January 12, 2010
By Matthew Davies

Drawing attention to Sudan's faltering peace process, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and Episcopal Church of Sudan Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul met with U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown Jan. 11 to underscore the urgency for the international community to take action to ensure that the country doesn't plunge back into civil war.

The meeting with Brown was supported by the Sudan365 campaign, a year of advocacy for Sudan that is being organized by a coalition of advocacy groups and human rights organizations. The campaign organized a Jan. 9 demonstration when hundreds of activists gathered outside Brown's residence at 10 Downing Street in London to call on the U.K. government urgently to increase their diplomatic engagement on Sudan.

In advance of their meeting with Brown, Williams and Deng were joined on Jan. 11 by Diocese of Salisbury Bishop David Stancliffe for a press conference at Lambeth Palace to draw attention to the challenges threatening Sudan five years after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).

"The urgency of the situation in Sudan is something which has escaped the notice of a very large number of commentators here and elsewhere," Williams told reporters gathered at his London residence. "We are as an international community in danger, I believe, of sleepwalking into a situation of real nightmare in Sudan."

Sudan's 20-year civil war, which claimed more than 2 million lives and displaced about 7 million people, came to an end in January 2005 when the CPA was signed by the two warring parties – the Government of Sudan in the north and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement in the south.

Despite initial hopes for the success of the peace agreement, southern Sudanese leaders have been frustrated by the northern government's refusal to live into its major terms, including sharing oil revenues, drawing fair borders and the building of infrastructure.

"The hope that was offered some years ago by the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement has not been realized," said Williams, "and that's not simply a matter of hopes unrealized; it's a matter of confidence lost, of deprivation continuing, injustice being maintained, and in all kinds of ways an intolerable situation simply not being addressed – a situation of grave injustice and of conflict."

Deng noted that the CPA set out a process whereby the marginalization of Sudan's people should end "and unity would be made attractive. The failure of the full implementation of the CPA has resulted in continuing marginalization." Deng warned about the growing concern of the renewal of war in Sudan because "the symptoms have not yet been removed."

Sudan is scheduled to hold its first democratic elections in 24 years in February, and a 2011 referendum will give southerners the opportunity to determine whether to secede from the north or remain a unified country.

Williams told reporters that there is a deep concern about whether the elections will be conducted fairly and democratically. "There is a very immediate and time-bound need for the international community to do something about guaranteeing free and fair elections," he said.

Williams also underscored the growth of inter-tribal conflict and the continuing rebel activity of the Lord's Resistance Army, a Ugandan rebel organization whose soldiers are prolonging a two-decades-long terrorist campaign gruesomely marked by widespread massacres and child abductions.

A separate conflict in the Darfur region of western Sudan, where government-backed Arab militia known as the janjaweed continue to attack civilians and raid refugee camps, has in recent years claimed more than 400,000 lives.

The atrocities in Darfur, Williams said, "have to some extent taken people's eyes away from the fact that there is an unresolved crisis between the north and the south in Sudan and that the non-implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement has meant that that wound has never been healed or addressed."

Salisbury's Stancliffe said that the pressing issues on the upcoming referendum and election include where the boundaries should lie between the north and the south, and whether the register of voters is accurate.

The Salisbury diocese has shared a companion relationship with the Episcopal Church of Sudan for 37 years.

Diocese of Bradford Bishop David James, who attended Deng's enthronement in Juba in April 2008, addressed the U.K.'s House of Lords Jan. 8 on behalf of Stancliffe who had been delayed by adverse weather conditions.

"The role of the church, as has already been mentioned, is key to the future of Sudan, especially the south," James told the House of Lords, noting that the Government of Southern Sudan has asked the Episcopal Church and the other churches in the country to work for peace and to encourage people to register to vote.

"Indeed, in many parts of southern Sudan the churches are the only organizations on the ground that are there among the people and able to effect change," he added.

The U.S.-based Episcopal Church also has long-standing partnerships with the Sudanese church through companion diocese relationships, Episcopal Relief and Development programs and the advocacy work of the Office of Government Relations. Current companion relationships include Albany (New York) with the Province of Sudan, Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) with Kajo Keji, Chicago with Renk, Indianapolis with Bor, Missouri with Lui, Southwestern Virginia with the Province of Sudan, Rhode Island with Ezo and Virginia with the Province of Sudan. Ezo Bishop John Zawo recently spent a month in Rhode Island as the dioceses explored their new relationship.

Recent efforts by U.S. Episcopalians that support a lasting peace in Sudan include two resolutions passed by the 76th General Convention (A033 and D007), an advocacy letter from 92 bishops to President Barack Obama, and a joint letter by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and Deng to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

General Convention addressed the fragile situation in Sudan with Resolution A033, urging "renewed international commitment to the successful political implementation" of the CPA and "increased and better-coordinated economic-development and investment efforts … in southern Sudan."

Deng was welcomed as an international guest at the 76th General Convention, which in Resolution A033 also urged "continued advocacy and prayer from all Episcopalians for peace with justice in the Sudan." General Convention specifically called for "internationally coordinated efforts to care for and resettle the several million refugees and persons who have been displaced internally as a consequence of the Sudan's long-running conflicts."

In September 2009, the American Friends of the Episcopal Church of Sudan hosted a symposium in Washington, D.C. that brought together its board members, advocacy experts and Episcopal Church leaders to gain a fuller understanding of the challenges in securing peace in Sudan and to strategize on the most appropriate steps for action.

In their letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jefferts Schori and Deng emphasized the need for a fair and transparent election and for resources to support an infrastructure and oversight capacity to ensure that this happens.

Episcopal News Service
Matthew Davies is editor and international correspondent of Episcopal News Service.