ABSTRACT
The central idea of this chapter is that issues of resource extraction and exploitation have been central to political relations in Sudan since a state roughly corresponding to the present one was established in the nineteenth century. Oil especially has become a central ingredient of Sudanese politics and conflict in the past 25 years, but it was not actually the original cause of conflict so much as a pouring of petrol on the flames. The major question of politics and conflict from the mid nineteenth century was the relationship between north and south which developed with the formation of the state under the Turkish-Egyptian occupation from 1821 to 1885, the Mahdist state that succeeded it and the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium from 1898 to 1956. Although oil was obviously not involved in those early days, the precedent of exploitation of resources was there from the outset. Turco-Egyptians, Europeans and northern Sudanese Arabs were involved in moving south from the new capital of Khartoum in search of the riches of the southern Sudan as it became known: at first ivory was the main target, but by the 1850s this had moved on to slaves who were both exported to Egypt and Arabia and used in domestic slavery in the northern Sudan itself (Gray, 1961). The Mahdist state, which had little control of the south, also perpetuated the traditions of a violent relationship with the region.
