The Libya–Sudan relations refers to the long historical relations between Libya and Sudan, both being Arab countries.
Libya and Sudan share an isolated border along a corner of northwestern Sudan that neither government has ever fully controlled. This state of affairs left open the possibility for a variety of real and perceived activities in the region that caused Khartoum to suspect that Libya periodically acted against its interests. Conflict between Libya and Sudan has occurred intermittently since relations between the two countries began to deteriorate in 1972.
Under Colonel Muammar Gaddafi Libya continued to pursue foreign policy directed along ideological and pragmatic lines. This resulted in several instances of conflict between the two nations between 1972 and 1976. In 1976, Sudan charged that Libya was involved in a terrorist plot against its government. This led to a severance of relations between the nations. In the late 1970s and 1980s Sudanese and Libyan foreign policy clashed over several regional conflicts. These included the Chadian–Libyan conflict, the Libyan–Egyptian War and Libyan support for Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. In these cases Libya's conflict with Sudan resulted from Gaddafi's regional goals of pan-Arabism and was heavily influenced by relations with Egypt.George Joffe, “Libya’s Saharan Destiny,” The Journal of North African Studies, 10, no. 3–4 (2005) The Chadian–Libyan conflict in particular influenced the foreign policy of several African countries towards Libya. Pro-Libyan supporters were set against an anti-Libyan side which included Sudan and Egypt.Hussein Solomon and Gerrie Swart, “Libya’s Foreign Policy In Flux,” African Affairs, 104, no. 416, (2005) Some sub-Saharan countries, such as Zaire, supported the anti-Libyan forces in Chad out of fear of a Libyan expansion.Asteris Huliaras ,“Qadhafi's comeback: Libya and sub-Saharan Africa in the 1990s”, African Affairs 100, (2001) In 1986, Libya assisted the Mahdi government under Sadiq al-Mahdi to assume power in Sudan, resuming relations between the two nations.Mary-Jane Deeb, Libya’s Foreign Policy in North Africa, Westview Press: United States After this point both nations employed markedly different foreign policy strategies. Sudan adopted a non-aligned course, trying to obtain western aid while building better relationships with Arab states. This included cooperative ties with Libya. Libya began to pursue stronger regional connections, with Gaddafi attempting to increase his influence in the African continent. This changed the nature of relations between the two nations.
History
Early relationship Between 1967 and 1971, Libya–Sudan relations was based on a foreign policy favoring solidarity with other Arab countries. In May 1969, Gaafar Nimeiry of Sudan managed a successful coup d'état in Sudan. Later that same year, Muammar Gaddafi rose to power through a coup d'état in Libya. He initially tried to strengthen ties with Sudan and Egypt, so much so that he proposed a federation with the individual states during his first two years in power. In August 1971, Colonel Gaddafi helped reverse a communist coup against Sudanese President Nimeiry by diverting a British airliner carrying one of the coup's leaders and handing him over to Nimeiry to be hanged.John K. Cooley. “The Libyan Menace,” Foreign Policy, No. 42. (Spring, 1981) However, a year later Sudan accused Libya of involvement in three successive coup attempts and subsequently severed diplomatic relations. Later during the early 1970s, President Nimeiry began to pursue a foreign policy strategy which aligned Sudan with Western powers, which conflicted with Libyan interests, weaking relations between Sudan and Libya throughout the 1970s.
Subsequent to Libya's shaky alliance with the Nimeiry regime and Gaddafi's attempt to replace it in 1976, Sudan sought out Egyptian protection to Libya's discomfort. Relations between Libya and Sudan were in many respects a consequence of relations with Egypt. In particular, the Libya-Egypt conflict in 1977 made relations between Sudan and Libya more tense. Sudan backed Egypt in this conflict and opposed Libyan military action.
Rifts and the 1970s During the fall of 1977, Nimeiry and Sudanese opposition leaders began attempts at reconciliation. Subsequently, starting in February 1978, Libya and Sudan agreed to resume relations. However, relations soon become strained after Gaddafi condemned Sudanese support for President Anwar Sadat of Egypt who signed the September 1978 Camp David Accords. This difference of political and ideological position toward the situation in Israel, gave Gaddafi the encouragement to support plots against the Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat and Nimeiry.Oye Ogunbadejo. “Qaddafi and Africa’s International Relations,” The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Mar., 1986)
Between 1978 and 1980 Gaddafi's Islamic Legion of Arab and African “volunteers” trained in Libyan guerrilla camps. They supported the factional fighting in Chad and assassinated political leaders in Chad who contested Libya's interference. Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, Gaddafi employed assassins to eradicate his enemies in Sudan, Niger, Senegal and the Gambia. It is also alleged that his assassins unsuccessfully attempted to kill Hermann Eilts, former U.S. ambassador to Egypt. Libya's foreign policy in the area became apparent when in 1979, Libyan forces unsuccessfully invaded Chad, marking the beginning of the Chadian-Libyan conflict. The Chadian affair crystallized African attitudes toward Libya. Sudan's pro-Chadian stance during the conflict, would mark a significant point in the relations between Sudan and Libya. When interviewed by a French press agency in late 1981, President Gaafar Nimeiry called for Gaddafi's death by whatever means possible, "even if it means drowning him in the sea or throwing him from an aeroplane." In the same interview, Nimeiry noted that his military was working with Egypt to formulate a plan to destroy Gaddafi's "subversive" influence."Kadhafi Must Die". The Liberian Inaugural 1981-10-14: 8.
1980s Gaddafi, who has determined Libya's foreign policy since 1969, has consistently been a proponent of Arab unity, the advancement of Islam, the Palestinian cause and anti-Western sentiments. He has also supported the elimination of Israel. Hence, Gaddafi's antagonism towards Egypt was a response to Sadat's push for a separate peace with Israel. As an additional foreign policy point, Libyan actions in the region often signified strong expansionist aims. This provides the context for understanding how, in January 1981 Radio Tripoli announced the intended merger of Libya and Chad, after Gaddafi said that Chad was part of Libya's “vital living space.” This announcement alarmed neighboring African states including Sudan. They had already suffered from Gaddafi's participation in trying to disrupt the governments of Sudan, Egypt and Tunisia through coups and assassinations after failed attempts at unification. By the end of January 1981, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) formally condemned Libya's intentions for unification with Chad and asked Gaddafi to remove his troops from Chad immediately.
Gaddafi's resentment of Western influence in the region becomes apparent when in 1981 Chester Crocker, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs announced that the US was willing to funnel military aid to any of Gaddafi's neighbors who saw the problem as they saw it. This provided Sudan another avenue to obtain US foreign aid. Sudan received $250 million in economic and military aid in 1982, and more than $200 million in 1983 from the United States.
In 1983, six years after Nimeiry and Sudanese opposition leaders began attempts at reconciliation, opposition from the Sudan People's Liberation Movement and its military wing, the Sudan People's Liberation Army emerged against Nimeiry's northern focused policies. During this time, Libya's cooperative foreign policy towards Sudan had changed drastically since the early 1970s. While opposition to Nimeiry was mounting, Gaddafi provided financial and material support to these opposition groups and other anti-Nimeiry rebel groups and organizations, including Anyanya II and the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA). While Gaddafi's foreign policy has been imbued with controversy and surprises, (a prime example relates to why Gaddafi, an Arab nationalist supported Ethiopia, a primarily Christian African country, against Sudan (under Nimeiry), an Arab country with a Muslim majority) Libya's support of anti-Nimeiry groups is understandable within the context of Libya's anti-western foreign policy and Nimeiry's support for the Camp David Accords.
Nimeiry prevailed against the 1983 Libyan backed opposition but relations between the two countries continued to suffer when in March 1984, Nimeiry claimed that a Libyan Air Force Plane, a Soviet-built Tupolev TU-22 bomber, based at an airfield in the Al Kufra oasis in south-east Libya, had killed five people in an air raid on Omdurman. In reaction to the numerous coups in the region, in 1985, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was formed when all unions and political parties except the NIF signed the “Charter of the National Alliance” and the “Charter to Protect Democracy” in order to incite civil disobedience against future coups.Robert O. Collins. “Africans, Arabs, and Islamists: From the Conference Tables to the Battlefields in Sudan,” African Studies Review, Vol. 42, No. 2 (Sep., 1999) Following this, on 6 April 1985, a group of military officers, led by Lieutenant General Abdel Rahman Swar al-Dahab, overthrew Nimeiry. Following Nimeiry's fall in 1985, Gaddafi immediately abandoned military support for the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and provided his full support to Nimeiri's former Muslim opponents in the North, namely Sadiq al-Mahdi’s Umma Party.
On April 9, 1985 Lieutenant General Dhahab ordered the formation of a fifteen-man Transitional Military Council (TMC) to rule Sudan. The TMC suspended the constitution; dissolved the SSU, the secret police, and the parliament and region assemblies dismissed regional governors and their minister; and released hundreds of political detainees from Kober Prison.
In July 1985, Libyan-Sudanese relations once again fluctuated, this time becoming stronger after a military protocol was signed between the two countries. Despite Gaddafi’s strong support for the Sudanese opposition leader Sadiq al-Mahdi, in December 1985, many Libyans labeled as “Islamic extremists,” were gathered and exiled from Sudan.
In February 1986 the International Monetary Fund declared Sudan bankrupt, after the Dhahab government refused to accept IMF economic austerity measures. Later that year Sadiq al-Mahdi was declared the Prime Minister of Sudan. In a change of tone towards Libya, Mahdi unsuccessfully attempted to mediate the Libyan-Chadian conflict. The Mahdi government also permitted Libya to station some of its military forces in Darfur. From this position the troops assisted Chadian rebels in carrying out raids against government forces in Chad. However, in response to pressures from Egypt and the United States shortly thereafter, the Sudanese government requested a withdrawal of Libyan forces.