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political wing of the relevant liberation movement, autocratic elements of the liberation movement may
take over power.

The analysis is based on the political thought and theory of Amilcar Cabral whose praxis has

influenced almost all national liberation movements in Africa and beyond. Cabral assumed the
centrality of the state in development and decolonization. Furthermore, he considered the post-
colonial state, especially a revolutionary one as socially and politically empowering. The fact that
that he had a post liberation strategy that placed ordinary people as central to national liberation

and development placed this political thought and praxis within the category of modern political
thinkers in Africa. His ideas are relevant to all movements that fought against neo colonial and
imperial rule in Africa and beyond.

6.2 SPLM and the National Project

In the last chapter, we noted that SPLM was a nationalist and socialist movement that sought to
reform Sudan by creating a new Sudan. It did not have a self-determination agenda or secessionist

agenda. SPLM was formed in opposition to Anyanya (I) and (II) whose agenda wassecession
from Sudan and form republic of South Sudan. According to SPLM manifesto, the movement had
nationalist and socialist agenda. The conditional support from Mengistu Haile Mariam energized
the movement and gave it the external legitimacy it wanted to advance its nationalist cause. Like

other national liberation movements in the 1980s, The SPLM had a nationalist agenda and project
that was revised over time. All nationalist projects in Africa, according to Hippler (2005), shared
the following features- they sought to build a competitive national economy, construction of a
collective identity, promotion of social integration, safeguarding of sovereignty and territorial

integrity.

The national project sought to achieve democratic governance and legitimacy. These are some of
the issues that have been of concern to the SPLM and have recently been discussed in national and
international forums when the civil war erupted in 2013. These discussions coincided with the

rise of the Arab spring and the struggle for second and third liberation movements across Africa
after deficits in the decolonization projects. IGAD and other regional and continental bodies
have contested the conflict in South Sudan as to its causes and meaning but not the effects of the
war following series of diplomatic efforts. The civil war after independence in 2011 has been

views broadly in two lenses. One school of thought argues that the ongoing civil war is caused by
internal power struggles within the SPLM after its failure to address the national project question
aimed at resolving both the social and national question. The other school of thought argues that
the ongoing war has followed a normal curve of all the liberation movements in Africa engaged

in armed struggle and converges at the point of betrayal and this is no exception as it was bound
to happen anyway. The war however points at thee crises facing the post-colonial state in Africa
and the emerging challenges associated with the neoliberal globalization.

Nationalist projects by their very nature seek to deliver social benefits to the people and especially

pursuit of public projects with higher social returns that could improve lives of the people. The

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