Page 94 - EVOLUTION OF THE SUDAN PEOPLE’S LIBERATION MOVEMENT(SPLM),

“Juba yielded to the schemes of Khartoum. Khartoum was not ready to let go off south Sudan
easily. Khartoum had to employ different methods of which destabilization policy accelerated by
ethnicity was more successful in disorienting Juba”(O.I, Lona James Elia, Juba, 27/03/2016).

We have noted that South Sudan degenerated into civil war in December 2013 and government
dissolved in July 2013 due to corruption and maladministration according to President Salva

Kiir. A formal peace agreement was reached in July 2015 but fresh civil war erupted and fresh
war erupted and continues to date in many parts of South Sudan since July 2016. The war had
far reaching implications as it worsened an already bad situation of a failed state. Since the war

started afresh, attempts have been made to create political stability and law at the same restart
the peace initiative that can restore law and order. The critical question has been how to secure
a new peace agreement that ends civil war in South Sudan and realizes sustainable peace and
reconstruction in view of the failed attempts in the past. The following sketches models and
strategies of realizing the same.

7.4 Peace and post conflict reconstruction in South Sudan

The failed peace processes and national reconstruction in South Sudan has raised fresh debates as

whether peace and reconstruction is achievable under the prevailing power relations. One school
of thought argues that both principal antagonists in South Sudan power struggle, president Salva
Kiir and former president Riek Machar have protracted history of destabilization and hence need
to exit and be replaced with a trustee government supervised by the international community for

a peace not more than ten years to allow internal factors and institutions to develop and mature
to give way to other political actors to emerge and the military to delink from running the affairs
of the state. This school of thought argues that there has been historical evidence that points
at increased elite polarization within the SPLM since 1983 and persisted failure of any peace

agreement reached by the two principal actors throughout the history of the national liberation
struggle and post liberation phase from 2011.

Furthermore, SPLM had from 2005 to 2011 presided over corrupt regime as the donors turned
a blind eye. An internally run government of technocrats is viewed as the one to undertake
reconstruction and state building. Critics such as De castelle () observe that international state

building and reconstruction project models have failed elsewhere and so would also fail in South
Sudan. Infact reconstruction efforts have failed in Haiti, Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan. He
further observes that sustainable peace and post conflict reconstruction require a strong state in
both policy formulation and implementation.

The second school of thought argues that the crises confronting South Sudan together with post

conflict reconstruction efforts can be addressed politically and internally by reforming the SPLM.
The argument is that the problem is within the ruling SPLM that lacks structures of leadership
and national reconstruction that is informed by a nationalist agenda and public good. This school
of thought argues that political settlements reached through negotiations and resources generated

from within have secured sustained peace in Angola, Eritrea and Liberia. The role of the donors
can only be to support an already established policy of reconciliation and reconstruction. In

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