Conflict

This briefing paper examines changes to wedding rituals and the nature of marriages in the Bentiu Protection of Civilians site and adjacent areas of Rubkona and Bentiu towns. The authors draw from interviews and focus group discussions with displaced residents in the Bentiu PoC and with residents in the adjacent towns of Bentiu and Rubkona to highlight how the shift from a cattle-based economy to one entailing greater use of cash has affected these life events. The researchers also examine changes to bride wealth and corresponding shifts in the engagement of relatives, community members, and social networks in the rite and process of marriage. Depending on their gender, age, and social positioning, respondents offered different views on the extent to which these changes were welcome or detrimental. The authors reflect this diversity of perspectives in the analysis that follows.

The question of changes to marriages is relevant for humanitarian practitioners, decision-makers, and researchers. First, consistent with research in South Sudan and other contexts, we show that weddings and marriages are not only privately important for those who directly participate in them, but also carry broader social and symbolic significance for the community. Second, weddings and marriages provide a useful lens for examining the effects of cash on social connectedness, as well as the effects of livelihood loss—in the form of cattle, in particular—on new and existing relationships. Finally, an examination of weddings and marriages allows for a gender- and age-informed analysis of how social relationships are reconfigured during conflict and displacement. The authors pay particular attention to how norms around the regulation of gendered relationships have evolved during the course of conflict and displacement, and the ways in which livelihood changes affect those norms.

Improved security and access to justice are urgent priorities for the people of South Sudan, who have been targeted by government and opposition forces since the beginning of the civil war in December 2013, and affected by violence between and within communities.

A variety of groups and institutions aim, or claim, to provide people with security and justice, from the police, military and courts, to customary leaders and the armed opposition. As most people cannot rely on the government for protection, they often have taken security into their own hands by forming armed community defence groups.

This report explores how the various providers of security and justice have responded to violence associated with the civil war, intercommunal conflict, and gender-based violence in Torit and Kapoeta, south-east South Sudan. It asks to what extent the security and justice providers are effective, inclusive, and whether people see them as legitimate. The report aims to inform efforts to enhance people’s security and access to justice.

The report emphasises the role of community defence groups who, in many parts of South Sudan, have been drawn into the civil war and become involved in large-scale violence, as is documented in Saferworld’s 2017 ‘Informal armies’ report. However, this subsequent report shows that elsewhere in the country, such groups have resisted involvement in the war, and have facilitated dialogue and cooperation between the government and armed opposition, and provided security for communities.

The paper examined the essence of women in Mainstreaming Peace and Security in South Sudan by exploring lessons Learned and Way forward. The study has assessed some instruments used in support of UN Resolution 1325 to empower women in promoting peace and security within the country. The paper has examined UNSCR 1325 by understanding the essence of women participation, the execution of the resolution by developing the policy framework, and understanding the avenues applied by women to participate in peace and security in South Sudan. The paper has found out that, R–ARCSS is a great opportunity South Sudan’s gender mainstreaming by complying with UN resolution 1325. The purpose of this study was to articulate the desired end state of Women in Mainstreaming Peace and Security in South Sudan: Lessons Learnt and way forward to serve as a platform for discussions at the highest level of decision–making and to provide a guide for further detailed planning in achieving gender mainstreaming within South Sudan.

This study of Conflict and Gender in South Sudan was undertaken in support of the ‘Addressing Root Causes
Fund Programme’ (ARC). Being implemented over a five-year period between September 2016 – August
2021, the Programme is to be undertaken by a consortium of three organisations including: the Agency for Cooperation and Research in Development (ACORD), Dan Church Aid (DCA), and the Centre for Conflict
Resolution (CCR) (here-after referred to as the Consortium). Funding is provided by the Addressing Root
Causes (ARC) Fund of the Government of the Netherlands. This study, conducted between February 20 to
March 27, 2017, was meant to contribute to the baseline upon which the Programme is being constructed.

This report is the result of a short-term study on the traditional and changing roles of gender and women in peace-building. The study involved field research in five locations (Aweil, Bentiu, Bor, Rumbek and Torit). The purpose of the study is to research how the traditional and changing roles of women/ girls and men/boys, conflict dynamics in South Sudan and to recommend to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), potential partners, on possible further peace initiatives. This study contributes to UNDP’s work with women, with regard to resolving peace and security issues in the region. The study offers critical analysis in understanding the unique potential contribution of South Sudanese women in national reconciliation and peacebuilding. The study aims to enable the government of South Sudan and international donors to more effectively mainstream gender initiatives into their policies, programs and future activities.

This weekly review investigates what underpins the ongoing conflict in South Sudan, which is barely understood. The ongoing peace processes, namely IGAD led mediation efforts, National Dialogue and SPLM reunification efforts, may not bring a durable peace if the origin of the conflict is not well understood. Many people claim these processes to be complementary to one another, but none has been able to point exactly to where such complementarity arises. This paper attempts to discuss the fundamental cause of the conflict and how the ongoing peace processes can be used to resolve it.



Following an evaluation of the High-level Revitalization Forum and the National Dialogue processes, the paper concludes that neither of the two processes alone has all it takes to resolve the grievances. It proposes a four staged-framework that starts with the High-Level Revitalization Forum and the current National Dialogue grassroots consultations as the first stage, after which the two processes could be merged in a second stage we call the Comprehensive Dialogue stage, which is then transformed into a Constitutional Conference as a third stage and ending with Elections as the fourth and last stage of the peace process. Analytically satisfying these stages, however, demands investigating what the fundamental problem is and how the proposed solutions resolve it.

This guidance framework is the output of discussions involving representatives from operational aid agencies and groups in South Sudan. The purpose of this guidance framework is:
1. To facilitate more nuanced understanding of organised violence in South Sudan and address potentially misleading use of catch-all terms (e.g. ‘inter-communal violence’ or ‘cattle raiding’)
2. To facilitate more constructive inter-agency dialogue and planning through a more consistent use of key terms used to describe organised violence in South Sudan
3. To summarise key considerations from a programming (rather than security/legal) perspective in relation to conflict sensitivity, livelihoods/services and protection.

What started as a political conflict in South Sudan in December 2013 has created a community security crisis drawing in a range of uniformed, community and foreign security actors. At the heart of the crisis, are fundamental questions about democratic values, about accountability and justice, and about overcoming narratives of marginalisation, impunity and ethnic bias.

This conflict is a contest between social orders in which the authority of the prevailing order is being challenged. The relevance of the systems through which resources are accumulated and dispersed is also being challenged. This is a crisis of the legitimacy of the state. The state represents the formal expression of a range of highly subjective interfaces and partnerships through which power is shared and order finds expression.

This paper outlines some of those interfaces and partnerships, and the dynamics that affect them. It is by no means an exhaustive analysis but rather a tracing of threads of interaction at local, national and regional levels as a way of mapping some of the webs that connect across space and time in South Sudan. The overall approach is one that seeks to understand how South Sudan moved from fragility at independence to a full-blown crisis of internal and external sovereignty in December 2013. The paper is divided into sections addressing different aspects of state behaviour – the search for internal legitimacy; the search for security; and the search for economic growth and development. These sections provide an overview of the domestic context and key dynamics determining the national agenda. After the internal focus, the paper provides an overview of regional relationships that affect South Sudan’s internal and external political behaviour.

The main argument presented here is that the current crisis in South Sudan is the result of challenges to the internal legitimacy of the SPLM as part of the state formation process and the expression of sovereign authority. The current configuration of power in Juba has proven an astute capacity to build and break alliances across different interests and to dominate the narrative in a way that limits response options. This is not a nascent government anymore but one which is demonstrating how it wants to run internal affairs and how it will exercise sovereign authority. The narrative of this internal legitimacy is based on overcoming the threat of rebels and a coup; it is a narrative firmly rooted in the politics of ethnicity and the focused use of coercion, and which seeks to reinforce the centrality of the party as liberator and guarantor of order. But for the South Sudanese state (and by extension the ruling SPLM), the ability to exercise sovereign authority remains dependent on managing increasingly competitive external relations.

When the dust has settled on this latest crisis, the question that remains will be one of the level of violence which is acceptable for a state to employ against its citizens under extreme circumstances. The current crisis in South Sudan is reshaping not only internal relationships between the organs of state and the people but also the parameters of relationships between the government and international actors in the region and beyond. These are highly lucrative relationships at all levels leaving much still to be fought over. This crisis has become a civil war in which the state is beginning to deal with its legitimacy and sovereignty issues within a deeply fragmented country and highly competitive regional political economy.

Introduction
This report presents findings from a survey of 677 households in four towns in South Sudan – Nimule, Torit, Wau and Yei. The survey gathered data on respondent perceptions of and experiences with HLP disputes.
South Sudan is currently experiencing a crisis of displacement on a scale that not been seen since the height of the previous civil war in the mid-1990s. In just five years, the current conflict has displaced two in five of all South Sudanese in the country.
Public authorities and development partners should address problems of housing, land and property (HLP) as they relate to displaced populations as an integral component of the emergency response. This would encourage safe, voluntary and dignified returns and prepare the ground for more substantial return and resettlement efforts in the future.