The Nasty War: Organised Violence During the Anya-Nya Insurgency in South Sudan, 1963–72

Abstract

In 1963, unrest in Sudan's three southern provinces (today's South Sudan) escalated into a civil war between the government and the Anya-Nya rebellion. The subsequent eight years of violence has hitherto largely escaped scrutiny from academic researchers and has remained a subject of popular imagination and politicised narratives. This article demonstrates how this history can be explored with greater nuance, thereby establishing a local history of a postcolonial civil war. Focusing on the garrison town of Torit, our research reveals a localised and personalised rebellion, made up of a constellation of parochial armed groups. This new history also demonstrates how these parties built upon experiences from imperial conquest and colonial rule when entrenching violent wartime practices such as mass displacement and encampment, the raising of local militias and intelligence networks, and the deliberate starvation of civilians — all common methods in subsequent wars.

Who are the civilians in the wars of South Sudan?

“…There is also a growing body of literature that examines theories of conflict from the community-level and moral perspective (including Biong Deng, 2010; Hutchinson and Pendle, 2015; Jok, 2005; Justin and De Vries, 2017; Kindersley, 2019; Leonardi, 2007a, 2007b; Pendle, 2015; Stringham and Forney, 2017). Both these strands of research provide useful insights into violence against civilians, especially research on the evolution of wartime practices of population control (Kindersley, 2017; Rolandsen and Kindersley, 2019; Thomas, 2015). This article sets out to explicitly connect these areas of research by investigating the question of civilian protection using these stands of research into South Sudanese conflicts as points of departure.…”

Of Rule not Revenue: South Sudan’s Revenue Complex from Colonial, Rebel, to Independent Rule, 1899 to 2023

“…61 As Rolandsen and the historian Nicki Kindersley argue, the Anya-Nya's tactics blurred boundaries between banditry and more formalized rebel tactics, and because the movement was atomized its effectiveness was limited. 62 The material support that the Anya-Nya generated from looting and other predatory taxation practices was not enough to wage a financially costly war. Instead, in the first recorded instance in the region since British-led occupation, the rebel movement was internationally financed.…”