Ruth Iyob and Gilbert Khadiagala. Sudan: The Elusive Quest for Peace. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2006. 224 pp. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $15.95. Paper.

Abstract

Ruth Iyob and Gilbert Khadiagala. Sudan: The Elusive Quest for Peace. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2006. 224 pp. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $15.95. Paper. Throughout Sudan's conflicts, the battle for peace has been as intense as the military confrontations themselves. Gathering Sudanese around the table, agreeing on an agenda, and persuading multiple factions to adopt a unified negotiating platform have all posed extreme difficulties to the mediators, and have surely added to the protraction of the Sudan's civ- il conflicts. There is a long tradition within the academy of using similar modes of analysis to discuss both war-making and peace-making, a tradition embraced by Ruth Iyob and Gilbert Khadiagala in Sudan: The Elusive Quest for Peace. This is a timely, if disappointing, book. Timely because it was written during the negotiations over a settlement ending Sudan's north-south conflict and during the escalation of another conflict in Darfur. This timing allowed the authors to explore the relations between the promise of peace in southern Sudan and the growing conflict in Darfur. To this effect, the authors accomplished their stated goal of addressing the weight of history on the present (13). With its burdensome legacy of colonial history, Sudan's history of religious encounters adds to its complex issue of national identity. Its long history of enslavement of Southerners by Northerners and a half century of brutal military confrontation only underscore the racial divides and the protracted conflicts that have accompanied the divide. Therefore any approach to peace is delicate, as historically contingent and politically contested. As this book shows, among the most important diplomatic responses to conflict in the Sudan were those guided by the Inter-governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a coalition of governments attempting to broker a peace deal from 1995. Separate initiatives include those by Nigeria, Norway, the U.S., Libya, and Egypt. However, as this book shows, a number of IGAD nations had diplomatic problems among themselves; these simply extended a state of no war/no peace that ultimately ended with the signing of a tenuous north-south peace deal in 2005. This book provides the necessary context for anyone wishing to understand why Sudan's conflicts have dragged on for so long. What it does not show, however, is how the Sudanese people variously regarded the possibility of a long-term solution, the difficulties mediators encountered in approaching the Sudanese, and what the Sudanese found problematic about how various foreign mediators behaved. A deeper treatment of these matters, including the perspectives of multiple groups of Sudanese, would have significantly strengthened the book's analysis. Instead, the authors strive to maintain an image of neutrality in explaining the viewpoints of parties to the north-south conflict, sometimes at the expense of the facts. The problem with attempting neutrality on an issue as divisive as Sudan's conflict is that one ends up saying nothing concrete. Chronic conflict requires levels of analysis different from narrowly based mediating initiatives. …