{UAH} Is peace possible in South Sudan?

By Tarcisio Zammit

The sudden outbreak of violence in South Sudan, with its alarming escalation in loss of life, is yet another reminder that all is not well in Africa. The efforts of the international community to provide development finance for health, education, transport and socio-economic development have gone some way towards improving the lives of millions in Africa.  However, unless deep-rooted political conflicts and grievances are resolved, armed conflicts and insurgencies, as the one currently in South Sudan, will continue to make life for most Africans, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short,” to use the often quoted phrase by Thomas Hobbes, the seventeenth century political philosopher.

 

Indeed, the armed conflict in South Sudan bears many of the hallmarks of other armed conflicts in Africa. At its roots is the country’s inability, in a post- independence situation, to forge a genuinely democratic national identity by overcoming ethnic differences, pursuing a just policy for sharing resources, and curbing the ambitions of its political and military leaders.

 

South Sudan, the world’s newest state, became independent from Sudan on 9 July 2011, following a referendum in which the south Sudanese voted overwhelmingly, 99%, to split from Sudan. Its chequered way towards independence was marked by civil war, bloodshed, political intrigue and muddled compromises that have made it difficult for the fledging state to make a clean break from its past and move on to a stable, peaceful and independent future.

In 1956 the territory that is now Sudan and South Sudan gained independence from the British and Egyptian condominium that had ruled in Khartoum since 1899. The southern leaders insisted on the establishment of a federal system which would safeguard the autonomy and identity of the south. However, the new authorities in Khartoum sought to impose an Islamic and Arab identity on the whole of Sudan. Southern army official mutinied, sparking off the first civil war between the south, led by the Anya Nya guerrilla movement, and the Sudanese government. The conflict ended in 1972, when President Nimeiry agreed to more autonomy for the south.

In 1983, the south, led by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), once more rose in rebellion complaining that the Sudanese government was withdrawing the autonomy arrangements agreed eleven years earlier. The civil war lasted for twenty-two years during which it is estimated that two million people died, and more than four million were displaced, while famine and disease spread throughout the region, making South Sudan one of the least developed regions in Africa.

South Sudan is a land-locked country with a land area roughly the size of France and a population of about nine million. Unlike Sudan's north, which is arid and home to Arabic-speaking Muslims, South Sudan is covered by swaths of grassland, swamps and tropical forest, and has no dominant culture.  The Dinkas and the Nuers, the current warring factions, are the largest of more than 200 ethnic groups, each with its own language and traditional beliefs, though an estimated 60% are nominally Christians. Most South Sudanese still depend on subsistence farming for their living. According to the 2010 Sudan Household Health Survey, only 69% of households have access to clean water and just 2% have water on the premises. Only 29% of children attend primary school, and food security is low with 28% of children under five being moderately or severely undernourished.

At independence South Sudan was extremely fragile, institutionally and economically, and its outstanding problems with Khartoum concerning the status of the border region of Abyei and the sharing of oil revenues, made matters worse.

Abyei was granted an interim special administrative status on the understanding that a referendum would be held in 2011, simultaneously with that on South Sudan's independence, giving the inhabitants of Abyei the right to choose whether they wished to remain part of the south Kordofan region of Sudan or become part of the Bahr el-Ghazel region of South Sudan.  The referendum has been delayed because of lack of agreement on voter eligibility, and the situation in Abyei remains extremely volatile.

The oil issue is even thornier. An estimated 75% of all the former Sudan’s oil reserves are  in South Sudan, while the refinery infrastructure is in Sudan and the  pipeline run north to Port Sudan on the  Red Sea coast. In January 2012, negotiations broke down, provoking South Sudan to halt oil production. A series of armed clashes followed in the oil-rich border regions. South Sudan resumed oil production in early April 2013, following an agreement on borders and natural resources brokered by the African Union.  It is expected to pump some 350,000 barrels a day through Sudan, which stands to gain  $1.5 billion annually in transit fees.  The agreement remains fragile, as Sudan's President, Omar al-Bashir, repeatedly threatens to cut oil transit through his country. Oil revenue accounts to 98% of the budget of the South Sudanese government, and the country's development cannot be assured unless it manages to diversify its economy and until it is able to direct some of its oil through the proposed pipeline to Lamu in Kenya.

Since independence South Sudan also had to deal with serious internal problems. In the Jonglei state a cattle-raiding feud between rival ethnic groups has left hundreds of people dead and displaced more than 100,000.  Moreover, several rebel forces, who are opposed to a government dominated by the SPLM, have emerged, such as the South Sudan Liberation Army and the South Sudan Democratic Movement both formed by  former  generals.

However, the most serious and damaging internal problem for South Sudan is the rivalry between President Salva Kiir and his former vice-president, now rebellion leader, Riek Machar. Their confrontation has split the SPLM, and escalated into an ethnic based rebellion, with a sudden eruption of violence upon the announcement by President Kiir on Sunday 15 December 2013, that his government had pre-empted a coup attempt led by Riek Machar. 

Whether there really was a coup in preparation is debatable; however, one can identify several reasons why within days armed clashes spread to most cities throughout the country.   South Sudan's political leaders are all former rebels, who for decades have been fighting Khartoum and sometimes one another. For them seeking a military solution to a political problem is an easy, if not a natural, move.  What was essentially a political squabble between President Kiir and his vice-president developed uncontrollably into an armed conflict.

Moreover, the political bases of politicians are often ethnic ones. Thus, the political quarrel soon turned into a conflict with nasty ethnic undertones.  Ethnic tension has always been present in South Sudan. It deepened recently as President Kiir, a Dinka, was accused of ethnic nepotism. His split with former vice-president Machar, a Nuer, radicalised ethnic antagonism.

The armed conflict has also been facilitated by wide-scale arms proliferation in the region.

The international community moved fast to broker a cease fire.  Within days the African Union sent representatives to initiate a peace process.  They were followed by mediators from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an eight-country trading bloc in East Africa, of which South Sudan is a member, and the United Nations. This pressure brought the warring parties to the negotiations table in Addis Ababa where a ceasefire was signed on 23 January 2014. So far the truce has held though the tension between the two sides remains high and sporadic skirmishes have been reported. The United Nations is boosting its peacekeeping mission by an extra 5500 personnel, bringing its strength to 12500, to ensure an effective monitoring of the ceasefire.

A second round of peace talks is due to start on 7 February. However, to achieve lasting peace South Sudan's political leaders must be persuaded to give up their reliance on destructive military solutions and learn to seek political solutions to political problems. Above all a comprehensive national reconciliation programme has to be worked out, based on ethnic equality and equitable sharing of resources.

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*A positive mind is a courageous mind, without doubts and fears, using the experience and wisdom to give the best of him/herself.

 

 We must dare invent the future!
The only way of limiting the usurpation of power by
 individuals, the military or otherwise, is to put the people in charge  - Capt. Thomas. Sankara {RIP} ’1949-1987

 *“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent

revolution inevitable”**…  *J.F Kennedy