6. The state and statebuilding in South Sudan
6.1. The hybrid quasi state in South Sudan
For the first category, the hybrid quasi state, there are – in accordance with the typified African state – two topical subsections that deal with varying aspects of what is or is not a hybrid quasi state in South Sudan. Section 6.1.1 is going to assess the degree to which South Sudan is a quasi-state by looking at the country’s external sovereignty, i.e. the state’s acceptance in the international state system and state control over territory and borders vis-à-vis other states and other foreign actors.
Afterwards, 6.1.2 focuses on the South Sudanese state’s hybridity by analyzing the state’s domestic sovereignty, i.e. its ability to provide internal security and maintain a monopoly of violence. These sections will be followed in 6.1.3 by a brief summary.
6.1.1. The quasi state in South Sudan
Quasi-statehood is intimately linked to external sovereignty as shown in Ch. 4.1.1.1. External sovereignty is a broad frame of reference and is here understood to mean a number of interrelated things that illustrate South Sudan’s degree of quasi-statehood. On a most basic reading, external sovereignty is concerned with 6.1.1.1 international recognition for the state pretender, i.e. whether or not the international community recognizes a country’s claim to membership in the global state system. Moving from the legalistic to realities of realpolitik, in 6.1.1.2 the involvement and activities of foreign states in the internal affairs of South Sudan are critical indicators of external sovereignty and quasi-statehood. Finally, 6.1.1.3 on control over its international borders reflects directly on South Sudan’s ability to uphold its claim to external sovereignty and full-fledged statehood.
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6.1.1.1. International recognition of statehood
For every secessionist movement, international recognition for its claim to statehood comes a close second to military victory on its list of top goals. With a decisive and outright military victory a very rare event, international sovereignty may in fact be at the top of the priority list of realistically attainable goals. In the case of South Sudan, the Government of South Sudan’s stringent focus on the independence referendum during the Comprehensive Peace Agreement period to the detriment of almost all other concerns, e.g. development, bears out this contention. Especially after John Garang’s death in 2005, which brought to an end almost from the start any serious attempts at “making unity attractive”, international recognition became of paramount importance to the South Sudanese leadership. This state of affairs lasted all the way until South Sudan had successfully executed the referendum, declared independence and joined several international organisations. Henceforth, however, it is unlikely to play much of a role because the regime, although it is being challenged domestically, does not face the imminent threat of a total lack of domestic sovereignty for which it would need to compensate for with international backing.
The fact that South Sudan was able to win backing of the United Nations and the African Union – the country acceded to both organizations immediately following independence in July 2011 – is no small feat and warrants closer examination. Arguably the most important reason why the African Union for once relaxed its stance on the inalienability of colonial borders is that there is very little danger of South Sudan providing a blueprint and a substantial boost to other independence movements on the continent. Even though other secessionist parts of Africa like Somaliland argue with great dismay that they possess a stronger case for statehood than South Sudan did, they fail to win sufficient support in the international community to sustain their claim721. That is primarily because outside of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, occupied by Morocco but a member of the AU, there are in fact no movements which possess a similarly strong case and a similarly strong group of international supporters as South Sudan722: “South Sudan’s long struggle will surely embolden existing secessionist groups and may inspire new movements – but the obstacles to independent statehood appear as formidable as ever”723.The other equally important factor is that the AU was directly and intimately involved in the negotiations that led to the CPA and thus had ownership of the entire process including the possibility of the South opting for independence at the end of the interim period724. As a matter of fact, Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s former prime minister and current chair of the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel played a key role in convincing African heads of state to consider South Sudan an exceptional case725.
Internationally accorded sovereignty does not, however, automatically entail that the international community is able and willing to uphold and enforce a state’s external sovereignty. The United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS, since July 2011: United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS))
721 Bereketeab, Redie. Self-Determination and Secessionism in Somaliland and South Sudan: Challenges to Postcolonial State-building. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Discussion Paper No. 75, 2012, p. 27.
722 Temin, Jon. Secession and Precedent in Sudan and Africa. Washington: United Institute of Peace, Peace Brief, No. 68, 17 November 2010, p. 2.
723 McNamee, Terence. The first crack in Africa’s map? Secession and Self-Determination after South Sudan.
Johannesburg: The Brenthurst Foundation, Discussion Paper No. 1, January 2012, p. 6.
724 Tavolato, Umberto, “En finir avec les frontières coloniales? L’Union africaine et la sécession du Sud-Soudan”, Politique Africaine, No. 122, June 2011, pp. 101-119, p. 112.
725 Temin, Jon and Woocher, Lawrence. Learning from Sudan’s 2011 Referendum. Washington: United Institute of Peace, Special Report, No. 303, March 2012.
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has generally interpreted the scope of its mission very conservatively and has refrained from interfering in domestic or inter-Sudanese conflicts726. When the Sudanese army overran Abyei in 2011, for instance, the UNMIS troops stationed in the vicinity stood by and remained idle727. On the other hand, UNMISS troops have on occasion helped to abet violence in Jonglei and were
instrumental in giving shelter to fleeing civilians during the violence that ensued after the thwarted
‘coup’ on December 15th 2013728. Not to everyone’s satisfaction, however, as president Kiir accused the UN of acting like a “parallel government”729 and exerted pressure to have UN personnel allegedly friendly with former vice-president Machar removed from the country730. Hostility towards and public protests against the UN peaked after weapons found in a UN convoy in March 2014 were alleged to have been destined for anti-government rebels731. But criticism of UNMISS also comes from a different angle. A South Sudanese journalist-cum-activist wanted UNMISS to pack up and leave the country because its presence undermined South Sudan’s sovereignty732.
More generally, however, and in spite of proclamations to the contrary, the international community is not in a position to define the shape and design of the evolving state. As Bennett et al put it:
“Neither donors nor GoSS have produced an overriding and clear model of statehood for Southern Sudan”733. It is therefore necessary to ascertain whether Alex de Waal’s claim that for Southern Sudan “*s+eparation is more likely to resemble incomplete decolonisation than partition”734 has turned out be accurate.
6.1.1.2. External actors and states involved in South Sudanese affairs
A second aspect of quasi-statehood is the fact that foreign powers have the ability to interfere directly into a state’s domestic affairs – including the threat of military invasion – and in some fields hold more significant power than the state’s nominal government itself. Therefore, the impact of foreign countries’ governments on the politics of South Sudan has to be part of our analysis of the alleged quasi-stateness of South Sudan. Due to the specific circumstances in South Sudan and its
726 A UK House of Commons report gave a scathing assessment of UNMISS’s performance: “UNMISS does not currently provide value-for-money and its current resources have not been deployed most effectively.” House of Commons, International Development Committee. South Sudan: Prospects for Peace and Development.
Fifteenth Report of Session 2010-12. No date, p. 37.
727 Amnesty International. Sudan-South Sudan: Destruction and Desolation in Abyei. London: Amnesty International Publications, December 2011, p. 13.
728 UNMISS, “UNMISS continues to shelter civilians, conduct patrols”, 30 January 2014,
http://unmiss.unmissions.org/Default.aspx?tabid=3465&ctl=Details&mid=6047&ItemID=2971825&language=e n-US (accessed: 6 February 2014).
729 Sudan Tribune, “South Sudan warns UN against meddling in internal affairs”, 21 January 2014, http://sudantribune.com/spip.php?article49674 (accessed: 22 January 2014).
730 Amos, Machel, “‘Endangered’ UN duo moved from South Sudan”, Africa Review, 4 January 2014, http://www.africareview.com/News/UN-duo-flees-South-Sudan-in-fear/-/979180/2192702/-/c43fjwz/-/index.html (accessed: 6 February 2014).
731 Lynch, Colum, “South Sudanese Military Targets United Nations”, The Cable, 18 March 2014,
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/03/18/south_sudan_targets_the_united_nations (accessed: 21 March 2014).
732 Interview in Juba, 10 October 2013.
733 Bennett, Jon; Pantuliano, Sara; Fenton, Wendy; Vaux, Anthony; Barnett, Chris and Brusset, Emery. Aiding the Peace: A Multi-donor Evaluation of Support to Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding Activities in Southern Sudan 2005-2010. ITAD Ltd., United Kingdom, December 2010, p. 145.
734 de Waal, Alex. Sudan: international dimensions to the state and its crisis. London: LSE Crisis Research Centre, Occasional Paper No. 3, 2007, p. 15.
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regional environment, this overview will be split between an analysis of foreign states and external non-state actors.
Foreign states
Direct and indirect interference into the affairs of South Sudan has been a constant for most of its modern history because it was neither independent nor autonomous. Since the British left the Sudan, provincial opposition to the centre of power in Khartoum has regularly turned for support to the governments of neighbouring countries and formed a sort of patron-client relationship. This state of affairs continues in the present as the majority of the region’s countries (Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Eritrea, Egypt) are in one way or another involved in South Sudan’s internal affairs. The patronage systems that underwrite the governing regimes throughout the Horn of Africa region that South Sudan belongs to therefore also determine relations between states. It is habitual for
governments to fund and support insurgent groups in neighbouring countries as a means to strengthen their own hold on power by having proxy forces on the ground735. In a game of geopolitical tit-for-tat, this has reciprocally involved Sudan’s military and secret service in these countries’ domestic affairs736.
For the first phase of the renewed war in the South in the 1980s, Ethiopia, more specifically the Communist Derg regime was the principal backing and source of material support for the SPLM737. After the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front defeated the Derg, took over power and expelled the SPLA fighters from their base on Ethiopian soil in 1991, Kenya and Uganda became the movement’s strongest regional backers. Since about 2002, the Ethiopian government has morphed into the main interlocutor between the two Sudans738. For some time around the turn of the century, Asmara evolved into the hub for all Sudanese opposition movements and Eritrea trained and even accompanied SPLA forces inside Sudan739.
Uganda has been supporting the SPLM/A to differing degrees ever since Museveni’s coup d’état brought him to power in 1986 and Nairobi has provided a base for the SPLM’s activities since at least the 1990s. Museveni went to school with John Garang and Khartoum’s patronage of Ugandan rebels further strengthened ties with the South Sudanese rebel movement740. What is more, the Ugandan army (UPDF) maintains a substantial if unofficial presence inside South Sudan. Having supported and conducted joint operations with the SPLA during the civil war with Khartoum741, the UPDF remained in South Sudan ostensibly to eradicate Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army. But far from engaging the LRA, UPDF soldiers have been accused of running private businesses in South Sudan and abusing the local population while the South Sudanese government turns a blind eye742. The Ugandan army’s
735Hemmer, Jort. Southern Sudan: the new kid on the block? Assessing the neighbourhood on the threshold of Southern Sudan’s self-determination referendum. The Hague: Clingendael Conflict Research Unit Policy Brief, Vol. 14, March 2010, p. 2.
736 de Waal. Sudan: international dimensions (2007), p. 10.
737 Johnson, Douglas H. The Root Causes (2011), pp. 59-60.
738 Marchal, Roland, “Une histoire d’États…”, Politique Africaine, No. 122, June 2011, pp. 59-83, p. 72.
739 Connell, Dan. Global Trade Local Impact: Arms Transfers to all Sides in the Civil War in Sudan. Human Rights Watch, August 1998, p. 59.
740 Burr, J. Millard and Collins, Robert O. Revolutionary Sudan: Hasan al-Turabi and the Islamist state, 1989-2000. Leiden: Brill, 2003, pp. 107-108.
741 Ibid, pp. 59-61.
742 Schomerus, Mareike, “‘They forget what they came for’: Uganda’s army in Sudan”, Journal of Eastern African Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1, February 2012, pp. 124-153, pp. 129-131; see alsoOchan, Clement. Responding to
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ambivalent role in South Sudan became very apparent during the fighting that erupted in December 2013 when its troops entered Juba and tacitly helped the government against the armed rebellion by bombing Bor and trying to take Malakal743 – paid for by the South Sudanese government744.
Kenya for its part is by all accounts secretly supplying arms to the government in Juba, a fact that became apparent when Somali pirates captured a delivery of tanks from Ukraine to Kenya in September 2008745. Kenyans have large investments in South Sudan, among others much of the banking sector is Kenyan-dominated, and the two countries have agreed to build an oil pipeline from South Sudan to the Lamu port north of Mombasa746, though lack of funding has derailed such plans until now. Tanzania is supplying troops for an international intervention force to stop the de facto civil war but does not appear to have substantial interests in the country747. Finally, as the White Nile passes through its territory, South Sudan’s independence also directly affects Egypt’s interest in maintaining the status quo in management of the Nile waters, an arrangement dating to 1959 that greatly benefits Egypt’s interests and that is contested by all other riparian states748. As a
consequence, Cairo has given substantial development aid to South Sudan749, signed a military cooperation agreement750 and has been trying to get South Sudan to join the Arab League751. Outside of the region, there are a number of countries that have had and continue to have a major impact on events in South Sudan. First of all, the very fact that a lasting peace agreement was reached has been attributed both to the overall international climate – post-9/11 Khartoum rightly feared to be targeted in the ‘war on terror’ – and to the engagement of international actors from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the AU, the UN and individual countries like
Violence in Ikotos County, South Sudan: Government and Local Efforts to Restore Order. Medford: Feinstein International Centre, Tufts University, December 2007, p. 20.
743 Sudan Tribune, “Uganda’s Museveni appoints new head of S. Sudan operations”, 12 January 2014, http://sudantribune.com/spip.php?article49548 (accessed: 27 January 2014).
744 Sudan Tribune, “S. Sudan defence minister admits government is paying Ugandan army”, 14 February 2014, http://sudantribune.com/spip.php?article49963 (accessed: 16 February 2014).
745 Wezeman, Pieter D.; Wezeman, Siemon T. and Béraud-Sudreau, Lucie. Arms Flows to Sub-Saharan Africa.
Stockholm: SIPRI Policy Paper, No. 30, December 2011, pp. 23-24. Leaked U.S. diplomatic cables from 2008 confirmed this: “It is a poorly kept secret that the tanks are bound for the Government of South Sudan and that the Government of Kenya has been facilitating shipments from Ukraine to the Government of South Sudan since 2007.” Baldauf, Scott, “WikiLeaks documents roil Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa”, Christian Science Monitor, 9 December 2010, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/Africa-Monitor/2010/1209/WikiLeaks-documents-roil-Nigeria-Kenya-and-South-Africa (accessed: 13 June 2014).
746 Anderson, David M. and Browne, Adrian J., “The politics of oil in eastern Africa”, Journal of Eastern African Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2011, pp. 369-410, p. 392.
747 Tanzania Daily News, “Tanzania readies to dispatch TPDF troops to South”, 27 March 2014,
http://www.dailynews.co.tz/index.php/local-news/29642-tanzania-gets-ready-to-dispatch-troops-to-south-sudan (accessed: 12 April 2014).
748Salman, Salman M.A., “The new state of South Sudan and the hydro-politics of the Nile Basin”, Water International, Vol. 36, No. 2, 2011, pp. 154-166, p.159.
749 Kortam, Hend, “Egypt pledges aid to South Sudan”, Daily News Egypt, 12 August 2012,
http://thedailynewsegypt.com/2012/08/12/egypt-pledges-aid-to-south-sudan/ (accessed: 10 April 2014).
750 The North Africa Post, “Egypt seals military cooperation with South Sudan”, 25 March 2014,
http://northafricapost.com/5312-egypt-seals-military-cooperation-with-south-sudan.html (accessed: 10 April 2014).
751 Aman, Ayah, “Egypt tries to woo South Sudan in Nile water dispute”, Al-Monitor, 31 March 2014, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/03/egypt-south-sudan-nile-water-dispute-ethiopia.html#
(accessed: 1 April 2014).
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Norway, the U.S. and Britain (the three form what is commonly called the Troika)752. Especially for the U.S. and Norway, the perception of the civil war as a religious753 and ethnic conflict and the much publicized revival of slavery helped put Sudan on the foreign policy agenda as Sudan took over apartheid South Africa’s and Libya’s mantle as the continent’s most notorious rogue state754. China has for a long time been Sudan’s closest ally outside of the Gulf and is Khartoum’s largest economic partner, having built the oil pipeline to Port Sudan and purchasing most of Sudan’s oil.
Since the CPA, Beijing is slowly engaging with the GoSS to make up for the People’s Republic’s bad image as a staunch supporter of the regime in the North755 while trying to salvage its investments in the oil industry756. SPLM cadres are mostly pragmatic in their interaction with the Chinese
government because they desperately need Chinese investment757 – something that meshes well with China’s focus on economic rather than political engagement758. India started to engage with Sudan in 2003 when it replaced Western companies that pulled out from the Sudanese oil sector and initially upheld Sudan’s territorial integrity but begun to establish closer links with the GoSS during the CPA period759. In contrast to China’s increasingly active role in political disputes in South Sudan, India’s diplomatic involvement is still very limited760. Russia has been a regular supplier of weapons to South Sudan, state-owned Safinat is building the South’s first oil refinery761 and there has been an unexpected rapprochement between presidents Putin and Kiir after the cooling off of relations with the United States in spring 2014762. In terms of military supplies, Ukraine has been the GoSS’s main supplier of weapons since 2005 with shipments transiting through Kenya and Uganda763.
752 Johnson, Hilde (2011), p. 13.
753 During the Bush administration (2001-2009), US foreign policy towards Africa was strongly influenced by Evangelical Christians that had come to embrace the persecution of Christians in the developing world as one of their prime causes. Huliaras, Asteris, “The Evangelical Roots of US Africa Policy”, Survival, Vol. 50, No. 6, 2008, pp. 161-182.
754 Gabrielsen, Maria M., “La sécurité humaine et l’internationalisation des conflits intra-étatiques: le cas du conflit au Sud-Soudan”, Revue de la sécurité humaine, No. 3, Feb. 2007, pp. 29-42, pp. 32-33, 35. In the U.S., a small group of devoted South Sudanistas in the political establishment were remarkably successful in creating from the 1980s onwards a lasting lobby that kept the issue of Southern Sudan on the agenda. Hamilton, Rebecca, “Special Report: The wonks who sold Washington on South Sudan”, Reuters, 11 July 2012,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/11/us-south-sudan-midwives-idUSBRE86A0GC20120711 (accessed: 3 October 2012).
755 In a national survey that asked South Sudanese which countries they thought favourably of, China (47%
favourable) only ranked ahead of Egypt and Sudan while the U.S. led the way with 84% having a favourable opinion. International Republican Institute. Survey of South Sudan Public Opinion. 6-27 September, 2011, p. 34.
756 Large, Daniel, “China’s Sudan Engagement: Changing Northern and Southern Political Trajectories in Peace and War”, The China Quarterly, No. 199, September 2009, pp. 610–626, p. 622.
756 Large, Daniel, “China’s Sudan Engagement: Changing Northern and Southern Political Trajectories in Peace and War”, The China Quarterly, No. 199, September 2009, pp. 610–626, p. 622.