An Evaluation of the Partitioning of Sudan and US Contribution

A country is partitioned when a region within her existing boundary breaks its legitimate bonds with such a country or state in order to become an independent state in its own right. This does not include, independence after colonization, unilateral declaration of independence or de facto control of a region/territory by militias. This thesis evaluates the impact of US diplomatic engagement in Sudan. Why did the US spend her resources, time and energy to bring about the division of Sudan? Was the original intention of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) partition or peace? Is Sudan normatively one or two countries? To what extent did US decisive diplomacy helped or hindered the peace process in Sudan? This thesis is inductive and it is a mixture of qualitative and quantitative data. The data (secondary) is set-off by propositions such as: Sudanese fruitless search for a cohesive national identity, center-periphery inequality and economic exploitation, conflict over resources and the breakdown of governance in rural Sudan plus the struggle to consolidate the state. The overall impact of US diplomacy in the Horn of Africa was putting an end to the twenty-two year old civil war in Sudan. The thesis developed the recommendations that: ethnic separatists have to keep waging war while simultaneously seeking peace, if they want the international community to be committed to their demands of self-determination;any further studies on Sudan should take a look at why South Sudan is increasingly becoming a failed state.