Is Detention the Solution for Children in Conflict With the Law for Uganda?

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index It is more than 25 years since the adoption of the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1989 which came just four years after the UN set out its minimum standard rules for the administration of juvenile justice. The UN published Guidelines for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency and the Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of Their Liberty in 1990, which set pace for the implementation of the Convention. There is considerable variation in how progress and expectations of juvenile justice have been applied globally. In its general comment on global children’s rights in juvenile justice (2007:No.10), the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recognized the difficulties with which state parties still face in achieving full compliance with the CRC provisions. The Committee highlighted development and implementation of measures for dealing with children in conflict with the law without resorting to judicial proceedings, with the use of detention only as a measure of last resort, as being one area where states have underperformed.

Uganda’s performance has been acknowledged by the international community in terms of its policy approach to address juvenile delinquency in compliance with CRC. For instance, the African Child Policy Forum (2008) ranked Uganda 12th in respect of its legal protection framework for children. In addition, in 2010, Uganda’s framework of taking charge of children in conflict with the law through its family and children courts, and the establishment of remand homes and the National Rehabilitation Centre was also commended by the African committee of experts on the Rights and Welfare of African Child. However, it is critical to concede that, in reference to the Beijing Rules of 1985 (UN, 1985), Uganda appears to have developed and implemented measures that promote judicial proceedings and use of detention as a strategy for advancing juvenile justice.

This essay attempts to address this question by discussing the right to liberty and how detention impacts children in conflict with the law, referring to the guidelines set by the United Nations for the administration of juvenile justice and other international instruments. It will focus on how detention of children impacts on their welfare and development by examining deprivation of the right to liberty and the condition of child detention in Uganda. Lastly, the essay will also reflect on whether children in conflict with the law in Uganda are handled in the manner that conforms to the requirements of the international standards set by the United Nations and other human rights instruments which protect the rights of children.

The United Nations Beijing Rules of 1985 for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of Their Liberty define deprivation of liberty as

“[…] any form of detention or imprisonment or the placement of a person in a public or private custodial setting, from which this person is not permitted to leave at-will, by order of any judicial, administrative or other public authority”. (UN, 1985)

The principle of justice in Uganda presumes one to be innocent until proven guilty with access to legal representation and fair hearing by a competent and independent body (Constitution of the Republic of Uganda, 1995). These principles conform to those enshrined in international law. The involvement of children in the formal justice process can pose traumatizing and damaging consequence in their lives. Simkins (2009:9-15) attributes these damaging consequences to the shift in the nature of juvenile justice in the last fifteen years, from rehabilitative to punitive justice system. Simkins further suggests that, in response to the consequences of punitive justice system on the future of children, the adults charged with the decision making responsibilities on behalf of children need to fully understand the long-term consequences of their decisions on children.

While the Government of Uganda usually rationalises its use of deprivation of liberty for its children in conflict with the law as a matter of public safety, there are increasing concerns that pre-trial detention in Uganda tends to deprive children suspected of conflicting with the law of their most fundamental rights. The United States Human Rights Report for Uganda for instance pointed out that, the two detention facilities in Kampala whose combined capacity is 75, held 322 children in 2012. There is significant evidence of repeated recommendations that strongly urge state parties, Uganda inclusive, to stringently use detention of children as a measure of last resort in the shortest possible time (UN Beijing Rules, 1985). The international instruments that provide for the protection of children in conflict with the law and the 1995 Constitution of Uganda consistently propose and encourage the use of alternative measures available to detention. This alternative must promote prevention, rehabilitation and reintegration of delinquency. Uganda, on the contrary, seems to have taken on deprivation of liberty not only as a sentencing but a pre-sentencing option with little attention towards prevention, rehabilitation and reintegration of child offenders.

This approach of detention has led to congestion in children detention centres. Although the detention of children is legally provided for in both domestic and international law, particularly where the offender is dangerous to others or at risk themselves, these laws seem to be inconsistently implemented in Uganda. This may be due to the lack of political will seen in budget allocation towards children diversion programmes and the institutions that implement them. The U.S Department of State in its Human Rights Report for Uganda highlighted severe congestion as a concern at juvenile detention facilities. According to the report, the Kampala Remand Home, designed for 45 children, held 148 and 137 in 2012 and 2013 respectively. Naguru Reception Center, designed for 30 children, held 174 in 2012 and 116 in 2013. Considering the statistics presented, it can be argued that the congestion in the detention facilities is a reflection of issues in the system of administrating juvenile justice.

However, the UN Beijing Rules of 1985 (UN, 1985) provide that in extreme circumstances where safeguard is the only alternative for at risk offenders, states must take measures that are guided by fairness and equality. According to these standards, state parties must take measures that guard the well-being, development, rights and interests of all young people. State parties must also adapt specialized approaches to motivation, needs and opportunity to commit infractions for children. Lastly, both state actors and society members need to consider that some youthful behaviour is part of normal maturation and that labelling children as delinquent or deviant may contribute to future delinquent behaviours especially if those accts do not cause harm on either the child or another person.

It can be noted that detention centres in Uganda seem to have challenges meeting these international requirements for the detention of juveniles. For example, children do not have access to a suitably prepared, nutritious and balanced diet served at meal times. There is little clear information specifically on the situation of feeding in juvenile detention centres. However as cited in the US Department of State Reports on Uganda’s Human Rights Situation for 2011, 2012 and 2013 respectively, feeding in detention facilities is insufficient and short of required dietary needs. As authoritatively defined by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Committee on ESCR) in its General Comment 12:

“The right to adequate food is realized when every man, woman and child, alone or in community with others, has physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement.”

Education, opportunities to learn working skills and recreation must be provided to children in detention (CRC, 1989). This is further emphasised in education policy (the Universal Primary Education (UPE) (1997)). The UPE policy of 1997 proposed free and compulsory access to primary education. This was seen as a positive move by the government towards the achievement of preventive mechanisms for dealing with delinquency without resorting to judicial proceedings such as diversion, capital development, gender equality and other preventive measures to delinquency. However, children in detention do not have access to education and vocational skill training as detention facilities lack the capacity to ensure access to education for school going children and vocational skill training for those not in schools. The failure of the justice system in ensuring continued access to education by children in detention infringes on their rights to education. Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) (1948) provides that access to education is a fundamental right and that the education should be used to enhance a person’s capabilities. It can be argued that the violation of this right might affect the development of the child.

Extreme disciplinary measures are used in juvenile detention centres in Uganda. The 2012 Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children country report for Uganda highlighted that despite the law, children are tortured and beaten in police stations and other detention facilities. Newell (2000:115 – 126) asserts that it has always been wrong to abuse children just as it is to adults. Therefore, the use of corporal punishment cannot be justified. Newell argues that, corporal punishment and other humiliating forms of disciplinary actions taken on children have a significant impact on the long-term development of violent attitudes and actions both in their childhood and their later life. The application of such disciplinary measures that violate Article 37 of CRC is detrimental for the health and development of children in conflict with the law. As Ren and Friday (2010:18-19) in their book ‘Delinquency and Juvenile Justice Systems in The Non-Western World’ noted, there are conspicuous discrepancies amongst states in their response to juvenile offenders and the international standards. To them, several states, caregivers, and judicial officials have not given adequate considerations to the concept of juvenile justice and delinquency and its fundamental principles established by the UN (1990a).

In conclusion, this essay examined the international framework for the protection of children in conflict with the law and how this framework impacts on administration of juvenile justice in Uganda. It has shown that Uganda has established a working structure whose responsibility is to administer juvenile justice; the structure seams to focus its interventions more on response to delinquency than to responsive measures. The essay points out that, despite the various interventions adapted by the government of Uganda, the country still appears to struggle in meeting the minimum requirements set by the International standards for handling children in conflict with the law. It found that more emphasis has been put on judicial proceedings at the expense of social and welfare structures that would provide a platform for alternative handling of children in conflict with the law. The result is that cases involving children that would otherwise require social and welfare interventions find their way into formal justice proceedings and often into detention. Lastly, the essay argued that there seems to be a significant gap between the rhetoric of juvenile justice and the reality. However, if Uganda can adhere to the international principles of delinquency and juvenile justice, detention of children will not be necessary with the exception of extreme cases involving children demonstrably at social risk.

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The South Sudan Series, Issue 4: Conclusion & Bibliography

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In this final issue of the South Sudan Series, this series has found that although the 2005 CPA managed to bring to an end the protracted conflict between north and south Sudan and resulted in independence of the south from the north, its outcome beyond these has been disappointing and detrimental to the long term peace and stability for south Sudan, both as a region then as an independent sovereign state. The CPA ignored the engagement of the population in its development. In addition, it conventionally frustrated any form of covenant that existed or had been developed between the SPLA and the population of the south as a result of their support of the rebellion. Instead, the CPA replaced the population with oil using it as a basis upon which the belligerents would build their governance and draw their legitimacy.

The implication of this is that the CPA successfully created the new state of South Sudan but systematically inhibited its development of a monopoly over access to the means and exercise of force and taxation. These are attributes that Di John (2010) and North (1999) point to as being fundamental in enhancing a state’s resilience and to the reduction of the prospect of non-state actors financing rebellion or challenging states authority in the delivery of services to its population. Because of the inherently dual political and economic nature of taxation, the monopolisation of tax collection not only represents the basic permeability of the state in all sectors of the economy but also makes it difficult for non-state rivals to challenge the state’s authority (Di John 2010). On the contrary, the CPA created a government with extremely narrow tax base heavily dependent on unearned oil revenue limiting political interactions between the state officials and the population. Consequently, the construction of a government whose structure was fundamentally established around oil wealth limited the state’s ability to permeate its society. Hence to date, the South Sudan government is far from being resilient due to its weak presence in most areas of its territory.

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The South Sudan Series, Issue 3: The CPA’s Contribution to Peace and Stability in South Sudan

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3.1 Political-Economic Dimensions

Issues 1&2 reveals that the CPA was only a bilateral agreement between two fighting group without any involvement of either political parties, NGOs, who have throughout the conflict provided vital functions of civil society or the population itself. Despite this challenge, the endorsement of the CPA by excluded parties would still be possible through a participatory form of implementation of the provisions of the agreement (Ahmed 2010; ICG 2011). ICG (2011) argues that this would be dependent on two factors.

Firstly, the extent to which the SPLA would allow for the opening-up of a political space that would enable a vibrant multi-party representative system of democracy. And the second being the ability and willingness of the elites to undertake a democratic reform within the SPLM/A transforming it from a militarised concept of politics to representative democratic politics. Failure to undertake these forms of adjustment would risk reconstructing the pre-CPA form of government characterised by authoritarian and heavily centralised rule proving a stumbling block to state-making.

However, political economy analysis presented in issue one, seems to present a contrary view to the above. The thesis argues that although issues of democratisation and transparency are important, it is how a state finances its most basic functions that are more important. It is how domestic resources are used to finance public goods and services that is fundamental for building state legitimacy, (Olson 1965; Tilly 1990; North 1999). According to Di John (2010), because taxation is inherently political, taxation not only enhances government accountability, it also provides a focal point around which various interest groups can be mobilised (Di John 2011a). In contrast, southerners’ mobilisation to support the SPLA was not taxation related. Therefore, the political economy thesis of taxation might prove very problematic when used in the south Sudan context as revealed in issue one (1.2.5) in isolation of other dimensions.

Two overarching factors correlate with this explanation. First is the ease with which the southern population seems to be mobilized along non-economics aspects such as religion, tribal and ethnicity. This illustrates the fragility of the state, while the second is the construction of a ‘rentier state’[1] by the CPA whose structure and government is established around oil revenue which restricts the belligerents from diversifying the country’s tax base beyond the remits of oil revenue. Di John (2010) argues that the diversity of the tax base is a good indicator of how the state engages with different sector and regions, and to a much greater extent indicative of the degree to which a state authority permeates society.

Nevertheless, the CPA still managed to produce significant optimism among the population. This optimism however was short-lived as the promised moment of the dawn of a new era turned increasingly dispiriting with each level of implementation and years that passed.

3.2. Multidimensionality Ignored

The Addis Ababa Agreement of 1972 provides a classic example of the importance of understanding and contextualising the interaction between socio-economic, political and historical dimensions in resolving conflicts. The analysis in this series reveals that although the 1972 pact successfully brought an end to the fighting between the GoS and Anya-nya in January 1972, the GoS and the GoSS needed to embark on the transition from war to peace (Ahmed 2006; Johnson 2011). This involved the development of socio-economic, political and natural situations that would build trust and the spirit of voluntarism; the creation of security and removal of barriers to sustainable peace (ibid. issue one). The failure to achieve the transformation necessary exacerbated by external factors, most notably the debt and global commodity price crises of the 1970s, accelerated the need for political and economic reorientation with far reaching devastating impact for the population (Lako 1993; Johnson 2011).

To illustrate this argument, Johnson (2011) and Lako (1993) point out that as a result of the debt crisis and the global fall in agricultural commodity prices in the 1970s, the GoS became dependent on the US and IMF not only as a measure of renegotiating the rescheduling of its debt servicing and further borrowing, but rather on foreign aid through USAID. According to Johnson, Sudan became the largest recipient of US foreign aid in the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa receiving approximately $1.4 billion between 1971 and 1985 (Johnson 2011). As a precondition for receiving this financial support, the US and IMF demanded for Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs), a concept fundamental to the neoliberal capitalist development (ibid. pg. 19-22) in most developing countries from 1980s to present.

To warrant political stability and thwart the pessimism of SAPs, the GoS under the auspice of national reconciliation opted to join forces with the Umaa and the Muslim Brothers who also demanded a reform of national laws and justice to adhere to Islamic principles as a precondition for their acceptance of national reconciliation (Johnson 2011). This move however systematically ignored the involvement of the GoSS and its population, a move that compromised the provision of the Addis Ababa pact while putting further pressure on the already weak state institutions in the south (Ahmed 2010; Lako 1993; Johnson 2011). This resulted in dissatisfaction in the population of the south. The SPLA took advantage of this situation mobilising support to launch a liberation movement. It can therefore be pointed out that the lack of representation and involvement of the south Sudan elites together with the weak state institutions generated grievances that later fueled conflict.

3.3 Factors Limiting Effectiveness of the CPA

3.3.1 Peace Approach:

The CPA negotiators took on a one-dimensional model of peace negotiation inherently characterised by elements of exclusion and militarised and mineral resource focus. Simon and Dixon (2006) persuasively present that the IGAD’s approach to diplomacy adopted during the protracted negotiation characterised by firm leadership and organisation was a militarised model well suited for a process particularly structured to deal with belligerents. Although this approach, unlike the previous peace attempts, seems to have subsequently succeeded in ending the fighting and ensuring secession, it was too tight and focused on a very narrow conception of north-south Sudan contention.

The exponents informed by the resource curse[2] explanation of civil conflict postulated that south Sudan is almost exclusively dependent on oil money; the national politics, decentralization of authority, development and state capacity, that is government, must be centrally built around oil (ICG 2011). The proponents to this model broadly informed by the resource curse’s rentier state argument that when a state like Sudan gains a large proportion of their revenues from external sources, such as oil money, it reduces the need for state decision-makers to levy domestic taxes on its population causing state leaders to be more predatory and less accountable to its civil population. By resolving the management, access and distribution of oil revenue, north-south conflict would be addressed. However, the resource curse thesis has come under fierce criticism, most significantly among academics. Rose (2004) for instance argues that resources in themselves do not cause conflict, rather pre-existing state institutions in these countries that seem historically dependent on oil/mineral resources tend to be weak.

This essay argues that the resource curse model adapted by exponents of the CPA does not hold in understanding conflict and the situation in South Sudan. However, the model plays an important role in demonstrating that an economy may be considered to be dependent on oil mineral revenues just because it failed to diversify its economy either as a result of a dysfunctional government before mineral discovery or because of years of organised violence before the civil war. Analysis of the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement (ibid. chapter one) revealed that the inadequate capacity and the non-existence of state institutions responsible for managing different sectors in the south that would facilitate the process of state-building, establish/manage state-population interactions through taxation, law and justice, capital development and provision of security was the single most fundamental reason for the return to war in 1983 and not the dependence on oil revenue.

As a result of exclusion and non-engagement of the south Sudanese population and the undermining of the complexities within the south itself, managing South Sudan’s ethno-regional diversity continues to be a major challenge to both the GoSS and the interventionists. As the CPA era came to an end with independence in 2011(Johnson 2011; ICG 2011; Young 2012), the SPLA needed to overhaul its modus operandi and the non-representative government established by the CPA (ICG 2011). However, for this to happen, the state needed to maintain cohesion, consolidate its legitimacy and deliver government of its population. Failure to do so would mean it would be only a matter of time before frustrations and dissatisfaction among the population took a violent manifestation.

3.3.2 The SPLA-Southern Population Contract

Upon the signing of the CPA in 2005, the population in south Sudan especially those from the Blue Nile state, Abyei and the Nuba Mountain (South Kordofan) regions became optimistic and began looking forward to their new government to provide benefits and services in return to their support to the movement.

However, to the disappointment of some of the population of Nuba Mountain, Blue Nile and the Abyei region, very few if any of their concerns were addressed in the CPA (Johnson 2011; Ahmed 2010; Young 2012). Although the GoSS made advances in establishing governing structures and legislation, the regional government struggled to provide tangible peace dividends as the state presence was often unnoticeable (ICG 2011). If the argument that the rentier state module adapted by the CPA which put oil as a primary resource upon which south Sudan governance was to be based is to carry any relevance, then the CPAs inability to recognize the manner in which the SPLA mobilised its population to support the rebellion and adequately address it in the agreement proved costly. Furthermore, the inability of the SPLM/A government to expand its tax base beyond the remit of the CPA provision; effectively engage with different sector and regions or even permeates its territory proved problematic for the new state and its population.

[1] The ‘rentier state’ argues that the kind of tax that generates revenues determines the type of governance. It presents that when the state gets its revenue from unearned sources such as oil minerals, it reduces the relationship between state authorities and the civil society as government of oil rich states do not bargain with its citizens to generate revenue hence affecting the proper development and functioning of state institutions (Collier 2000; de Soysa 2000).

[2] Resource curse thesis argues that the abundance of mineral resources provides incentives for activities that seek to earn/maintain or change ownership of property rights to different groups who tends to take violent actions in trying to gain access or control to such resources. The proponent of this thesis asserts that the causes of contemporary civil wars are a result of criminal acquisitive desire (greed) triggered by natural resources such oil minerals (Collier and Hoeffler 1998).

South Sudan Series. Issue 2: The CPA: A Framework for Regional Peace and Stability?

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2.0 Introduction

This issue 2. of the South Sudan Series examines the peace negotiation process that culminated with the CPA and how it fits within the context of southern Sudan’s experience with political violence. While providing a summarized analytical perspective of the CPA, this section articulates the nature of engagement in the agreement and how it addresses the southern Sudan protracted conflict.

A South Sudan army soldier stands next to machine gun mounted on truck in Malakal town

South Sudan Government Soldier – December 2013. Photograph: theguardian 31 December 2013

2.1 A Compendious Account of the 2005 CPA

The CPA, sometimes referred to as the Naivasha Agreement, is a set of agreements culminating in January 2005 from more than two and half years of negotiation between the insurgent SPLM/A and the GoS. It was meant to bring to an end the second north-south Sudanese Civil War; make unity of the Sudan attractive by developing and promoting democratic governance, accountability, equality countrywide and share oil revenues (CPA 2005: xi). In the event that such a framework failed to redress the grievances of the population of southern Sudan and to meet their aspirations, southern Sudan would have a referendum on its independence from the north and become a sovereign state. The CPA comprised six protocols i.e. the Machakos protocol, the security arrangements, the power sharing arrangement, wealth sharing, the resolution of the Abyei, and the resolution of conflict in the Southern Kordofan state and the Blue Nile state.

2.1.1 The Machakos Protocol (2002)

The Machakos protocol set out a six-year interim period starting 9 July 2005 during which the people of southern Sudan would have the right to govern affairs of their region through a federal system of government and participate equitably in the national government. The peace implementation was therefore to be conducted in a manner that made unity of Sudan attractive. However, the implementation of the peace process had to remain within the remit of the six-year period after which the south would exercise their rights to self-determination by voting in an internationally monitored referendum that would ultimately confirm their support for either national unity or secession.

One of the most frequently cited factors that contributed to the unsettling of the Addis Ababa agreement and a return to war in 1983, was a lack of religious and cultural freedom and the introduction and imposition of Sharia el Islam law (Wenyin, 1988; Natsios 2012; Beshir 1975; Ahmed 1988). In an attempt to address the issue of Islamisation and Arabisation of the southern Sudanese by GoS, Sharia law was to remain applicable in only the north to the Muslims with parts of the national constitution re-written so as to ensure that Sharia was not applied to any non-Muslims throughout Sudan.

However, as has been argued by both Ackermann (2000) and Annan (1999), one of the most fundamental prerequisites for successful conflict prevention is timeliness. It can be highlighted that the incidence of political and economic inequalities alluded to protocol though crucial in the realization of the national unity could not be redressed within the six years provided by the protocol. The six-year interim period should have been seen only as a start to a long term process of democratic transition that would in the long run redress socio-economic and political inequality laying foundation for a productive unity.

If the arguments presented by the proponents of state making theorists and the political economy discussed in issue 1. of this series is to be used in Sudan’s case, then the CPA’s presentation of development, democracy, and national unity as a mechanism upon which the governance and state building is measured seems to represent a very misleading conception of the conflict. Especially when the processes that led to the realization of such apparatus of government (democracy, development, justice and law) are either prone to conflict or are a product of violence themselves (Tilly 1985, 1999; Snyder 2000; Duffield 2007; Mann 1999). This process requires strong institutions that will not only normalize such violence but also engage with the periphery to effectively neutralize the negative or the unpredictable impacts of such apparatus of governance (Duffield 2007).

2.1.2 The Security Arrangements (2003 & 2004)

This protocol provided that during the six-year interim period, Joint Integrated Units (JIUs) be formed with equal numbers from the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the SPLA. If, after the interim period, the south decided to secede, the JIUs would integrate into a one strong force. Each army was to be downsized and the parties would implement demobilization, disarmament and reintegration (DDR) programmes. No other armed group would be tolerated outside the umbrella of the three services. A permanent cessation of hostilities was provided for, detailing disengagement and the creation of various committees for enforcement and oversight. DDR and reconciliation were provided for through a number of commissions. Monitoring was to be carried out by a UN mission to support implementation, as provided for under Chapter VI of the UN Charter.

What can be pointed out here is that the CPA did not provide for the representation of interest groups such as pastoralists, farmers and the vast peasant majority and other displaced/refugee population in the commission (Tania 2006). As noted earlier, the point of contestation between the Sudan and southern Sudan governments has always been the issue of legitimacy and where such legitimacy is drawn by those in possession of state powers (Yongo-Bure 1988). It can be argued that the CPA seemed to systematically ignore the center-periphery interaction and its importance in influencing the source of legitimacy and its contribution to the process of state-making. Consequently, because the CPA ignored the population engagement, the functionality of the agreement was to be determined by reference to whether the GoS and the GoSS fulfilled their obligations as set by the international patrons rather than their population (Johnson 2011).

In contrast to the Leviathan argument of security arrangements, the CPA implied that the legitimacy at this stage was predicated on its ability to function within the advanced propositions but not with respect to any form of contract between the state/SPLA and the population whatsoever. The return to war in the Nuba Mountain, Abyei and South Kodofan regions therefore confirmed the argument in section 1.2.5 that there was a social contract entered into between these regions and the SPLA who failed to deliver what was expected.

For example the CPA provided for DDR. However, while the SPLM/A attempted to disarm civilians in the south, the GoS continued to support armed paramilitary groups in and along the borders of the south (Johnson 2011). The disarmament action therefore became counterproductive further undermining the internal security in the south as conflicts/armed resistance in places like Jongolei state was exacerbated. The unwillingness of the CPA or its disregard of the immense prerequisite to understand the nature of political culture of southern Sudan since independence solely built on a militarized understanding of both socio-economic and political interaction.

Socio-Economic Fabric of South Sudan is founded on a militarized form of Interaction. Photographs: Marcus Perkins/Saferworld

2.1.3 Power Sharing (2004)

In an attempt to further the provisions of the 2002 Machakos Protocol, the Power Sharing Protocol, designed to be in force until the elections, provided for greater representation of the south through the SPLM in the Government of National Unity (GoNU). This protocol provided that Sudan would have both a national government with representation from both sides of the north-south conflict, and a separate government for the south.

The GoNU which was to be formed under this protocol would further the CPA objective of establishing a system of government that would correct the imbalances that had prevailed since the 1956 independence. The protocol provided for a decentralized system of government granting more power to individual states with a 70:30 share of state government position between National Congress Party (NCP) and SPLM/A respectively for the GoNU and the reverse in favour of SPLM in the southern states.

However, the Power Sharing agreement failed to recognize or include other regions, political parties and paramilitary groups operating within the region in its provisions (Komey 2013; Ahmed 2010). Some of the parties left out by the protocol included National Democratic Alliance (NDA), National Umma Party (NUP), Hassan al-Turabi’s Popular Congress Party (PCP) and the population of Sudan (Johnson 2011; Schultz 2010). Johnson (2011) argues that this created room for the NCP to negotiate deals with individual opposition parties outside the state without giving-up their position in state governments. This created room for political manoeuvre by the GoS consequently frustrating the implementation and realization of the CPA.

The CPA is also criticized for undermining its own principles of providing a model for good governance in Sudan and the creation of a solid basis of preserving peace and making unity attractive. Al-Mahdi (2006) argues that the agreement guaranteed control of the north to the NCP in the form of 52% of National Assembly seats prior to elections, and guaranteeing control of the south to SPLM with 70% of seats in the Southern Sudan Assembly pending elections. There was therefore nowhere in the agreement stipulating that the NCP, an authoritarian party, and the SPLM, a shadow of its former incarnation the SPLA, both be transformed into democratic organisations. Al-Mahdi (2006) further presents that the CPA was merely a limited bilateral agreement between the GoS and SPLM/A, one of the many paramilitary groups fighting in the country. It was therefore far from being comprehensive in addressing matters of national interest. Consequently, the agreement proved a stumbling block towards addressing the complex political and armed conflicts in the country.

While accounting for the failure of the Addis Ababa Agreement, Yongo-Bure (1988) argues that the agreement considered the south as a unified region downplaying the inter-communal conflict within the south for instance between the Dinka and the Nuer (the two largest tribal groups in South Sudan) focusing its effort on the north-south relationship. The south-south division crippled the implementation of the Addis Ababa agreement and gave the GoS under President Nimeri an opportunity to take full advantage of the disunity in the south to advance a non-representative political strategy (Dak 1988). The Power Sharing agreement seems to have made no provision whatsoever to address specific grievances amongst SPLM/A hence the inadequacy in the provision of prior arrangements for cooperation among southerners to guarantee a smooth transition from war to peace in the south in the event of a referendum.

2.1.4 Wealth Sharing (2004)

This protocol was greatly influenced by the rational economics based account of civil conflict in developing countries for interventionism (Collier & Sambanis 2005). The proponents of this thesis argue that the abundance of mineral resources (oil in this case) acts as a ‘honey pot’ that provides incentives for rent-seeking[1] to different groups in South Sudan who tend to take violent actions in trying to gain access or control to such resources (Collier & Hoffeler 1998; De Soysa 2000). With statistics showing that oil contributed up to 98% of south Sudan’s total revenue in the period leading up to the CPA, the proponents of the CPA, convinced that oil was the largest cause of and sustenance of the conflict, believed that by resolving the management, distribution and control of oil rents the political violence in the country would end.

In regards to access to and exercise of taxation, the CPA provided that the national government was to collect revenue from personal income, corporate and customs taxes, whereas the GoSS would collect revenue from personal income taxes, luxury taxes and business taxes only within the remit of southern Sudan. Since GoS controlled revenues from oil, the lack of state visibility in the south meant that the collection of other revenues by the GoSS was practically impossible. This provision left GoSS with a worryingly narrow tax base with IMF (2009) reporting that 98% of south Sudan export earnings were from oil while for the Government in Khartoum this was 65%. This therefore left south Sudan heavily dependent on oil revenue. Critics of the agreement have argued that the provisions in the wealth sharing protocol, especially on the oil revenue which provided for a 50/50 share between GoS and GoSS, lacked transparency (Dewal 2006; Young 2012).

As a result, the CPA implementation failed to spend oil revenue on development projects in the south during the transition period until the last few months of 2011. This therefore meant infrastructures that forms the most fundamental basis upon which governance is built, such as roads, railways, schools and health facilities, which would consequently produce peace dividends and promote unity among the South Sudanese population were absent (Young 2012; ICG 2011).

Baker (2011) presents that over 70% of the South Sudan population had no access to basic services like education, healthcare, food security and roads. According to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Report (2012) 131 in 1,000 children in South Sudan were acutely undernourished. This reduced slightly in 2010 to 122 in 1,000. The statistics get more disturbing for expectant women with 2,054 in 100,000 women dying in childbirth in 2006 with the figure slightly reducing to 1,989 deaths per 100,000 in 2010. The report also points out that for every 1,000 children born in 2006, more than 135 never lived to see their fifth birthday. The number of deaths however dropped slightly to approximately 105 of 1,000 in 2010. Although the statistics above presented by the UN’s MDG Report (2012) highlight some relative levels of progress, this progress is a direct result of activities/interventions of NGOs and Civil Society organization and aid funds rather than that of the CPA’s oil money. This further crippled the legitimacy of the government to not only provide security and services to its population, but also to effectively tax its population.

As illustrated above, critics have argued that the only significant result of the wealth sharing protocol is that the two parties (GoS & SPLA) agreed to solve the oil issue, i.e. the production of oil in the south Sudan and its transportation to the only available port and refinery located in the north (Johnson 2011; Al-Mahdi 2006). This success seems to simply represent a typical case of a mutual satisfaction of economic self-interest among the elites of the two negotiating parties and the international community but not the national interest.

[1] Rent-seeking is defined as those activities that seek to create, maintain or change the rights and institutions on which particular rents are based (Cramer 2006; Di John 2007).

South Sudan Series 1.0: Assessing the Southern Sudan Conflict

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1.0 Introduction

This copy of the South Sudan Series sets the scene by briefly analyzing the southern Sudan conflict since Sudan’s 1956 independence, critically examining the peace agreement that brought to an end the first north-south conflict fought from Sudan’s independence in 1956 to 1972 and how it fed into the second conflict which started in 1983 and ended with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005. The analysis explores some of the dominant theoretical explanations of the phenomenon of conflict and state-building to conceptualize the nature of interaction between historical, political, socio-economic and other dimensions of violence and violent conflict in relation to the post-independence conflict of Sudan and the build-up to the 2005 CPA. Although this section draws on two theoretical approaches – that is neo-classical economics verses psychological theories as its main foundation upon which its analysis is drawn, reference shall also be made to several other theoretical perspectives that may have some complementary but different linkages relevant for this analysis.

1.1 The Theoretical Perspective

Since the collapse of Sudan’s first peace pact and the return to violent conflict in 1983, there is a continued discourse attempting to explain the aetiology of violence and violent conflict in developing countries in order to inform humanitarian intervention (Hirshleifer 1994; Collier 2000; Cramer 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2011; World Bank 2003). This has warranted the development of several paradigms within both international relations and conflict studies with the most significant being the psychological based grievance argument verses the neo-classical economics greed based explanation of civil conflict. Most recently, especially from the later-half of 2000s the development within the conflict discourse witnessed the advent of a more sophisticated approach, the Political Economy approach.

1.1.1 Why the Political Economy Approach?

A political economy approach is an interdisciplinary study drawing upon several disciplines such as economics, sociology, and political science to analyse the interaction between political institutions, the political environment, and the economic system and how this form of interaction can be used to understand civil conflict such as southern Sudan’s (Wood 2003; Duffield 1994; Cramer 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2011; Richards 1996).

The political economy approach provides one of the most powerful lenses not only within conflict and security studies but also in international relations to assess the distribution of power and the legitimacy of the state and of powerful interest groups in civil society (Douglass North 1981: 21). It emerged in response to the dilemmas presented by the wide spectrum of views and schools of thought attempting to explain the aetiology and response to the phenomenon of civil war that were most dominant in the 1990s and the early 2000s. Amongst these were the neo-Malthusian, psychologist, and political scientist, anthropologist, and economics theses. With the differences in perspective amongst the various disciplines, came a cleavage in arguments, the most significant being the two distinctively competing paradigms of grievance and greed. The former presents that people’s dissatisfaction with deprivation and unjust treatment is the primary motivating factor for political action or violence (Gilligan 2000; Gur 1970), while the latter argues that criminal agendas are a primary driving factor for civil conflict (Collier 2000; Bardhan 1997; Hirshleifer 1994; Collier and Hoeffler 1998).

Although other paradigms, some of which shall be highlighted and used in this analysis, are primarily concerned with the explanation of the causes of conflict and possible responses, it is extremely difficult to generalize or analyze by either one discipline or attribute to few factors in isolation due to the multi-faceted nature of conflict. It is for these reasons that the political economy approach provides us with the opportunity to analyze and view conflict as a manifestation of an interaction between several dimensions of the state-building process (Di John 2010; Tilly 1990, 1985; Olson 1965). The view of conflict as a process of social-transformation in which violence is functional is the most fundamental strength of political economy thesis (Wennmann 2007).

North (1981:21) for instance defined the state as “an organization with a comparative advantage in violence, extending over a geographic area whose boundaries are determined by its power to tax constituents”. Charles Tilly (1985) and Brewer (1990) define state-building as a process and the capacity of rulers to effectively collect tax from its population. However, the collection of tax not only requires substantial coercive power, but most importantly legitimacy of the institution exercising the taxation (Levi 1988). Since legitimacy is crucial in the successful collection of taxes manifested in the high level of voluntary compliance, the high levels of coercion or even predation in tax collection are generally signs of illegitimacy of the state or rulers (Di John 2010, 2010a). This coercion and legitimacy shall be used to examine the source and form of legitimacy of the GoS and government of southern Sudan (GoSS) from independence to the build-up to the CPA.

The argument of this paper is that although the 2005 CPA managed to end the conflict between the north and south in Sudan, it failed to view the conflict as a product of a multifaceted center-periphery relationship consequently ignoring the active engagement of Sudanese population and other parties within Sudan which eventually affected post-conflict state-building. The use of the two theoretical perspectives to examine aspects of state-building in southern Sudan should help to demonstrate the suitability of this argument. The theories will later be applied to examine the CPA’s engagement with the population.

If Schumpeter’s persuasive arguments in 1954 that not only did taxation help create state but also formed it (Schumpeter 1954) is of relevance in Sudan’s case, then it confirms Tilly’s argument of the inherently dual political and economic nature of taxation (Tilly 1990). The collection of tax therefore reflects the basic core capacities of states to formulate essential policies and deal with the challenges of collective action inherent in the provision and financing of public services (Olson 1965, Di John 2010, 2010a). This process requires establishment of technical and political administrative apparatus for the collection, monitoring and development of a tax base. The provision of collective goods can generate divisiveness and violent conflict in society as a result of the fact that the coercive provision of collective public goods does not necessarily align with the mostly diverse individual preferences (Di John 2010).

1.1.2 Problem with the Political Economy Approach

The political economy approach just like other economics based paradigms is still inherently centered on neo-classical economics. Although it tends to focus more on the understanding of how the economics factor interacts with other dimensions such as political, historical, environmental and socio-cultural, rational economics still forms the basis of its analysis. As Cramer (2006) explains, neo-classical economics is founded on the axiomatic belief that everything is best explained from the point of view of the individual and that individual behaviour is a function of choices rationally modelled to maximize utility. This choice-theoretic methodological individualism operates within what Cramer refers to as ‘the paradigm of scarcity’ – that is, scarcity dominates all individuals’ calculation of self-interest, which in turn dominates social behaviour and outcomes.

1.2 Southern Sudan’s Experience with Political Violence

It is not the intention of Permanent Condemnation, nor is it possible, to provide a comprehensive account of southern Sudan’s experience with violence and violent conflict since 1955. This analysis will only provide a cursory glance at the main factors that are relevant for the arguments of this work. For all but 11 of the 59 years since its independence in 1956, Sudan’s experience of history has been marred by more years of violent and brutal civil conflict than any country in Africa (Ahmed 2010). The protracted conflict fought between the Government and paramilitary groups from different parts of the country has seen thousands of people lose their lives; millions displaced inflicting grave levels of suffering on the population in several parts of the country. Welfare and social services, such as education, healthcare, transport, livelihood and other development opportunities, were either disrupted destroyed or squandered as a result of the conflict that erupted in 1955, a year before Sudan gained its independence (Lako 1993, ICG 2006).

The GoS and southern Sudan paramilitary groups were at war between two periods (1955 – 1972 and 1983 – 2005) with the former ending with the signing of the Addis Ababa peace agreement in 1972 (Lako 1993, Ahmed 2010; Yongo-Bure 1988) and the latter ending with the signing of the CPA in 2005 (ICG 2006; Johnson 2011). This paper though concentrating its analysis on the southern Sudan’s conflicts acknowledges that the conflicts that have been fought in Sudan since independence of 1956 has got some shared forms of similarities especially their causal factors. However, the south Sudan conflict also exhibits a range of distinctive characteristics. The phenomenon of conflict discussed herein in the context of the south is not only a southern phenomenon rather relatively shared across the regions.

1.2.1 Putting Southern Sudan’s Experience into Theoretical Context

The conflict that started on the eve of independence in 1956 was onset by “the Sudanisation of the civil service” (Ahmed 2010). This in real terms meant “northernisation” of the country as the southerners were to be excluded due to the lack of educated people in the south (Ahmed 2010). This process forced a group of southerners (“Anya-nya”) into armed rebellion. Their 16 years of fighting culminated in the signing of the Addis Ababa peace agreement on 27 February 1972 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Although the grievance based explanation of conflict seems to concur with the notion that northernisation onset the conflict, it would be too reductive and naïve to implicitly cogitate that northernisation or Sudanisation per se triggered the conflict.

To understand the events that unfolded on the eve of Sudan’s 1956 independence and the subsequent rebellion, a combination of historical and political factors dating back to mid-19th century interacted with the socio-economic factors captured in the northernisation idea pointed by Ahmed (2010) to buildup grievances that triggered the fighting. Yongo-Bure (1988) for instance in his analysis of the north-south relationship as a result of the failure of the Addis Ababa Agreement and the continued fighting between the SPLA and GoS, argues that during the Turco-Egyptian occupation in the 19th century, several elements from northern Sudan during the handover to independence were associated with ivory trade and slave trade that disrupted and depopulated southern Sudan. The Anglo-Egyptian government prior to the 1956 independence did not make things any easier for the north-south relationship as the socio-economic development at the time concentrated in the privileged north and neglected such development in the south (Yongo-Bure 1993).
Although it can be argued that the above factors per se cannot provide a convincing argument for the incidence of the first post-independence conflict, a mutiny of southern troops at Torit, on 18 August 1955 is cited by several as having been fueled by the southerners being referred to as “abeed” (slave) by northerners (Yongo-Bure 1988; Wenyin 1988; Lako 1993). The proponents of the grievance theory argue that shame and frustration caused by some of the things others may perceive as trivial such as the “abeed” in this case leads to an aggressive act (Gilligan 2000).

The psychological argument seems to persuasively suggest that reference to the south by the northern Sudanese elites as slaves played a crucial role in the onset of the civil conflict. The reference to “abeed” made it extremely difficult for the southerners to trust and believe that those, to whom the power would be handed, would consider their interests in the exercise of governance. Alternatively, it may be inferred that perhaps what should be looked at is the contestation of legitimacy of those to be or in possession of state power and implications of such contestation. The importance of political and historical perspectives in understanding the complexities and dynamics of conflict especially how they interacted to fuel sets of grievances is crucial in the understanding of such conflicts. Since independence, the relationship between north and south Sudan and among those in south Sudan has depended explicitly on how elites handled the affairs of the state to earn legitimacy from their population (Wenyin 1988).

1.2.2 Addis Ababa Agreement

The Addis Ababa Agreement, signed in February 1972, was perceived by both the international community and local actors as a move towards putting the bloody past that aggravated suffering behind and forging a new form of relationship in Sudan (Hamid 1988; Yongo-Bure 1988). The agreement signed between GoS and the southern paramilitary group (Anya-nya) was to promote political reforms (regional autonomy), peace and unity, and socio-economic development in the country especially in the southern part to reduce inequalities (Yongo-Bure 1988; Wenyin 1988; Hamid 1988). The 1972 pact survived until 1983 when a new paramilitary resistance movement emerged in the south, soon to be the SPLA (Lako 1993).

The account and the acceptance of the success of the 10 years of implementation of the 1972 pact vary among different actors and scholars. It is however generally accepted that the implementation of the peace pact from the first Sudan conflict saw substantial socio-economic development at private and public sectors as well as self-government in the south (Lako 1993; Yongo-Bure 1988). However, Yongo-Bure (1988), Hamid (1988) and Othwonh Dak (1988) all argue that development during the implementation concentrated in and around the traditionally favoured North and none in the South. Although their argument can be countered by evidence of development in the south including the establishment of a regional university in Juba, modernization and expansion of Juba Airport and construction of a southern administrative unit (Othwonh Dak 1988; Yongo-Bure 1988), these efforts were not enough to convince the population of the south. Lako (1993) points out that despite the investment in the south, the region still grossly lagged behind. For instance while University of Juba opened in 1977 as the first higher education institution in the south, 6 new universities were also opened in the north in addition to the 26 higher education institutions that already existed (Lako 1993).

Both Ahmed (2010) and Johnson (2011) point out that reversion to conflict in the south in 1983 resulted from the failure of the Addis Ababa peace agreement to involve the population and other interest groups in its development process. It seems a common argument amongst scores of scholars that the Addis Ababa agreement not only failed to include representation of relevant constituencies in the negotiation process but also failed to develop robust mitigating strategies towards the negative impact of the changes they were promoting which required concerted actions such as development and democratic governance (Ahmed 2010; Johnson 2011; Natsios 2012). Although this paper concurs with this argument, it points out that development and democracy as discussed below are highly contested concepts for post-war state-building. To therefore view the 1983 return to war in south Sudan from a development and democracy perspective might be a misrepresentation of Sudan’s phenomenon.

The viewing of conflict from a negative perspective which irrationalizes as well as writes off the positive aspect of such conflict combined with the misrepresentation could prove counterproductive. If conflicts within states are to be viewed as a form of social-transformation (Tilly 1990; North 1999;) and development and democracy as a state apparatus of governance essential for mitigating conflict (Duffield 2007; Olson 1993), then the return to war by southern Sudan in 1983 should not be viewed as an absolute failure of the Addis Ababa pact. As Olson (1993) and Tilly (1990) persuasively assert, the process that leads to democracy and development as a technology for governance is prone to conflict. They argue that democracy as a form of government is forged through a violently painful and bloody process that is realized through several years of transition. By transition, the paper refers to a period in which conflict is processed into the production of new institutions (Cramer 2006).

While presenting the Europeans’ experience with democracy through his analysis of the history of Europe and its process of democratization and how it precipitated violence, Tilly (1985, 1999) argues that current European democratic states emerged from the need to raise armies to finance warfare. States made bargains with powerful economic groups, introduced taxation in exchange for protection leading to a mutual obligation and rights between the state and interest groups (Tilly 1985). At the heart of this process is inherent cohesion. To that end, it is therefore very challenging to determine the success of the 1972 peace pact of Sudan in establishing a democratic form of governance after less than a decade of implementation. The political economy approach seems to persuasively present that coercion many not necessarily be a bad thing, especially if it is a process that will lead to the centralization of authority, monopoly of violence and taxation, provision of public goods and re-orientation of social and political norms for the good of members of society (Cramer 2002; Di John 2010, 2010a).

Another apparatus viewed as a measure of governance on the 1972 pact was development. This was a concept viewed by several actors in the Sudan peace implementation process between 1972 and 1983 as fundamental to addressing the north-south conflict of Sudan (Yongo-Bure 1988). Disappointingly to the uneducated majority population of the south, the exploitative and dispossessory nature of both economic and political aspects of development, which are both inherently violent, was ignored or hidden from them when presented as a mechanism for redressing their grievances. However, if northerners referring to southerners as slaves fueled grievances, then perhaps the use of development as a mechanism for addressing such grievances may be inappropriate. Otherwise by ‘violence inherent in development’ this essay refers to structural violence, which is a form of injustice and exploitation built into a social system that generates wealth and/or better living conditions for the few and poverty or deprivation for the majority, hence inhibits an individual’s/group’s ability to develop their full humanity (Galtung 1969; Wise 2013). This is when social structures systematically privilege some classes, ethnicities, genders, and nationalities over others by institutionalising unequal access to resources and public services (coercion). This is what Cramer (2006) refers to as “continuation of war by other means”.

The violence inherent in development has been successfully perpetuated and reinforced through the romanticisation of development demonstrated at conceptual, policy and implementation levels (Bakewell 2007). Because the Addis Ababa agreement overlooked the relevance of southerners’ preparedness to embrace development, it was only a matter of time before resistance to structural violence turned bloody as the population resisted development efforts. To illustrate this, this paper briefly deconstructs the concept of capitalist development/primitive accumulation to scrutinise the nature of violence inherent in development and its relationship with the post-Addis Ababa peace agreement.

1.2.3 Capital Accumulation by Dispossession during the 1972 Pact Implementation

Marxist theory of ‘Accumulation by Dispossession’ sometimes referred to as “Primitive Accumulation” is a theory presented to account for the European experience of capitalism development during the 18th and 19th centuries (Cowen and Shenton 1995). It is a Marxist economic concept that revolves around centralisation of wealth and power in the hands of the elite by forcefully or otherwise dispossessing the public from their wealth, land or means of subsistence (Wise 2013; Foster, McCheseney & Jonna 2011; Sanyal 2007).

In Europe and in European actions in America, it involved the driving of the peasantry from agriculture; the clearing of land; the consolidation of private property in the hands of capitalists; the creation of national debts; colonial loots amongst others (Cramer 2006, D John 2012). All these processes required a concerted action that involved not only violence but also laws through legislation such as the Enclosure Act in the case of Britain (Rosenman 2008), theological and moral justification and the creation of a new form of political philosophy and political economy to justify the brutality involved in the transition to capitalism (North 1990; Sanyal 2007). Once capitalism became established, its pre-history became forgotten and it was presented as an outcome of “natural laws” governing the transformation of society and economy.

Capital Accumulation by Dispossession is a concept fundamental to the neoliberal capitalist policies advanced in many countries of the Global South expanding from the 1970s to the present day (Cohen 2006). Harvey (2005) exerts that these neoliberal policies are guided mainly by four practices: privatization, financialisation, management and manipulation of crises such as war and natural disasters, and state redistributions of assets such as land. Because of their violent nature, these neoliberal polices, despite their anticipated development benefits, have been greatly resisted especially in developing countries. Movements such as the Zapatista Army of National Liberation in Mexico, the Homeless Workers’ Movement in Brazil or the Landless Peoples Movement in South Africa (Vergara-Camus, 2014) are examples of such movements against the negative impact of the neoliberal accumulation policies adopted in these countries. From the political economy perspective which places taxation at the core of state making is the capitalist accumulation concept of the need to centralize access to and exercise of coercion (Cramer 2006, 2010).

Placing southern Sudan’s experience in the theoretical perspective of Capital Accumulation by Dispossession in the implementation of the Addis Ababa Agreement, in the 1970s, the GoS inserted its mechanized farming cooperation into the Nuba Mountain by forcefully taking huge blocks of land from peasant farmers totaling 200 mechanized farming scheme units of which 196 were distributed to outsiders (Ahmed 2010). This is very typical of “primitive accumulation” that instantly translated into disputes over ownership and access to such resources.

Meanwhile in the Blue Nile state, both the construction of the Roseires dam project and Unregistered Land Act of 1970 dispossessed locals in the Blue Nile state in the south from their land and consequently their means of subsistence putting it in the hands of few capitalists both foreign and privileged nationals from the North (Ahmed 2010). Conflict between the local populations and the capitalists was therefore inevitable. While these are all actions that are perceived as developmental projects whose outcomes provide political and socio-economic benefits to the entire population of Sudan, the implementers i.e. GoS and the GoSS did not have the capacity to mitigate the negative impact nor did the 1972 agreement acknowledge such setbacks. Neither did it prepare nor engage the population to understand such development programmes.
The European experience of capital accumulation was accompanied by not only concerted actions of a strong state that monopolised taxation, access to means and exercise of force but also strong institutions that provided laws through legislation, theology and moral justification to legitimize and neutralize the brutality involved transitioning to modernity (North 1990; Tilly 1990).

On the other hand, GoS had a weak state that had no monopoly over means and exercise of violence (security), very weak or close to non-existent institutional structures to support the implementation of the post-conflict state-building strategy of the 1972 pact. In 1974, Abel Alier, a prominent government minister was quoted as saying “…. If we are to drag our people to paradise with sticks screaming, we shall do so ….,” quoted in Kwawang (1988:254). This statement was made in regards to the government’s experience of resistance by the Blue Nile state on the displacement caused by Roseires dam project. This statement however reflects the unwillingness of the government to engage with the population in development projects. One can also say that the statement is an indication of the lack of knowledge on the receiving population about the benefits of such development projects beyond the immediate consequences. All this could be pointed to the absence of effective governance institutions that could effectively manage socio-economic and political challenges and engage fully the population in the implementation of such development project as the Roseires dam construction.

It can be argued that the failure of the post-conflict government to exert a new form of political philosophy and political economy frustrated progress in other fronts such as confidence/legitimacy building and socio-economic reforms in the south. If the political economy approach’s arguments that it provides the most accurate lens to assess the distribution of power and legitimacy of the state and of other powerful groups in civil society is to be applied to Sudan’s case, then we could conclude that the failure of GoS to consolidate comparative advantage in exercising violence over other faction groups; capacity to effectively tax; and most importantly gain legitimacy over and command voluntary compliance from its population; were the most fundamental failures of the 1972 pact. Consequently, the SPLA elite took the population’s grievances to their advantage, mobilizing resistance along this line to participate in the second north-south warfare that lasted from 1983 until the signing of the CPA in 2005.

1.2.4 The Second North-South Conflict (1983 to 2004)

The failure of the 1972 agreement to produce a government that would address grievances in the south such as boundary disputes, those arising from resource allocation and utilization, mistrust and a lack of security for the southern population led to a return to war in southern Sudan in 1983 (Wenyin 1988; Lako 1993). The conflict fought between 1983 and 2004 witnessed several peace-making attempts such as the 1986 “Koka Dam” and the “November” agreement negotiated between GoS and SPLA but neither of these truces succeeded in bringing an end to the fighting (Ahmed 2010).

Although we shall examine more in the subsequent series, it is worth noting that according to this analysis, the post CPA government would have the opportunity to draw its legitimacy upon the relationship established between the SPLA and people of Nuba and Blue Nile states. The analysis reveals that as a result of the failure of the post-1972 government to effectively neutralise the unpredictable and sometimes coercive and very unfair outcomes of development, unmanageable level of grievances among the Nuba and Blue Nile population was generated (Ahmed 2010, Lako 1993:19-22). The SPLA, a then paramilitary organization, took advantage of the resulting dissatisfaction to mobilize support from this group in order to launch a military resistance against the government in pursuit of its military objectives. The Nuba and Blue Nile people supported the SPLA (Ahmed 2010) with the hope that upon a successful military campaign, the SPLA would not only provide protection for their remaining land that had survived accumulation by dispossession but also retrieve back their land, a means of subsistence already lost to capitalism.

1.2.5 The Relationship between SPLA and the People of Blue Nile State and Nuba Mountain: A Leviathan or Nothing?

Whether the SPLA knew their relationship with the people of Blue Nile and Nuba Mountain would later form the basis of their legitimacy will be examined further in the subsequent chapter. What seems clear is that a kind of socio-political contract was entered into by the SPLA and the population of the south, knowingly or otherwise. The Leviathan is a concept that was coined by Thomas Hobbes in his explanation of social contract in 1651. This concept has been at the heart of today’s formulation of the political dimension of security studies. Through a process of bargaining, people surrender some of their fundamental freedom in return for some form of protection hence the creation of the body that would provide this protection (Hobbes 1651). In the political economy argument of the state-making, taxation and the monopoly of access to the means and exercise of force is central to this process (Di John 2010; North 1990; Tilly 1985, 1990)

Government according to Hobbes was the only fundamental mechanism for striking a balance between human interests and rights/freedom (Hobbes 1651). At the heart of the Leviathan contract is the presumption that if at any point the sovereign state/government broke the contract – that is, threatened the subject with death or could not fulfil its side of the bargain, the contract was negated (Duffield 2007). Whether a contract of this nature existed between the state of Sudan and the population or whether the one entered into between the SPLA and the population in the south, particularly the Nuba and Blue Nile State is what we will examine in the coming series.

However going back to the second north-south conflict, the 2004 formulation of the Machakos protocol offset the previous deadlocks while subsequently leading to five other negotiations culminating in the 2005 signing of the CPA. Unlike the 1986 Koka Dam and the November agreements which failed to provide a pivotal platform for resolving the conflict, the CPA brought an end to the protracted and violent conflict between the GoS and SPLA/M opening up a new chapter for a possible peace and stability in Sudan.

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Over the coming months, Permanent Condemnation in South Sudan Series will be critically examining the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and its impact on peace and stability in the world’s newest state, South Sudan.

South Sudan is the world’s youngest country. Its creation in 2011 was intended to provide good governance and political stability for the ethnic groups of the southern area of Sudan, formerly Africa’s largest country, who had been involved in conflict with their northern compatriots for all but 11 of the 59 years since independence in 1956. Good governance in this new sovereign state would mean comprehensive political representation and democratisation, better distribution of oil wealth, strong economic recovery, better public service delivery (roads, education, health), and promote unity within the region. Yet within 2 years of its creation, the country descended back into civil conflict.

So what went wrong? The framework for the new state was laid out under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (‘CPA’), the end result in 2005 of 12 years of peace negotiations, negotiated by various actors but principally the Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and Development (IGADD). Although the CPA brought an end to 21 years of civil war, the return to conflict after a disagreement between President Salva Kiir Mayardit and the former Vice President Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon suggested it failed to redress a set of political, economic, social and administrative grievances. It ended up making separation attractive, consolidated the pre-CPA contested regime, and intensified political instability and socioeconomic crises nationwide. The governance model intended to bring stability to the area never materialised. It is unclear whether the CPA was “comprehensive enough” or set out an effective framework for resolving Sudan’s protracted wars and political instability.

The series shall evaluate this critical process for this oil rich state as a contribution towards a much better understanding of the dynamics of the South Sudan conflict and future war-to-peace transition efforts.

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