The Black Book: Imbalance of Power and Wealth in Sudan

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The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), one of the parties to the armed conflict in Darfur, has put online an English translation of the Black Book: Imbalance of Power and Wealth in Sudan. What is the Black Book? According to its anonymous authors:

We present our work “The Black Book; Imbalance of Power and Wealth in the Sudan” as s document that exposes the performance of successive governments which ruled the Sudan in its recent history. This book is not driven by narrow motives that seek to incriminate or blame certain circles in the country. Rather, it is a critical work that documents objective facts that are hard to overlook.

This book is an exposé of the injustice that was visited on the Sudan by successive governments which ruled it since independence –(1956). The pattern of injustice remained almost the same throughout, irrespective of the political orientation of incumbent government: secular, theocratic, dictatorial or –presumed- democratic. They all displayed blatant favouritism of one particular circle in the Sudan to detriment of all others. The favoured part of the Sudan attracted disproportionate attention, care, services and developmental resources from those successive governments. That favoured part of the Sudan is the Northern Region where most of the ruling elite come from.

A second Black Book and related material is available from the JEM website.

Citations of the Black Book online

• Sudan's Black Book: Khartoum's shifting political alliances and the war in Darfur, by Anders Hastrup. A brief critique of the way ethnicity is manipulated by politcal players, and the conflict is oversimplified by the media.
  
  
• "The Black Book" of Politics: Western Sudan Speaks of Discrimination, taken from the Sudan Democratic Gazette.
  
  
• Prospects for Peace in Sudan, a briefing by Justice Africa from last year makes brief mention of the Black Book. (Their most recent Sudan briefing makes no mention of it).
  
  
• Can there be a sustainable peace, development and democracy under secterian political Islam? Experiece from Sudan, by Dr. Deng Dongrin Akuany. Dr. Akuany Makes use of the Black Book's data, but comes to rather different conclusions.
  
  
• Darfur's Manmade Disaster, by Peter Verney. A very good overview of the current crisis, imo.
  
  
• Darfur Raising, a report from the International Crisis Group (pdf format). The report cites the Black Book, as well as related unpublished documents. The icg Darfur campaign has more resources about the conflict.
  
  
• Vigilance Soudan cited the Black Book and referred readers to this account of atrocities committed against Massalit, Ethnic Cleansing of Muslims in Western Sudan.