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Analyzing tribal conflicts in southern Sudan and GOSS
failure in dealing with the problem
By: Lago
Gatjal Riaka, USA
JAN 27/2010, SSN;
The eruption of tribal conflicts in southern Sudan is not new. Tribes
have been fighting each other as far back in centuries. Not only
tribes, but, clans and sub-clans within the same tribes have been waging
some kind of warfare against each other. Tribes might fight over grazing
land, water point, and land occupation. For instance, the expansion of
Eastern Nuer along the Sobat River in the 18th centuries was
met with resistance by the Anyuak, Dinka, and those who live along the
Sobat River.
Fights
among clans and sub-clans have similar characteristics as fight among
tribes. Among other components why tribes, sub-clans, and clans’
warfare existed in the pre-southern Sudan society, murder of one tribe,
clan, and sub-clan men were always resulting into deadly clashes between
the two rivals. There has always been a mechanism to address such a
conflict between tribes, clans, and sub-clans. These mechanisms have
been the traditional ways of handling disputes among the communities.
There
were procedures of punishment against those who might be found guilty of
the wrong doing. These punishment ranges from paying a number of cows
and performing some kind of a duty to reward the guilty plea. But, this
was along tribal line. Each tribe does it differently from another.
Nonetheless, traditional of settling disputes have always contributed to
maintaining peace and security among tribes, clans, and sub-clans.
It could
be argued that something has changed dramatically compared to how these
fights were being fought in southern Sudan. In the old days, and even
in some occasions at the present in southern Sudan, tribal war fares
were fought with spears, arrows, and other traditional weapons. These
weapons were never deadly compared to the modern weapons, which many
civilians are using against each other.
The
difference is that, the use of modern weapons has increased the number
of causalities in the same kind of warfare fought long time ago. What
has also changed is the target of elderly, women, and children across
southern Sudan in these tribal warfare. People have moved away from
customary humanitarian rule of cultural warfare in which elderly, women,
and children were exempt from war.
In
relation to the current customary international humanitarian rule of
war, this customary ideology of rule of war has existed for centuries in
southern Sudan. The idea that non-combatants, wounded, and civilians
should never be target in army conflict has taken shape not only in
southern Sudan, but in other African societies as well. Also, tribal
warfare in the old days has never had political agenda.
But, in
the current tribal warfare in southern Sudan, it can be argued that
there are political dynamics involved in fueling these conflicts as the
nature of attacks illustrate. This is something that Government of
Southern Sudan (GOSS) will be struggling with in its mandate of trying
to halt these kinds of conflicts and eliminating them.
· Government
of Southern Sudan (GOSS)
Looking
at the current situation in southern Sudan, it can be argued that the
Government of Southern Sudan has failed in its mandate to halt tribal
conflicts across the board. What is being seen across southern Sudan is
a serious continuation of attacks among tribes. All the ten states of
southern Sudan have been affected in some way or another by these
conflicts, and the government remains reluctant, yet continues to put
the blame on the National Congress Party (NCP).
Last
month, a section of Nuer ethnic group attacked a settlement in Warrap
states, killing 139 individuals. This is not the first time that the
two groups have been involved across the state line in waging attacks
against their country-men. At some point, the Dinka launched a surprise
attack against their country-men in Unity State, killing a number of
people and taking cattle with them.
These
kinds of moves have been going back and forth between the two
communities. This was also seen in Lake States between the Dinka ethnic
group and the Jur tribe. In Jonglei and Central Equatoria, it was among
the Murle, Nuer, and Mundari. In Central Equatoria, Mandari and Bari
clashed over land. What is critical about these tribal conflicts, they
are contributing to insecurity across southern Sudan, and they must be
stopped.
The
question that many would want to explore is that, how did the automatic
machine guns end up in the hands of civilians, which are now being used
in these fights and are deadly? This question is easy to answer by
southern Sudanese who know what happened. The longest civil war in
Africa between the Sudan’s People Liberation Movement/Army, and the
Governments in Khartoum created this chaotic situation in southern
Sudan.
As a
result of the war, what southern Sudanese saw was a revolution of
automatic weapons going around communities without an order, and many of
the guns ended up in civilians’ hand, which they also saw as important
to protecting themselves from who they thought was their enemy.
Civilians saw automatic weapons as having a good standard in defeating
ones’ opponent. As a result of this interest in automatic weapons by the
civilians, the result was a huge flow of guns into inexperienced
individuals. Even when the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was sign,
civilians remain reluctant to bring their guns out to turn them in to
the authority, in this case, the Government of Southern Sudan.
Although
the Government of Southern Sudan has tried to implement Disarmament and
Demobilization program, it has not been effective to bring these guns
out of the communities. The problem is that, the government was trying
or always is trying to do this DDR program through the Southern Sudan’s
Army. The government sends in soldiers to the communities and look into
people’s houses in an attempt of trying to disarm the civilians by
force.
Many of
the times, the soldiers have been successful in finding some automatic
weapons. There is no denial of some of these success stories,
especially, the one that the soldiers were able to conduct in Juba, the
capital city of southern Sudan. But, still the government needs to do
more and do more successfully.
My
criticism of the whole process of DDR is that, the government should not
do it through the soldiers but the community’s leaders or the chiefs,
who know their communities than the government. Not only through the
chiefs, it can start from states governors, commissioners, payams bomas,
local chiefs, and to the last men as possible. The message should be
clear and sent to the communities through these leaders all the way to
local chiefs that anybody, who has an automatic weapon is required by
law to turn it in to the authority. From governors, commissioners, payam
and boma’s head chiefs ,this message can be pass down in local language
in clear message as possible, so that no one will say later on that he
or she was not inform.
In
addition, there should be a mechanism to hold governors, commissioners,
and local chiefs accountable, if it turned out that one of their
country-men has been involved in some crime in which a gun was involved.
The responsibility to locate such kind of a person involved in a crime
should be handed to state governors. Then state governors must hand it
down to commissioners and to the local chiefs. Since these individuals
know their country-men more than the federal government or the army,
they would easily find the person, who would happen to have been
involved in such a crime and bring him to justice.
The
failing process is that, the government has been trying to take this
task into its own by using uniform soldiers to disarm communities of
which they do not understand. The use of local chiefs must be a high
priority to find local criminals, who are fueling these conflicts. Let
it also be clear that, it is not absolutely true that guns are the only
cost of conflict among communities, but they are the weapons used.
Taking guns away from civilian does not mean that these problems would
go away; it would only take away the kind of weapon being used.
Communities would still use other ways to fight, maybe even using
traditional weapons like spears and machetes.
Therefore, the point is not only the guns but finding a long term
mechanism to stop these tribal fights completely. The point here is to
identify the problem and then find a solution to that problem. As this
case goes, no one can argue that there is a single cause to this
problem. Fights can be caused by several factors among tribes. Since
some fights between tribes have been over cattle, others for instance,
the governor of Jonglei state have suggested at one time that, southern
Sudanese should get rid of cattle as a path of creating peace and
security in the region.
Many
would disagree with this statement of getting rid of cattle not only as
the primary source of wealth in southern Sudan, but no research has
found that cattle are the major cause of tribal conflict in southern
Sudan. Cattle raiding are just one of the causes of tribal conflicts in
southern Sudan; there are other more variables to look at.
The
government must enact a law that would hold criminals accountable
individually, when they commit crimes. This will need educating the
public that whoever is found to have committed a crime will be held
accountable in the court of law, which means no collective punishment
for a family or a community just because one of them has committed a
crime.
Most of
the tribal cultures in southern Sudan are based on collective response.
Communities, even when not part of the crime will try to defend their
country-men from the government intervention. For example, if police
have been sent to make an arrest, that individual’s relatives; tribe,
clan, or sub-clan will try to question the authority as to why. A legal
framework must be established in southern Sudan to punish people
individually for crimes they have committed. This will create individual
responsibility among the citizens that if they commit a crime, they will
be the only one to take the responsibility. If this legal framework is
establish, people will be fearful to commit crime they know will
individually take them to danger.
Also,
compensations for criminal acts for instance, murder, which is based on
cultural trait should be abolished by law. It must be make clear that if
a person takes human life, it must be dealt with by law. It is not a
bad thing to compensate the victim’s family, but, the government should
be the one to do that compensation, and hold the person who has
committed such a crime accountable. This practice of cultural
compensation encourages killing among young men, which result into a
major fight between tribes, clans, and sub-clans.
In fact,
I’m not calling for elimination for traditional courts, those
traditional court are making a great impact in contribution to southern
Sudan justice system. Traditional courts have played measure role
settling disputes in our communities, and their elimination would be a
disaster. They deal with disputes like divorce, compensation, stealing,
cattle issue, and among others. This relieves our federal system from
exhausting itself with all these cases, which have no jurisdiction in
our justice system. Communities settle these issues based on their
cultural ways of settling disputes; therefore, it would be unwise to
create a jurisdiction against these practices except in the case of a
murder, cattle raiding, and other political issues that happen in
cities.
·
Blame Game
What has
annoyed me throughout this period is the response of the Government of
Southern Sudan to these tribal conflicts. Every time a tribal conflict
occurs, the response of the GOSS is to put the blame on their counter
peace partner, the National Congress Party (NCP), that it is supplying
weapons to some communities in southern Sudan. Look at those links below
please to understand what the statement above;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8475889.stm
www.bbcnews.com
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8475889.stm
www.sudantribune.com
Read the links and see what southern
Sudan leaders are saying about these tribal conflicts. They are putting
the blame on the NCP. This is a sign of a weakness. It is a sign of a
weakness because southern Sudan has a functioning federal governing
system, which should be able to control the out flow of these guns into
civilians’ hands.
My question is, how do these guns get
into civilians’ hand from Khartoum? When there is a border entry point
by land, air, and sea, which are all controlled by southern Sudanese
agents, how do these guns come to southern Sudan? Please, I want an
explanation. The point is that, there should be no reason at all to let
some individuals from the north distributes weapons to communities in
Southern Sudan. This is a failure of the GOSS from federal, states, and
counties.
The Government of Southern Sudan should
do a better job in securing all the entry points; land, water, and air
so that no weapons come to southern Sudan from the north. I do not
dispute the fact that NCP might have been involved in some of these
acts, but, they should have been caught. There is no clear evidence that
NCP is distributing guns to communities in southern Sudan. If it is true
that NCP is distributing guns to communities in southern Sudan, then
stop it!! And bring the NCP to justice by any mean.
The politics of the blame without clear
evidence should stop from now and the GOSS need to put its acts together
in securing this autonomy region. These tribal conflicts are deadly and
are cause to insecurity in southern Sudan. With referendum coming by
soon, southern Sudanese do not want to see more of these tribal
conflicts, and a mechanism system to deal with them must be put in place
by the GOSS.
Many have suggested that the role of the
southern Sudan’s Army Forces should be to stop these tribal conflicts.
This is not a bad idea at all. When fights like this break anywhere in
southern Sudan, the SSAF should be used to halt the situation, if states
and counties cannot handle the situation. That’s should be the role of
the federal government in southern Sudan, to response when a situation
is beyond the counties and states’ control.
Some have blamed the military for not
doing enough in these tribal conflicts. What can the military do? The
military only wait for an order from the command, and without that chain
of command, they have no power to response to any situation. The
president of southern Sudan, Salva Kiir Mayardit is the
Commander-in-Chief of the southern Sudan’s Army Forces.
There is only one way to use the army
forces. When a fight breaks out between two communities, send the army
in to halt the situation, if states and counties can’t do it due to the
multitude of the situation. This is a short term solution to the
problem, just to stop the ongoing fighting. But, the long term solution
to these tribal conflicts needs a legal framework from all levels of
government in order to stop them. That legal framework is not there,
that’s why these tribal conflicts continue to affect the region.
Suggestions:--
1.
Disarmament and Demobilization
must be done through states, counties, and local chiefs and not the use
of force by the military
2.
Murder, cattle raiding and other
serious crimes must be declared federal crimes, so that whoever commits
such a crime must be dealt with by the federal government and not the
traditional chiefs. If a person takes a human life, it must be a federal
crime.
3.
The Government of Southern Sudan
must improve its inspection in all the bordering points; land, sea, and
air to stop any unnecessary smuggling of weapons to southern Sudan from
anywhere in the world.
4.
The southern Sudan’s Legislative
Assembly (SSLA) needs to enact a bill that would deal with these issues,
for instance, what kind of punishment a murder can get if convicted.
There is no jurisdiction of that kind in southern Sudan justice system,
as far the interim constitution goes. Some would argue that there is no
real constitution in southern Sudan now, and what we have in southern
Sudan is an interim constitution. Well, my take on that, we need a legal
instrument now to deal with the problems facing us at the movement.
These problems might affect our future, if not taken care of. Most of
the murders have been handled in the traditional courts. Or sometimes
police might just arrest the person that has murdered somebody and do
not know anything to do about that person. They might subject the
persons to serious beatings and a long time prison as a punishment. The
SSLA need to come up with a clear bill to address these issues. What
kind of punishment can a murderer get?
Note: Add you opinion: Lago Gatjal Riaka
is a Masters’ student at Arcadia University in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, USA. He’s studying International Peace & Conflict
Resolution with concentration in international law.
Email:
lagogatjalriaka@hotmail.com
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