DISASTER IN DARFUR - UCSB Department of History - University of ...

6
The Price of Impotence
When the British departed in 1956, they left behind the Sudan Defense Force soon
to become the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF). It was a disciplined, professional, mobile
army, the finest in the Middle East, equal to the Arab Legion of Jordan. In the Arab-
Israel War of 1967 the Sudanese battalion sent to Sinai to help the Egyptians refused to
retreat, disdained to surrender, and had to be annihilated before the Israeli advance could
proceed. Moreover, the British found their best soldiers from the peoples of the
periphery--the Nuba and Dinka of the southern Sudan and the Fur and Baqqara from
Darfur who had established a reputation as warriors during the Mahdiya and their
sporadic outbursts against the British--for the sons of the awlad al-bahar preferred the
urban life of the riverain towns and a political or professional career to the hardships and
hazards of soldiering. In 1956 the army was, in fact, the only national institution in the
Sudan and in the past half-century of Sudanese independence has intervened three times
in 1958, 1969, and 1989 to seize power from incompetent, corrupt, and self-seeking
political leaders democratically elected. At the time of their respective coups most
Sudanese were delighted to see the politicians depart from government until later
realizing the tyranny of military dictatorships that have ruled the Sudan for thirty-seven
of its forty-eight years of independence. The decline of the Sudan Armed Forces began
during the sixteen years of the rule of General Ja‘far Numayri (1969-1985) when the
senior officers of the Sudan Defense Force were succeeded by younger, less professional
officers who could not resist abusing their authority for their own personal advancement
at the same time fighting a war they could not win against the southern Sudanese
insurgents. Moreover, the demise of a professional Sudanese fighting force was