By Larry Attree (Safe World).
This case study draws on evidence gathered through desk review and field research in Juba, Central Equatoria State, and Bentiu, Unity State, South Sudan, Khartoum, Sudan and Beijing and Shanghai, China in July and August 2011. The field research included a total of 28 interviews with government officials, civil society and the public.
The case study focuses on China’s engagement, analysing its impacts on peace and conflict dynamics between Sudan and South Sudan, and internal to South Sudan. It is structured to provide an overview of peace and conflict dynamics in Sudan and South Sudan (section 5.2) and international engagement in the two states (section 5.3), before turning to a more detailed analysis of China’s engagement (section 5.4).
Building on this analysis, section 5.5 then offers conclusions and policy implications. In the wake of South Sudan’s independence in July 2011, it pays particular attention to the views of stakeholders in South Sudan regarding China’s past engagement and opportunities for its successful future engagement in a challenging but potentially rewarding context.
Although relevant links between the present topic, the conflict in Darfur and China’s role in the latter must be presently acknowledged, China’s engagement on Darfur will be discussed separately in a forthcoming Saferworld/St Andrew’s case study.
In the 200 years before their historic split, the history of Sudan and South Sudan was marred by colonisation, extorsionism exploitation, sectarianism and war. Sudan and South Sudan are culturally, ethnically and linguistically diverse. They contain at least 19 major ethnic groups and 600 sub-groups. Relations and competition between different groups have been bound up in religious, racial and ethnic ideology. After independence from
Britain in 1956, the country witnessed four military coups (1958, 1969, 1985, and 1989). Sudan’s diverse society has also been linked together by centuries of economic interaction, much of it exploitative. Despite attempts to curtail the trade at the end of the 19th Century, South Sudan was for a long time used by Arab traders as a hunting ground for slaves. South Sudan is rich in resources and fertile in many parts, but has historically been marginalised and disempowered. In 1955 a civil war began in the Southern regions of Sudan, and when the demand for Southern autonomy was rejected following independence in 1956, Africa’s longest civil war ensued.
The Addis Ababa Peace Accord, signed in 1972, initiated 11 years of peace and recovery. But a second phase of civil war reignited in 1983 with renewed intensity, until it was brought to an end in a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005.
The CPA of 2005 provided a framework for the National Congress Party (NCP), which holds power in Sudan, and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), which formed the Government of South Sudan (GoSS), to pursue peace.
It guaranteed South Sudan the right of self-determination while committing both parties to make the unity of Sudan attractive; it established an arrangement for wealth and power sharing, elections and constitutional reform; it offered a framework for careful handling of dynamics in the ‘three areas’ of Abyei, South Kordofan and Blue Nile; and it ensured processes for compensating the victims of war.
This came about through a combination of foreign pressure, exhaustion on both sides with the devastating conflict and willingness to co-operate in profiting from Sudan’s oil wealth. The CPA period formally ended with South Sudan’s secession in July 2011.
This conflict had a catastrophic human and developmental impact on Sudan that can only be summarised here. The second phase of the North – South civil war (1983–2005), killed two million and displaced four million people in South Sudan.
Besides death, injury and displacement, in the long years of fighting, the conditions for achieving any progress beyond the most basic living conditions, infrastructure, institutions and services have never been in place across large swathes of the two countries.
Thus presecession Sudan remained one of the world’s least developed countries: ranked at 154 of 162 states on the Human Development Index in 2010,2 with very high rates of underfive mortality (108 per 1,000) and a primary completion rate of just 57 percent.
The civil war also transformed society in important ways, making violent methods for pursuing interests more commonplace, weakening traditional leadership structures and ensuring weapons proliferation across society on a massive scale.
Multiple causes are cited as having led to the North – South civil war, including failure to share resources equitably, ethnic and religious difference and later, the discovery of and competition for oil.
The start of oil production raised the stakes, with adverse consequences for those in close proximity to actual or potential oil producing areas.Tribal divisions, competition for land, land degradation, poverty and inequality have fuelled many subsidiary conflicts, which persist in a number of the states of South Sudan (such as Warrap, Lakes, Unity and Jonglei).
Aside from the civil war between the North and South and related localised and intra-South conflicts, armed conflict
has also plagued Darfur and Eastern Sudan.
Despite the end of the CPA period and South Sudan’s secession in July 2011, key issues remain unresolved between Sudan and South Sudan. These include border demarcation and management, allocation of disputed territories, rights of citizens in the two countries and sharing of debts, resources and revenues. Palpable tensions persist, and related outbreaks of violence occurred throughout 2011 and cannot be ruled out for the future.
There are many ways in which Sudan and South Sudan are closely tied – for example through intermarriages and trade relationships. Both sides also understand that peace is in their pragmatic interests, have limited capacity for war and will remain under considerable pressure to avoid escalating tensions. Nonetheless, the CPA process was threatened by mutual distrust and a sense among the two parties that they must compete to win or lose at each other’s expense.
The process of implementing the CPA can only be described as a partial success. The CPA period witnessed a military build-up on both sides, with oil revenues supporting retention of troops and additional arms procurement.
Within the North, the NCP leadership remains under pressure from security-oriented hardliners to attain a good deal in resolving outstanding CPA issues (including on oil revenues).
The NCP is bitterly resented across South Sudan, perceived by many to be better at manipulating negotiations than, and unlikely to deal fairly with, Southern actors. While the SPLM has strongly focused its attention on achieving Southern secession, there have been moments of intransigence and provocation by Southern forces and leaders.
Thus, efforts to reach compromises have been held back by mutual suspicion and a dangerous tendency towards brinkmanship by both sides.
It is unclear whether and how the Government of Sudan (GoS) can be influenced to take a more restrained approach that is respectful of the rights of local communities and constructive in its pursuit of political processes, to achieve peace in the spirit of the CPA. Similarly, it is unclear how the GoSS can be influenced to take the most constructive approach possible in negotiations of outstanding issues and in its actions on the ground.
Crucially, both sides need to discuss constructively how to share wealth, move forward regarding the status of Abyei and ensure that the violent repression of Sudan People’s Liberation Movement North (SPLM-N) supporters and forces in South Kordofan and Blue Nile can be ended without aggravating already tense North – South relations further.
South Sudan contains the majority of the oil of the former state of Sudan, but this oil can only be exported through the North. A new pipeline to export oil from South Sudan via Kenya is a possible, but distant, prospect. For both CPA parties, maintaining the alliances on which stability depends is partly a question of revenue flows that are largely dependent on oil.
With this in mind, a huge challenge lies ahead for both states: analysts are in agreement that unless new exploration identifies new reserves, South Sudan’s oil production and revenues will decline from a peak of over 430,000 barrels per day (b/d) at the beginning of 2010, to under 250,000 b/d by the end of 2015.
For both parties, there has been an obvious long-term financial and geopolitical interest in territorially controlling as much as possible of Sudan’s oil fields. This has been at the heart of North – South enmity – and considerable armed violence – since the discovery of reserves in the late 1970s.
However, the prevailing logic is that both sides recognise the benefits of co-operating over oil production and export – and the drawbacks of failing to do so. Nonetheless, in early December 2011, a deal on how oil would be marketed and sold and the sharing of oil revenue was not yet agreed between the two sides, with the South accusing the North of stealing its oil, and the North demanding a 23 percent share of oil revenues pending a final agreement.
With many groups present in oil-rich border areas who feel excluded from the CPA bargaining process by the two parties, there are conflict dynamics at play that the CPA parties are not necessarily able to control fully. In such areas, tackling chronic poverty and disenfranchisement could be crucial to overcoming insecurity and armed rebellion.
A further headline unresolved issue is Abyei. Abyei is an area claimed by both Sudan and South Sudan and surrounded by oil fields on the Northern edge of the South Sudanese states of Unity, Warrap and Northern Bahr el Ghazal. In Abyei, tensions regarding land, grazing rights and oil have erupted in violence. In May 2011, an SPLA attack on a Joint Integrated Unit troop convoy, and the retaliatory occupation of Abyei by Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led to fears of the North – South war reigniting: the resulting violence, destruction and looting of property in Abyei caused the displacement of an estimated 100,000 people.
An agreement by both sides to demilitarise the area and allow the deployment of a United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) in June 2011, is only the first step in what could be a long and challenging process for finding a mutually acceptable solution to the issue.
Alongside Abyei, South Kordofan and Blue Nile have special status under the CPA. These states of Sudan are home to significant populations who are fearful of marginalisation and repression under the ruling NCP. Some of these fought alongside Southern rebels during the civil war. The Popular Consultation processes, agreed for South Kordofan and Blue Nile states under the CPA, had the potential to lead to a peaceful outcome and demonstrate positive ways of addressing grievances between the centre and the periphery.
This potential appears, however, to have been squandered during 2011. After a violent campaigning period, elections were held in May in South Kordofan, andwon by the NCP amid allegations of vote-rigging.11 In June 2011, as the NCP moved to ‘disarm rebels’ in South Kordofan, both rebels and civilians were targeted in SAF bombings, while SPLM-N supporters were targeted for assassination, humanitarian relief was blocked and United Nations Missions in Sudan (UNMIS) national staff were arrested and tortured.
During June 2011, amid “targeted and ethnic-based killings and other gross human rights abuses” between 73,000 and 150,000 people were estimated to have been displaced in the state.13 A similar pattern emerged in Blue Nile state, where fighting between (SAF) and SPLM-N rebels erupted in September 2011.14 This reportedly caused approximately 30,000 refugees to flee into neighbouring Ethiopia, alleging the indiscriminate killing and rape of civilians.
With civilians facing a desperate humanitarian situation in both South Kordofan and Blue Nile, instead of a peaceful political process to resolve political and economic grievances, the two states have thus relapsed into vicious conflict between GoS allied forces and rebels for the foreseeable future.
With rebellions also exploding in South Sudan in 2011 (notably in Jonglei state), a critical question is the extent to which the GoS and the GoSS will refrain from supporting rebel groups in one another’s territory. In a context of weak communications and chains of command, the reactions of different factions and leaders at different levels could make it hard to avoid escalations and attribute responsibility for developments.
Two notable examples illustrate the dangers involved: in February and March 2011, the SPLM accused the NCP of supporting Southern rebels (such as George Athor)….
To continute reading this great report: http://www.saferworld.org.uk/downloads/pubdocs/FAB%20Sudan%20and%20South%20Sudan.pdf
