Post-Conflict Security in South Sudan by Wambugu Nyambura;

Post-Conflict Security in South Sudan by Wambugu Nyambura;

Author:Wambugu, Nyambura;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: I. B. Tauris & Company, Limited


Rethinking the restructuring of governance in South Sudan

The restructuring of governance in South Sudan is exemplified by the international liberal peacebuilding intervention in the country. The whole exercise, in many ways, is geared towards the institutionalization of the state and the planting and growing of liberal values in post-conflict South Sudan. However, all this starts by pulling back the sweeping influence of the military in a country which is profound as Rolandsen (2007) explains:

In areas (mainly rural) held by SPLM/A for a longer period, wartime CANS11 structures remain present to various degrees. Within these structures, there was no distinction between the SPLA/M and the administrative structures […] therefore when establishing SPLM party and government structures at the local levels, the SPLM leaders will be attempting to redefine already existing channels of popular participation. (Rolandsen 2007: 11)

That the current civil administration in South Sudan evolved from a tradition of governance by the SPLA/M during the war years is perhaps an indication of the magnitude of the challenge ahead (LeRiche 2007). However, whereas the challenge starts with redressing the dominance of the military ethos in the political sphere, this must begin with addressing the balance of power from the army, the SPLA, to the SPLM, the ruling party.12 According to a Catholic missionary who has worked in South Sudan for more than 30 years, this redress began with the end of the civil war.

However, the fieldwork questions the extent and success of this redress. In particular, the Catholic missionary who has lived through the different forms of government and governance in the south observed that although most of the people who took up Government of Southern Sudan positions were the same people who had held the positions in the SPLA administrations, there was a change in the way power was exercised, in that it was more legitimate and more absolute. After more than 30 years of interacting with the different power and governance structures in Southern Sudan, the missionary contends that the war was widely used as the justification and affirmation for the contemporary exercise of power.13 This sentiment was shared by many people interviewed for this research. The feeling that the ruling class had attained absolute power with the end of the 1983–2005 Civil War, and with independence, was common. There was a feeling that the former rebel movement simply moved its power base from the barracks to government offices.14 The SPLA officers therefore became SPLM officials, although to many it was more a game of musical chairs among the same SPLA/M officials.15 This sentiment was echoed by senior South Sudanese employees of an international governance organization who participated in Focus Group 6 (FG 6). One participant felt that:16

The restructuring of governance in South Sudan after the war has not been done with regard to what is best for the country or who is best placed to do the job for the benefit of the country or how to best serve the country, but rather it has been driven mainly by the need for appeasement.



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