Conflict

Lessons for IGAD Arising from the South Sudan Peace Talks 2013 - 2015

Year of Publication
2020
Document Publisher/Creator
IGAD
NGO associated?
Source URL
https://igad.int/attachments/article/2433/Report%20of%20the%20Lessons%20Learnt%20from%20SS%20Peace%20Talks%20Booklet.pdf
Summary
This report focuses on the IGAD-led mediation process from December 2013 to August 2015 to address the conflict in South Sudan. As per a project initiated, led and owned by IGAD, it identifies lessons from the South Sudan peace talks with the aim to inform future IGAD mediation efforts.

These lessons are based on interviews conducted by a team of researchers with mediators, advisers, parties and supporters as well as an analysis of internal IGAD documents concerning the South Sudan peace talks.The report highlights the commitment of IGAD to peacemaking in South Sudan, stepping in within days of the outbreak of violence on 15 December 2013 in Juba, convening an extraordinary Summit and mandating a mediation process led by highly experienced envoys.

IGAD’s resolute action helped to prevent further escalation of violence, kept the parties focused on negotiating a political settlement and produced a comprehensive peace agreement signed in August 2015. However, the August 2015 agreement failed to bring peace to South Sudan. This is because the parties lacked genuine willingness to make peace. This condition indeed characterized the South Sudan peace talks throughout. The report cautions IGAD mediators not to rush the process of negotiations. In the interests of sustainable peace, there may be no alternative to strategic patience until the parties reach a sufficient degree of consensus and reconciliation.When the talks reached a standstill in early 2015, IGAD mediators and partners applied leverage, pushing the parties to sign an agreement. This included increased diplomatic pressure, the imposition of targeted sanctions, the threat of an arms embargo and a directive mediation strategy presenting parties with an agreement on a take it or leave it basis. While this strategy produced an agreement, it undermined the parties’ ownership of the agreement, without which sustainable peace is not possible.
Date of Publication
14/09/2020

Conflict and Crisis in South Sudan's Equatoria

Year of Publication
2021
Document Publisher/Creator
Allan Boswell
Topic
NGO associated?
Source URL
https://www.csrf-southsudan.org/repository/conflict-and-crisis-in-south-sudans-equatoria/
Summary
This report examines the ongoing conflict in the Equatoria region of South Sudan and delineates the key actors and interests that will need to be accommodated in any attempt to resolve the crisis. Based on field research and interviews conducted in Equatoria and neighboring Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Kenya from 2016 to 2020, the report was sponsored by the Africa Center at the United States Institute of Peace.
Date of Publication
30/04/2021

Instruments of Pain (II): Conflict and Famine in South Sudan

Year of Publication
2017
Document Publisher/Creator
Crisis Group
Institution/organisation
International Crisis Group
NGO associated?
Source URL
https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/horn-africa/south-sudan/b124-instruments-pain-ii-conflict-and-famine-south-sudan
Summary
As South Sudan’s conflicts, which began in December 2013, have fragmented and expanded, the hunger crisis has deepened and widened. Over 40 per cent of the population is severely food insecure, 60 per cent higher than at this time last year. On 20 February, the UN declared that some 100,000 people are already living in famine conditions in Leer and Mayendit counties. But some 5.5 million are at risk unless urgent measures are taken to reduce conflict and enable humanitarians to deliver more aid safely.
Conflict among various factions has prompted massive displacement that in turn has prevented farming, while looting and cattle rustling have destroyed many people’s assets. Some 1.9 million civilians are internally displaced persons (IDPs), 224,000 of whom have fled to UN peacekeeping bases. Another 1.6 million have found refuge in
neighbouring countries. Currency depreciation, hyperinflation and insecurity have led to declining trade and soaring food prices.
Addressing the humanitarian crisis is hugely expensive. In its 2017 appeal, the UN requested $1.6 billion; so far, only $439 million has been pledged. Helping starving people also is perilous; 82 humanitarian workers have been killed. In the absence of bolder policy decisions to reduce fighting, humanitarian actors will remain at the forefront of the myriad internal conflicts and, with their lives at risks and budgets under pressure, be able to do less as needs continue to grow.
To mitigate the worst effects of the conflicts, the peace process oversight body – the Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (JMEC) – and its partners need to support ceasefire implementation, as well as local dialogue and negotiations between the government and warring factions. To prevent famine in the meantime, however, the humanitarian appeal needs to be fully funded. To ensure that the aid reaches those most in need, all actors should avoid politicising it. Finally, the two existing and third needed humanitarian corridors through Sudan must be kept consistently open.
Date of Publication
29/09/2020

Informal armies: Community defence groups in South Sudan's civil war

Year of Publication
2017
Document Publisher/Creator
SAFERWORLD
NGO associated?
Source URL
https://www.saferworld.org.uk/downloads/informal-armies-final.pdf
Summary
This publication provides perspectives from leading analysts and scholars on the dilemmas groups raise for security provision, the South Sudanese state and peacebuilding nationally. It reviews three of the most significant actors – the arrow boys, gelweng and the White Armies – from the ground up, highlighting the need for local peace and security engagement to be based on a better understanding of their diverse roles and histories.
Attachment
Date of Publication
22/06/2021

The militarization of cattle raiding in South Sudan: How a traditional practice became a tool for political violence

Year of Publication
2018
Document Publisher/Creator
Jok Madut Jok
Institution/organisation
The Sudd Institute
NGO associated?
Source URL
https://suddinstitute.org/publications/show/5b0fb91de0973
Summary
Cattle raiding, a longstanding practice among pastoralists in South Sudan, was historically governed by cultural authorities and ritual prohibitions. However, after decades of on-and-off integration into armed forces, raiders are now heavily armed, and military-style attacks claim dozens if not hundreds of lives at a time.
Date of Publication
01/10/2020

The Return to Ten States in South Sudan: Does it Restore Peace?

Year of Publication
2020
Document Publisher/Creator
Nhial Tiitmamer and Augustino Ting Mayai
Institution/organisation
The Sudd Institute
NGO associated?
Source URL
https://suddinstitute.org/publications/show/5e4fc6fae031b
Summary
In this review, we analyze the recent decision by President Salva Kiir Mayardit to reinstitute the ten states system of governance in South Sudan. We focus our attention on reactions from the stakeholders of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS), the public, the region, and international community, surveying the moods of those involved. We also examine the repercussions of, and implications associated with the decision. The main question we examine is whether the decision could potentially restore peace or latently produce additional troubles than is intended, extending instability. The president’s subsequent speech lends hopes for peace, suggesting that the decision could restore peace in the country, depending on how the underlying grievances are handled during the tenure of the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity (RTGONU). That is, the value of this decision is predicated upon the extent to which the RTGONU handles the fundamental matters of security, governance, service delivery, and justice, an achievement of which could not be attained absent of measured reforms
Date of Publication
05/11/2020

Peace is the cure: How SDG 16 can help Salvage the 2030 Agenda in the wake of COVID-19

Year of Publication
2020
Document Publisher/Creator
International Alert
NGO associated?
Source URL
https://www.csrf-southsudan.org/covid19/peace-is-the-cure-how-sdg-16-can-help-salvage-the-2030-agenda-in-the-wake-of-covid-19/
Summary
This briefing argues that, if a leveraged focus on SDG 16 was necessary before COVID-19, it is imperative now – not just insalvaging the 2030 Agenda in the places where it matters most, but also in damping down the potential for far greater and more durable violent conflict.
Date of Publication
17/11/2020

The New Deal implementation in South Sudan.

Year of Publication
2015
Document Publisher/Creator
Hafeez Wani
Institution/organisation
CSO Working Group/ South Sudan NGO Forum
NGO associated?
Source URL
http://www.cspps.org/view-document/-/asset_publisher/MyWbbR9fzzwe/document/id/131082116;jsessionid=5FA70E4FB0B2E676D28536C2EEA3BF53
Summary
The New Deal implementation in South Sudan. "A South Sudanese civil society perspective paper"

As a pilot country for the New Deal implementation, South Sudan was described as a burgeoning
young nation steadily emerging from the crisis phase on the fragility spectrum into the reform
and rebuild phase. A critical analysis however of the events two years post-independence would
have revealed the true nature of the state of the nation. By late 2012, South Sudan had
conducted its first Fragility Assessment as a country volunteer in the pilot for the New Deal,
over a period of seven months, the Government of south Sudan and development partners
began the process of developing a New Deal Compact by engaging in sub national consultations
across the country. The purpose of the compact was to create a framework of improved
partnership and mutual accountability between the Government of South Sudan and her
development partners with the aim of fulfilling South Sudan’s development vision. In December
2013, the signing of the New Deal compact came to a halt due to the shortcomings associated
with the IMF staff monitored program. Shortly after, the country lapsed into a conflict
precipitated by a political crisis within the government and the ruling party of SPLM.
This perspective paper analyses the relevance of the New Deal under the current circumstances
created by the conflict in South Sudan and assesses the shortfalls of New Deal as a framework
for aid effectiveness through literature review and perspectives harvested from a cross section
of government, civil society and development partners.
The findings of this perspective paper by no means reflect a thorough interpretation of the full
effects of the conflict in South Sudan or the complex dynamics that characterises South Sudan as
a newly independent nation affected by numerous challenges.
It identifies areas for follow up actions and recommendations for establishing concrete building
blocks necessary for the launching of the New Deal process in South Sudan situation allowing.

Education and Armed Conflict in Sudan and South Sudan: The Role of Teachers in Conflict Resolution and Peace Building

Year of Publication
2019
Document Publisher/Creator
Anders Breidlid
NGO associated?
Source URL
https://dx.doi.org/10.22606/jaer.2019.43005
Summary
This article discusses the relationship between education and armed conflict in Sudan and South Sudan, and particularly the role of teachers in peace and reconciliation efforts. The periods covered are the North-South civil war from 1955 to 2005, the interim period between 2005 and 2011 with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the current civil war in South Sudan which started two years after South Sudan’s independence in 2013.

The article shows that teachers are not always promoters of peace and reconciliation, and that their teaching in class to a large extent is context-dependent. The teachers in the Islamic schools during the first civil war had few options but to teach according to the Islamic curriculum and thus cemented the self-Other dichotomy between the Northerners and the Southerners in the conflict-ridden country. Moreover, the article shows that the teachers in the liberation areas in the South during the first civil war chose deliberately a confrontation strategy against their oppressors from the North that coincided with the resistance war.

In the civil war inside South Sudan from 2013 a different teaching pattern emerged where the teachers discussed openly the atrocities of the North during the first civil war, but applied an avoidance strategy in class when teaching about the civil war inside the South. It was perceived to be less of a dilemma to teach contemporary history without touching upon domestic conflict and ethnic rivalry than to teach about conflicts in the South which seriously undermined any idea of social cohesion. Undoubtedly, the teachers felt strongly that it was necessary to treat history teaching carefully, and that there is a fine line between what should and should not be told. There was a perception among teachers that debating the domestic civil war might cause unrest and conflict in class whereas any discussion of the South-North war would not since very few, if any of the students had any allegiance to the North and the Islamic discourse. The article thus raises the question of the relationship between the teachers’ solutions to these dilemmas and education’s role in conflict situations.
Attachment
Date of Publication
11/12/2020

ADVOCATING FOR INCLUSIVE SECURITY IN RESTRICTED CIVIC SPACES IN AFRICA: Lessons learned from Burundi, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Niger, Somalia/Somaliland, and South Sudan

Year of Publication
2020
Document Publisher/Creator
OXFAM
NGO associated?
Source URL
DOI: 10.21201/2020.6157
Summary
Civil society has a vital role in advocating for inclusive, people-centred security provision which meets the everyday safety and security needs of all. This is especially crucial in fragile and conflict-affected contexts, characterized by high levels of insecurity. Restricted civic space shackles civil society’s ability to engage and influence. Despite this, civil society in Burundi, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Niger, Somalia/Somaliland, and South Sudan has developed strategies to navigate, maintain and open civic space to advocate for inclusive, people-centred security and peace. This paper argues that regional and international stakeholders can support civil society to enhance the power of people’s voices in the security sector
Date of Publication
04/09/2020