Insurgencies in South Sudan: A Mandatory Path to Build a Nation?

Insurgencies in South Sudan:

A Mandatory Path to Build a Nation?

by Marc-Andre Lagrange

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The 2010 elections in Sudan were more than just a formal exercise for the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLM/A). It was for both of them the ultimate test of the capacity of SPLM to turn from an armed insurgent/liberation movement into a government supported by a national army and set the base for separation from Khartoum regime. Immediately after its first elections, the Government of South Sudan (GoSS) had to face two small scale insurgencies in Jonglei State. Led by General George Athor and David Yaw Yaw, those two insurgencies, despite their apparent limited scale, had a serious destabilizing potential for the first elected government of South Sudan.

South Sudan may seem as united to some, but for observers, South Sudan is all but united. The federal system in place does not grant to the central government a full approbation and support from the various ethnic groups and post Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) political parties issued from the armed groups. In fact, federation seems to be the only possible solution to build a modern State and government in this constellation of armed ethnic groups and semi political armed groups which constitute the population and political scene of South Sudan. Part from fighting against Khartoum, most of them have limited, if not opposite, common objectives and visions of independent South Sudan.

Less than four years after the CPA was signed and war with North ended, semi-autonomous South Sudan was already on the verge to fall into civil war. According to the United Nations, in 2009, inter and intra ethnic conflicts claimed more lives than Darfur fighting. Elections were then not just a mile stone to prove the capability of both North and South to organize large scale electoral process. It was a necessity to build minimal cohesion among South and set the foundations of the post referendum Southern institutions.

In that perspective, even small scales insurgencies conducted by a handful of renegade soldiers are major challenges. Any mistake would discredit GoSS among the Southern population.

Part of the challenge resided into the fact that the Sudan People Liberation Army is not a homogenous army but rather a conglomerate of former armed militias with combating Khartoum as unique common point. While the differentiation between various political parties was clear, the real test laid in the SPLA capacity to manage the various political allegiances of the armed groups it is composed of.

As the political process of independence in South Sudan is not yet complete, there is no real distinction between the SPLA, the SPLM and the Government of South Sudan. First of all, GoSS had to handle a political hiccup that could destabilize the newly elected government and revive the internal political tensions in a not so united South Sudan population. Secondly: respond to an internal threat with a divided under construction National Army. The faced problematic was then much bigger than just crushing several insurgent groups and avoiding falling in the endless Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo turmoil. It was also a “grandeur nature” test of the coming post referendum challenges that GoSS will face to avoid the premature collapse of this country to be.

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Marc-Andre Lagrange is humanitarian and relief aid expert specializing in the conflict zones of Africa. He worked on the ground throughout the last decade mainly in Central Africa. He received a Masters Degree in International Development in 1998 from the ISTOM, Cergy Pontoise and a second Masters in Crisis Management in 2009 from La Sorbonne in Paris. Previously, he published When Relief Aid Becomes Counterproductive: A study of Intervention in the Congo (2007-2008).