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South Sudan

Aiding the Peace: Revisiting Key Lessons from the CPA Years for International Engagement in South Sudan (October 2023)

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The interim period between the signing of the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) on January 9, 2005, and South Sudan’s independence on July 9, 2011, saw a strong engagement by Western countries, especially the Troika (United States, United Kingdom, and Norway) which, as guarantors of the CPA, used their political weight to ensure that the implementation of the peace agreement would proceed as agreed by the signatories. Concurrently, substantial financial resources were allocated to fund Southern Sudan’s humanitarian and development needs and to build the institutions and capacities of the semi-autonomous Government of Southern Sudan.The political and economic support provided by Western governments was grounded on the belief of a commonality of objectives with the leadership of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army’s (SPLM/A). A key assumption was that southern leaders were committed to lay the foundations of a democratic state that would progressively deliver public services and development to a population who had suffered from systematic neglect by successive Sudanese governments since Sudan became independent in 1956. This assumption was not unjustified, since it was in line with the aspirations embraced by the SPLM/A since its formation in 1983. A commitment that was later reaffirmed by President Kiir on his Independence Day speech on July 9, 2011, when he pledged to lead a government that is “democratic, inclusive, and accountable.”3 The decision by the South Sudanese government to abruptly shut down oil production in January 2012 while negotiating post-independence arrangements with Khartoum led to the first major fallingout with donors. Since at the time of independence South Sudan had the most oil-dependent economy in the world, 4 the decision to stop oil production alarmed donors, as it appeared that South Sudan’s ruling elite believed Western countries would cover for the resulting financial gap. The government’s praise of the ‘resilience of South Sudanese to cope’ after donors made it clear that support wasn’t coming was disconcerting, particularly to the US government, which had been a reliable supporter of the SPLM/A leadership for more than three decades.The real point of inflection in the relationship came with the outbreak of the civil war on December 15, 2013. The unwillingness by all sides of the conflict to stop the violence, despite mounting evidence of war crimes, while the humanitarian situation steadily deteriorated raised difficult questions for international actors who had unequivocally identified with the cause of the SPLM/A.
Moreover, the dramatic collapse of the 2015 Agreement for the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (ARCSS) in July 2016 and subsequent cycles of violence, the targeting of civilians, forced displacement, and deepening of the humanitarian crisis further eroded the perception of a commonality of interests between South Sudan’s leaders and its Western donors and supporters.
Not that there had not been sufficient signals during the CPA years that should have raised concerns, especially the extensive misappropriation of public funds by the ruling elite. For the most, however,
Western supporters turned a blind eye, convinced that no excesses by South Sudanese leaders could match the evils of their counterparts in Khartoum. In this sense the CPA years were, as a long time South Sudan expert noted, a period of a ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ by international actors. The