South Sudan’s Never Ending War…
South Sudan’s conflict has entered a new, more
dangerous phase. While there has been no new fighting in the capital, Juba,
since a splurge of violence in July, rebellion is spreading across the country.
In its wake, refugees are fleeing into neighbouring Uganda and Ethiopia,
fearing yet more bloodshed to come.
This briefing explores a crisis that has already left
more than five million people – roughly half the population – in need of aid.
Where are we now?
At the
root of the conflict is a political contest for power between President Salva
Kiir and his rival, former vice president Riek Machar.
After
two years of civil war, Machar arrived in Juba in April to cement a shaky peace
agreement that gave his opposition SPLA-IO a stake in a government of national
unity. But that deal expired in five days of fighting in July, which routed
Machar’s protection force.
Late last month, Machar announced from
Khartoum that he would fight on. He was joined in rebellion by veteran
dissident Lam Akol, who launched his own National Democratic Movement
to battle the government.
More
of the same?
So far so predictable. South Sudan is a
country held to ransom by what analyst Majak D’Agoot refers to as the“gun class” - men like Kiir and Machar,
“sectarian warlords” that have historically used violence, channelled through
appeals to ethnic nationalism, to “hijack” the state for “personal gain”.
It’s essentially a zero-sum game for who
will be “king of the hill in Juba”, says conflict researcher Alan Boswell. So
far, it’s a contest that Kiir appears to be winning. He has moved quickly to
sideline Machar, with former SPLA-IO chief negotiator, Taban Deng Gai, sworn in as vice president.
The
government’s intention is for Taban to woo over as many SPLA-IO commanders as
possible, and to present him to the outside world as a credible alternative to
Machar. To that end he recently visited New York and hobnobbed with officials
in the UN and Western governments.
At
home, the government maintains the idea there is still a government of national
unity, based on the Addis Ababa peace agreement, an exhausting and frustrating
mediation effort by the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development
(IGAD).
Is the international community turning
it's back?
“What
I hear from government is a determination to move forward with implementation
of the peace process,” said a Juba-based analyst who asked not to be named.
“You go to meetings and workshops where people have name tags that still read
TGoNU [Transitional Government of National Unity].”
Is
Machar finished?
In
building up Taban, the government is presenting the international community
with a dilemma. Donors have to decide whether “we work with what we have, which
is Taban, versus trying to ease Machar back into the peace process,” says
Rashid Abdi of the International Crisis Group.
How
acute the choice is will depend to an extent on what Machar does next.
Khartoum, against which Kiir and the SPLA fought a bitter war to gain
independence in 2011, has long meddled in the south – backing a rebellion by
Machar against the SPLA in 1991 for one.
But
Abdi believes the strategic calculation is changing. Through force of habit
Khartoum may maintain an interest in Machar, but warming relations with Juba,
and its main backer Uganda, means it would not be in Sudan’s long-term
interests to arm and support him.
There
is also diplomatic pressure to relocate Machar to South Africa, or anywhere
else that does not share a border with South Sudan. With his aura already
diminished, “If he goes to South Africa that will be the end of him,” says
analyst Jok Madut Jok of the Sudd Institute.
He
therefore wouldn’t be surprised if Machar manages to slip back into South
Sudan: “If he can get into Upper Nile he will be a real player, and we’ll be
back to full-blown civil war.”
Power
to (my) people?
Ethnicity
is often used as shorthand to explain South Sudan’s conflict and the atrocities
committed against civilians by both sides. But the trigger for the civil war in
2013 was essentially a political dispute, based on internal SPLM opposition to
Kiir that was drawn from multiple sources and ethnicities.
Kiir and Machar have since successfully
mobilized key segments of their respective Dinka and Nuer communities, the
country’s two largest groups. But while Kiir is seen by his opponents as
promoting narrow ethnic interests, backed by the conservative Dinka Council of Elders, there is also resentment
among some Dinka towards his clan, who are seen as especially favoured.
Neither
are the Nuer monolithic. There are senior Nuer who have remained loyal to the
SPLA, especially from northern Unity state. Broad ethnic labels tend to obscure
local community dynamics.
Abdi
believes the cardinal sin of the IGAD agreement was to view the struggle solely
as a contest between Kiir and Machar. It was a narrow rather than a universal
agreement, ignoring the demands of other ethnic groups and contestants for
power that predate the peace process.
Those
“centrifugal forces” are going to accelerate “the longer [a credible] peace
process stays in the freezer,” says Abdi.
“I
think you have two different wars going on in South Sudan right now,” notes
Boswell. “You have a fight between Kiir and Machar’s coalitions over who will
be king. But there are a bunch of smaller groups in South Sudan who are waging
a war against the kingdom itself.”
Even though some groups in Equatoria have teamed up with SPLA-IO, they
are all opposed to the hegemony of both sides. “They want a structure that’s
more like a political union, a lot of smaller hills rather than one big one,”
explains Boswell.
There are other groups like the Cobra Faction, which draws support from among the
Murle in Greater Upper Nile. While former leader David Yau Yau is sticking with
the government, the Cobras have joined “the struggle against the authoritarian,
tribalistic regime in Juba”.
Stick
or carrot?
The
government’s approach in the past was to buy off these community militia, a
strategy of co-option known as the “big tent”. But oil-dependent South Sudan is
broke, and with carrots limited, the government has turned enthusiastically to
the stick.
Wau, South Sudan’s second largest city,
has felt the impact of a strategy of retribution. It was purged by the army, allegedly on the grounds the
Fertit people were supporting SPLA-IO. Human rights groups reported mass
graves, and the UN estimated 125,000 people were made homeless.
Overall, more than one million South Sudanese are now refugees in
the region, with about 174,000 fleeing since the beginning of July.
UNHCR’s figures jumped sharply in late September.
People
escaping the violence in Equatoria speak of villages being attacked and looted,
women sexually abused, and young boys conscripted. “You can feel something
terrible looming on the horizon, an enormous pall,” says the analyst in Juba.
How
can disaster be averted?
“The
best scenario is an impossible one,” says Jok. “It’s to get Machar and Kiir to
retire from politics, to be replaced by a caretaker technocratic government
until elections.”
There
are equally few diplomatic options. For a start, the Addis Ababa process is
deeply discredited. “IGAD is in complete disarray. Many people no longer
believe there is a cogent regional strategy to find a solution,” notes Abdi of
the ICG.
The UN’s response to the July violence,
in which its peacekeepers failed to intervene convincingly to
save civilian lives, has been to talk tough about an additional Regional
Protection Force.
IGAD
countries may provide some of the troops (Zimbabwe and Egypt have also
volunteered), but as it wants the UN to pay for the intervention, the proposed
4,000 RPF soldiers would fall under a discredited UN Mission in South Sudan
(UNMISS) command structure.Andrew Green/IRIN
Bentiu
IDP camp
The RPF has the “pacification” of Juba
as part of its mandate. But the government has made it clear it will not accept
any force that could offer any real interference, and the fact its army has
shown no compunction aboutkilling UN peacekeepers, this is likely to provide
food for thought for any potential troop contributors.
Start
again?
South Sudan is such a mess that there
have been calls by, among others, former US special envoy Princeton Lyman, and African academic Mahmood Mamdani, that the country be placed under
some kind of trusteeship for 10 to 15 years.
It’s
of course a non-starter. The clock can’t be put back, and there is no support
for the proposal in the African Union.
“Mamdani
has taken progressive positions on most issues, so this is more a symptom of
despair rather than anything else,” says Abdi.
“A
trusteeship of 10 to 15 years is more than a regime change policy, it’s like
‘we’re really messed up’,” adds Boswell.
The
solution has to come from South Sudanese, says Jok. His best-case scenario is
that Kiir gives Taban enough space to play a legitimate role, allowing him to
put a brake on the excesses of the army, and build a constituency among the
opposition that bleeds support away from Machar.
But
Boswell has a more pessimistic take. He believes the government will pursue a
security solution that will intimidate and coopt communities. But he likens the
outcome to a giant Ponzi scheme, in which its political base of support only
gets narrower.
“The
government is winning the war militarily, but the big question is what happens
if the Ponzi scheme collapses, swallowed up by the political grievances it’s
generating?”
South
Sudan, already poor and underdeveloped, is being made poorer still. It's people
that have lived through decades of civil war are enduring yet more violence.
"There are no winners in any of this," says the Juba-based analyst.
oa/bp
