Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement Research Articles

When to Get Out of the Trench? Using Smart Pressure to Resolve Civil Wars

This article puts forward a theory of smart pressure, which emphasises that third-party pressure only works if the conflict parties under pressure can agree with the endpoint of this pressure. Hence, a potential mutually acceptable agreement needs to be formulated before a mediator starts to apply pressure. To this argument, this article employs two case studies: the mediation efforts leading up to the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement concluded in 2005 and the Darfur Peace Agreement concluded in 2006. These cases support the smart pressure theory and suggest that mediators need to be modest about what they can accomplish using pressure.

Confederation: A Better Tool for Good Neighborliness and Prosperous Relationships between Sudan and South Sudan

This article aims to renew the debate on confederation as a promising tool for better management of the relationships between two Sudans following South Sudan’s independence in July 2011. There has been a growing concern that unity-separation only model may not sufficiently address their complex relationships in a postindependence era. Drawing on original work by the author presented in November 2010 at St. Antony's College, Oxford, the article examines the current literature on the subject of confederation in Sudan and elsewhere, introduces Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and its implications for the future of Sudan, and traces the historical evolution of confederation as a concept in Sudan's political vocabulary - specially pertaining to North-South relations. It also examines its utility as a potential tool for building more enduring and prosperous relationships between the two Sudans, while highlighting the challenges that might face its adoption as well as evaluating existing success factors.

New Sudan or South Sudan? The Multiple Meanings of Self-Determination in Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement

Examining the experiences of the South since Sudan's independence, this article analyses why the choice of ‘unity’ became an unrealistic option for South Sudanese. Stressing that self-determination for the South was the only way to resolve Sudan's long-standing national crisis, this article points out, at the same time, that it left unresolved the issue of self-determination for the peoples of the northern Sudan who joined the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army and brought new problems, particularly to the newly created international border area between Sudan and South Sudan.

Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement Amidst the Clash of Agendas: Attempts, Failures and Lessons Unlearned

The euphoria of celebrating South Sudan's independence and the completion of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, signed in 2005, must not undermine the significance of assessing and more importantly acknowledging the shortcomings of securing Sudan's stability and unity as a result of its exclusive nature. By all means, the responsibility was primarily that of the government of Sudan to ensure the country's territorial integrity. However, the regional and international mediators are not free of blame. By analysing the objectives and outcomes of the peace process, while considering the conflicting agendas of all involved parties, this article underlines the failures that led to Sudan's secession and left the country with yet another conflict: Darfur.

Making Unity Unattractive: The Conflicting Aims of Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement

As pointed out by Roeder and Rothchild (P. G. Roeder and D. Rothchild (eds), Sustainable Peace: Power and Democracy after Civil Wars (New York: Cornell University Press 2005)), a crucial dilemma in post-war power-sharing arrangements is that the very same institutions that provide an attractive basis for ending a conflict are likely to hinder the consolidation of peace and democracy in the long term. The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was the major reason for ending Sudan's North–South civil war – for ‘winning the war’ – but did also create the conditions for ‘losing the peace’? This article looks at the power-sharing arrangements of the CPA and its impact on the conditions from peace and democracy in Sudan in the interim period prior to the referendum on southern independence. Through analyses of its formal institutional frames, its implementation, and the major stakeholders' perceptions, it becomes clear that the power sharing did not ‘make unity attractive’, as initially anticipated, but was in fact one of the factors contributing to the separation of Sudan in 2011.

Peacemaking and Peacekeeping: Reflections from Abyei

Abyei was one of the most contested areas of Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of January 2005. Drawing on direct experience, the article examines the agreement and the experience of trying to support its implementation. It analyses the relationship between this and the overall problems of the CPA, and of peacekeeping in the newly independent South Sudan. Drawing on relevant literature, it examines the wider issues for the negotiation of peace agreements; for UN mandates, including the protection of civilians; for the limitations of peacekeeping; and for the importance of continuing political engagement. It argues that in some situations smaller missions without a heavy military component might in fact achieve more.

Deals and Dealings: Inconclusive Peace and Treacherous Trade along the South Sudan-Uganda Border

Since Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed, its border with Uganda has become a hub of activity. Contrasting developments on the Ugandan side of the border with those on the South Sudanese side, the paper draws on empirical fieldwork to argue that the CPA has created new centres of power in the margins of both states. However, in day-today dealings on either side of the border, South Sudanese military actors have become dominant. In the particular case of Arua and the South Sudan-Uganda border, past wartime authority structures determine access to opportunities in a tightly regulated, inconclusive peace. This means that small-scale Ugandan traders – although vital to South Sudan – have become more vulnerable to South Sudan's assertions of state authority. The experience of Ugandan traders calls into question the broad consensus that trade across the border is always beneficial for peace-building The paper concludes that trade is not unconditionally helpful to the establishment of a peaceful environment for everyone.

The Federalization of Iraq and the Break-up of Sudan

AbstractIn 2005, after the making of the Constitution of Iraq and the making of Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement, many analysts expected the imminent break-up of Iraq, and that the South Sudanese would eventually opt for federalism and power-sharing rather than secede from Sudan. Six remarkable parallels in the histories of Iraq and Sudan suggest that analysts should have predicted that the Kurds and the South Sudanese would have been equally ardent secessionists in the early twenty-first century. Yet Kurdish nationalist leaders chose federalization in and after 2005, whereas South Sudanese nationalists eventually chose secession after a brief federal power-sharing experiment. The different choices of the respective nationalist leaders were therefore critical, but some plausible explanations of their different choices do not withstand scrutiny. The differing outcomes, so far, are necessarily but not sufficiently explained by the different geopolitical neighbourhoods of Iraq and Sudan. The author suggests that secessions are also driven by political parties who are willing to downsize their state rather than modify the existing regime, and by nationalists who calculate that they are unlikely to have political pivotality in a federal democracy. One implication is that federal power-sharing bargains have a better chance of working in deeply divided places when potential secessionists believe that they may have political pivotality within a federation.

A quick fix? A retrospective analysis of the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement

Critics decry the 2005 peace agreement between the government of the Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement as incomplete, a result of the desire of external actors for a quick solution that is neither truly comprehensive nor sustainable. Through a chronological analysis of the peace process between 2000 and 2005, this article demonstrates that the scope for compromise was limited and that a significantly ‘better’ deal was unlikely. The article's ambition is to present a concise and empirically grounded analysis of the peace process and to lay foundations for further investigation of a crucial, contested and complicated subject in Sudan's recent history.

Justice in Sudan: will the award of the international Abyei Arbitration Tribunal be honoured?

The Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that was concluded in January 2005 ended more than 20 years of civil war between the Government of Sudan (GoS) and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM). The CPA provides a framework for building peace and reforming Sudan within generally accepted principles of good governance and respect for rule of law. Despite its commitment to the CPA, the GoS opted not to implement the Abyei Protocol, one of the six protocols of the agreement. The GoS rejected the report of the Abyei Boundaries Commission (ABC), while SPLM accepted it as final and binding as per the provisions of the CPA. This dispute over this report lasted more than three years and resulted in eruption of war in the Abyei Area that caused massive displacement and loss of innocent lives. In an effort to avoid further conflict, the parties agreed to take their dispute to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in the Hague for final and binding decision. Since the Abyei Arbitration Tribunal issued its final and binding decision over the boundaries of Abyei Area, its implementation faces enormous challenges including the reluctance by GoS to respect the award. Sudan has a record of dishonouring agreements and if it is allowed again to dishonor this agreement, there will be no chance of addressing the root causes of conflict in the Sudan. The successful implementation of the decision of the Abyei Tribunal will be a litmus test to the commitment of the Sudanese leadership and the international community to the full implementation of the CPA as the only hope for building peace and reforming Sudan for better.

The regional outcome of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement five years down the road: Are external forces playing a progressive role?

ABSTRACT The Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of January 2005 is the outcome of regional and international mediation led by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD)1 and the IGAD Partners’ Forum broadened to include the United States of America, Norway, the Netherlands, Canada, Italy and the United Nations. Five years into its implementation the peace agreement appears to have transformed the war between North and South Sudan into a series of engagements of conflicting nature. Numerous contradictory actions by both the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the National Congress Party (NCP) (the main political forces behind the CPA) have been noted during the ongoing implementation process (Grawert forthcoming 2010; Grawert and El-Battahani 2005; Wassara 2008). Although internal Sudanese forces are the key actors in implementing the CPA, external forces are critical in providing the support and pressure needed for a complete realisation of the peace deal. The New Regionalism Approach (NRA), as advanced by Grant and Soderbäum (2003), is instrumental in understanding this dynamic. This article is based on the result of a study that seeks to examine why positive engagements of external forces are needed for a timely implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the questions of identity, territory and political destiny of the indigenous Nuba of the Sudan

ABSTRACT The Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005 was successful in ending the longest war in contemporary Africa. However, its implementation has been below the expectations of several communities, particularly in the war-torn regions of the Nuba Mountains, the Southern Blue Nile and the Abyei Area, widely referred to as ‘contested’, ‘marginalised’, ‘transitional’ areas or ‘border territories’. While many interwoven causes were behind the eruption of the protracted civil wars in the Sudan (Elnur 2009; Johnson 2006; Khalid 1987), the political question of sub-national identities and their intrinsic link with specific territories (Murphy 1991; William and Smith 1993) is hypothesised here as a prime factor in extending the civil war into these three areas. Taking the Nuba and their claimed territory of the Nuba Mountains as an example, this article will, first, trace the political striving of the Nuba people and their shift from peaceful political movement to armed struggle; second, it will examine their political status during the peace negotiation process; and third, it will analyse their political responses to the outcome of the CPA and its impact on their future political choices in view of the April 2010 election results, and the projected right to self-determination for the people of Southern Sudan, to be exercised through the referenda in 2011.

Oil, land and conflict: the decline of Misseriyya pastoralism in Sudan1

This article examines the strategies employed by Misseriyya pastoralists in Sudan to cope with a number of external pressures ranging from adverse government policies, climatic changes, the impact of oil exploration, conflict and the effects of Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The paper analyses the current political context and discusses the tensions with other local and national actors in the context of the unresolved dispute over Abyei.

Hydro-hegemony in the Nile Basin: a Sudanese perspective

This paper seeks to re-evaluate Sudan's position, power and policy in light of the hydro-hegemony theory. Sudan's unique transboundary hydrology, particularly in the south, and recent important developments in Sudanese affairs are of particular interest. The possibility of Sudan disintegrating into two sovereign states as per Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement and Sudan's emergence as an oil-exporting country have provided new political events that serve as important factors to be used to analyse Sudan's position and power under the hydro-hegemony theory. Furthermore, Sudan's historical hydro-political objective, the ‘midstream doctrine’ which strives to reconcile the competing demands of downstream and upstream Nile riparians shall be brought to the fore. The methodology utilised in this paper to evaluate hydro-hegemony shall be based on Viotti and Kauppi's definition of Hegemony, Yoffe's Water Event Intensity Scale and Naff and Matson's Power Ratio.

Why Abyei Matters: The Breaking Point of Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement?

The Abyei Area, straddling the North–South border of Sudan, was the subject of a separate protocol in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed between the Sudan government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement in January 2005. One provision of that protocol was the establishment of a boundaries commission to define the territory to be included in the special administration of the area. The commission's decision was to be implemented ‘with immediate effect’ on the submission of its report in July 2005, but implementation has been blocked by the National Congress Party, which still controls the central government in Sudan. The conduct of war in Abyei established many precedents for the conduct of war in Darfur in the use of tribal militias and the forcible displacement of non-Arab peoples. The failure to implement the Abyei Protocol has implications not only for determining the North–South border (as stipulated by the CPA), but for the implementation of any Darfur peace agreement.

‘This gun is our food’: Disarming the White Army militias of South Sudan

The continued presence of ‘other armed groups’ poses a significant challenge to furthering peace and stability in post-conflict environments. A good example of this was ‘White Army’ militias, which maintained an armed presence after the signing of Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005. This article presents an empirical mapping of the White Army militias as well as a detailed analysis of the disarmament strategies that were implemented for them during the course of 2006. The article concludes with an analysis of the successes in achieving disarmament of White Army militias as well as the continuing challenges faced by Sudanese authorities and the international community alike in building sustainable conditions for peace.

A Small State's Multiple-level Approach to Peace-making: Norway's Role in Achieving Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement

Tracing Norway's role in Sudan's parallel peace processes – the official negotiations between the parties and the grassroots People-to-People peace conferences – provides compelling evidence that small states can make a major contribution to peace-making in deeply divided states with protracted violent conflicts. Working behind the scenes with official and unofficial actors in Sudan's multiple-layered war, Norwegians in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the NGO community co-operated in their efforts supporting more prominent mediators – the United States and the Kenya-led IGAD process. Sudan's years-long peace-making illustrates how a co-ordinated effort among many mediators can facilitate a peace agreement with the promise of ending decades of devastating, brutal violence.

The Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement: Will It Be Sustained?

The Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) is one of the rare achievements not only in the Sudan but indeed in Africa as it offers a unique resolution of one of the most complicated and protracted civil wars in Africa. It offers a unique mechanism for resolving issues of religious diversity and setting a new basis for national unity based on the free will of the people. The organic and external guarantees provided for its implementation clearly show that it would extremely be difficult for any party to the CPA to dishonour or abrogate it and if it happens it will be tantamount to constitutional disorder with dire repercussions for the unity of the Sudan. Muslims, Arab extremists and terrorist elements in the Sudan and the impact of the untimely death of Dr John Garang are likely to work against the full implementation of the CPA.

The Challenge of Cultural, Ethnic and Religious Diversity in Peacebuilding and Constitution-Making in Post-Conflict Sudan

Cultural, ethnic and religious diversity is central to understanding the aetiology of civil war and violent conflict in Africa, sustaining peace and laying down pillars for constitution-making and good governance based on the will of people. Although there are competing viewpoints about the role of social diversity in the causation of violent conflict and civil war, the ruling elite in Sudan opted to see such diversity as a curse and a threat to unity and strove to eliminate it by adopting the Arab-Islamic paradigm as a framework for ensuring national unity. This paradigm instead of unifying the country has haunted Sudan and created division and deep sense of marginalisation and exclusion that forced the rural Sudan to wage violent conflict against the centre and ruling elite. The Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement has provided a golden opportunity for ending the violent conflict and a new basis for defining national identity, citizenship, recognition of cultural and religious diversity as a virtue and a basis for constitution-making, peace building, citizenship and legal pluralism. The challenge for sustaining peace in the Sudan will entirely rest on how the new government of the Sudan recognises cultural, ethnic and religious diversity as a foundation for national cohesion and strength and a new nation-building based on citizenship and free will of the people.