“Even if I die on Sunday, it will be in a free country,” Charles Mamur told UK newspaper The Guardian two days before South Sudan’s independence. “I will die knowing that my people and children are free at last.” His statement echoed the general mood of the people of South Sudan as their homeland broke free from Sudan, whose Arab-dominated governments had butchered and battered them in a five-decade struggle for self-determination. Four years after that historic Sunday, freedom has all but vanished in South Sudan. This time bloodshed is not at the hands of an oppressive North, but fellow countrymen in a raging civil war between President Salva Kiir’s government forces and rebels loyal to estranged Vice President, Riek Machar.

With nearly fifty thousand dead, over two million displaced and the country on the brink of famine, many who, like Charles Mamur, thronged to the capital Juba four years ago to witness the birth of their dreams are now running away from the nightmare of death and destruction that has befallen them. Two weeks ago the US—which was instrumental in the independence of the South—together with the international community under the aegis of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) managed to align both warring parties to a peace accord. The agreement laid down the framework for a ceasefire and power-sharing deal that is supposed to forge an eventual path to peace and stability. Both parties signed the deal, but even before the ink dried they were already accusing each other of breaking the pact. For now it stands, but the question is for how long, and how much can it really achieve?

“The next two weeks are a crucial period to see whether the agreement will stick,” Casie Copeland, an analyst for the International Crisis Group said. “The parties are establishing the mechanisms for a permanent ceasefire and if they agree and implement the agreement we can feel more confident the agreement will hold. If not, then the agreement will be in crisis.” But for Malith Kur, a South Sudanese refugee and political commentator, the IGAD agreement is already an outright failure. “It was designed and written to appease the rebels and justify the causes of those who chose violence over democratic process within the SPLM party,” he said. “If disagreement within the SPLM and its government could trigger a war last time, [the agreement] makes it even more likely for the same scenario to occur,” he said.

Kur grew up during South Sudan’s war for independence and has lived as a refugee in Ethiopia and Kenya. He finally moved to Canada in 2001 where he is now a pastor of the South Sudanese community in London Ontario. He says the consequences of the war which he witnessed before fleeing the country, informs his criticism of the new agreement which he says only sets the government and the rebels on a collision course. Brian Adeba, an associate with the Security Sector Governance Group in Canada, shares the same worries. He described the deal as problematic in June, several months before it was signed. “Most contentious, if not ridiculous,” he wrote, “is IGAD’s proposal that the incumbent president, deputized by a first vice president and a vice president, head the transitional government. It boggles the mind to see the very people who caused this conflict taking a lead in running affairs. This is a potential recipe for disaster. Ideally, this scenario could have been resolved with a neutral transitional government managed by technocrats.”

Kur supports the idea of a technocratic government in South Sudan but not under the IGAD agreement. “I am in favour of a technocratic government that is going to be in power for less than 18 months and without the existence or maintenance of armed rebels anywhere in the country.” However, the ICG’s Copeland says South Sudan’s challenges require more than a technocratic response. “There are deep and painful historical divisions along political and ethnic lines. The transitional government must address these divisions, to ignore them would only be a recipe for further conflict.”

Regardless, Kur says he just wants an election to take place as soon as possible. “South Sudanese need to send home Salva Kiir and Riek Machar for good.” A leaked AU report in May prescribed just that. The Guardian cited the report as stipulating that neither Kiir nor Machar should serve in a caretaker government because of their responsibility for “organised massacres and large-scale violence.” The draft, which blamed both leaders of the warring factions for the bloodshed, was however shelved, an action which was vehemently criticized by activists. “The people and partners of South Sudan have been waiting for the AU report to help bring justice for the grave crimes of the past year. By shelving the report, the AU has left the people of South Sudan in the lurch,” Daniel Bekele, the Africa director at Human Rights Watch, told the Newspaper.

Civil right groups have long campaigned for the issues of justice to be included for any South Sudan agreement to succeed. “Rather than rewarding those who used their political and military positions to commit violence, a minimum standard of accountability must be applied in any agreement,” David Deng, the research director at the South Sudan Law Society, Anyieth D’Awol, founder of The Roots Project in South Sudan, and Isaac Gang, Director of International Affairs for the Alliance for South Sudanese in Diaspora (ASSD), said during a panel discussion hosted by the US Institute of Peace in May. Copeland says the IGAD agreement achieves that aim. “It includes provisions for constitution reform, a hybrid court and reconciliation provisions. These are opportunities to transform the political system and should be inclusive of civil society and ordinary people, including the ordinary people who picked up weapons to fight in the war.”

Though deeply worried about the fate of the deal, Santino Ayuel Longar, a South Sudanese blogger, also holds on to some optimism. “Assuming that this agreement holds–and we pray it does—my pearl of wisdom, if I have one, is that it is important for freewheeling political operatives to refrain from making irresponsible statements to the media, for bombastic comments of that nature could further exacerbate tensions leading to yet another bout of violence,” he wrote in a blogpost. Such media tension is already brewing. On Thursday, Nhial Bol, one of the country’s respected journalists said he was quitting his career after his security and safety was threatened. “I suffered and endured everything because of the dream I had. And now, the dream is dead, and I choose to leave,” the Sudan Tribune, quoted him as saying.

Bol’s statement is reflective of the general frustration of South Sudanese activists and the masses who suffered through the independence struggle only to see all of their efforts dashed by the civil war and a heightened government clampdown on the media and civil society groups. In June Katie Campo, a former Political Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, shared similar frustrations in a post on African Arguments where she wrote that “South Sudanese authorities have taken a page out of Khartoum’s playbook by targeting activists and journalists” who, having suffered at the hands of Sudanese authorities for decades, hoped to start afresh and contribute to developing their proud new nation. “I am extremely frustrated with the political class in South Sudan, Kur said. “They do not care about South Sudan as a country, much less about its people.”

Copeland says many in the international community, who “worked in solidarity with the South Sudanese during the liberation struggle,” are also frustrated and weary. But that now, more than ever, “the country needs its long-term friends to support the path to peace with honest engagement based on real understanding.”

Despite his criticism of the IGAD agreement, Malith Kur believes all hope is not lost for South Sudan. “The enthusiasm that South Sudanese had when the flag of South Sudan was raised for the first time will come back as soon as this evil war ends,” he said. Copeland shares the same hope for South Sudan. [It] is a beautiful country and full of potential,” she enthused. “There is no question they can overcome this devastating war and move to a path of peace and prosperity if they dedicate themselves to this in the same way they did to achieving independence.” “That is why it is important that the international community focuses on the grassroots and consult them about the way forward,” Kur adds. “The international community needs to play a positive role by not condoning any form of rebellion in the future, encouraging good governance, supporting education, health, and transport systems in the country… Most importantly, the churches, other civil society, the international community, and the government of South Sudan must invest in building the South Sudanese Social Capital.”

“South Sudan can undoubtedly pull this off, for nothing is impossible to a willing heart,” Longar wrote. “That is why all and sundry, whether one is a politician or a commoner, has been called upon to plant the tree so that the next generation gets the shade.”

For Copeland, building that shade begins with a full implementation of the agreement. “It would put South Sudan on the path to peace,” she said. “But the road will be rocky and challenges will emerge. It is for South Sudanese leaders to approach these challenges with consideration for what is best for the South Sudanese people and to improve on the practice of political dialogue and debate to give less space for the politics of the gun.”

Elsewhere on Ventures

Triangle arrow