Intensified Insecurity & the Subversion of Security Sector Reform in South Sudan

Andrew Karl, Research Fellow, Intelligence & Security Policy Lab
akarl@africacfsp.org

Despite the appearance of progress towards sustainable peace in South Sudan, the transitional security arrangements dictated by the R-ARCSS peace accord have produced the explosive potential for intensified insecurity. In adherence to the logic of the “payroll peace,” the parties to the R-ARCSS have subverted and defied the prescribed security sector reforms, leading to a renewed period of military recruitment, a hollowed-out process of force integration, and a stalled DDR program incapable of meeting combatants’ expectations. To avoid the return to major hostilities, further diplomatic engagement is needed to compel the parties to undertake these security sector reforms in good faith.

In February, South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and former Vice President-turned rival Dr. Riek Machar reached key compromises that advance the 2018 R-ARCSS peace process and created a Transitional Government of National Unity (TGNU). Once again, Machar was sworn in as Vice President, and Kiir declared an end to more than six years of brutal intrastate conflict.¹ International observers were quick to extend their sanguine praise. UN peacekeeping officials in South Sudan commended the leaders’ “courage,” noting the deal had “moved the country further along the road to sustainable peace.”² The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the regional bloc mediating the peace process, welcomed the decision and extolled Kiir and Machar for demonstrating “great leadership.”³ Similarly, the British, Norwegian, and U.S. governments praised the parties for making the “necessary compromises to allow this important step” to occur.⁴ On the ground, the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS) peace accord, has brought about a tenuous, yet enduring ceasefire that has largely held since its signing in September 2018. This cessation of major hostilities has enabled the delivery of humanitarian aid, a resumption of trade, new openings for political dialogue, and other tangible peace dividends.⁵ In that time, some 800,000 displaced people have returned home, according to estimates from the International Organization of Migration.⁶

Although these signs are indicative of progress, chronic challenges remain for sustainable peace in South Sudan. Since the war’s outbreak in 2013, dozens of ceasefires and peace deals between the dueling parties have given way to violence.⁷ The R-ARCSS peace accord process replicates the same power-sharing formula, peace terms, and overall structure of the failed 2015 accord,⁸ including the most precarious elements: hastily scheduled competitive elections and an unchecked process for integrating opposition forces into a national army.⁹ Rather than resolving the longstanding, bitter rivalry between Kiir and Machar, R-ARCSS largely deferred a final political settlement until future elections in 2022, recreating the dynamic of an elite power struggle which contributed to the outbreak of violence in 2013 and the resumption of hostilities in 2016.¹⁰ Similarly, both the 2015 Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (ARCSS) and the 2018 R-ARCSS peace plan called for the creation of a Necessary Unified Force (NUF) through ambiguous, easily-exploited transitional security arrangements, whereby warring parties were to assemble and screen combatants for inclusion in either the integrated NUF or Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) programming. In 2016, methodology disputes over the cantonment process and the future redeployment of forces contributed to the collapse of the peace accord, and ultimately to the expansion of the conflict.¹¹ Currently, the R-ARCSS transitional security arrangements, nearly identical to those in the 2015 ARCSS agreement, threaten to unravel the peace accord once again.

The Political Economy of Violence & (De)mobilization

Integrating warring parties into formalized security sectors following a civil war is widely believed to reduce the recurring intrastate conflict, despite a lack of theoretical investigation or empirical consensus to support the notion.¹² In South Sudan, this practice centralizes each of the four peace accords dating back to the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement.¹³ Incentives such as wages and ranks for soldiers and commanders, elicit buy-in peace deals and rewards allied forces for their loyalty.¹⁴ However, this so-called “payroll peace” has routinely led commanders to embellish combatant numbers under their authority to inflate their rank and increase the number of salaries at their disposal (whether to pocket or dispense as patronage).¹⁵ These commanders are leveraging the peace process to recruit combatants and to buy loyalties of disparate armed groups, promising future salaries and ranks.¹⁶ Mechanisms for verifying the numbers of combatants to be integrated are seldom utilized, and when this has occurred, monitors tasked with assessing the number of combatants are denied the means to provide adequate verification.¹⁷ The lack of a centralized database listing combatant’s names and ranks,¹⁸ nonexistent biometric screening procedures, and insufficient registration forms impede meaningful oversight.¹⁹ As a result, the distinction between civilians and combatants is blurred based on decades of armed conflict and the tendency for troop numbers to fluctuate wildly according to agricultural seasons.²⁰ In effect, an unlimited number of combatants are being declared by warring groups, contributing to burgeoning expansions of troops in South Sudan.²¹

Despite explicit prohibitions on the recruitment and training of new combatants,²² all signatories to the R-ARCSS have sought to exploit the payroll peace. In total, the parties claimed some 473,000 combatants, while the IGAD-led compliance mechanism, the Ceasefire, and Transitional Security Monitoring and Verification Mechanism (CTSAMVM), estimate the total number of combatants to be only 130,000.²³ Government forces have reportedly recruited some 10,000 combatants in Warrap State.²⁴ Additionally, CTSAMVM found evidence of illegal training centers in Bor, Yei,²⁵ and Luri.²⁶ Furthermore, the Machar-led opposition faction, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army in Opposition (SPLA-IO), has engaged in widespread military recruitment in Unity State and the Greater Equatorial region²⁷ by forced conscription and the use of child soldiers.²⁸ The third party to the accord, the South Sudanese Opposition Alliance (SSOA), has engaged in similar recruitment practices in southern Jonglei and around Terekeka.²⁹ The SSOA may have a legitimate incentive for recruiting. Despite claiming to command a force of 126,000 combatants, CTSAMVM estimates the group may have as few as 1,000 soldiers in their ranks.³⁰

Like in previous episodes, this latest wave of recruitment will intensify insecurity in South Sudan, potentially with explosive results. Recent recruitment drives effectively operate as pyramid schemes, in which recruits rarely attain the benefits promised from force integration or DDR programming.³¹ These recently armed, newly aggrieved groups may seek to act as spoilers to the peace process, leveraging their capacity for violence to gain the salaries and ranks promised to them. Additionally, recruitment following the signing of R-ARCSS has mobilized previously non-aligned armed actors to take sides in the elite rivalries fueling the civil war, including community-oriented militias and self-defense groups.³² Finally, the recruitment drives have undermined the local-level leadership of chiefs and other customary leaders, which have traditionally acted as sources of resilience to conflict.³³

Cantonment & Training

Like prohibitions on the recruitment of new forces, belligerent parties have subverted or ignored the R-ARCSS transitional security arrangements concerning the processes of cantonment and training of the NUF at the risk of intensifying insecurity. Cantonment is an ostensibly technical operation, in which combatants are sequestered to barracks, counted, registered, and screened to determine their eligibility for integration into the national armed forces or participation in DDR programming. Kiir’s government has sought to utilize the cantonment process to undermine opposition leaders and sow doubt among the rank and file concerning their ability to deliver on the promises of wages and ranks.³⁴ To this end, deliberate and dramatic funding shortfalls have characterized the cantonment process, where less than half of the USD 100 million budgeted for the process has been allocated.³⁵ Most training sites similarly lack funding. UN peacekeepers have described the conditions at the sites as “appalling,” with regards to the lack of shelter, water, food, and medicine.³⁶ According to the CTVSAMVN, most cantonment and training sites are “on the verge of collapse,”³⁷ which has predictably led hundreds of soldiers to abandon the process.³⁸

Beyond poor conditions, a lack of adherence to the prescribed transitional security arrangements threatens to intensify insecurity. The practice of cantonment has become associated with security risks following several episodes of force integration and DDR in sub-Saharan Africa in the early 2000s.³⁹ Compared to other methods of force integration, cantonment produces unrealistic expectations among participants. Potentially contentious episodes resulting from discussions of rank harmonization may also occur as a result.⁴⁰ To mitigate these risks, R-ARCSS commanded parties to disarm combatants upon their registration at cantonment sites, turning over their weapons to independently monitored armories.⁴¹ Further, orders to place cantonment sites away from civilian population centers fell through.⁴² In practice, neither measure has occurred. In an April 2020 inspection, ceasefire monitors found none of the 12 sites had undertaken the requisite disarmament of registrants.⁴³ As of July 2020, a negligible number of firearms were registered and no heavy weaponry had been cantoned.⁴⁴ Rather than the technical criteria stipulated in R-ARCSS, cantonment sites were selected through a bargaining process. As a result, many sites are in civilian-populated areas, increasing rape incidents,⁴⁵ banditry, and social discord between civilians and combatants.⁴⁶ While these camps of armed young men have already contributed to insecurity within the local community, there exists a much greater and harrowing potential for violence beyond the region, should the peace process fail to deliver the promises of wages and ranks.

Reintegration & Alternate Livelihoods

In addition to the incentives for recruitment, DDR has the potential for further destabilizing consequences. Riots and clashes among armed factions have occurred due to unrealistic expectations held by combatants or the inability of implementers to fulfill program promises.⁴⁷ Such is the risk posed by the R-ARCSS transitional security arrangements, which called for programming to commence in early 2019.⁴⁸ As of April 2020 the program had yet to develop programming.⁴⁹ Despite the lagging progress, rank and file combatants – including many of whom were recently recruited based on entry into such programs – were coaxed into believing DDR initiatives will be accessible to everyone.⁵⁰ Expectations for reintegration assistance are high, with combatants operating under the belief that programs will provide “whatever somebody wants,” including schooling, vocational training, and the provision of tools or equipment.⁵¹ Underdeveloped economies and their lack of generating income opportunities for demobilized combatants, have led to the poor performance of DDR programs,⁵² which is a trend that is particularly concerning for a country which essentially does not have an economy outside of the war economy.⁵³ Anticipating such events coalesces expectations of future instability.

South Sudan’s DDR Commission has cited a lack of funding to explain the delay. Indeed, since the signing of R-ARCSS, DDR has been conspicuously denied funding, having received only USD 2 million by the end of 2019.⁵⁴ While some in-kind external support is anticipated from C5 countries (South Africa, Algeria, Chad, Nigeria, and Rwanda), international support has largely failed to materialize due to the counterproductive results of DDR programming during the CPA-era.⁵⁵ However, political austerity and the enduring influence of payroll peace perhaps best explains the lack of progress.

Policy Recommendations

Uganda and Sudan, the remaining IGAD member states, and to a lesser extent the C5 countries, collectively played pivotal roles in securing the compromises from Kiir and Machar that have made R-ARCSS possible. Again, concerted diplomatic pressure secured the necessary concessions in February 2020 that allowed for the formation of the TGNU. To avoid perpetual unrest in South Sudan, these countries should re-engage all parties to undertake the much-needed security sector reforms in good faith. In addition to diplomatic pressure, the provision and withholding of funds, and other statutory measures, this engagement should include efforts to secure:

An immediate and independent audit of the forces claimed by the R-ARCSS signatories, as well as the armaments and munitions at their disposal.
Implementation of fixed caps for both the number of forces to be integrated into NUF and DDR programs, proportioned across the agreed-upon ratios.
Implementation of biometric screening procedures for all cantoned combatants.
Registration and cantonment of all arms and munitions, including the use of independently monitored armories.
South Sudan-led funding to develop and begin immediate DDR programming.
Incorporation of reconciliation and dialogue as a necessary component to the training of the NUF.

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