obama] knows quite a lot about.” Eggers later learned through a call from Politico that Obama had read his book. “It’s surreal. There’s no brain I respect more than Obama’s. To have occupied his time for a few hours … it’s a profound honor.” Obama reportedly enjoyed the book so much that he eventually urged his White House aides to read it.²³

Sudan played a central role in Barack Obama’s foreign policy agenda. Although the US senator from Illinois and Democratic presidential candidate never set foot in the country, he met with Sudanese refugees during his trip to Chad, advocated for an end to the violence in Darfur, and supported the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Later, during his first term in the White House, Obama’s engagement with Sudan would assume greater importance. Two Black women helped him steer the US relationship with Sudan and what soon became the world’s newest nation, South Sudan.

Sudan Policy in Obama’s First Term

Following his historic election, President Obama nominated Susan Rice to become ambassador to the United Nations. Rice had served on his presidential campaign staff, and her ability to provide foreign policy advice to the campaign built on her previous experience as assistant secretary of state for Africa under Clinton. In her tenure as ambassador to the UN (which ended in 2013), Rice played an integral role in formulating the White House’s approach to Sudan and the all-important southern Sudanese independence referendum.²⁴

In March 2009 President Obama appointed retired major general Scott Gration as his special envoy to Sudan. While Rice says that she got along fine with Gration, major policy differences on Sudan emerged between the two. He favored a more accommodating approach to the Sudanese government, publicly cast doubt on the continuance of genocide in Darfur, and recommended that the US ease sanctions and lift Sudan’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. “As the administration conducted its first review of Sudan policy,” Rice records, “I argued strenuously at the Principals’ table [Principals Committee of the National Security Council] that we should not give rewards to Sudan without concrete, irreversible changes in their policies and actions.” As the Sudan policy review continued, Rice sensed that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton might be leaning toward an accommodationist position (leaving Rice, consequently, more isolated as an advocate for a conditional approach). After perceiving that some in the White House may have been mischaracterizing her positions to President Obama, Rice says, “I took what was for me the rare step of invoking my privilege as a principal and member of the cabinet to write a memo directly to the president outlining my concerns about the direction of the policy review and explaining my recommended approach.”²⁵

In July 2009 Obama made his first speech before the UN General Assembly as president. In addition to pressing the UN to reassert itself as a leading force in addressing the most urgent issues, Obama also looked to distance his administration from the Bush administration’s unilateral policies. He specifically referenced Sudan: “We will strengthen our support for effective peacekeeping while energizing our efforts to prevent conflicts before they take hold. We will pursue a lasting peace in Sudan through support for the people of Darfur and the implementation of the comprehensive peace agreement so that we secure the peace that the Sudanese people deserve.”²⁶ When the Sudan policy review concluded three months later and Obama had rendered his decision, Susan Rice was content with the outcome: Khartoum wouldn’t receive any major benefits unless their actions on southern Sudan and Darfur changed significantly and permanently. In addition, they agreed to a list of penalties that would be inflicted should Sudan’s behavior continue or regress.²⁷

In the summer of 2010, Obama summoned his Sudan team to the Oval Office. According to Denis McDonough—who at the time was the chief of staff for the National Security Council (NSC)—the president stated that he would not allow a return to violence between northern and southern Sudan. Rice remembers that as the referendum approached there were several causes of concern. Though six years had elapsed since the CPA had been signed (2005), thorny issues between North and South hadn’t been resolved. Electoral arrangements were behind schedule, and fears grew that the Sudanese government would not fulfill its pledge to allow the vote to occur. When UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon proposed a foreign-minister-level meeting on the edges of the annual gathering of world leaders at the General Assembly’s September 2010 opening, Rice recommended that President Obama attend. She believed that his presence could transform the meeting into a significant summit a little over three months before the referendum. The president did attend. He insisted that the CPA be completely implemented, that the referendum be held safely and on time, and warned of more pressure and isolation for those who violated their commitments. However, Obama also offered better relations between the United States and Sudan, more trade and investment connections, and an exchange of ambassadors if Sudan kept its commitments (including assured accountability for war crimes in Darfur). Rice contends that his intervention and the prospects of improved relations with the United States probably compelled Sudan to allow the vote to go on.²⁸ “At this moment,” Obama said, “the fate of millions of people hangs in the balance … what happens in Sudan matters to all of sub-Saharan Africa, and it matters to the world.”²⁹

Two weeks after the September UN meeting, Rice led a Security Council delegation to Khartoum, Darfur, and southern Sudan. During the southern Sudanese portion of the trip, they pressured SPLM leaders to ready themselves to govern in service of their constituents “rather than in the insular, corrupt fashion to which they had already grown accustomed.” According to Rice, the delegation’s meetings in Khartoum allowed them to reiterate the need to allow the upcoming referendum to proceed without interference.³⁰ President Obama sent diplomat Princeton Lyman to Juba to help facilitate negotiations on unresolved matters leading up to the vote, and throughout the autumn of 2010 the NSC’s McDonough led nightly meetings of Sudan policy makers. While the group discussed what incentives to offer the Sudanese government in exchange for allowing the South to secede, they determined that they could not force the parties to concur on anything except the referendum. In December 2010, mere weeks before the epochal vote, Voice of America reported that Obama had spoken by phone with southern Sudanese leader Salva Kiir to express support for the referendum.³¹

The referendum occurred over a week beginning on January 9, 2011.³² The African American news and culture website The Root posted Zachariah Mamphilly’s report on the historic occasion. Mamphilly, an assistant professor of political science and Africana studies at Vassar College, provided a poetic description. “They have returned to this part of Africa traveling via every type of transport or simply on foot. After decades in exile in foreign lands or displaced internally from their own homelands, Southern Sudanese have begun to claim their own future.” Mamphilly noted that the returnees’ stories were familiar, with tales of destroyed lives, lost relatives, and unspeakable pain. However, he continued, a sense of optimism now mixed with anxiety. Noting that rarity of one’s chance to see the birth of a new country, he said that he was reminded of scenes of Black South Africans lining up in 1994 to vote. “But even after 10 years of visiting and writing about Sudan, it is hard as an outsider to convey the powerful emotions that this long-suffering population is experiencing. All I know is that at this moment, at this place on earth, something special is happening.”³³

Five hundred international monitors reported no interference or intimidation from either the northern or southern governments. The North, to be sure, had a special incentive to refrain from interfering: the Obama administration had offered the Bashir regime a plan to normalize US-Sudan relations (including removing economic sanctions, establishing full diplomatic recognition, and taking Sudan off the list of terrorist-sponsoring countries). In the end, 98.8 percent of voters opted for southern independence.³⁴ On January 16, President Obama released a statement on the referendum. He began by congratulating the Sudanese people and government on the conclusion of the vote. “The sight of so many Sudanese casting their votes in a peaceful and orderly fashion was an inspiration to the world and a tribute to the determination of the people and leaders of south Sudan to forge a better future.” He also commended the Referendum Commission, Referendum Board, domestic and international observers, the UN Mission in Sudan, “and most of all, the voters, who turned out in high numbers and high spirits to take their turn at the ballot box.” The American people wanted Sudan to have a bright future, he said, and the United States would continue to help the parties amid the obstacles and opportunities ahead.³⁵ Nine days later, Obama incorporated the referendum results into his State of the Union address. Speaking before Congress and millions of television viewers, he stated, “In south Sudan—with our assistance—the people were finally able to vote for independence after years of war… . One man who lost four of his brothers at war summed up the scene around him: ‘This was a battlefield for most of my life,’ he said. ‘Now we want to be free.’” The audience applauded.³⁶

On July 9, 2011, South Sudan became an independent nation. President Obama released a statement declaring that the United States formal recognized South Sudan as a sovereign state. “After so much struggle by the people of South Sudan,” he stated, “the United States of America welcomes the birth of a new nation.” Among other assertions, he declared that the CPA had to be fully implemented and that the safety of all Sudanese had to be protected. Acknowledging the southern Sudanese who had struggled and the part that Sudan’s African neighbors and the African Union had played in making independence possible, Obama also noted, “Many Americans have been deeply moved by the aspirations of the Sudanese people, and support for South Sudan extends across different races, regions, and political persuasions in the United States.” It is noteworthy that in Obama’s entire statement, the only individual that he identified by name—Sudanese, South Sudanese, or otherwise—was Martin Luther King Jr. The president quoted the civil rights leader’s words concerning Ghanaian independence: “I knew about all of the struggles, and all of the pain, and all of the agony that these people had gone through for this moment.”³⁷

President Obama’s decision to reference and quote Dr. King in the official White House statement recognizing South Sudan’s independence is arguably the most revealing moment in Black America’s engagement with Sudan. It uniquely braids Black America’s political and social histories with the culmination of South Sudan’s long liberation struggle. While some may read Obama’s reference to King as artificial or romantic, the significance of his mention is amplified by a curious story concerning King and the First Sudanese Civil War. The King Center’s Digital Archive contains an undated letter from King to a “Mr. Taban.” In it, King lamented, “[You] had to leave Sudan in the face of the atrocities which were being perpetrated upon your people and flee to Kenya in order to continue your education. It is a deplorable situation and I anguish over the suffering which the Sudanese are having to indulge.” Though King noted that neither he nor the Southern Christian Leadership Conference had resources to assist Taban, he directed him to other potential funding sources and expressed hope that Sudan would eventually be liberated and Taban able to return to his native land.³⁸ Written during the civil right movement, the letter is an important—if virtually unknown—bond connecting the southern Sudanese liberation struggle with Black America’s fight for social equality.

President Obama’s connection of southern Sudanese independence with Dr. King was followed by Ashley Makar’s similar rhetorical move in Alabama’s Huntsville Times. Makar, the daughter of a Coptic-American immigrant to the United States, hailed from Birmingham and was a writer, editor, and Yale Divinity School graduate student. In her editorial published a week after the independence celebration, Makar said that Dr. King’s “Free at last!” dream was alive in Juba. “The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, Mandela’s African National Congress, King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the antebellum abolitionist movement were all struggles against a nexus of oppression: racial discrimination, labor exploitation and systemic impoverishment.” She added, however, that, though Blacks were no longer second-class citizens in those countries, they were not completely free, as the legacies of Jim Crow, apartheid, and Sudan’s civil wars continued to do harm. Noting that King himself framed the 1963 March on Washington as a beginning and not an end, Makar ended by saying that the struggle of Sudanese youths continued. “Meanwhile, [such youths the world over] are learning their new national anthem, their own way of singing ‘Free at last.’”³⁹

While Zachariah Mamphilly had not used his reference to the 1994 elections in South Africa as an occasion to frame the southern Sudanese referendum through a racial lens, Makar invoked South Africa in her effort to situate Sudan in a global framework of racial oppression and liberation. On one hand, the fact that high school students from Birmingham and Johannesburg were about to launch Birmingham’s first commemoration of Nelson Mandela International Day provided a convenient moment for Makar to stitch the United States, South Africa, and South Sudan together. On the other hand, it is significant that Makar invited mainstream readers in Alabama to include Sudan among examples of systemic racism that would have been well known to them. By claiming that Sudan warranted inclusion in the same heritage as Jim Crow America and apartheid South Africa, Makar’s piece could be read as a not-so-subtle argument that the bounds of Black oppression had to be expanded. South Sudanese independence, while categorically different from those other historical examples, nevertheless belonged in the same narrative and genealogy of global Black liberation, even if the oppressive government was not white.

Early Independence (2011–2013)

“As Southern Sudanese undertake the hard work of building their new country,” declared President Obama in his independence statement, “the United States pledges our partnership as they seek the security, development and responsive governance that can fulfill their aspirations and respect their human rights.”⁴⁰ An African American woman played a formative role in this process. On October 18, 2011, Susan D. Page was confirmed as the first US ambassador to South Sudan. A graduate of the University of Michigan and Harvard Law School, Page had joined the State Department in 1991 and worked in the Office of the Legal Advisor for Politico-Military Affairs. She traveled to southern Sudan for the first time in 2003. Page served as the legal adviser to the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Secretariat for Peace in Sudan and helped to negotiate and draft the peace agreement that ended the Second Civil war. She later served as the director of the Rule of Law and Prison Advisory Unit for the UN’s Sudan Mission, providing legal and constitutional advice to the UN’s special representative of the secretary general to Sudan on the CPA’s implementation.⁴¹ Page remembered the mood when she arrived in South Sudan as US ambassador. “It was exciting. It was hopeful. I think everyone believed that they would be able to overcome so many of the problems that other new states had suffered from just because they had fought so long and so hard.”⁴²

When asked years later what her role was as the first US ambassador to South Sudan, Page noted that there were several objectives. These included ensuring that the relationship between Sudan and South Sudan was healthy, that South Sudan was ruled peacefully, and that there would be economic development. In the six months following independence, the US government pledged $370.8 million in aid to the new nation.⁴³ “South Sudan started off with so much less than even the nations in Africa that gained independence some 50-plus years ago,” Page later recalled. “They had no paved roads. They had antiquated buildings that existed maybe from the time of the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium. They had to start everything from scratch.”⁴⁴ She noted that after the CPA was signed in 2005 it took several months to institute a capital in Juba. “There was almost no infrastructure; there were not any paved roads; dilapidated buildings that were literally falling apart because of the war.” To drive home her point that southern Sudan had to start from nothing, Page said, “We are not talking about just ordering some new furniture—they didn’t have pens, papers, and stationery, let alone computers, electricity, and running water, vehicles, roads.” She asserted that while she didn’t feel that she had a nation-building role, she felt compelled to try to encourage the new country in their nation-building journey and using their resources to try to help the citizenry.⁴⁵

In the wake of independence, South Sudan ended up with three-quarters of Sudan’s oil, a resource that Sudan’s elite had once dominated. President Obama added oil-exporting South Sudan to the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) US trade program for developing countries. The president’s decision to add South Sudan to the GSP allowed it to ship oil (and thousands of other goods) to the States without paying US import duties once the president’s action took full effect. US trade representative Ron Kirk urged South Sudan to use the program to continue necessary economic reforms. On the security front, President Obama added South Sudan to the list of nations that were eligible to purchase weapons from the United States.⁴⁶

Ambassador Page and the US government attempted to address several issues during the first two years of independence. The Americans had programs supporting a highway police unit, assisting police to aid capital roadways and improve their capacity. “There are still a lot of problems and crime; however, we are determined and committed to identifying direct violations.” While Page noted that there were some military units that they could not assist, they concentrated on education and security programs where they could. An Access to Justice program helped people through the Judicial Review Initiative, while another program educated people on the South Sudan Constitution, the constitutional review process, and national elections negotiations. “We have to monitor the ongoing political process… . It is not just a mission statement, but includes a resolution for the establishment of political parties in Southern Sudan on a Constitution that is eternally based on democratic documents, … something I never expected.”⁴⁷

Despite South Sudan’s long-awaited freedom, by late April 2012 the new nation found itself inching closer to war with its longtime belligerent to the north, Sudan. The two countries disputed the demarcation of their border and the sharing of oil revenues, and fighting put a virtual halt to the oil production so crucial to both of their economies. Under South Sudan’s control, the oil-rich region of Heglig—one of Sudan’s primary sources of income—was basically destroyed, and, while the southern army stated that Sudanese planes had hit the oil processing facility, Sudan posited that it was southern sabotage. At one point Sudanese president Bashir suggested that the time for talking had passed and that only fighting remained. President Obama stated that conflict was not inevitable and asked Bashir and Kiir to resume negotiations.⁴⁸ “We know what needs to happen,” Obama said in a videotaped message to Sudanese and South Sudanese. “The government of Sudan must stop its military actions, including aerial bombardments.”⁴⁹

That fall, Sudan and South Sudan struck deals to secure their border and increase trade. While this opened the door for the resumption of oil exports, it did not end other conflicts that remained after the secession. It would, however, prevent the fighting that had exploded along the border earlier in the year.⁵⁰ In a statement released on September 27, 2012, President Obama welcomed the settlement and commended the work of the African Union’s High-Level Implementation Panel for its role in guiding the deal. “The leaders of Sudan and South Sudan have chosen to take another important step on the path away from conflict toward a future in which their citizens can live in dignity, security, and prosperity. The United States is committed to working with both countries as they implement these agreements and as they seek to resolve those issues that remain outstanding.”⁵¹

Two months later, Obama defeated Republican challenger Mitt Romney to secure another four years in the White House. While his administration had spent the first term helping to place South Sudan on a firm footing, it would spend its second term doing what it could to keep it from tearing apart.

South Sudanese Civil War

On June 5, 2013, President Obama appointed Susan Rice as the new national security advisor. In his announcement, Obama said, “[Rice] understands that there is no substitute for American leadership … she is passionate and pragmatic, but mindful that we have to exercise our power wisely.”⁵² Rice’s passion and pragmatism would be sorely tested by events in South Sudan over the next three years. “In 2013,” Susan Rice writes in her book Tough Love, “South Sudanese president Salva Kiir and his then-vice president, Riek Machar, were the Grinches who stole Christmas.”⁵³

In early 2013, Vice President Machar began to express criticism of Kiir’s leadership and handling of the economy. Machar announced his intention to challenge Kiir for the presidency in the forthcoming election set to be held in two years. In June, President Kiir dismissed Finance Minister Kosti Manibe and Cabinet Affairs Minister Deng Alor over a multimillion-dollar financial scandal. The following month he fired the entire cabinet, the cabinet’s deputies, and—perhaps most notably—Machar himself in a power struggle within the SPLM. While the situation remained comparatively calm in the ensuing months, a conflagration exploded in December when forces loyal to Machar clashed with those friendly to Kiir. While Kiir accused Machar of having attempted a coup, others claimed that presidential guards of Kiir’s Dinka ethnicity attempted to disarm guards who were Nuer (Marchar’s ethnicity). With old tensions and violence between the two ethnicities, the fight devolved into a maelstrom. Targeted killings in the capital city of Juba sparked revenge attacks and similar horrors. Generals mutinied and seized the capital of Jonglei (the country’s largest state) and Unity State (the nation’s main oil-producing area), and in the Upper Nile a full-scale tank battle took place between opposing army factions. More than one thousand were killed and one hundred thousand displaced in the first week alone, and from the onset of the conflict government and opposition forces committed sexual atrocities, pursuing victims based on gender, ethnic, and perceived political identities.⁵⁴

How could a civil war break out so soon after independence, and what were the real issues at stake for the two Sudanese factions? Øystein H. Rolandsen has argued that the war resulted from several factors, including a political crisis within the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (a guerrilla body turned government army), a bellicose mentality, and lack of peaceful means for political contestation and transition.⁵⁵ Scholar Clement Sefa-Nyarko has noted that political differences between Kiir and Machar sparked the conflict and asserted that “lack [of] reform in the SPLM Party and the military (which were symbols of national unity and sovereignty), non-available and inefficient financial institutions, corruption, and nepotism also contributed to the outbreak of the conflict.” Other factors prolonging the conflict, according to Sefa-Nyarko, included greed for oil, grievances by minority groups or groups excluded from governance, political and ethnic rivalry, and geographical proximity of crude oil to the center of governance.⁵⁶ While the root causes of the conflict may be subject for debate, what is undeniable is the hideous impact that the war wreaked on the people of South Sudan—a region that had already trudged through two of the twentieth century’s most atrocious civil wars.⁵⁷

When the December 2013 conflagration broke out, Ambassador Page went into action. “We made sure we called everybody back to the compound. Events had started late in the evening. We decided to make sure that none of the staff, including the local staff, came to work the next day unless they felt like it was safe. But we didn’t think that was appropriate.” Most stayed home, and there were occasions during the first days of the carnage when nearby shelling forced Page and others to go to their bulletproof safe havens on the residential compound. “There were a couple of us who couldn’t quite make it to the safe haven, so we had to duck and cover in place where we were… . I was in my house with a bodyguard and we eventually made it once it was safe to get there.” Page remembered that though they had their cellphones at the beginning of the fighting, the coverage was spotty, making it difficult to connect. After many late-night teleconferences with the State Department, national security advisor (Susan Rice), Defense Department, and Central Intelligence Agency, they (not Page) decided to order all nonessential staff to leave the US embassy and advised all American citizens to leave the country. “It was very difficult because we thought it was really important that we stay… . We did a massive evacuation.”⁵⁸

In the wake of the violence, President Obama issued a statement. He began by noting that millions of South Sudanese had voted in 2011 to create a new nation on the promise of a prosperous future for all of its people. Against odds, he continued, the nation had made progress toward breaking its long cycle of violence. “Today,” he remarked, “that future is at risk. South Sudan stands at the precipice. Recent fighting threatens to plunge South Sudan back into the dark days of its past.” However, he opined, it did not have to be that way: South Sudan’s leaders could end the bloodshed and try to peacefully resolve tensions. Obama demanded that inflammatory rhetoric, targeted violence, and fighting to settle political scores or destabilize the government cease immediately. “Now is the time for South Sudan’s leaders to show courage and leadership, to reaffirm their commitment to peace, to unity, and to a better future for their people.” He concluded by affirming that the United States would remain a committed partner of the South Sudanese people as they pursued security and prosperity.⁵⁹

Stateside, the Obama administration kept a keen eye on the situation. Secretary of State John Kerry spent hours on the phone trying to mediate between belligerents Kiir and Machar. Susan Rice recorded a message appealing to South Sudanese to unify and save their country. Though Rice maintains that she tried to reason with Kiir, she says, “They both [Kiir and Machar] were selfish and dismissive of the interests of their own people.” With the US embassy threatened by violent groups on both sides, President Obama ordered forty-five US servicemen into Juba to reinforce the compound.⁶⁰ In order to rescue stranded Americans, Obama also ordered US military helicopters to fly north to Bor. The mission was aborted when an Osprey helicopter was hit as they descended, wounding four US personnel. Rice records that the threat to US personnel increased: “I had no choice but to convene the Principals [Committee] every day from December 21 through December 27, 2013, including remotely on Christmas Day. That holiday summons made me especially unpopular with my colleagues and staff, but the American president has no higher priority than the safety and security of American citizens. We could not and would not risk leaving Americans in proximate danger—especially barely a year after Benghazi [the September 2012 attack on US government facilities in Libya].”⁶¹

The reduction in diplomatic personnel meant that the US embassy in Juba would no longer provide consular assistance to US citizens. Instead, they would be redirected to the US embassy in Nairobi, in neighboring Kenya. On January 3, 2014, Politico reported that Ambassador Page would remain in Juba where, according to the State Department, she was in steady communication with the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), South Sudanese officials, and her foreign counterparts. By that date—less than a month after the tumult had begun—180,000 South Sudanese had already been displaced. In addition to the US embassy’s decreased capacity, the State Department announced $49.8 million in humanitarian assistance to victims of the recent fighting. This amount came in addition to the more than $300 million given to aid South Sudanese refugees.⁶²

Back in the States, two African American outlets covered the crisis emerging in South Sudan. On December 30, 2013, the African American newspaper Washington Informer published Bill Fletcher Jr.’s editorial on the looming civil war. Fletcher, an NNPA (National Newspaper Publishers Association) columnist and former president of the TransAfrica Forum, called on fellow African Americans to lend their voices to the world’s calls for both sides to retreat from the edge. He went further, however, arguing, “We should also do a bit more in the future to ensure that we are not hoodwinked by simple answers to very complex questions.” Besides, Fletcher continued, Black Americans had repeatedly showed that when they paid attention to foreign policy (whether the Vietnam War or apartheid), their position could impact American actions. “Perhaps, had we taken an alternative approach to the Sudan, events might be unfolding in a different manner.”⁶³ Radio personality Joe Madison, who had earlier shined a light on slavery in southern Sudan, now brought attention to the new troubles facing South Sudan. In April 2014 Madison—who at the time was a host on the Urban View SiriusXM talk show—participated in a protest held at the UN’s Dag Hammarskjold Plaza. The protest was aimed against human rights abuses in South Sudan. The group walked to the Ugandan Mission (where South Sudan’s Mission is also located) and demanded reconciliation and an end to the violence. “Now is the time for the United States and the United Nations and the world to step up,” Madison stated. “We are focused on the Ukraine, but right now there are more people dying in South Sudan.” He was among three people arrested at the event.⁶⁴ If Fletcher’s editorial in the Washington Informer showed the Black press’s continued role in directing attention to Sudan, Madison’s protest showed the enduring commitment that one African American activist had toward South Sudan long after the war with Khartoum had ended.

Susan Page’s tenure as US ambassador to South Sudan ended in late August 2014. In an interview she provided to National Public Radio days before leaving the position, David Greene asked her how hard it was to leave an ambassadorship when a country was in worse shape than when she arrived. “Well, I hope that doesn’t mean that I’m responsible for it being in worse shape,” she replied. “It’s painful to leave when things are not good. But I’m leaving. And I’m going back to work in the Office of the Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan. So that does make it a little bit easier to depart, knowing that I helped to build up the embassy as the first ambassador.” Page added that knowing that she had helped make important operational changes (and aided in the evacuation, procuring a humanitarian assistance team, and getting the right people to return) also made it easier to depart. When Greene asked her about what gave her a sense of optimism, given the horrible state of things, she said:

I believe in the people of South Sudan… . Yes, there are problems. But there are also a lot of success stories… .70 percent of the population is under 30. And that’s where the future is. And so the more that we can do to prepare the next generation—and I’m not talking just about political power, but as educators, as business people, entrepreneurs—they should be empowered to have those options and to live their dreams.⁶⁵

December 15, 2014, marked the one-year anniversary of South Sudan’s hostilities. Nearly two million had been displaced from their homes while others were at risk of famine. That day, the Washington Post published a letter cosigned by Susan Rice and John Kerry. In it, two of the top US foreign policy leaders offered a scathing critique of South Sudan’s leadership. “The tragedy is especially hard to accept because the violence was not imposed on South Sudan by outside forces; instead it was unleashed by a political dispute among the country’s leaders.” “Now,” Rice and Kerry continued, “the responsibility is on their shoulders… . After months of delay and false pledges, both sides must return to negotiations, make necessary compromises and finally end this conflict without further delay… . It is past time for South Sudan’s leaders to take responsibility and end the fighting.” They stated that a transitional government mandated to create security agencies that protected all South Sudanese regardless of ethnicity or politics was imperative. That government furthermore needed to develop a transparent system for managing the nation’s resources and agree on an inclusive constitutional drafting process focusing on improved governance. “Given the level of past violence, a reconciliation plan must also be established, accompanied by efforts to investigate atrocities and ensure that those involved are held accountable for their crimes.” Rice and Kerry stated that the United States had helped organize a massive humanitarian effort, supported a UN peacekeeping force, and worked with local and regional partners to document abuses and support religious leaders working for reconciliation. “[But] none of it will be enough in the absence of effective leadership.” They committed to increasing pressure on the warring parties until the violence ended and stated that those who chose more conflict would face harsher consequences.⁶⁶

In February 2015 the National Security Service (NSS) Act became law, giving South Sudan’s NSS officers great powers of arrest, search and seizure, and detention without evident judicial oversight. The following month, a downturn in fighting ended when the government launched one of the war’s largest offensives. Government forces and allied militia killed hundreds of people and burned civilian property in opposition-held areas of Unity State. At least one hundred thousand were forced to flee, and food and scores of cattle were stolen, contributing to severe hunger. Rape was a common tactic employed in the offensive.⁶⁷ While the following incident did not occur during the aforementioned offensive (it happened the following year), it nevertheless illustrates the hellish experiences that some Sudanese civilians experienced. Poni, a forty-five-year-old woman from Bereka in Lainya, said that two or three government soldiers raped her behind a church after killing her husband and pastor:

They were asking me questions and kicking me. One was saying “Let us kill her” and I said “I have five children, if you kill me who will take care of them now that my husband is gone?” The other said, “I will show her something.” He grabbed me by the arms and dragged me around the church… . He forced himself on me. He spread my legs and raped me. He said “I will make it worse if you struggle.” I was crying and begging but he did not stop. When he was done, the other soldier came and found me lying there. I begged him and he just kicked my private parts. He told me to turn around, saying that he did not want my diseases. He raped me in my anus. After he was finished, the two soldiers told me to go. And so I walked and it was painful and I was bleeding. They told me “Run or we will catch you again.”⁶⁸

While Obama-era sanctions and US economic inducements were certainly important, others also had their eye on the woeful situation in South Sudan. International opprobrium led to a slew of inducements from state and nonstate actors. In February 2014, UK Foreign Office minister for Africa Mark Simmonds met with South Sudan foreign minister Barnaba Benjamin. Simmonds urged Benjamin to make quick headway on investigation into human rights abuses, and France and the United States called on the UN Security Council to consider sanctions against the country. In July 2014, the European Union sanctioned individuals stymieing the nation’s peace process and culpable for atrocities, and the following March the Security Council established a sanctions regime for South Sudan. On July 1, 2015, the Security Council imposed the first sanctions on six commanders in the country. These individuals—whose names were put forth by Britain, France, and the United States—were punished with a global travel ban and an assets freeze.⁶⁹

Later that month, President Obama convened African leaders for discussions aimed at keeping South Sudan from collapse. The talks came during the Ethiopian portion of his tour through East Africa. Obama was joined by the Ethiopian prime minister, the presidents of Kenya and Uganda, Sudan’s foreign minister, and the chair of the African Union. There were no plans for Obama or other US officials to meet with South Sudanese representatives. “The possibilities of renewed conflict in a region that has been torn by conflict for so long, and has resulted in so many deaths, [require] urgent attention from all of us,” Obama stated.⁷⁰ The meeting focused on what had to happen between then and August 17 in the absence of an agreement (African leaders and the opposing contingents had agreed on that date as a deadline to decide on a path forward, with a peace proposal then under consideration).⁷¹ In his comments before the African Union (AU) at Addis Ababa’s Mandela Hall—the first time that a US president had ever addressed the AU—Obama noted that the joy of independence in South Sudan had devolved into a violent despair: “Neither Mr. Kiir, nor Mr. Machar have shown, so far, any interest in sparing their people from this suffering, or reaching a political solution. Yesterday, I met with leaders from this region. We agree that, given the current situation, Mr. Kiir and Mr. Machar must reach an agreement by August 17th—because if they do not, I believe the international community must raise the costs of intransigence.” He added that the world waited the report of the AU’s Commission of Inquiry because those responsible for committing atrocities had to be held accountable in order to achieve lasting peace in the country.⁷²

In mid-August, President Kiir shocked US officials when he refused to sign a peace agreement with the rebels despite the internationally imposed deadline. His opponent Machar had signed the agreement. Following Kiir’s failure to sign, Rice said that the United States had begun talks at the United Nations to sanction South Sudan if its government failed to sign a peace deal with rebels in fifteen days and if all sides didn’t speedily execute a ceasefire. In a White House statement she said that Kiir had wasted a chance to bring peace and that the United States condemned that failure of leadership. The week after his refusal, Kiir agreed to peace with the rebels.⁷³ Speaking in Geneva, Rice stated that the United States welcomed his decision to accept the peace terms and sign the peace agreement. “However,” she continued, “we do not recognize any reservations or addendums to that agreement… . Implementing this agreement will require commitment and resolve from all parties to the conflict as well as South Sudan’s regional and international partners.” After saying that the United States would support the South Sudanese as they began the implementation process, she added that it was imperative for the parties to stay committed to peace. Rice warned those who intended otherwise: “We will work with our international partners to sideline those who stand in the way of peace, drawing upon the full range of our multilateral and bilateral tools.”⁷⁴

That October, the White House canceled a meeting with senior South Sudanese officials because Kiir’s government and Machar’s opposition had not committed to the new IGAD-Plus peace deal. Susan Rice had invited Vice President James Wani Igga, Machar, and former detainee Pagan Amum to the White House for a discussion to push them to carry out the peace deal that the three parties had signed in August. However, according to NSC spokesman Ned Price, due to several factors—namely recent renewed fighting, Machar’s reticence to compromise on security sector reform negotiations, and the South Sudanese government’s decision to create twenty-eight new states—they decided not to receive the parties at the White House until they showed stronger resolve to promote peace. Machar was none too pleased with the cancelation and offered choice words for Rice: “She should listen to our challenges. She should listen to our concerns. She should listen to the challenges in the implementation of the peace agreement. Instead of hiding, she should come out and assist us.”⁷⁵

In March 2016—with less than a year remaining in Obama’s presidency—Kelly McEvers interviewed Susan Rice on NPR’s All Things Considered. The subject of their conversation was US policy on South Sudan and how the United States could support the peace process. McEvers noted that the situation was not good and that people were running out of food. If the situation further deteriorated into a larger conflict, McEvers asked, what would US options be? Rice responded that since South Sudan was now independent there was only so much that the United States or any other foreign power could do if the leaders refused to serve their people. “But what we will do,” she continued, “is continue to be the largest donor of assistance to South Sudan. We have provided $1.5 billion in assistance in the last couple of years, and we’ll continue to do our part. We’ll use all of the weight of our diplomacy … in seeing a peaceful South Sudan.” Rice added that the United States could remain engaged because it had a moral, humanitarian, and security stake in the South Sudanese people.⁷⁶

In April 2016 Machar returned to Juba as the first step in ending the conflict, restored to his former position of vice president. Violence nevertheless erupted again between government and opposition forces. Thousands were displaced and, Machar, who himself fled, was eventually detained in South Africa.⁷⁷ One particularly macabre incident that summer sent shock waves through the aid community. Amid fighting that had broken out between troops loyal to Kiir and Machar, roughly two dozen aid workers took shelter inside Juba’s Terrain Hotel grounds. Dozens of South Sudanese troops broke through the gates, and, despite frantic calls to the UN, the US embassy, and private security firms to send help, none came. Gang rapes occurred. According to one of the women in the hotel, “The soldiers just came to the bathroom where all the girls were hiding and they just picked us out of the bathroom one by one.” In the aftermath of the violence, some relief agencies evacuated staff while others scaled back their operations. The Terrain Hotel incident was, to be sure, merely a microcosm of the appalling conditions on the ground. Insecurity for aid agencies in South Sudan came at a time when South Sudanese faced a cholera outbreak, rising malaria, and millions dependent on international food rations. By August 2016 two and a half million people had been displaced from their homes.⁷⁸

The United Nations—the world’s chief humanitarian agency—was not fully equipped to handle the refugee multitudes. In one incident early in the civil war, at least twenty civilians and two UNMISS peacekeepers were killed when an estimated two thousand armed youth, presumably Lou Nuer, surrounded the UN base in Akobo and opened fire on Dinka civilians seeking refuge inside. In 2014 peacekeepers were accused of standing by as the government attacked a UN base in Bor sheltering five thousand displaced people. More than fifty civilians were killed. In February 2016 government forces killed more than thirty civilians in an attack on a UN base in Malakal. Throughout the country, women often put themselves in harm’s way (risking rape or other attack) by leaving UN Protection of Civilians (POC) sites in search for food.⁷⁹ According to Human Rights Watch, women and girls often had to walk outside the UNMISS base at Bentiu for hours at a time to collect firewood and charcoal. One displaced woman recounted that she was gathering firewood with another woman when a group of women ran in the opposite way, claiming that four members of their number had been taken by government soldiers. “They had left all their firewood behind and just ran. We ran as well… . I’m afraid to collect firewood now but what choice do I have? I don’t have my house, my possessions, my cows, or any money. I can’t buy firewood so I have to go back to collect it.”⁸⁰

In December 2016, with just weeks left in Obama’s term in office, his administration tried to convince the United Nations to support an arms embargo against South Sudan. The United States, to be sure, had earlier considered an arms embargo to increase pressure on the belligerent parties against the backdrop of the July 2015 Ethiopian peace summit.⁸¹ While Samantha Power (US permanent representative to the United Nations in 2013–2017) and John Kerry had earlier supported the idea of imposing an arms embargo, Susan Rice had not. “An arms embargo,” she wrote, “which is always applied territorially, punishes one side disproportionately in a civil conflict (the government) and doesn’t prevent rebels from acquiring weapons via neighboring countries when they take refuge.” Rice also believed that if an arms embargo was imposed, the United States would forfeit its leverage on the South Sudanese government—influence it could use to push the government to moderate its behavior and accept a negotiated settlement. “Perhaps out of personal history, unrealistic hopes for the people of South Sudan, and an overestimation of U.S. influence, I was too slow to conclude that neither side had the will to end the conflict [or] agree to a unity government.”⁸²

“It was not until 2016,” Rice writes, “when the specter of genocide appeared on the horizon, that I finally concluded we had to drop the hammer on South Sudan’s hopeless leaders.” While she had hoped that the South Sudanese would enjoy the freedom and safety that had long evaded them, she identified South Sudan’s leadership as the reason why the dream of self-determination wouldn’t be realized. “That belated realization freed me to endorse the U.S. push in the Security Council for an arms embargo, which repeatedly failed to muster enough favorable votes [the Council failed to impose an embargo in December 2016 because Japan, Egypt, and some other members were opposed]. Only in July 2018 … did a U.S.-sponsored resolution to impose an arms embargo eventually gain the bare minimum number of votes to be adopted by the Security Council.”⁸³

Sudan figured into Barack Obama’s journey to the White House and his foreign policy as president. Initially viewed in his youth as the off-putting, even embarrassing ancestral home for his father’s Luo people, Sudan came to assume an important part of his foreign policy agenda during his brief senatorial career and subsequently during his eight years as president. While the earlier portion of his career focused heavily on the genocide in Darfur, his tenure in the White House focused much attention on South Sudan’s leadup to the independence referendum, ensuring peace in the new nation, and pursuing peace amid a bloody civil war. Two African American women—Susan Rice and Susan Page—played pivotal roles in his administration’s work of establishing firm relations with the world’s newest nation. The work of these three African Americans came on the heels of earlier diplomatic labor performed by Black Americans in the 1950s–1970s, when the United States was then beginning its relationship with postcolonial Sudan. In each instance, African Americans played important roles in establishing the US relationship with new Sudanese states. Simply put, it is impossible to properly analyze the history of US-Sudan diplomatic relations without centering Black Americans.

However, despite the presence of Black Americans in some of most important US policy decisions regarding Sudan and South Sudan, their engagement appeared devoid of any sense of racial solidarity. For Obama and Rice, Lorenzo Morris has offered compelling explanations for this dynamic: their connections to typical Black communities are surprisingly marginal; their Democratic Party roots (among others) appear stronger than their connections to civil and human rights organizations like TransAfrica; and “the similarity of diverse American interest-group interests with that of the national government in peace-keeping [re: Darfur] has meant that the special interests of African American groups are not clearly special.” Furthermore, Morris contends, Rice’s affirmation as US representative in the United Nations looks less like a personal contribution and more like “standard American, liberal policy.”⁸⁴ Given the history of systemic exclusion from leadership positions, one might point to these dynamics as a victory for liberalism—that African Americans like Obama and Rice can (or should) do their jobs freely and individually, without the externally imposed pressures placed on them by their own racial identity. On the other hand, one may wonder how those generations of African Americans who had earlier identified with the Sudanese on account of their race would respond to such an approach. Imbued with the power that comes with those high government positions and so long excluded from such agency, Obama and Rice might have been expected to deploy language of mutual aid, understanding, and interests based on race. Read against this grain, the absence of race in their public discourse concerning the Sudans appears like a missed opportunity for the administration to distinguish itself in the long history of Black American engagement with Sudan.

Since Obama left the Oval Office in early 2017, Sudan and South Sudan have continued to make US headlines. Sudan was included in President Donald Trump’s infamous “Muslim ban”; longtime Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir was forcibly removed from power in 2019 after thirty years in power; the South Sudanese civil war finally came to an end; and, in the twilight of his single term as president, Trump removed Sudan’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. All these developments occurred in conjunction with social upheaval in the United States, typified by such events as the deadly 2017 demonstration in Charlottesville, Virginia; the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd at the hands of police; and the increasingly global Black Lives Matter movement. Within this convulsive environment, African Americans—has they had done for the past century—continued to keep an eye on the Nilotic Sudan thousands of miles away. The next (concluding) chapter clarifies this book’s arguments, reexamines recent developments, and proposes some questions for the further study of Black America’s relationship with Africa, the terms of Black identity politics as it pertains to the Arab world, and the global history of Sudan.