Reproduced below is a section from “Oil, economic development, and community in South Sudan,” which is chapter 2 of the academic book South Sudan: Post-Independence Dilemmas. Hyperlinks have been added to sources cited in the text, but beyond this no changes have been made except for formatting.
Oil business, uneven development, and war in former Sudan
The former Sudan split when South Sudan seceded in July 2011, but its political system and the bad habits of its ruling elite which led the country to that fate survived in the successor states. Hence, a good starting point to delve into South Sudanese woes is the manner in which elites in the former Sudan dealt with natural resources, with a focus on the oil sector, and on tribal or ethnic and religious diversity.
Before engaging with the key issues, it is worthwhile reflecting on the ambiguous concepts of tribe and ethnicity or ethnic group, which have been salient factors both in the former Sudan and in the present South Sudan. According to Richard Tapper, tribe is “a state of mind, a construction of reality, a model for organization and action” (Tapper 1991, 56). Oftentimes, the concept denotes people who share a common language, culture, and territory. This meaning is similar to that of ethnicity or ethnic group, which is why tribe and ethnicity are used interchangeably by some people (Mitchell 1970, 84). Ethnicity is the belief that groups form communities on the basis of shared language, customs, origins, history, and experience (or shared culture) (Ignatieff 1994). It is “imagined” and “invented” but not “imaginary” (Turton 1997, 78). Ethnic identity is “politically constructed or reconstructed, created or enhanced, formed or transformed through the structure of political access or organization and content of policies” (Nagel 1986, 78).
The term tribe was created by European colonialists as a descriptive term and administrative tool for their “barbaric” and “primitive” subjects (Berman 1998 and Lema 1993). After the independence of African countries, “tribalism” tended to increase rather than decrease (LIoyd 1966, 58). The reasons for this include the increased level of competition in African society for limited economic resources and the utilisation of ethnic associations by elites to consolidate their economic and political position in the postcolonial state (LIoyd 1966).
Sometimes, competition for power and economic resources boils over into ethnic violence. This kind of violence is not rooted in “essential differences between species-like ‘types’ or ‘peoples’ ” (Malkki 1995, 14) but in the way differences are managed. As Thomas Widlok points out, the problem is not “cultural diversity per se but certain modes of dealing with diversity that maintain and foster the political exploitation of ethnic boundaries” (Widlok 1996, 150). In Rwanda, for example, colonialists constructed the notion of the superiority of the Tutsis and inferiority of the Hutu, dichotomies solidified by the actions of indigenous elites, which laid the foundation for the 1994 genocide (Mamdani 2001). In Somalia, violence has been caused by the manipulation of lineage solidarity by political entrepreneurs so as to attain or retain narrowly based interests (Compagnon 1998, 73).
Similarly, in the former Sudan, ruling elites manipulated ethnic and religious differences to retain power and access resources, stoking violent conflicts (Johnson 2003). In particular, these elites employed Arabism and Islam as a means to exclude a large proportion of Sudanese from participating in the governance of the country (de Mabior 1987). Like hardline Islamists elsewhere, these elites manipulated devout Muslims and the sacred Muslim texts to gain power. Succinctly, the late Edward Said quotes Eqbal Ahmad, a Pakistani intellectual who has also passed away, as saying that the modern Islamists are “concerned with power, not with the soul; with the mobilization of people for political purposes rather than with sharing and alleviating their sufferings and aspirations” (Said 2001, 13).
Although hailing mainly from three minority groups, Ja’aliyin, Sha’giya, and Danagla, the ruling elites in the former Sudan dominated economic, social and political life of the country (Anonymous 2002). Their areas enjoyed preferential treatment with respect to allocation of development projects and other resources, entrenching uneven development over the country (Roden 1974). This fueled grievances, which led to violent conflicts.
No wonder, in the former Sudan, some of the most marginalised peoples were Muslim groups in the western and eastern parts of the country, such as the Fur and Massaliet. Young men from these groups were mobilised by Islamist leaders, especially the late Hassan el Turabi and the long-serving President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, who self-identify as Arabs, to fight the ‘kuffar’, or infidels, in the southern part of the country. When the Fur, Massaliet and other black African groups in Darfur took up arms against the al-Bashir government in 2003 so as to end their marginalisation, they faced genocidal violence (Beny and Hale 2014). Their Muslim identity, which they shared with al-Bashir and other elites in Khartoum, did not shield them from violence.
The first war commenced in 1955 mainly because of the fear of the South Sudanese being dominated by the more educated and politically adept northern elites. After years of fighting and devastation, during which religion was actively exploited by northern elites to end the rebellion, President Jaffar Nimeiri (1969–1985) reached the Addis Ababa peace agreement with the Anya-Nya rebel group in 1972. After 10 years of relative peace, Nimeiri unilaterally divided the autonomous and self-ruled southern region into Equatoria, Upper Nile, and Bahr el Ghazal, effectively abrogating the agreement and plunging the country into another civil war in 1983. He was backed by key leaders from communities in Equatoria, including the former rebel leader Joseph Lagu, who claimed that elites from Dinka communities dominated the self-governing region (Lagu 2006). Nimeiri subsequently imposed Sharia, or Islamic law, in 1983 over the whole country, further angering the South Sudanese, including those who supported the division or what popularly came to be known as Kokora (meaning ‘divide’ in the Bari language) of South Sudan. Clearly, ethnicity and religion were exploited by Nimeiri.
The discovery of oil in southern Sudan in the late 1970s played a significant role in the abrogation of the Addis Ababa agreement and subsequent resumption of hostilities (Woodward 1996). The determination of Nimeiri and other elites to control the expected oil revenues through a range of measures, including the gerrymandering of borders so as to incorporate oil-rich territory into northern Sudan, fueled widespread grievances in the south that led to violence. Tellingly, among the first targets of the SPLM/A, the group that emerged to challenge the government, was the oil project, which was brought to a halt in 1984. John Garang de Mabior, the SPLM/A leader, argued that the project benefited only President Nimeiri (de Mabior 1992).
In a bid to protect the oil project, the government army and allied militias launched massive scorched-earth attacks on local communities, uprooting civilians and in effect cleansing the oil areas of people (Christian Aid 2001). This was helped by the split of the SPLM/A in 1991, and by the ethnic violence which ensued, mainly pitting members of John Garang’s Dinka community against those of Machar’s Nuer community. Some of the Nuer fighters, particularly the Bul Nuer militia under late General Paulino Matip, supported the government soldiers to attack and uproot fellow members of the Nuer community so as to secure the oil areas for the Chinese, Malaysian, and Indian companies to operate safely. This pattern of violence and manipulation of ethnicity was to be repeated after the independence of South Sudan in 2011, as will be discussed in the following sections.
In 1999, the government efforts paid off with the exportation of oil for the first time. With petrodollars flowing into government coffers, President al-Bashir’s position was bolstered as he acquired more deadly weapons, co-opted some opponents, and won over some powerful friends abroad, especially China, which protected him against moves at the UN Security Council to sanction him for human rights abuses (Moro 2017). Clearly, oil was a boon for the al-Bashir government and its supporters but was a curse for the majority of people, especially communities in the oil areas in southern Sudan.
After the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was concluded in 2005, oil activities expanded rapidly, bringing in more revenues. In line with the dictates of the agreement, after the share for the oil-producing states had been deducted, 50 percent of the revenues were allocated to the autonomous Government of Southern Sudan, which was formed in accordance with the terms of the CPA. Most of the billions of petrodollars were misappropriated by the former rebel leaders, who had become the ruling elites in the region (Moro 2013). When the time for the self-determination vote required by the CPA came, the overwhelming majority of southern Sudanese rejected continued unity of the country and chose independence for South Sudan. However, the long-held dream for peace and development has so far eluded them, as the ruling elites of the young South Sudanese state have proved to be no different from the Khartoum-based elites with respect to exploiting the oil resources for their own benefit.