South Sudan

The Untold Story from Independence to Civil War

Hilde F. Johnson

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781786720054
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: African History
• Index: History

In July 2011, South Sudan was granted independence and became the world's newest country. Yet just two-and-a-half years after this momentous decision, the country was in the grips of renewed civil war and political strife. Hilde F. Johnson served as Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan from July 2011 until July 2014 and, as such, she was witness to the many challenges which the country faced as it struggled to adjust to its new autonomous state. In this book, she provides an unparalleled insider's account of South Sudan's descent from the ecstatic celebrations of July 2011 to the outbreak of the disastrous conflict in December 2013 and the early, bloody phase of the fighting. Johnson's frequent personal and private contacts at the highest levels of government, accompanied by her deep knowledge of the country and its history, make this a unique eyewitness account of the turbulent first three years of the world's newest – and yet most fragile – country.

1

◆

A DREAM COMES TRUE

‘We have waited for 56 years for this day. It is a dream that has come true!’1 On 9 July 2011, six months after Southern Sudanese had voted overwhelmingly for independence, Salva Kiir Mayardit, chairman of the SPLM and president of the new Republic, proclaimed that freedom had come. Amid the cheering and dancing of at least 100,000 people at the John Garang Mausoleum and in the presence of heads of state and government from around the world, freedom songs brought tears to the eyes of almost everyone present. ‘SPLM Woyee’, a famous cheer of the struggle,2 resounded from the masses.

One celebrant was an old Shilluk chief from a village in Upper Nile State. He wore traditional pink shawl, long bead necklaces and ankle chimes; his sandals seemed to have been marching in the bush for decades. Beneath his wide brimmed straw hat he wore something more striking: huge pink Dolly Parton-style sunglasses. He looked at me and said:

I never thought this day would ever come. I have been active in the struggle ever since the British left. We have been fighting ever since. And now this! I have to pinch my arm.

Salva Kiir was likewise moved:

From today on, we shall have no excuses or scapegoats to blame. It is our responsibility to protect ourselves, our land and our resources […] While the pillars of a house are important, its foundation is even more critical. We must build a strong foundation for our new nation.

This was also the first day on the job for me as SRSG and Head of UNMISS, which came into existence that day, a sign of the international community’s commitment to the new country. South Sudan was welcomed into the United Nations as its 193rd member in record time, and other regional organizations followed suit.

South Sudanese had fought for decades for independence.

The struggle3

Many dated the struggle back to developments in the nineteenth century, when Sudanese merchants (including officials of the Egyptian regime) were prominent among those involved in the slave trade that devastated the South. The rule of the Mahdiyya (1881–98) made conditions worse, as it raided and conquered. Under the ensuing Anglo-Egyptian regime the South was ‘pacified’ and neglected, with minimal investment in infrastructure and services. Christian missionaries helped, but their work was not on a scale that reached the population at large.

A conference in Juba in 1947 is often referred to as sealing the South’s fate; London’s imperial interests in Egypt and elsewhere trumped local British officials’ concern for Southern Sudanese. Although not documented, Southerners insist that a promise of self-determination was made after World War II by the departing colonial rulers, Britain and Egypt, a commitment they claim was later broken by the Northern Sudanese in connivance with Egypt:

The roots of the war run deep. After imperial conquests in the nineteenth century, the peripheries of Sudan were ruled by means of administrative and militarized tribalism, and were grossly underdeveloped; the people of the southern periphery, in particular, were regarded as second-class citizens, and at worst as commodities.4

A mutiny by Southern soldiers in August 1955, and the widespread killing of Northerners that ensued in the South, is often regarded as the beginning of open hostilities. With the coming of Sudan’s independence in 1956, the reins of power passed to a tiny Arab Muslim elite in Khartoum. During the period 1956–62, fighting in the South was sporadic; Southern politicians had failed to win the federal constitution that many thought was the only way to protect Southern rights. After a military coup in 1958, efforts to propagate Islam and spread the use of Arabic were intensified, further alienating the small Southern educated elite, many of whom were Christians. By the early 1960s armed resistance had escalated to the level of civil war.

From the early 1950s ‘federalism’ had already become a core demand for many educated Southerners and a main point of contention between North and South.5 After the 1964 overthrow of the military regime in Khartoum, a ‘round-table’ conference was convened. It failed to bring about a rapprochement because representatives of Northern parties would consider only limited self-rule in the South. A split was now revealed between Southerners calling for federalism and those demanding self-determination. During the period 1966–9 the war was fought with increasing intensity.

Another military junta, under Col Jafar Mohamed Nimeiri, took power in Khartoum in 1969. At about the same time leadership of the resistance movement, the Anya-Nya, consolidated under the ex-army officer Joseph Lagu. Secret contacts eventually led to formal negotiations and in 1971 peace talks took place under the auspices of the All Africa Council of Churches and Ethiopia. A Southern lawyer, Abel Alier, represented Nimeiri in negotiations in Addis Ababa. The demand for secession was shelved; a limited form of self-rule was accepted. Splits within the Anya-Nya were papered over to establish the autonomous Regional Government. Competition within it was fierce, however, with Abel Alier and Joseph Lagu soon becoming bitter rivals.

Important terms of the Agreement were never honoured. Nimeiri could not resist the temptation to interfere, helped by internal tensions among Southern politicians. Promised economic development did not take place. Advantage was eventually taken of rivalries within the South to ‘re-divide’ the region into the old provincial units, the better to control them all from Khartoum. These divisions continue to play into heated discussions about federalism today.

Although successive regimes in Khartoum differed in degree, the common denominator was the exclusion of Southern Sudanese from most influential roles in the civil service, the private sector and in public life overall. The lack of investment in South Sudan remained systematic, whether in infrastructure or services to the people.

Khartoum governments also, with varying intensity, used religion to discriminate. While most Southern Sudanese were either Christians or practised their traditional religion, the Northern part of the country was Muslim. Islam was the country’s official religion, and several prominent movements aimed to Islamize the whole country and Arabicize the South. The balance was finally tipped when Nimeiri, as a sop to growing opposition from the Northern religious right, declared Sharia the law of the land – including in the South.

This happened despite Southern Sudan’s rich religious and ethnic diversity. The region had multiple ethnicities, dominated by pastoralist and semi-pastoralist communities in its northern, eastern and western regions, and more traditional subsistence farming communities in the south. The largest ethnic community was by far the Dinka, divided by sub-groups, with the Nuer ranking second. Other communities, such as the Zande, the Bari and the Shilluk were much smaller. In total, there were 64 ethnic groups in Southern Sudan.

The freedom fighters – the SPLM/A

The Addis Ababa Peace Agreement of 1972 was, in many Southerners’ opinion, too weak, granting self-government but not self-determination. Furthermore, it was a sketchy document with no international guarantors or mechanisms to ensure implementation. These flaws led to its collapse, and contributed to resumption of civil war. When Commander John Garang de Mabior was sent to suppress the so-called Bor Mutiny in 1983, little did the authorities know he had been engaged in planning it. With other defectors he headed for Ethiopia. Together they formed the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and Army (SPLM/A).

Deliberations on its Manifesto revealed difficulty in uniting the Movement’s leadership. Two power centres emerged, which eventually resorted to armed conflict, first primarily in the Upper Nile region. One comprised veterans of the first civil war who had been absorbed into the Sudanese Army and became members of an underground military syndicate; the most prominent were John Garang and Salva Kiir, Kerubino Kuanyin and William Nyuon. The second centre comprised veterans who had become politicians after 1972. After two prominent commanders died, this group negotiated a deal with Khartoum, making it easier for the regime to exploit divisions.

Within the SPLM/A, John Garang pursued his vision of justice and equality for all Sudanese. Although often accused of separatism, ‘Dr John’, as he was popularly known, advocated a ‘New Sudan’, in which marginalized peoples would have a rightful share in governing a multi-religious and multi-ethnic country, respecting diversity rather than privileging an elite.

At the same time, Southerners’ right to self-determination became a cornerstone in his thinking. The South should, through a referendum, decide whether to remain part of a united Sudan or be independent. Areas under SPLM/A control were therefore experimentally a nucleus of the ‘New Sudan’. In this way, Garang aimed to reconcile those demanding independence immediately and those advocating justice for all marginalized Sudanese.

The second civil war differed from the first. It was much deadlier, had a greater impact on civilians, and engulfed a larger territory. Neighbouring countries were more actively involved. After Nimeiri was overthrown in 1985, Khartoum relied on local militias to attack the SPLA and harass civilians. In 1988, sections of the rebel Anya-Nya II, largely Nuer from Upper Nile, were absorbed into the SPLA, whose main factions thereafter consisted of Dinka from the Bahr el Ghazal, Dinka on the east bank of the Nile and a constellation of Nuer groups. Backed into a corner by military failure and a collapsing national economy, the Khartoum government was on the verge of signing a preliminary peace deal with the SPLM/A when it was overthrown by a military coup in 1989.

The new regime under Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir and the spiritual guidance of Hasan al-Turabi adopted a radical Islamist policy. Terrorizing domestic opponents and associating with the world’s most notorious regimes and non-state groups, the government acquired pariah status. From a struggle for pre-eminence the more ‘pragmatic’ President Bashir eventually emerged victorious, but skirmishing with Turabi became a permanent feature.

For more than 20 years, the SPLM/A fought the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). There was no ‘front’: the SAF usually held most of the towns, while the SPLM/A held most of the countryside. Neither side was able to deliver a decisive blow. The consequences for civilians were devastating. Estimates of the number killed reach as high as 2 million.6

Throughout this period, Garang was the most prominent leader of the liberation movement. In 1991 he was challenged by Riek Machar and Lam Akol, commanders from Unity and Upper Nile states respectively. They justified rebellion on political grounds, openly favouring secession from Sudan and confronting what they saw as dictatorial tendencies within the Movement. Machar’s followers carried out a wave of massacres in Twic East, Garang’s home area, and around Bor, killing an estimated 2,000 people in November 1991. A period of fierce factional fighting ensued. In 1997 Machar, under increasing pressure, signed a separate peace with Khartoum.

Regarding both the first split of the SPLM/A in 1983, and the second, in 1991, differences have been depicted in political and ideological terms. Some analysts contend that initial infighting was misrepresented as between unionists and separatists, and that differences masked a power struggle. In fact, many other factors contributed to the split, including the capacity to mobilize along ethnic lines, shifting external relations, and the Anya-Nya II merger. In any case, Khartoum exploited the differences, divided and ruled – and used the factions in counter-insurgency tactics.

Efforts were made during the 1990s to reunite the SPLM/A and end the war, but it was only with the 2001 terrorist attacks in the USA that change became possible. The US Government confronted ‘rogue regimes’ assumed to be harbouring or supporting terrorists, leading Khartoum to show willingness to cooperate against terrorism and to engage with the South. The SPLM/A was stronger and better positioned than in the 1990s, and had every interest in serious talks under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and with the support of the US, UK, Norway and the IGAD Partners Forum.

Meanwhile Garang worked to consolidate Southern factions. In January 2002 Riek Machar and other Nuer political and military leaders ended their long and damaging split with the SPLM/A and strengthened the call for Southern self-determination. Further agreements followed with other disaffected commanders.

Peace from within

These developments were important precursors to negotiation of the CPA of 2005. Local peace processes also played a role. Traditional systems of arbitration, formalized and structured under British rule, had survived and successfully applied customary law. In 1999 the New Sudan Council of Churches initiated the Wunlit conference, which resolved differences in the border region, with what proved to be lasting effect.7

Efforts related to local, regional and even cross-border migration also exemplified sub-national peace and reconciliation processes. Along the border between the South and Kordofan this was particularly important, involving agreements between the Malual Dinka and Misseriya and Rizigat, and between the Misseriya and Ngok Dinka.

Other ‘people-to-people’ initiatives took place among cattle-herding communities in Greater Bahr al-Ghazal, Greater Upper Nile and in Eastern Equatoria. These attempts at reconciliation were sometimes mediated by outsiders or through homegrown local practices. They tended to be more successful when supported by civil society, religious leaders and other stakeholders, and when government authorities facilitated implementation of agreements.

The SPLM/A’s leaders knew that negotiating peace without a united South would be impossible. Unity involved agreement and integration of militia groups, and peace between communities affected by the war. The churches had continuously tried to reco...