Introduction to the Special Issue: A Human Security Perspective to the 2018 Revitalized ARCSS and Beyond

Abstract

Introduction to the Special Issue: A Human Security Perspective to the 2018 Revitalized ARCSS and Beyond Francis Onditi (bio) INTRODUCTION This special issue is dedicated to a departed colleague and an eminent scholar: Prof. Samson Wassara. Samson sadly passed away on December 29, 2020. It was difficult to believe that Samson had left us. When a friend, colleague, or relative departs from this world, a vacuum is created, and those left behind seek to answer the “why now” question. However, certain situations will inevitably elude us. In any case, humans are not obliged to know everything that happens in the universe. A year earlier, we had finalized a High-Level Experts’ Seminar in Juba organized by the Government of South Sudan and the UNDP, November 5–6, 2019. Samson was the lead expert on this seminar. The purpose of the seminar was to review the six sections of the 2018 revitalized agreement and recommend possible policy options to the government of South Sudan and other key stakeholders.1 The idea to develop a special issue emerged out of that seminar. When I mentioned to Samson my intent to put together a special issue focused on the outcome of the seminar, he was supportive of the idea and flagged it off immediately after the seminar. This special issue focuses on human [End Page 1] security and institutionalism within the context of the 2018 revitalized ARCSS (Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan) and beyond. Samson was particularly passionate about institutionalism as a branch of political science. On this note, I fully agree with Samson’s refutation of power-sharing as an institutional prescription to Africa’s conflict problems. But what he offers as an alternative presents yet another puzzle. For he constructs a strategy for equitable distribution of resources among those he calls “civilian groups who did not take up arms” (Wassara 2019, 113). Thus, this prescription is obviously inclined to disfavor the military and political elites. As such, his analysis presents certain conceptual and practical difficulties in resolving conflict, particularly in complex environments such as South Sudan. He views conflict resolution from a political system perspective. In fact, he equates political systems with state-building. This is understandable, as it comes from a political scientist of his stature. However, political systems are all pervasive and tend to be misconstrued as power-sharing and territorial entitlements. In this special issue, I submit that state-building and sustainable peace should be viewed from a human security perspective—as an all-inclusive phenomenon—because what we see as separate processes of peacebuilding (economic reforms, safety and security, security sector reforms, political arrangement, humanitarian assistance, mediation, and realignment of territorial boundaries) are in fact interrelated aspects of the process of conflict transformation and state-building. The notion of state-building for South Sudan preoccupied Samson’s mind and spirit.2 He was generous and a good steward and left us far too soon. The South Sudanese scientific community is grateful for his legacy and contribution to the field of political science and to the people of South Sudan. I first came to know Samson Wassara in 2016, when he was transitioning from the Bahr el-Ghazal University in Wau, South Sudan, where he had held the position of Vice Chancellor from 2014. Later on, we both participated in the 2019 African Unity for Renaissance Conference organized by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in South Africa. Samson and I published together in different scholarly platforms and on multiple occasions; he was generous in sharing his time to peer review and write prologues. In 2019, he was kind enough to write a foreword for my book, Conflictology: Systems, Institutions and Mechanisms in Africa. As a tribute, I would like to dedicate this special issue to a topic Samson Wassara wrote about in his final days: “Why conflict in South Sudan and Somalia is beyond prevention and management” (Wassara 2019). I and Prof. Cheryl Hendricks formerly of the HSRC, Pretoria, [End Page 2] edited this volume. In the article he contributed, Samson calls for an interdisciplinary approach in addressing institutional weaknesses in conflict-protracted countries. He opines that many times...