scholarly journals Estranged Political Relationships: Demystifying the Root Causes of Violent Conflicts in South Sudan

Author(s):  
Sam Onapa

The breaking of peace agreements and the subsequent perpetuation of civil war in South Sudan are sustained by the failure to adopt broad interventions addressing the many layers of the conflict. An understanding of the multiple causes of the conflict can form the basis for a successful and durable peace agreement. To investigate why violent conflict persists, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 29 major stakeholders, including conflict parties, mediators, eminent South Sudanese personalities, scholars and civil society leaders. The responses were grouped into five major themes: historical conflicts, estranged political relationships, power struggles, resource control and ethnic violence (not included in this article). The results suggest that estranged political relationships, characterized by fear, anger, bitterness, distrust and the urge for revenge, are born out of historical conflicts that remain unresolved. The ensuing power struggles and ethnic violence are motivated by the estranged political relationships between the top leaders. Dealing with their estrangements, therefore, forms the base from which historical conflicts can be addressed towards lasting agreements and sustainable peace in South Sudan.

Author(s):  
Mareike Schomerus ◽  
Anouk S. Rigterink

South Sudan’s peace agreements offer two versions of justice: The Comprehensive Peace Agreement includes justice as a description of a better future with more equality. The Agreement for the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan focuses on justice as individual criminal accountability for war crimes. However, the South Sudanese demand for justice combines and goes beyond these two conceptions of justice. Using structured and open-ended interviews conducted in January 2014, the chapter argues that justice is used to describe holistic accountability. This means accountability is understood not as individual accountability for crimes, but additionally as holding leaders formally to account for failing to deliver socio-economic justice and equality, as evoked by the spirit of the CPA. It is a request of sorts to bring leaders to justice for their lack of collective social and economic responsibility in a system where elections do not function as a way to hold leaders to account.


Author(s):  
Lidija Georgieva

This article will focus on theoretical and practical dilemmas related to the concept of peace governance, and within this context on the possible transformative role of peace education trough facilitation of contact between communities in conflict. The basic assumption is that violent conflicts in the Balkans have been resolved trough negotiated settlements and peace agreements. Yet, education strategy including peace education and its impact on post-conflict peacebuilding and reconciliation are underestimated. Peace governance is recognized as a dynamic but challenging process often based on institutional and policy arrangements aimed to at least settle conflict dynamics or in some cases even to provide more sustainable peace after signing of negotiated settlement in multicultural societies. We will argue that education in general is one of the critical issues of peace governance arrangements that could facilitate peacebuilding and create a contact platform between communities. The first question addressed in this article is to what extend peace agreements refer to education as an issue and the second one relate to the question if education is included in peace agreement to what extent it contributes for contact between different conflicting communities. Although it is widely accepted that contacts between former adversaries contributes for multicultural dialogue it is less known or explained if and in what way peace agreements provisions on education facilitate contact and transformation of conflicting relations.


Author(s):  
Alex De Waal

This chapter draws upon the contributions to this volume and adds additional reflections on peacemaking in Sudan and South Sudan, to draw out some patterns and general conclusions. It frames the analysis within the theories of change implicit in international and domestic Sudanese approaches to peacemaking. The principal argument is that peace processes should be seen as an extension of politics, characterized by strategic ambiguity, pursuing parallel tracks, and positioning for future opportunities that cannot be identified in advance. By contrast, international peacemakers’ theories of change are structured to achieve a singular unified settlement, or to pursue external interests. Sudanese/South Sudanese civic actors’ strategies go beyond ‘inclusion’ to agenda setting and generating coalitions for change. These differences are illustrated with reference to how the Comprehensive Peace Agreement managed its core issues (economy and security) and its marginal or excluded issues (Abyei, the ‘two areas’ and Darfur).


Subject Uganda's regional policy. Significance Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on September 16 attended a series of meetings in Khartoum with incoming South Sudanese First Vice-President Riek Machar. Machar's spokesperson said that the main outcome was Uganda's assurance that it will withdraw its military (UPDF) from South Sudan as per the recent South Sudan peace agreement. The development reflects a wider context in which Uganda's regional clout is under strain. Impacts Military intervention in Somalia will exacerbate that country's spillover effects for insecurity in the wider region. The UPDF's role in AMISOM heightens Uganda's vulnerability to al-Shabaab attacks. However, Uganda will manage these better than Kenya, partly due to its long-term character as a security state.


Significance South Sudan is facing severe conflict and insecurity, a prolonged political crisis, and dire economic conditions. A peace agreement signed in August 2015 is falling apart, and fighting and violence during the past year has caused the number of South Sudanese refugees in Uganda to rise to 900,000 -- with a further 375,000 in Sudan and 287,000 in Ethiopia. Earlier this year, aid agencies declared a famine situation in several counties, and appealed for more humanitarian aid and improved access. Impacts Oil output is likely to remain at, or near, 130,000-160,000 barrels per day. Juba’s fiscal situation will remain precarious, with the government unable to secure loans from donors. Unrest and limited strikes over salary arrears could increase.


1970 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Francis Onditi ◽  
Cristina D’Alessandro

Peace and conflict dynamics in South Sudan are intertwined with political governance, institutional capacities, and leadership. Nevertheless, in the specific South Sudanese intractable civil wars since signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, territorial and economic governance are also certainly strictly connected to any possible prospect of sustainable peace for the country. As such, after carefully defining these concepts, this article emphasizes that territorial governance in South Sudan relates to boundaries definition and to the division of the national territory in states with a certain degree of autonomy. The issues and divergences engendered by territorial governance are intertwined with economic governance concerns. The uneven distribution of natural resources (especially oil) produces wealth and power redistribution concerns that are at the core of contentious relations between social and ethnic groups. These circles of tensions rapidly degenerate into conflict in a context of widespread poverty, inequality, and consequent social vulnerability. The article defines and illustrates a “good enough” territorial and economic governance framework for the South Sudanese case study.Keywords: South Sudan; Governance; Resources; Territory; Political System.


2012 ◽  
Vol 47 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 5-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mareike Schomerus ◽  
Kristof Titeca

Since Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed, its border with Uganda has become a hub of activity. Contrasting developments on the Ugandan side of the border with those on the South Sudanese side, the paper draws on empirical fieldwork to argue that the CPA has created new centres of power in the margins of both states. However, in day-today dealings on either side of the border, South Sudanese military actors have become dominant. In the particular case of Arua and the South Sudan-Uganda border, past wartime authority structures determine access to opportunities in a tightly regulated, inconclusive peace. This means that small-scale Ugandan traders – although vital to South Sudan – have become more vulnerable to South Sudan's assertions of state authority. The experience of Ugandan traders calls into question the broad consensus that trade across the border is always beneficial for peace-building The paper concludes that trade is not unconditionally helpful to the establishment of a peaceful environment for everyone.


Africa ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 83 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naseem Badiey

ABSTRACTDebates over land tenure have been instrumental to state-building in South Sudan since the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). Focusing on the local dynamics of post-conflict reconstruction in the town of Juba, this article argues that amidst the political and institutional change inaugurated by the transition from war to peace, debates over land provided a basis for the negotiation of the South Sudanese state. Actors at a variety of levels employed competing interpretations of rights to land as state-building strategies – as tools towards promoting particular visions of the state and of citizenship.


Author(s):  
Jok Madut Jok

Abstract Common to most protracted conflicts that relapse into war is a disconnect between elites and local communities, which typically suffer the most when the former undermine peace agreements to further their own narrow interests. The central argument in this chapter, drawing heavily on the recent history of Sudan/South Sudan and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), is that African conflict resolution and peacebuilding relies too heavily on political agreements between politico-military elites. These deals focus largely on elite power and resource-sharing arrangements. Mostly ignored are the communal and societal dynamics that initially fed the violence. Sudan/South Sudan’s persistent conflict and instability is a prime example of what happens when peace agreements are signed without due regard for the true nature and genesis of the conflict.


Jurnal ICMES ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Firda Rosyana RA ◽  
Windy Dermawan ◽  
Akim Ebih

Despite secession from northern Sudan and became an independent country since then, South Sudan is now experiencing turmoil with the civil war there. Violations toward international law cannot be ignored occurred there, which resulted in many innocent people being victims; of murder, expulsion, rape, kidnapping, and many more. Internal conflict that occurred in South Sudan has attracted international attention. These violations in internal conflicts pushed the international community to provide humanitarian assistance and other assistance as an effort to resolve the conflict. However, after several cease-fire attempts that enable to the peace agreement, conflict still continues. Therefore, the writer intends to explain about the causes, impacts, and solutions that have been carried out by the international world. Thus, here is also analyzed solution that has been done after meeting in Addis, Ethiopia, using integrative negotiation approach. The research found that the integrative negotiation approach can raise awareness between parties and enable peace agreements as it is based on justice and mutual understanding as the pillars of negotiation


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