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Not so long ago, the sprawling desert state of Darfur in Sudan’s west was the most talked about place on Earth. Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell described the conflict there as a ‘genocide’. The world’s largest peacekeeping force was deployed. Celebrity aid campaigns like Save Darfur and Not On Our Watch funneled billions of dollars into Darfur. George Clooney begged the United Nations to intervene. So what came of it all? Did peace and prosperity return to Darfur? In recent years, there has been little news coverage. Inkl explores what the situation is on the ground in 2016...
A decade on from all the media coverage, Darfur is still burning. The Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa peoples in the west of Sudan took up arms in 2003, after being denied land and resource rights. The war has seen widespread targeting of civilian populations by Khartoum’s feared horseback militia, the Janjaweed. More recently, the conflict has devolved into communal and ethnic fighting, banditry and lawlessness. Arab and African militias alike are fighting over the remains of Darfur, and time has revealed not only the complexity, but also the limits of the international effort to help.
The UN peacekeeping force, hobbled by a narrow mandate, proved to be ineffectual. It was also undermined from the start by an obstructionist government in Khartoum. For all the outcry and acts of intercession, 400,000 Sudanese died in the conflict, and millions were been displaced. The UN may even leave Darfur this year. And the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for Sudanese leaders, including the President Omar al-Bashir, have failed to hold them accountable for their alleged war crimes.
Worryingly, as the world moves on from Darfur in defeat, another much quieter war is now being waged in a neighbouring state. Just over Darfur’s southern border is South Sudan; a country born from its own devastating civil war with Khartoum (in which almost 2 million people died). South Sudan won its autonomy at the close of the war and with a referendum on independence in 2011 became the world’s newest country. But nationhood has not alleviated the suffering of its people.
The war in the bush
Since ‘winning’ its independence, South Sudan has been riven by a civil war. In the last three years of fighting, tens of thousands have died and more than two million have been displaced in what was already one of the poorest countries on earth. This time the catalyst was an alleged coup which reignited historical tensions between the country’s Dinka and Nuer peoples. The war has pitted ethnic groups, religious denominations, tribes and families against one another. The International Crisis Group describes the conflict as a multipolar war in which bands of irregular fighters and youth militias roam the bush, committing war crimes against civilian.
A recent breakthrough in negotiations between the government and rebels has secured a shaky truce as former-Vice-President-cum-rebel commander Riek Machar returns to the capital city to form a unity government with his former boss and rival, President Salva Kiir. As part of the long-delayed August 2015 peace agreement, Machar is returning to resume the post of Vice President. Over one thousand of Machar’s troops march ahead of him in an endeavour to guarantee his safety.
Deep historical differences exist between President Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, and his newly reinstated Nuer deputy. Machar was fired and ejected from the capital in 2013, ostensibly for going after Kiir’s job. But the political rivalry quickly took on ethnic overtones as Machar accused the government of having authoritarian leanings, and Kiir accused Machar of fomenting dissent among the Nuer community. On the night of the 15th of December, fighting broke out between Dinka and Nuer soldiers at the barracks of the Presidential Guard. Kiir labelled it an attempted coup and before the night was over, Dinka soldiers were systematically rounding up, beating and shooting Nuer men of a fighting age.
The steps towards a unity government are hailed as an important, although long awaited development. In light of numerous contraventions of the ceasefire agreement, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called for restraint from all sides. If a transitional government is in fact formed, they will face the mighty task of mending their country; a task which will require help and support from the international community. Here, then, are some of the bigger issues that the world must help South Sudan deal with if we are to achieve a better outcome in Juba than we did in Darfur.
Accountability and Reconciliation
In order to transform a ceasefire into a lasting peace, the reconciliation process must include mechanisms of accountability. The African Union found that many South Sudanese blame the historical ethnic tensions between the Dinka and Nuer for the current war. The Dinka town of Bor was destroyed (for the second time in a generation) early on in the war by Nuer fighters. Back in 1991 the main rebel group fighting Khartoum was the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). Riek Machar withdrew his Nuer ‘White Army’ from the faction after disputes with its leader, John Garang. The ‘White Army’ attacked Bor killing 2,000 civilians and burning their crops. Almost 25,000 more died of starvation in the following year. Eventually Machar rejoined the SPLM/A in 2002, but the memory of this atrocity pervades South Sudanese society.
Once the fighting stops, the unity government will have to take bold steps to ensure there is accountability for war crimes and other offences: Targeting civilians, torture, extrajudicial killings, enforced displacement, the use of child soldiers, widespread sexual violence, abductions, the destruction of property and looting. The widespread nature of the abuse means that the investigation of war crimes, and any criminal trials and reparations, will need to be undertaken with the oversight and support of the global community.
Corruption and weak institutions
The governance and structure of South Sudan’s institutions are reflective of the ongoing violence that has affected the territory. If a transitional unity government is formed, it will have to overhaul the entrenched culture of corruption in Juba. From the police force to the tax office, South Sudan’s institutions are dysfunctional. The president has almost unlimited powers under the constitution: it is impossible to impeach a sitting President as he can simply dismiss the Prime Minister and cabinet. The African Union report says that the government "simply… lacks the capacity to deliver services". The constitution is non-inclusive and full of loopholes that allow government figures and their cronies to exploit the country’s natural resources.
South Sudan’s economy relies entirely on the extraction of the territory’s substantial oil reserves. The revenue from the industry is not shared; 85% of all state income goes to the federal government in Juba - the rest is divided between the oil producing states. Over $6 billion in aid money and government funds have disappeared since the country’s independence. Centralised power, a weak judiciary, few checks and balances on presidential power and a culture of nepotism have encouraged widespread corruption.
Famine
Over three million South Sudanese face acute food and nutrition insecurity and the UN is close to declaring a famine in the far north. In a country where 80% of the population are subsistence farmers, the war has completely disrupted food production. And pro-government militias have burnt the few remaining crops in the north as a method of forced displacement. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is airdropping supplies to isolated areas and collaborating with NGOs to hold hunger and infectious diseases at bay. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates the famine will require $1.3 billion in emergency funds in 2016.
To complicate matters, getting food to those in need is not easy. WFP trucks are attacked and looted by government and rebel fighters alike. Entire communities have fled deep into the bushland and swamps of the north to avoid the fighting. Fewer than 200,000 out of the 2.2 million people displaced have sought refuge at UN Protection of Civilian (PoC) camps. To make matters worse, the aid groups are working on borrowed time. The wet season will soon render the country’s mostly dirt roads impassable for convoys.
There and back
Conflict has plagued the territory of South Sudan for more than half a century. Foreign interventions from colonialism to oil-prospecting have had disastrous effects upon the local population. As the country moves towards a tentative peace, it will require vast investments of money, resources and time from the global community to build a functioning state. But first, the two big men of South Sudan, Riek Machar and Salva Kiir, will have to quash their egos and set aside the past to begin the healing. Perhaps this time the global community will be able to learn from the failure in Darfur and help lift South Sudan out of this cycle of violence.
Thomas Wharton is a freelance journalist and Inkl writer.
