Peacemaking, the SPLM/A’s Political Transition During the Comprehensive Peace Agreement Era and Conflict in the Sudans

2020 ◽  
pp. 97-115
Author(s):  
Benedetta De Alessi
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Democratic Transition ◽  
South Sudan ◽  
Military Leadership ◽  
Political Transition ◽  
National Party ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
People's Liberation Army ◽  
People’S Liberation Army

This chapter focuses on the flawed transformation of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLM/A) from a rebel movement into a political organisation during the years of implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in Sudan and how that contributed to delivering an unsustainable peace in Sudan and South Sudan. The chapter examines in particular how approaches to peacemaking ignited and then failed to support the war-to-peace transition, and the extent to which the drivers and factors within and outside the movement contributed to that failure. It argues that while the CPA mediators and the SPLM/A negotiators considered the SPLM to be the engine of Sudan’s democratic transition - after two decades of civil war - they did not adequately consider the movement’s structural weaknesses, namely a divisive ideology, a fractured and hierarchal military leadership and weak political institutionalisation that would affect the movement’s transformation into a national party and its ability to bring about the transformation of Sudan.

The Abyei Award: Fitting a Diplomatic Square Peg into a Legal Round Hole

2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 555-569 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARKUS BÖCKENFÖRDE
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Round Hole ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Small Patch ◽  
People's Liberation Army ◽  
People’S Liberation Army ◽  
The Government

AbstractOn 22 July 2009 a Tribunal of five leading international lawyers rendered their award at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), thereby redrawing the boundaries of Abyei, a small patch of land in the centre of Sudan and source of violent conflict throughout recent years. The arbitration was initiated by the two signatories of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that in 2005 brought an end to the longest civil war in Africa. Both parties, the government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement, expressed satisfaction with the award, which conceivably saved the CPA from potential collapse. This article examines the legal oddities which accompanied the settlement of the dispute over the Abyei area. It analyses both the referral of the dispute to the PCA through the lens of the Sudanese Constitution and the legal ambiguities of the award itself.

New fighting impacts South Sudan peace on two levels

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
South Sudan ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Content Type ◽  
People's Liberation Army ◽  
People’S Liberation Army ◽  
Regional Leaders

Significance NAS alleges that the government’s South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF) and the peace deal’s other main signatory, Riek Machar’s Sudan People’s Liberation Army-in Opposition (SPLA-IO), are taking part in the ongoing fighting. Reports of an imminent offensive had been circulating for weeks; allegations are now emerging of abuses against civilians. Impacts Criticism from regional leaders, who have already threatened to designate non-signatories as ‘spoilers’, may be muted. The signatories will hope that the offensive will prompt defections, boosting their share of the balance of power. Plans to establish cantonment sites in the areas affected by fighting, for troops party to the deal, could prove a flashpoint.

Abyei, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the War in Sudan’s New South

2020 ◽  
pp. 62-77
Author(s):  
Douglas H. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
New South ◽  
South Sudan ◽  
Border Region ◽  
Cultural Issues ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Common ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Political Question

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement succeeded in resolving Sudan’s oldest political question regarding the future of South Sudan, but its most obvious failure was the immediate resumption of war inside Sudan’s ‘New South’ along its border with South Sudan before the latter’s formal independence in July 2011. By focusing on resolving ‘the Southern Problem’ only, the international mediators failed to recognize the common political, economic, and cultural issues of marginalisation that linked large parts of the border region to the wider war. Conflict in Abyei preceded the outbreak of the second civil war in 1983, but the Abyei Protocol was largely an afterthought that inadequately addressed the main issues confronting the peoples of the area. The CPA as a whole failed to include robust monitoring instruments to enforce compliance, enabling Khartoum to refuse to accept any resolution to the Abyei conflict on anything but its own terms.

South Sudan faces a rocky road to first elections

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Bargaining Power ◽  
South Sudan ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Military Strength

Significance The current government’s mandate was meant to end this year. Instead, elections prescribed for 2021 have been delayed to 2023, ostensibly to allow more time to implement the 2018 peace agreement that ended the country’s civil war. Even with such a delay, the path to elections is likely to be littered with challenges. Impacts Few new opposition groups will consider forming political parties, as military strength is still viewed as the only viable route to power. Opposition groups may form alliances to boost their bargaining power, but talking with government is seen as more viable than toppling it. The post-election period will also be volatile, amid likely rejections of results or attempts to negotiate access to non-elected posts.

scholarly journals Maoist Combatants’ Narratives: Partisan Attachment to Post-truce Politics

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 31-40
Author(s):  
Khangendra Acharya
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Armed Group ◽  
People's Liberation Army ◽  
People’S Liberation Army ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Volunteer Group

Ten-year long war led by Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) [hereafter CPN (M)] from February 1996 to November 2006 has been understood as one of the most violent times in Nepali history. The armed wing of CPN (M), People’s Liberation Army (PLA) formed in 2001, was the armed group combating in the war front. Prior to the formation of PLA, CPN(M) had set up its armed groups differently: they had three-tier structure in 1994 that comprised combatant group, security group and volunteer group, which was transformed in 1997 into Guerrilla Squad, and in 1997 into Guerrilla Platoon. Subsequent transformations were Guerrilla Company in 1999 and Guerilla Battalion in 2000. All these groups were involved in armed actions of various magnitudes including selected annihilation, sabotage, ambush, raids and attacks.When the peace truce, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), was agreed, CPN (M) claimed that the party had 32,000 People’s Liberation Army members, around 20,000 of whom were verified by the United Nations (UN).

Challenges of Regulating Non-International Armed Conflicts – an Examination of Ongoing Trends in South Sudan’s Civil War

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 414-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kuyang Harriet Logo Mulukwat
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
South Sudan ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Armed Struggle ◽  
Liberation Movement ◽  
The Government

The conflict in South Sudan became the only viable violent way of expressing underlying discontentment with the style of governance adopted by the incumbent government and unresolved issues from the 1991 split which occurred when Dr. Riak Machar, one of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (splm/a) leaders at the time, now turned rebel leader, fell out with Dr. John Garang, the chairman of the splm/a. The split, notably referred to as the “Nassir split”, led communities from both the Dinka and Nuer tribes to turn against each other. The referendum, a consequence of a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (cpa) between the government in Khartoum, Sudan, and the splm/a, led to an overwhelming vote for secession, later paving way for the subsequent independence of South Sudan in 2011. The existing tension took on a violent expression. The article analyses occurrences the splm/a command pursued on a secessionist agenda in the 21 years of armed struggle and the attainment of independence on the 9 July 2011. It further denotes the insurgents’ pursuit of armed confrontation and the government’s response to the belligerents’ actions, while providing a genesis of the belligerence and laws governing non–international armed conflicts.

US rhetoric on South Sudan may prove hollow

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
South Sudan ◽  
Dry Season ◽  
The South ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Oil Companies ◽  
New Strategy ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
To Come

Subject US policy towards South Sudan Significance Senior US officials have recently taken a harder line with South Sudan’s leaders over the country’s civil war, having resolved that President Salva Kiir’s government is principally to blame for the ongoing conflict and the collapse of a 2015 peace deal. After two senior US officials visited Juba to make it clear that “a serious re-examination” of US policy was underway, the administration announced a new round of sanctions designations and more public condemnation. Washington has hinted that further pressure is to come, but the spike in rhetoric may be more indicative of frustration than of a new strategy. Impacts The HLRF is unlikely to rescue the peace agreement, setting the stage for more violence as the dry season approaches. The government’s already low levels of popular legitimacy will further erode amid conflict and economic decay. Absent US leadership, Europe and the UN are unlikely to forge new initiatives without a clear request from the region. Further US sanctions may bar US oil companies from entering the South Sudan market and deter other investors.

Making and Breaking Peace in Sudan and South Sudan

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Political Science ◽  
South Sudan ◽  
International Organisations ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Border Regions ◽  
To Come

Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005 ended over two decades of civil war and led to South Sudan’s independence. Peacemaking that brought about the agreement and then sought to sustain it involved, alongside the Sudanese, an array of regional and western states as well as international organisations. This was a landmark effort to create and sustain peace in a war-torn region. Yet in the years that followed, multiple conflicts continued or reignited, both in Sudan and in South Sudan. Peacemaking attempts multiplied. Authored by both practitioners and scholars, this volume grapples with the question of which, and whose, ideas of peace and of peacemaking were pursued in the Sudans and how they fared. From the 2005 agreement and various attempts to make peace in Darfur, to renewed peacemaking attempts in border regions between the two countries and finally efforts to resolve the civil war in South Sudan, understandings of peace have been contested, and different modalities of peacemaking have both gone hand in hand and have competed with each other. Bringing together economic, legal, anthropological and political science perspectives on over a decade of peacemaking attempts in the two countries, it provides insights for peacemaking efforts to come, in the Sudans and elsewhere.

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