Another civil war in South Sudan: the failure of Guerrilla Government?

Abstract

Popular explanations for the outbreak of a new civil war in South Sudan have centred on ethnic factors and leadership personalities. This article demonstrates that the conflict is rooted in deep cleavages within the ruling political party, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM). When internal tensions came to a head in late 2013, a combination of neopatrimonial politics, a weak state structure and legacies of violence from the previous civil war allowed this to escalate into a full-scale armed conflict.

Keywords:

• South Sudan
• civil war
• liberation movement politics
• neo-patrimonialism

When South Sudan became independent on 9 July 2011, it was the last link in a chain of rebel governments in Eastern Africa. Since the mid-1980s, liberation movements have seized power in Uganda, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia. Their success is typically assessed on the basis of their ability to implement their more or less revolutionary political programmes, often concocted before they took control of the state. Still, political stability, even when pursued through violent and oppressive means, remains the ultimate criterion for government performance in Africa. The outbreak of civil war in December 2013 has therefore forcefully reintroduced the question of the viability of an independent South Sudan and intensified the debate over Sudan People's Liberation Movement's (SPLM) capacity and suitability to govern.

Hostilities begun in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, in the late evening of 15 December 2013, in the barracks south of the city centre. The fighting spread to the military headquarters of Bilpam located north of Juba. During the night and the following day, opposition leaders within the SPLM were rounded up by government forces. Most of them came along without a fight, but the bodyguards of former Vice-President Riek Machar resisted and he got away, only to reappear in the “bush” as a rebel leader. On 16 and 17 December there was widespread fighting in different parts of Juba. According to reports, hundreds of civilians were killed, and thousands fled to UN compounds for protection; Nuer residents were targeted in house-to-house searches.¹ The adversaries traded accusations: President Salva Kiir's side declared that the opposition had planned a coup and handed out weapons to youth in Juba; the opposition claimed that the president had recruited and armed a youth militia in Juba and used the clashes as a pretext to get rid of challengers.² On 18 December fighting in Juba receded, but then the SPLA Eight. Division led by Peter Gadet mutinied and proceeded to attack the capital of Jonglei, Bor. On 19 December the Fourth Division in Unity also mutinied, and there were additional defections elsewhere, especially in Upper Nile. Also a number of armed civilians in Greater Upper Nile (the three states of Unity, Upper Nile and Jonglei) flocked to Riek Machar and the former governor of Unity state, Taban Deng.

In the following weeks and months, the state capitals in Greater Upper Nile, Bentiu, Malakal and Bor changed hands several times in pitched battles between, on the one side, government forces, Darfuri rebels and the Ugandan army and the defected SPLA soldiers and armed civilians on the other. Of the SPLM factions, discussed further below, only Riek Machar's is engaged in armed rebellion. It is usually referred to as the SPLM in Opposition. During 15–18 April 2014, it held a consultative conference in Nasir, where polices and interim structures were hashed out. Members of the other main opposition groups use the name SPLM Leaders (Former Detainees) or G11 (G10 after Peter Adwok shifted to the SPLM in Opposition). The members of this faction pursue their goals solely through political and diplomatic means. The rebels hold a number of the smaller towns in the three states and have at least a nominal reign over swaths of countryside.³ The oil fields have also been attacked, but so far the rebels have not succeeded in capturing the oil fields and only managed to reduce the rate of production.⁴ Although the war has not yet escalated to include the whole of South Sudan and is largely limited to Greater Upper Nile, other parts of South Sudan have seen outbreaks of local violence and the conflict might spread further during the dry season of 2014–15.⁵

Efforts to end the conflict are centred in the Intergovernmental Authority on Developmnet (IGAD)-facilitated negotiations in Addis Ababa; in October 2014, a secondary internal SPLM forum was opened in Tanzania.⁶ After several rounds of talks little has been achieved. The only noteworthy outcome has been a Memorandum on the Cessation of Hostilities signed on 23 January 2014 and a vague document on the way forward to solve the political disputes at the centre of the conflict. The IGAD countries have partly employed a planned monitoring and verification force, but fighting continues despite these efforts and subsequent signing ceremonies. The gulf between the parties continues to widen: attacks and atrocities are reported as ethnically motivated and thereby perpetuating revenge attacks and maintaining a political environment of distrust and mutual suspicion. This intensification of identity politics might also affect the political demands of the opposition and narrow down the range of possible solutions to the conflict. In the worst-case scenario, it might permanently damage the integrity of South Sudan as a political unit; an integrity which was fragile in the first place. A solution to the conflict is urgently needed, but must be preceded by a better understanding of its background.

When explaining the new civil war, journalists and casual observers have embraced the tired ‘tribal warfare’ trope and – adding some extra drama – linked the current fighting to the Rwanda genocide in 1994.⁷ Assumedly deep ethnic divisions within the country came to the surface after the struggle for secession ended; the South Sudanese were enticed to fight ‘amongst themselves’. Also the supposed unsuitability of Salva Kiir and Riek Machar has been invoked as an explanation for the outbreak of violence and lack of reconciliation.⁸ Scholars have already contested some of these simplistic analyses,⁹ and the idea that war is a personality conflict has already been debunked.¹⁰ It is rather the fallout of a political crisis within the SPLM; a crisis exacerbated by the lack of cohesion and central control within the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) – the guerrilla cum government army. It was the combination of a weak patrimonial state, a wartime mentality and lack of peaceful mechanisms for political contestation and transition that brought about the current war. This becomes apparent when we look closer at the structural causes of the conflict, the background for the internal problems within the SPLM and the dynamics by which internal tensions within the SPLM came to a head during 2013.

The structural causes of conflict in South Sudan

South Sudan's point of departure following the signing of the peace agreement in 2005 was poor indeed: state institutions and practises were shaped during the Anglo-Egyptian condominium (1899–1956). More than anything, this was a minimal care and maintenance system.¹¹ During the Second Civil War (1983–2005) two militarised and ramshackle systems of governance existed side by side; the government in Khartoum presided over garrison towns and their immediate vicinities, while the SPLM/A controlled minor towns and the countryside.¹² In the following years (2005–2011), the Southern Government was overwhelmed, not only by the struggle to gain control and the process of merging the two aforementioned systems. There were also intense negotiations with the National Congress Party (NCP) in Khartoum over the implementation of the peace agreement, management of an influx of oil money, wrangling within the SPLM and a rising level of rural insecurity. These challenges severely hampered establishment and strengthening of government control in general and in rural South Sudan in particular.

The Government of South Sudan derives practically all its income from oil revenues, but South Sudan is first and foremost a subsistence economy. For ordinary people, economic interaction within the informal sector is much more important than the formal government economy. To the extent that ordinary people benefit from the oil revenues, it is from the trickle-down effects of informal patronage networks and relatives’ employment in the public sector. Alex de Waal has pointed to the destructive dynamics of neopatrimonial governance in South Sudan, which has been supercharged by the massive infusion of oil revenues into the state coffers.¹³ Because of the weak formal state, political power in South Sudan is to a large extent vested in informal patronage networks within the civil administration and the army. Controlling government revenue is also the source of informal power. This makes state capture by the different SPLM factions attractive. In consequence, power structures are not transparent, and it is difficult to establish the relative influence of political factions.¹⁴

Patronage networks tend to be correlated with ethnicity and identity politics since ethnic identity is institutionalised and closely linked to territoriality and belonging: ‘the tribes’ of South Sudan are divided by administrative boundaries laid down during colonial times and chiefs – although in many cases perceived as spokespersons of ‘their people’ – are government employees.¹⁵ Moreover, as Douglas H. Johnson and others have argued, ethnicity and notions of tribalism in South Sudan are more complex than a Nuer-Dinka dichotomy: these peoples are internally heterogeneous and politically divided.¹⁶ Since 2005, South Sudan has experienced a combination of fragmentation of local government institutions and ethnic segmentation.¹⁷ These developments give subnational elites room for improvisation and shifting of alliances which exacerbate the unpredictability of South Sudanese politics.

Failed security sector reform and rural insecurity are also consequences of weak government structures. A bloated, fragmented and ill-disciplined army is part of the reason why violence escalated rapidly after 15 December.¹⁸ Official hierarchies and command structures within the SPLA are compromised by a low level of discipline and neopatrimonial networks, the latter results in informal chains of command and an inflation of higher military ranks (SPLA generals are counted in the hundreds). The militarisation of rural communities and the government's inability to control groups and networks of armed civilians also impede security.¹⁹ This made it possible for the SPLM in Opposition to mobilise capable auxiliary fighting forces in a matter of days.²⁰ However, the armed civilians are difficult to control and coordinate. These are groups based on local power structures with tenuous links to top leaders. Continued involvement of such groups will entrench the struggle and – as they pursue various local agendas and new cycles of revenge become ingrained in the social fabric – also add layers of local complexity and grievances.

South Sudan's weakness vis-à-vis foreign actors undermines the legitimacy of the leadership on all sides of the political divide. Foreign military patronage was a crucial element in the previous civil war and now parts of this pattern are being repeated. President Museveni and the Ugandan Government have long been a key ally of the SPLM. When the new war broke out, the Ugandan People's Defence Force (UPDF) was quick to provide military assistance to Salva Kiir's government, without which government troops would probably have been unable to check the rebels’ southwards advance towards Juba.²¹ The government faction thus appears weak and propped up by Uganda. Salva Kiir's policy of normalisation with Sudan, which dates from before the recent war, is also viewed with suspicion.

The SPLM in Opposition has lost the momentum and without a massive defection from Salva Kiir's camp, or outside support, there is little chance that it will be able to extend the war beyond the Greater Upper Nile states. Especially the opposition in Sudan has an interest in throwing a wedge between the leaders of the two governments by convincing Juba that the NCP regime in Khartoum is supporting the opposition in the South. There is little, however, indicating that SPLM in Opposition receives significant foreign assistance. It appears that beyond providing sanctuary within the borders of Sudan, President al-Bashir is holding back support to Riek Machar and the other rebels in the South. If Sudan were to support the rebels, it is likely that Salva Kiir would provide arms to rebels in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile – thereby strengthening opposition forces in Sudan in a period of regime fragility.

The weakness of the state is also reflected in the political system in South Sudan. Political power is concentrated within the executive branch of government. Although the most vocal demand for reform and development of a permanent constitution has come from the opposition outside SPLM and from civil society actors, the judiciary and the legislature in South Sudan have demonstrated some independence in recent years. In the summer of 2013, the parliament made a stand when Salva Kiir appointed a new Minister of Justice, Telar Deng. Through a ‘vetting’ process, the parliament found him unfit for the position. In this case, Salva Kiir obliged and found a different candidate.²² Moreover, in spring 2014, the South Sudanese judiciary showed an unexpected level of integrity and independence from the executive. Four of the opposition leaders arrested in December 2013 were charged with high treason and were tried by a special court. Many observers expected this to be an orchestrated trial which would validate their arrest and shift the blame for the civil war onto the opposition. Instead, the court demanded that the prosecution presented evidence and witnesses were cross-examined. The court would have acquitted the four if the prosecution had not withdrawn the case. Nevertheless, the executive holds a disproportionate share of the power. Judges and members of parliament know that if they push too hard they will be dismissed.

Factionalised politics

We need to consider previous developments to explain why the crisis within the SPLM leadership manifested itself in late 2013. Some of the ideological splits and personal animosities originate in events and processes which can be traced back to before the beginning of the previous civil war.²³ The SPLM/A of the civil war years was an ever-changing alliance of factions and groups. The initial core of rebels that ran to Ethiopia in 1983 consisted mainly of students, ‘intellectuals’ and former guerrilla soldiers from Greater Upper Nile and Greater Bahr el-Ghazal (i.e. the states of Lakes, Northern Bahr el-Ghazal, Western Bahr el-Ghazal and Warrap) as well as the contested Abyei; many were of the Dinka people. In 1988, main sections of the rebel group Anya-Nya II – largely consisting of Nuer from Upper Nile – were absorbed into the SPLM/A. Subsequently, the three main factions of the SPLM/A consisted of Dinka of Bahr el-Ghazal, Dinka on the eastern bank of the Nile – centred around Twic East and Bor – and, finally, constellations of Nuer subgroups. The movement also expanded early into Greater Equatoria (today's three Equatoria states) and to the southern peripheries of today's Sudan (South Kordofan and Blue Nile). The SPLM-aligned elites from these areas were symbolically important and, moreover, military engagements in these regions forced the Government of Sudan to spread their forces thinly on the ground. However, these allies had limited influence within the upper levels of the SPLM/A.

During the last civil war, the faction centred on the eastern bank of the Nile was the strongest, and John Garang was its undisputed leader. Through Garang's personal connections, it maintained linkages with the elites of the three contested areas of Blue Nile, Nuba Mountains and Abyei. The faction's strength was to some extent measured in its military power, but Garang's capacity to build alliances and to mobilise resources for the movement was just as important. He groomed and supported a number of ambitious politicians and officers who owed him their positions and who became loyal enforcers and lieutenants. Prominent among these were Deng Alor, Pagan Amum, Majak d’Agoot, Oyai Deng and Nhial Deng Nhial. Garang's command over the SPLA was partly secured through loyal officers who were dependent on his personal support. But Garang also forged alliances with commanders who had more independent bases of power.

Since Garang died in 2005, no undisputed leader has emerged from the eastern bank Dinka faction. This faction was loosely knit in the first place and has been disintegrating ever since. Their source of power proved to be ephemeral and only to a limited degree based on geographic or military constituencies. Rather it was rooted in their individual capacities as SPLM party cadres and their former proximity to Garang. Since 2005, the leaders of the former Garang faction have held key ministry posts both in Khartoum and in Juba and – although Kiir has been the chairman and controlled important parts of the army and the government apparatus – the former Garang faction has held a dominant position within the SPLM party apparatus. The situation was different for the northerners Abdul Aziz and Malik Agar who have geographical and military constituencies in South Kordofan and Blue Nile respectively. They have, together with Yassir Arman, formed the SPLM/A-North and are focusing on Sudanese politics. There are two competing explanations for why the former Garang faction has not mobilised militarily in South Sudan. Faction leaders will claim that they abstain from the use of violence and that they prefer to win power through peaceful means. Their opponents would argue that they lack military power. If the Garang faction took to arms, they would not be able to mobilise an independent rebel army and would be forced into an alliance with Riek Machar's SPLM in Opposition.

The SPLM factions centred on Greater Bahr el-Ghazal and Salva Kiir's presidency is currently the strongest. It also draws support among many of the Equatorian elites (most prominent is the current Vice-President James Wani Igga and Clement Wani Konga, governor of Central Equatoria,) and some in the Greater Upper Nile region (e.g. former Chief of Staff James Hoth Mai). Bona Malwal and Telar Ring have at different points in time since 2005 been perceived as influential in the faction but are now pushed to the political periphery. The faction's expanding centre of gravity is evident in the fact that persons formerly associated with the Garang faction such as Kuol Manyang Juuk and Nhial Deng Nhial are now aligned with Salva Kiir. The president also has a strong position within the SPLA. A significant number of soldiers in the government army hail from the Bahr el-Ghazal. More importantly, Salva Kiir was Garang's right hand during the war and handled much of the day-to-day running of the military. Even when Garang was alive, Salva Kiir was the most influential of the Bahr el-Ghazal group and seen as their spokesperson and representative in the SPLM leadership.

The third main faction is led by Riek Machar, Taban Deng and Peter Gadet, the latter a capable, but unpredictable warlord. Its main bases of support are in Greater Upper Nile and its military power lays in the plethora of militia groups that fought against the SPLA during the last war. From around 2000, many of the Nuer factions were (re-)integrated into the SPLA; important landmarks were Riek Machar's return in January 2002 and the signing of the Juba declaration in 2006 which brought into the fold, among others, the late Paulino Matiep, a powerful militia leader in Unity. This process has however been problematic, and it has proved difficult to merge and, subsequently, downsize the army. Rural insecurity, local violence and a general feeling of neglect have fomented animosity towards the government in many parts of Greater Upper Nile.

Garang died in a helicopter crash on 30 July 2005. This was seven months after he had signed a peace agreement ending the 22-year civil war, and only three weeks after he had been installed as president of the autonomous region of Southern Sudan and first vice-president of Sudan. His death thoroughly changed the internal dynamics of the SPLM's factionalised politics, but in an act of unusual self-restraint and collective statesmanship, the SPLM leadership postponed the struggle over the control of the party and appointed Salva Kiir as the new chairman. No person within Garang's faction had been groomed to take over his position, and it was not inevitable that Salva Kiir would succeed him. In 2004, Salva Kiir and the Bahr el-Ghazal faction saw themselves as sidelined vis-à-vis the other internal SPLM factions. This led to an open confrontation between Garang and Salva Kiir but did not constitute an attempt by Salva Kiir to usurp leadership. Salva Kiir subsequently retained his position as second in command precisely because he was no threat to Garang.

As president of South Sudan, Salva Kiir has only to a limited degree demonstrated any interest in or capacity for politicking or visionary leadership. He remains inscrutable and somewhat aloof, but has managed to stay in power, if only to keep the two other main factions at bay. However, his challengers saw Salva Kiir's appointment as a temporary arrangement and bided their time preparing for a rematch. These challengers may have been comforted by the knowledge that they retained their influence within the SPLM and the SPLA. However, they could not wait forever because – as many wartime leaders before them have experienced – during peacetime, civil war credentials constitute a rapidly declining currency and is a poor substitute for real influence. After South Sudan's independence, friction increased steadily as disagreements arose over issues related to the many compromises with the regime in Khartoum, the narrowing of the circle around the president, the neglect of the party apparatus and the squabbles over money and corruption. It was only a matter of time before these tensions would rise to the surface.

The only peaceful route to power in contemporary South Sudan is through gaining control of the SPLM. This implied challenging Salva Kiir at the planned third SPLM national convention. Within a more institutionalised political system, the discontent within the SPLM could have left and formed an opposition party. In South Sudan such a move would be tantamount to a long and possibly indefinite walk in the political wilderness. The SPLM is thoroughly intermeshed with the state. Salva Kiir is chairman of the SPLM as well as commander-in-chief for the SPLA. Within the neopatrimonial state, it is difficult to distinguish between the office of the president, the party leadership and the army. The party leadership has the apparatus and finances of the government available to buttress their efforts to win votes in elections. They may also use the resources of the state to block opposition parties. In contrast, there is no established system or tradition for opposition parties in South Sudan to mobilise financial support from their members or sympathisers. Even if a well-organised and popular opposition party overcame this challenge, it would have had limited chance of winning an election since rigging and other irregularities are expected in future elections (similar concerns are the official reason why opposition parties in Sudan boycott elections).

In its 31 years of existence, the SPLM has only organised two national conventions: in 1994 and 2008. A convention is supposed to be held every five years and was due in May 2013. At that time, the cumbersome preparation process had not even started. The National Liberation Council (NLC) is entrusted with the responsibility of initiating the preparations for the national convention. Consisting of members elected at the national convention, the NLC is the highest organ between conventions and is supposed to meet annually. From the NLC a Political Bureau is formed, which is the leadership committee of around 50 members which is supposed to meet frequently to direct the day-to-day policy of the party and, in consequence, South Sudan. The preparation process for the national convention is comprehensive and painstakingly slow: it starts from the lowest of the five government levels and continues through to state level. Dates were announced for the national convention and for the preparatory meetings in the Political Bureau and the NLC, but each time the meetings were postponed. Meanwhile, South Sudan was brought to a political standstill. When the leadership crisis deepened in 2013, it was evident that the national convention and, in consequence, the planned 2015 national elections would be significantly delayed. There is no formal or constitutional link between the SPLM's national convention and national elections in South Sudan, but is unlikely that elections will be held before the SPLM decides upon a presidential candidate.

The SPLM crisis escalates

In the period 2005–2011, the three factions managed to check the centrifugal forces within the SPLM; the peace process would probably not have survived a major split. Nevertheless, the fragile consensus was about to unravel at the National Convention in 2008 when the various factions, behind closed doors, fought over the chairmanship and deputy chairmanship.²⁴ But, again, prudence prevailed and a compromise with three deputies was agreed upon. Two years later, the national elections in 2010 also resulted in internal turmoil and chipping away at the big tent consensus of the SPLM. Lam Akol formed his own party before the elections. Afterwards, other independent candidates who lost the election resorted to armed rebellion. At this point, SPLM chapters in the rest of Sudan, notably Blue Nile and South Kordofan, observed with dismay the increasingly likely prospect of South Sudan's secession. Meanwhile, the Abyei faction within the SPLM was dissatisfied with the lack of forcefulness in the attempt to ensure a referendum over Abyei's future. Political elites in the three Equatoria states were frustrated by their marginalisation within the party. They also complained about what they regarded as an invasion of their home turf, first and foremost Juba, by army and government leaders, their extended families and networks of dependences and business associates. The ‘Dinka-dominance’ discourse yet again gained momentum and the question of moving the capital further north was both debated and settled. Still, the Northern Sudanese SPLM, the Abyei groups and the Equatorians remained peripheral and unable to challenge the SPLM leadership, at least as long as the three main factions remained united.

During the spring of 2013, the semblance of unity started to unravel as the internal opposition, foremost Riek Machar, challenged the president and criticised him openly.²⁵ The internal power struggle paralysed not only the SPLM party structures but also the presidency and the cabinet. Cabinet meetings and internal party meetings were reportedly stormy. In addition to Riek Machar, Rebecca Nyandeng (Garang's widow) and SPLM Secretary General Pagan Amum signalled their intention of contesting for political leadership in South Sudan.

The leadership crisis became acute during the summer of 2013. First, two ministers, Deng Alor and Kosti Manibe, were dismissed and charged with corruption.²⁶ Then, on 23 July, Salva Kiir suspended Pagan Amum and ordered him to be investigated for insubordination and political and administrative mismanagement.²⁷ Simultaneously, Salva Kiir dismissed Riek Machar and the remaining cabinet members.²⁸ He did not give any official reason at the time of dismissal, but let it be known that he regarded the cabinet as ineffective and corrupt.²⁹ The ultimate reason for the dismissal was the governance inertia caused by the internal power struggle. Since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005 the composition of the cabinet reflected the many groups and interests absorbed into the SPLM; all the three main factions have been well-represented. But when the new cabinet was eventually announced the now openly oppositional factions were without representation. The loyal James Wani Igga became vice-president. By choosing a cabinet with little heed to the balance of power between the three main factions, Salva Kiir had effectively dared the internal opposition to resist.

Unsurprisingly, the opposition did not contentedly retire from politics to pursue careers within business and academia. Rather, they were biding their time and continued pushing for the internal processes within the SPLM to move along. During the autumn, the long-awaited NLC meeting was, after new dates were announced, repeatedly postponed. In November, Salva Kiir signalled that he intended to dismantle the whole SPLM party structure, replace them with appointees and call for an extraordinary convention. He stated that the mandate for the elected members of the SPLM had expired in May 2013, five years after the last National Convention.³⁰ Competing theories may explain why the SPLM chairman did not follow party procedures. Either Salva Kiir suspected he no longer held a majority in the Political Bureau or he knew that a meeting in the Political Bureau would result in a political, and possibly public, confrontation with an unpredictable outcome. By avoiding the Political Bureau meeting, Salva Kiir delayed the showdown.

It was against the threat of being squeezed out of the party that a broad coalition of internal opponents held the press conference on 6 December openly accusing Salva Kiir of incompetence and of being undemocratic. Leaders of the opposing factions challenged Salva Kiir and stated their concerns over:

[t]he deep-seated divisions within the SPLM leadership, exacerbated by dictatorial tendencies of the SPLM Chairman, and the dysfunctional SPLM structures from national to local levels are likely to create instability in the party and in the country. For these reasons, and out of our sincere concern about future of our people, we the SPLM members of the Political Bureau and the Leadership of the party are obliged to inform the public about the true state of affairs in the SPLM and how General Salva Kiir is driving our beloved Republic of South Sudan into chaos and disorder.³¹

The press statement provides insight into the contestation over legitimacy and justification for an escalation of political conflict. It represented a radical shift within a political discourse which up to a few months earlier had focused on collaboration, consensus and harmony. Suddenly, prominent leaders within the movement voiced grievances related to dictatorial tendencies and lack of a functioning party organisation. The reference to a possible chaotic future can be interpreted both as a concern and a threat.

The statement elaborates on the grievances of the internal opposition, which include lack of party democracy; exclusion of internal opposition from decision-making by ‘regional and ethnic lobbies around the SPLM chairman’; betrayal of the party's revolutionary agenda; and allegations of Salva Kiir's economic mismanagement and defamation of the internal opposition. According to the press statement, the opposition simply wanted the president to follow the SPLM's procedures and rules. They announced that they intended to escalate the political contestation further and would organise a public rally on 14 December at the John Garang Memorial site – a place laden with symbolic meaning.³² There was no indication that they were planning to use violent means in pursuit of their demands; based on their assumed popular support they intended to mobilise broadly.

The criticism and threat to escalate the political conflict demanded a reaction from Salva Kiir; either to give in or hinder the opposition's plans for escalation of the SPLM infighting. Initially, the press conference was trivialised by government representatives. Nevertheless, national security confiscated issues of newspapers reporting the event and imprisoned one editor.³³ Salva Kiir did not respond directly to the criticism and decided to leapfrog the meeting in the Political Bureau and convene the NLC meeting on 14 and 15 December. The rally announced by the opposition was postponed to 20 December to give room for further dialogue. Despite their demand for postponement of the NLC, the opposition participated during the first day of the meeting. The second day they abstained because of what they perceived as a lack of conciliatory spirit from Salva Kiir.³⁴ By 15 December, tensions were high: Juba was a powder keg, and a spark was enough to set off a spiral of unchecked violence.

Conclusion

Underlying factors such as civil war legacies, neo-patrimonialism and a weak state made a new civil war in South Sudan possible, if not unavoidable. Decades of war and insecurity have both militarised the South Sudanese society and generated layers of grievances and animosity. But political and social cleavages within South Sudan are not fundamentally different from internal divisions in other states in Eastern Africa which in many cases have developed ways to the deal with political heterogeneity. Thus, the SPLM guerrilla movement politics in post-war South Sudan and the planned 2015 presidential elections are important factors when explaining why the conflict erupted in December 2013. Likewise, it is difficult to see a solution to the conflict without a political compromise at the top level, including a detailed implementation matrix with fixed deadlines for internal reforms within the SPLM, national elections and a process leading to a permanent constitution. Following a peace agreement, it is likely that consensus politics within a power-sharing mechanism will have to continue for an extended period.

Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges with gratitude financial support from the Research Council of Norway, under project 214349/F10 ‘The Dynamics of State Failure and Violence’, administered by the Peace Research Institute Oslo, and from Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. An earlier version of the article was presented at the conference: Revisiting the Politics of State Survival, organised by the African Studies Centre, University of Oxford and the Peace Research Institute Oslo, 8 May 2014.

Notes

1. Human Rights Watch, Ethnic Targeting.

2. Associated Press, “South Sudan Capital Hit”; Adwok Nyaba, The Crisis of Infancy, 104–17.

3. On their web-site The Human Security Baseline Assessment for Sudan and South Sudan (HSBA) provides maps over areas held and contested by the warring parties: http://www.smallarmssurveysudan.org/home.html.

4. Bariyo, “South Sudan's Debt Rises”; Ngor, “South Sudan Gets $250.”

5. HSBA, “The Conflict.”

6. “S. Sudanese Rebel Delegation.”

7. Sengupta, “In South Sudan”; “Strife Echoes Rwanda Genocide”; Smith and Mutanguha, “Heed the Warnings.”

8. Alex Vines, “Who Can Halt”; L. Muthoni Wanyeki, “South Sudan Leaders.”

9. Johnson, “Briefing”; Breidlid and Arensen, “Anyone Who Can Carry.”

10. Alex de Waal and Abdul Mohammed, “Breakdown in South Sudan.”

11. Daly, Imperial Sudan.

12. Rolandsen, Guerrilla Government.

13. de Waal, “When Kleptocracy Becomes Insolvent”; See also: Pinaud, “South Sudan.”

14. de Waal, “When Kleptocracy Becomes Insolvent.”

15. Leonardi, Dealing with Government.

16. Johnson, “Briefing.”

17. Leonardi et al., “Local Justice in Southern Sudan”; Rolandsen, “Land, Security and Peace Building.”

18. Rands, In Need of Review.

19. Rolandsen, “Why Is Violence Escalating”; Justine Fleischner, “Protective Measures.”

20. Breidlid and Arensen, “Anyone Who Can Carry.”

21. International Crisis Group, A Civil War, 22–3.

22. “S. Sudan MPs Reject”; “Kiir Returns Telar Deng.”

23. Johnson, Root Causes (Rev. Ed.); Rolandsen, Guerrilla Government.

24. Personal observations and informal interviews with SPLM leaders during and immediately after the convention. See also B. De Alessi, “The war-to-peace transition,” 165–78.

25. Tisdall, “Riek Machar.”

26. “Top South Sudan Officials.”

27. Sudan People's Liberation Movement, “Chairperson's Order No. 1/2013,” Chairman's Office, Juba.

28. Government of South Sudan, “Republican Decrees 49, 50, 51.”

29. “South Sudan's Salva Kiir”; “S Sudan: A Reshuffle or a Governance Crisis?”

30. “South Sudan's Kiir Dissolves”; “Machar Accuses.”

31. “Senior SPLM Colleagues.”

32. “Senior SPLM Leaders.”

33. “S. Sudan Kiir Will”; “S. Sudan Authorities Confiscate.”

34. “SPLM Leaders Pull out.”