Failure of States,Fragility of States,and the Prospects of Peace in South Sudan

Anatomy of a failing state: South Sudan and the narratives of war

South Sudan was part of the Anglo–Egyptian Sudan, administered under a dual Egyptian–British rule from 1899 to 1955. The main Sudan became independent in 1956. A few months to independence in January 1956, a civil conflict spearheaded by the secessionist Anya Nya group started between Southern and Northern Sudan, while in 1969, a group of Sudanese army officers (under the command of Col. Gaafar Nimeiry) got hold of power and introduced a policy of self-rule for the Southern parts of Sudan. The government finally granted a degree of self-rule for the Southern territories in a peace deal executed in Addis Ababa in 1972 (Johnson, 2016; LeRiche & Arnold, 2012). In 1983, a second civil war however broke out between south and north Sudan. The civil conflict was led by John Garang’s Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), after Nimeiry abolished South Sudan’s existing autonomy. This war lasted from 1983 to 2005 and was only ended by a north–south peace agreement (North/South Comprehensive Peace Agreement [CPA]) in January 2005. The agreement provided for a referendum on independence in 6 years time, to confirm autonomy for the South, a permanent ceasefire, a power-sharing government that includes agitator in Khartoum. In October 2005, an independent government was inaugurated in South Sudan on the basis of the peace pact of January 2005. But the government was dominated by former insurgents. What was achieved was accordingly describable as fragile peace. John Garang (former Southern rebel leader) was sworn in as the first vice president and a new constitution for Sudan, granting the south a large measure of self-rule, was proclaimed in July 2005. Garang however died in a plane crash in August 2005 and was succeeded by Salva Kiir Maladroit (Johnson, 2016; “South Sudan Profile,” 2018).

In November 2006, hundreds of deaths were recorded in physical conflicts concentrated on the Southern city of Malakal, in the deadliest of such combatant belligerences between the former rebels and Northern Sudanese forces since the 2005 peace pact. March 2008 witnessed the rising of tensions

over clashes between an Arab militia and SPLM in the disputed oil-rich Abyei area on the north-south divide. Abyei has been the source of a lingering dispute within Sudan. And in July 2009, Northern and Southern Sudan said they accepted the ruling by the arbitration court in The Hague, shrinking disputed Abyei oil region and placing the major Heglig oil field in the north of Sudan. Leaders of North and South of Sudan reached a deal in December 2009 on the terms of the referendum for independence due in South by 2011. Expected Independence was later backed by 99% of South Sudanese in the 2011 referendum. (Johnson, 2016; “South Sudan Profile,” 2018)

On July 9, 2011, the new state of South Sudan was born but many insurgent scenarios preceded this birth, giving rise to the situation of an enemy within. Hence,

the clashes between the security forces and rebels in southern Sudan’s Jonglei state left more than 100 people dead in February 2011. The North occupied the disputed border region of Abyei in May 2011. But in June of the same year, 2011, the governments of north and south signed an accord to demilitarize the disputed Abyei region, and let in an Ethiopian peacekeeping force. (“South Sudan Profile,” 2018; “South Sudan: What Is the Fighting About?” 2014)

In August 2011, the United Nations said about 600 people died in ethnic battles in Jonglei State. After some 100,000 persons fled the conflict zones in January 2012, South Sudan pronounced a disaster in Jonglei State. In September 2012, after days of talks in Ethiopia, the presidents of South Sudan and Sudan reached some agreement on trade, oil, and security issues.

By March 2013, Sudan and South Sudan agreed to resume pumping oil, after a bitter dispute over fees that saw production shut down for more than a year. They also agreed to withdraw troops from their border area to create a demilitarized zone. In July 2013, President Kiir dismissed his entire cabinet, and Vice-President Riek Machar, in a power struggle within the governing Sudan People’s Liberation Movement. (“South Sudan Profile,” 2018; “South Sudan: What Is the Fighting About?” 2014)

“South Sudan Profile” (2018) further highlights that a civil war erupted in December 2013, as Salva Kiir accused erstwhile Vice President Machar of attempting to topple him. The consequent dissident groups subsequently seized control of numerous provincial towns. Thousands of people were killed and many more fled. Ugandan troops had to intervene in the crises on the side of government. In January 2014, a ceasefire was executed but severally breached over subsequent periods. By April 2014, more than a million people had been displaced as further talks in February failed to bring an end to the continuing violence. In this same month of April 2014, the United Nations said forces loyal to Machar sacked the oil city of Bentiu, with hundreds of people recorded dead. Another peace talk commenced in August 2014, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and lasted for several months, while combatant exchanges persisted in South Sudan. In April 2016, Machar eventually returned to Juba, and was appointed first vice president in a unity government arrangement. He was discharged again in July 2016, following further conflicts, and he retreated into exile. In December 2016, a United Nations’ Commission on Human Rights reported that a process of ethnic purge was feared in different sections of South Sudan. But this claim was denied by President Kiir. In February 2017, famine was declared in different locations of the war-ravaged South Sudan. The United Nations referred to the food shortages and starvation “as a man-made catastrophe, caused by civil war and economic collapse.” According to the United Nations, by August 2017, the number of evacuees escaping to Uganda from the aggression and savagery in South Sudan had risen above the one million mark (“South Sudan Profile,” 2018; “South Sudan: What Is the Fighting About?” 2014).

The South Sudan situation: A summation

The historical context of the South Sudanese problematique has already been provided by different scholars and lay contributors (Awolich et al., 2017; Blanchard, 2013; Johnson, 2014; Rolandsen, 2015; “South Sudan Profile,” 2018; “South Sudan: What Is the Fighting About?” 2014). The lingering crises in the seemingly failing South Sudanese state, initially began as a tussle for political supremacy and relevance between President Kiir and the then Deputy President Machar, before dovetailing into a full-fledged civil war. But there was actually nothing at independence, which suggested that the envisaged new state would not unravel. The Southern part of Sudan (now officially South Sudan) had always been a divided lot, seemingly incapable of standing on its feet, and consequently not destined to do a good job as an independent nation. According to Mutenyo (2011) also, this location probably had “the worst social and economic indicators in the world” at the time of its ill-fated birth.

Prior to independence in 2011, Cropley (2010) noted that Juba’s political leaders (Juba is the South Sudanese capital) and its band of hardy foreign diplomats admitted that the then Southern part of Sudan, faced

a long and bumpy road toward becoming an even vaguely successful independent nation. It was by many yardsticks, the least-developed place on earth, with 70 percent of its people having no access to any form of healthcare, one in five women dying in childbirth, and one in five children failing to make it to their fifth birthday.

It was one of the roughest corners of an infamously rough continent (Cropley, 2010). It was therefore almost self-evident that the new state of South Sudan was deceased on arrival (Cropley, 2010, Thurston, 2011). It was merely concluded that independence would “bring some hope to a place, which had lost over 2 million people and where over 4 million had been displaced during the civil wars of the past two decades” in the Sudan between the North and south (Mutenyo, 2011). Awolich et al. (2017) further highlights,

The international community has been quite reprehensive in getting to the nitty-gritty of peace consolidation in South Sudan. There is an apparent degree of frustration and sometimes arrogance that gets in the way of a meaningful, result oriented type of diplomatic engagement. In fact, there is lack of appreciation of the dire situation in which South Sudan is, as futile attempts are made to try and force sense out of leaders who are heavily drunk with violence and warfare. (p. 4)

In Branch and Mampilly (2005), Southern Sudan, which metamorphosed into the seeming failing state of South Sudan (on gaining independence from Sudan), is described as “a politically contested space with no unified Southern Sudanese identity” (pp. 3–4). Branch and Mampilly (2005) highlight that whatever common identity that seemed to exist arose primarily from a common repression of the Southern Sudanese by the government based in Khartoum, which had always abused and exploited the South, and cruelly suppressed resistance to its rule. But more prominent, they argued, were the rifts among the various Southern ethnic blocs. Citing Jok and Hutchinson (1999), Branch and Mampilly contend that

The conflict during the 1990s between the Dinka-dominated mainstream Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and various Nuer-dominated SPLA factions produced more bloodshed, and many more civilian deaths, than the battle against the Khartoum government. Many of those who belonged to the smaller Equatorian ethnic groups—the Bari, Zande, Acholi, Madi, Moru, Kuku, and others—viewed the SPLA as a vehicle of Dinka domination and complained bitterly about their treatment at the hands of the SPLA. While the Dinka-Nuer conflict was being addressed by scholars therefore, the conflict between Dinka and Equatorian groups became sidelined (p. 4).

De Waal (2014) likened the scenario to “looking for patterns in what sometimes appeared to be pattern-less contestation and conflict” (p. 350). The state of South Sudan was accordingly founded on crumbled structural functionalism. De Waal (2014) hence, earlier posited,

South Sudan obtained independence in July 2011 as a kleptocracy—a militarized, corrupt neo-patrimonial system of governance. By the time of independence, the South Sudanese “political marketplace” was so expensive that the country’s comparatively copious revenue was consumed by the military-political patronage system, with almost nothing left for public services, development or institution building. The efforts of national technocrats and foreign donors produced bubbles of institutional integrity but the system as a whole was entirely resistant to reform. (p. 347)

It may indeed seem believable that Sudan possesses sympathies for the rebel side of the subsisting war in South Sudan. Houreld and Dumo (2019) depose that “both sides have previously armed rebels against each other.” It would appear as if the evidence of belligerency on ground made the supposed independence of the Southern Sudanese, a case of the clichéd “good riddance” from the stand point of Khartoum. Who will justifiably blame Khartoum for the cataclysms in the emergent South Sudanese state? It seems now that the Southern Sudanese are always at war with themselves, while peace continues to elude them and their current territory, leading to suggestions that it will take a new generation of leaders to make it a successful state (Vertin, 2019). According to Vinograd (2017), the current war “has already claimed tens of thousands of lives and forced more than 3 million people to flee from their homes.” Hutchinson and Pendle (2015) also underscore that

While the 2005 signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) marked the formal conclusion to more than two decades of civil war between the government of Sudan in Khartoum and the SPLM–SPLA, it did not bring true peace. Instead, it ushered in a state of suspension between peace and war that ultimately culminated in late 2013 in the political and military implosion of the newly independent government of South Sudan. (p. 416)

Indeed, “for many members of the southern elite, ‘liberation’ was possession of the same opportunities to loot a state as their northern peers had long enjoyed” (De Waal, 2014, p. 367). When De Waal (2014) subsequently suggests that “the potential for explosive change should not be underestimated” (p. 369) in the continuing leadership shenanigans in South Sudan, what this viewpoint alludes to is that new breeds of South Sudanese rulers would still continue to emerge from a political class with historically impaired credentials and greed-blurred visions. Fundamentally, the belligerents in the lingering crises are militarized political actors who do not seem convinced that the running of a modern state requires backgrounds in the formulation of people-oriented dictums and ideologies. It seems that for such political actors, the independence of South Sudan was for the continuity of their martial arts practices and for the institutionalization of kleptocracy as the culture of public service.

Ensuring enduring peace in South Sudan

The truth is that the current generations of South Sudanese leadership members are not peaceful people. They do not also belong to the class of persons who listen to sermons on repentance. United Nations “agencies such as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP),” and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have made massive interventions in South Sudan, particularly in the area of arresting the embedded food insecurity, and the accompanying malnutrition and starvation (“South Sudan’s ‘Relentless Conflict’ Leaves Almost 60 Per Cent Suffering Desperate Food Crisis,” 2018). It however appears as if these humanitarian interventions embolden the combatants in South Sudan to continue to fight. The international community must then brace up to the challenge of generically replacing such unrepentant deviant actors in one way or another. It is accordingly proposed in this work that the international community brokers an accord of upper age limit for leadership in the executive branch of government in South Sudan. This implies an internationally coordinated retirement for the current warlords. A global fund would be instituted for their life benefits, as they give way to a new generation of leaders in the beleaguered country.

The ex-combatants in these regards will not be on the world’s payroll as retirees, and still be fomenting trouble. Absolute involvement of the international community in perfecting this blueprint is recommended to forestall the boundless consequences of the situation as violated nationals of the possibly failing state spill over to other countries. This article does not recommend an outright forceful intervention that may entail more bloody results in South Sudan. The unrepentantly feuding parties in the country have after all given birth to their own combatant acolytes. The list of necessary casualties in an internationally coordinated ruthless removal of the leading South Sudan warriors may thus become interminable. The leaders of the various wars in the country would, however, need to be reminded that as their civilian population troop to neighboring countries as refugees, there would very soon be nobody remaining in their failing state, except disgruntled and starving soldiers on all the warring sides. It will be good to begin to alert the leaders of the South Sudanese combatant factions that they may be charged for war crimes at the end of the bloody day.

Meanwhile, “more than 3.5 million people have currently been displaced in a country of about 12 million, with more than 2 million internally displaced and another 1.5 million having fled to neighboring countries, particularly Kenya, Sudan, and Uganda” (“UN: Refugees From South Sudan Cross 1.5 Million Mark,” 2017). The implication of this (added to the growing number of war casualties) is continuing depopulation, ineffective government, and deficiencies in the empirical attribute of the state. Malakal, South Sudan’s second city, became empty, razed to the ground (described as vanished) in the rage of warfare (Franks, 2015). A new state recognized in the international system by other states and international organizations (juridical statehood) can, therefore, become describable as failing when the empirical attribute is impaired. A long-term approach must be embarked upon at the end of the current hostilities (whenever it ends). And, this requires the massive funding of structures for modern living in the legacy state. There will be need for the funding of education in South Sudan (on massive scales), building of schools, and sending of teachers to the country. In other words, the situation in a new South Sudan will require human capital (re)generation and the rebirth of the nationals. It calls for a focus on education for national rebirth and social reconstruction. The schools would catalyze these progressive conditions. What has continued to happen is that the international community, as mediators in the South Sudan situation, perceived the emergent debacle as having other similarities. Hence the one-size-fits-all mediations, which remained perpetually jeopardized, are likely to be so endangered, except the failing state realities of the situation are recognized.

Some other studies have also concentrated their recommendations on power-sharing mechanisms (for appeasing the current war lords in this failing state). Although such ameliorative conflict resolution mechanisms may have to continue for an extended period (Rolandsen, 2015), the long-term postviolence focus would need to emphasize the building of the structures for a functional state in South Sudan. This contribution of course is not in specificity focused on how the civil war in South Sudan will come to an end. Implicit in the design of the work is the certainty of the crises coming to one form of end or the other—happy end or illusory end. The emergent state and the worldviews of the budding leaders of the new state will need to be demilitarized. At all levels of education in the country, therefore, the primary function of the school should be the implementation of generic curriculum content for the rebirth of the citizens. The new leaders of the revived state are to emerge from this new breed of South Sudanese nationals. Enduring peace is expected to be guaranteed by this novel class of nationals and leaders, not the contemporary unrepentant warlords.