"there are certian unknown which are unknowns and certain knowns which are
knowns...and unknowns which we now know are knowns...Sec Ramsfiled US secretary of
Defence
Sudan: Armed And Angry - Sudan's Southern Militias Still a Threat to Peace
Email This Page
Print This Page
Visit The Publisher's Site
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
ANALYSIS
June 4, 2004
Posted to the web June 4, 2004
Nairobi
The Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) have
taken major steps towards ending their 21-year old conflict. After two years of
negotiations, they have signed six key protocols governing a referendum on southern
Sudan after a six-year interim period; security, wealth-sharing and power-sharing
arrangements during the interim; the status of Abyei; and the status of southern Blue
Nile and the Nuba mountains.
On 5 June, they will resume negotiations to thrash out implementation details, as well
as a formula for a comprehensive ceasefire and international monitoring and
peace-keeping. Two annexes plus the six protocols will then make up the comprehensive
peace agreement.
Last week's breakthrough that officially ended the bilateral "political" negotiations
was welcomed by all concerned and widely hailed as the beginning of the end of
Africa's longest-running civil war. But, Sudan watchers say, a number of potential
spoilers remain, not least the numerous armed militias in the south.
According to the South Africa-based think-tank, the Institute for Security Studies
(ISS), an umbrella of southern militias known as the South Sudan Defence Force (SSDF)
poses a serious threat to harmony in the whole of Sudan.
"Armed, angry at being left out of the peace process, and fearful that decisions are
being made that will affect its interests, the SSDF poses a major challenge to both
the peace process and to the success of the proposed six-year transitional period,"
says a report entitled "The South Sudan Defence Force: A Challenge to the Sudan Peace
Process".
To view the report go to http://www.iss.co.za/AF/profiles/Sudan/sudan1.html
The SSDF demands attention for a number of key reasons, says ISS. Although its
membership is constantly in a state of flux, it has several thousand members who could
mobilise thousands more, particularly among the Nuer community, who constitute
southern Sudan's second largest ethnic group after the Dinka.
Its precise areas of control are debatable, but certainly cover much of Upper Nile,
parts of northern and western Bahr al-Ghazal, Bahr al-Jabal and much of Eastern
Equatoria. "What can be said with confidence is that claims made by the SPLM/A and its
supporters to hold sway over 80 percent of southern Sudan and to surround all of the
government towns in the region are clearly false," says the report.
Thirdly, the SSDF provides strategic security around the oilfields of western and
eastern Upper Nile and many of the garrison towns in the south. Lastly, it contains a
substantial number of Nuer, who had a series of clashes with the Dinka-dominated
SPLM/A in the 1990s that led to tens of thousands of deaths.
"Given the SSDF's size, strategic location, and propensity to fight and resist
whatever the odds, a viable and sustainable peace process that does not have its
support (and that of a large majority of the Nuer in particular) is hard to imagine,"
says ISS.
The SSDF, which comprises about 25 militias, was formed in 1997 following the signing
of the Khartoum Peace Agreement between the Sudanese government, Riek Machar's South
Sudan Independence Movement (SSIM) and five other southern factions. The agreement
committed the government to a vote on self-determination for the south after an
interim period of unspecified length, while the militias agreed to a tactical alliance
with Khartoum.
The biggest concentration of SSDF members are based in oil-rich Western Upper Nile
where they have been used to depopulate and gain control of the oilfields. They are
usually based close to garrison towns - from which they are supported logistically and
supplied with arms - recruited locally, and are personality- and ethnicity-driven.
Despite their significance, however, they have been almost entirely left out of the
peace process.
According to the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) mediators it would
have been impossible to negotiate with all of Sudan's different armed goups at the
same time. "There was not a single militia included because they are either
represented by the government or the SPLM/A. So they were indirectly included,"
Lazarus Sumbeiywo, IGAD's chief mediator told IRIN.
Samson Kwaje, the SPLM/A spokesman told IRIN that all of the militias had either been
absorbed into the SPLM/A or the Sudanese army. "There is no threat, they have been
absolved into the army. So actually they don't exist now."
In January 2004, Khartoum reportedly appointed some 60 SSDF commanders to senior ranks.
But ISS says that Khartoum, the SPLM/A and the international community - including the
Inter-Governmental Authority on Development mediators - have all wrongly assumed that
the SPLM/A and the government are in control of Sudan's destiny.
"The first shock to the holders of this myopic view was the rapidly escalating war and
humanitarian crisis in Darfur. The second shock could well be a demonstration of the
inability of either the government or the SPLM/A to control and pacify the disparate
elements of the SSDF."
PEACE NEGOTIATIONS
The SSDF did manage to send a delegation of 17 officials to Kenya for discussions
between the government and the SPLM/A on security arrangements during the interim
period, and appointed an SSDF member, Martin Kenyi of the Equatoria Defence Forces
(EDF), to the government negotiating team.
But the protocol on security arrangements reached on 25 September 2003 repeatedly
acknowledges only two military players in Sudan: the government forces and the SPLM/A.
Moreover, it makes clear that "no armed group allied to either party shall be allowed
to operate outside the two forces". Instead, the unacknowledged groups in the south
will be absorbed into the army, prisons, police and wildlife services, it says.
By contrast, the Khartoum agreement signed in 1997 identified the SSDF as the only
southern agent charged with providing security in southern Sudan.
Nevertheless, the protocol on security arrangements was originally welcomed by SSDF
members, who accepted that the SPLM/A was negotiating in their best interests,
according to ISS. But since then much of the goodwill has dissipated, while violence
in southern Sudan is on the increase.
"Positions have hardened, and clearly there are sections of the government, SPLM/A and
the SSDF now actively opposed to reconciliation between the SPLM/A and the SSDF," says
the report.
The protocol on wealth-sharing signed in January 2004 exacerbated the differences even
further by agreeing to provide only 2 percent of the oil wealth to oil-producing
states, as against 40 percent allotted by the Khartoum agreement. The response of many
Nuer was one of "extreme anger", said ISS.
VIOLATIONS OF CEASEFIRE
Since the beginning of 2004, and despite an ongoing cessation of hostilities between
the government and the SPLM/A - which governs allies of both the government and the
SPLM/A - a number of conflicts in the south have intensified.
>From January to March 2004 areas in the oil-rich western Upper Nile region were torn
>apart by militia in-fighting, leading to dozens of deaths and injuries, looting,
>abductions and the displacement of thousands of people, as well as the destruction of
>schools and hospitals.
In the Shilluk Kingdom of northern Upper Nile, an undetermined number have been killed
this year, and tens of thousands displaced by forces formerly loyal to Lam Akol - who
defected to the SPLM/A in October 2003 - which were allegedly accompanied by
government forces.
See
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=40986&SelectRegion=East_Africa&SelectCountry=SUDAN
"The government supported one faction and brought in other groups from the SSDF, who
were in turn divided, and for the first time in many months government forces became
engaged in the conflict," ISS reported.
Lam Akol warned last month that the attacks had stopped for now, but that fighting
could flare up again, threatening the entire Sudanese peace process. "It is not a
tribal conflict. It is a conflict between the government and the SPLM/A," he repeated.
Key to the clashes in Shilluk was the vacume created by Akol's defection and a
struggle to take over his area of control - which is in southern Sudan - with both the
SPLM/A and government-allied forces laying claim to it.
NEW AND OLD ALLEGIANCES
For the last two years, the SPLM/A has been striving to realign itself with the
southern militias - many of which originally belonged to the rebel movement. A number
of successes have been notable including defections to it by Riek Machar (Sudan
People's Democratic Forces), Lam Akol (SPLM/A-United), Tito Biel and James Leah
(leaders of SSIM) and Dr Theophilus Lotti (EDF).
But territorial control and rivalry, ethnic tensions, competition for the spoils of
war, and distrust of the Dinka-dominated SPLM/A mean that many forces, or individuals
within forces, are unwilling to realign themselves. The result is a large number of
armed men who control large areas of land and have shifting and opportunistic
allegiances to different factions and leaders, say regional analysts.
Furthermore, the SPLM/A is not supporting a "genuine reconciliation", according to
ISS. During a high-level SPLM/A visit to Khartoum in December 2003, it did not meet
either its major military foe, the SSDF, or government-backed southern politicians
belonging to the Southern States Coordination Council.
A regional analyst told IRIN that those in the SSDF with a political agenda would most
likely realign themselves with the SPLM/A in the near future, in a pragmatic attempt
to carve out a niche for themselves in the new Sudan.
Muhammad Ahmad Dirdeiry, the Sudanese deputy ambassador in Nairobi, told IRIN the
militias did not pose a threat to the peace process if commitments made to them were
followed through during the interim period.
But Sudan watchers say "the warlords" may well continue to cause trouble.
Given Sudan's recent history, many observers agree that southern Sudanese have as much
to fear from south-south strife as from north-south strife.
"If the peace process does not pay more attention to these local factors, it could
easily break apart even if a national-level agreement were to be signed under the
auspices of IGAD," according to ICG.
Relevant Links
East Africa
North Africa
Post-Conflict Challenges
Sudan
For further information on Sudan's militias go to ICG report entitled "Sudan's
Oilfields Burn Again: Brinkmanship Endangers The Peace Process" available at
http://www.crisisweb.org/home/
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
--------------------------------------------
This service is hosted on the Infocom network
http://www.infocom.co.ug
