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).