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

The creation of new states through interim agreements: Ambiguous compromises, intra-communal divisions, and contested identities

“…In the case of South Sudan and Bougainville, the significant territorial control of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) was unlikely to translate into international recognition (Caspersen, 2012). Moreover, the SPLM/A was faced with external pressures and had been weakened by the loss of regional support (Aalen, 2013; Ahmed, 2009). As a constituent unit in the former Yugoslavia, Montenegro’s prospect of recognition in case of a unilateral declaration of independence was much greater (Fawn, 2008), but the Montenegrin government was under strong international pressure to give unity a chance.…”

“…Separatist forces in the South objected to this widening of the claim, which they feared would delay and jeopardize self-determination for the South (Johnson, 2013: 148–149). The SPLM leader, John Garang (Aalen, 2013: 183), countered that self-determination was a process, not an objective in itself (Johnson, 2013: 149). However, the separatist faction was growing stronger and the interim agreement was a compromise between the different notions of self-determination found within the SPLM: between external and internal self-determination, and between an inclusively and more exclusively defined community.…”

“…The agreement contains an explicit commitment to make unity attractive, but this was made difficult by the accession to power of Islamists in the North (Ahmed, 2009: 139–140). Unity in the form of a New Sudan would necessitate a different conception of the Sudanese state, but the separatist wing of the SPLM argued that secularism in the North has been ‘traded away by getting self-determination for the South’ (Aalen, 2013: 183). Once the separatists took control of the SPLM, they began accusing the National Congress Party in the North of being ‘secessionists’, and of wanting to ‘implement a Taliban system’ (Aalen, 2013: 182).…”

“…Unity in the form of a New Sudan would necessitate a different conception of the Sudanese state, but the separatist wing of the SPLM argued that secularism in the North has been ‘traded away by getting self-determination for the South’ (Aalen, 2013: 183). Once the separatists took control of the SPLM, they began accusing the National Congress Party in the North of being ‘secessionists’, and of wanting to ‘implement a Taliban system’ (Aalen, 2013: 182). This was, in their view, incompatible with unity, leaving independence as the only option.…”

Health System Challenges Affecting Maternal and Neonatal Health Care Service Utilisation in the Wake of Conflict in Torit County, Republic of South Sudan: A Cross Sectional Study 

“…After several decades of civil war and eventual signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) with Sudan in 2005 (1) and attainment of independence in 2011, South Sudan started to build its health systems but this was interrupted by violent clashes in December, 2013 (2). Although these clashes started in the capital city of Juba, violence quickly spread to several parts of the country.…”