The secessionist wars in Iraq and Sudan, both of them protracted conflicts that shed the blood of hundreds of thousands of people, have transformed throughout the years. During their first decades, the secessionist insurgents conducted anti-colonial liberation movements, combining guerrilla tactics and popular mobilisation along with public diplomacy that emphasised their position as the oppressed colonies of the imperialists in Baghdad and Khartoum. And in a sense, they were not far from the truth. The postcolonial governments in Baghdad and Khartoum did not perceive themselves as new colonisers. These elites, who gained much of their training, experience in and understanding of governance under colonial rule or from colonial instructors, claimed legitimacy for their rule by distancing themselves from colonial traditions.