Two Years Later: Have Promises Materialized in Southern Sudan?

According to UNHCR, the death of Dr. John Garang, a Sudan People’s Liberation Army leader and the newly appointed Vice President of South Sudan in early 2005, did not compromise the peace of the region. Only months before Garang’s death, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed on January 9, 2005, terminating Sudan’s Civil War of more than twenty years. The country expects to vote on a referendum in 2011 to determine South Sudan’s autonomy.

Meanwhile, according to the Sudan Tribune, as Southern Sudanese approach the two year anniversary of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, they are skeptical of the progress that has been made. Alleged corruption looms, while one third of the budget, according to the Tribune, is unaccounted for. While a main tenet of the war was to loosen the grip of Northern Islamists on the diverse tribes in South Sudan, Southerners regard another aspect of the war as equally important. They cite social, political, and economic injustice as their reason for fighting.

Two years later, the people of Sudan remember Dr. Garang’s pledge to create self-sufficient households with the advancement of agriculture, to build roads within the first eighteen months of governing, and to funnel oil profits through the people, eliminating an elite government party. Yet these promises have not become realities, in the eyes of the people, who are asking their government to explain just what has been done and where the money has gone. While the government appears to have forgotten Dr. Garang’s vision for South Sudan, the Tribune asserts, the people will hold their leaders accountable for ending the injustice they fought for twenty-two years to defeat.

If the Government of South Sudan is viewed as reinforcing the economic marginalization of the people, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement will be unable to sustain peace and stability in the region. In just four years, Southerners will vote on whether to secede from Sudan, a situation that already threatens to further unravel unrest in the country. The Government of South Sudan’s inability to deliver tangible results to its people can only further undermine this temporary façade of peace.

Introduction: Hello! My name is Elizabeth Milligan, and I am a junior at Lake Forest College in Chicago, where I am most active in STAND, Hillel, and theater. This fall, I spent a semester in Washington, DC in a foreign policy program at American University and completed an internship with the Committee on Conscience. My topic of focus on this blog will be Southern Sudan.