Concluding Reflections

2020 ◽  
pp. 320-344
Author(s):  
Alex De Waal
Keyword(s):  
Agenda Setting ◽  
South Sudan ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Strategic Ambiguity ◽  
Peace Processes ◽  
South Sudanese ◽  
Theories Of Change ◽  
Core Issues

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).

Uganda regional agenda may face setback

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Regional Policy ◽  
South Sudan ◽  
Vice President ◽  
Spillover Effects ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Content Type ◽  
South Sudanese ◽  
Regional Agenda ◽  
Better Than

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.

South Sudan's multiple conflicts will not subside

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
South Sudan ◽  
Humanitarian Aid ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Past ◽  
South Sudanese ◽  
The Government ◽  
Sudanese Refugees

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.

scholarly journals The need for a good enough territorial and economic governance in south Sudan

1970 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Francis Onditi ◽  
Cristina D’Alessandro
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Social Vulnerability ◽  
Political System ◽  
South Sudan ◽  
Economic Governance ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
South Sudanese ◽  
Sustainable Peace ◽  
Peace And Conflict ◽  
Political Governance

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.

scholarly journals Deals and Dealings: Inconclusive Peace and Treacherous Trade along the South Sudan-Uganda Border

2012 ◽  
Vol 47 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 5-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mareike Schomerus ◽  
Kristof Titeca
Keyword(s):  
South Sudan ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
The South ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
South Sudanese ◽  
State Authority ◽  
Broad Consensus ◽  
Authority Structures

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.

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

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Onapa
Keyword(s):  
South Sudan ◽  
Ethnic Violence ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Power Struggles ◽  
Peace Agreements ◽  
South Sudanese ◽  
Political Relationships ◽  
The Many ◽  
Violent Conflicts ◽  
Depth Interviews

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.

THE STRATEGIC INSTRUMENTALIZATION OF LAND TENURE IN ‘STATE-BUILDING’: THE CASE OF JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN

Africa ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 83 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naseem Badiey
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Change ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
South Sudan ◽  
State Building ◽  
The Political ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Local Dynamics ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
South Sudanese ◽  
The Town

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.

South Sudan’s government will hinder aid efforts

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
South Sudan ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Content Type ◽  
International Assistance ◽  
The Past ◽  
South Sudanese ◽  
Near Term

Significance South Sudan’s civil war is now in its fourth year, during which the intensity and extent of fighting has fluctuated. Despite the notional maintenance of the August 2015 peace agreement, security has deteriorated in the past year. The spread of violence has produced waves of displacement, with hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese fleeing to Uganda. Impacts The government’s fiscal position will not improve in the near term. Army units, as well as pro- and anti-government militias, will continue to be predatory towards aid. International assistance for South Sudan will overwhelmingly centre on humanitarian activities rather than longer-term development.

South Sudan’s Long Crisis of Justice

2020 ◽  
pp. 297-319
Author(s):  
Mareike Schomerus ◽  
Anouk S. Rigterink
Keyword(s):  
South Sudan ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Economic Justice ◽  
The South ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Peace Agreements ◽  
South Sudanese ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Individual Accountability ◽  
Economic Responsibility

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.

scholarly journals Towards Local Approaches and Inclusive Peacebuilding in South Sudan

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmaculate Asige Liaga
Keyword(s):  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
South Sudan ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Institution Building ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Protracted Conflict ◽  
Peace Processes ◽  
Liberal Peace ◽  
Liberal Peacebuilding

The post-liberation peacebuilding in South Sudan, which largely drew from liberal peace theory, was employed between 2005 (after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and before the referendum, secession, and independence in 2011) and December 2013 (when it imploded into a civil conflict) and proved insufficient to sustain the fragile peace that briefly existed after the country’s secession from Sudan. After a protracted conflict lasting almost half a decade and the presence of multiple peace actors, the lack of a comprehensive and coordinated peacebuilding strategy proved detrimental. This failure is partly due to poor coordination between stakeholders and lack of local/domestic legitimacy, leading to insufficient peacebuilding and an aggravation of the 2013 conflict. Over the years, liberal peacebuilding strategies, which emphasize formal institution-building and statebuilding in fragile and conflict-affected environments, continue to produce mixed to poor results and fragile peace. This decline has resulted in the shifting of discourses and operations within peacebuilding, a paradigm shift that pays greater attention to localization and the local context in the conceptualization of peacebuilding objectives and strategies. This transformation promotes local ownership and inclusivity in peace processes and their dividends. The dialogue on inclusive peace has thus gained momentum, bearing a need to fully engage both states and societies in this process. The “local” in peacebuilding forms an important resource when solving root causes of conflicts, as in South Sudan, by improving awareness of the cultural and historical diversity in a given context.

scholarly journals “They Are Now Community Police”: Negotiating the Boundaries and Nature of the Government in South Sudan through the Identity of Militarised Cattle-keepers

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 410-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi Pendle
Keyword(s):  
South Sudan ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Spatial Distance ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
Peace Agreement ◽  
Community Police ◽  
South Sudanese ◽  
Contextual Understanding ◽  
The Government ◽  
Over Time

Armed, cattle-herding men in Africa are often assumed to be at a relational and spatial distance from the ‘legitimate’ armed forces of the government. The vision constructed of the South Sudanese government in 2005 by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement removed legitimacy from non-government armed groups including localised, armed, defence forces that protected communities and cattle. Yet, militarised cattle-herding men of South Sudan have had various relationships with the governing Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement/Army over the last thirty years, blurring the government – non government boundary. With tens of thousands killed since December 2013 in South Sudan, questions are being asked about options for justice especially for governing elites. A contextual understanding of the armed forces and their relationship to government over time is needed to understand the genesis and apparent legitimacy of this violence.

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