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The civil war was finally ended when the SPLA/SPLM and the government of Sudan signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) on January 9, 2005, mediated by the Intergovernment Authority on Development (IGAD), a regional organization of which Sudan is a member. The CPA incorporated several previous negotiations and agreements signed in Machakos and Naivasha, Kenya: the Machakos Protocol (July 2002), the Naivasha security arrangements agreement (September 2003), the Naivasha wealth-sharing agreement (January 2004), the Naivasha power-sharing agreement (May 2004), the Naivasha resolution of the Abyei conflict protocol (May 2004), and the Naivasha resolution of the conflict in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states protocol (May 2004).
The CPA provided for a new national constitution and outlined new measures for sharing power, distributing wealth, and providing security in the country. The distribution of seats in the central parliament was satisfactorily negotiated, even in three areas disputed between the north and the south. Offices of state were allocated between the signatories, and agreement was reached on the sharing of oil revenues. The CPA also allowed for a separate administration for southern Sudan and stipulated that a referendum on independence for that region would be held in six years—key issues for the rebels. Equally significant was the ruling that Sharīʿah law would apply only to Muslims, even in the north.
Under the CPA three sensitive border areas were given special status. The disputed Abyei border region was to be jointly administered by northern and southern Sudanese state governments until its final status could be determined in a referendum scheduled to coincide with the vote on southern independence. The Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states, though in the north, saw much of the fighting during the war and were home to many who fought on the side of the south, creating a set of circumstances not found in other northern states. The CPA provided them with a different status than the other states, with a slightly different government structure, that would hopefully be better suited to addressing the issues specific to those two states. The two states were to hold “popular consultations” at a later date to evaluate the implementation of the CPA and decide whether to keep the agreement or negotiate a new agreement with the northern government.
Garang served briefly as president of the semiautonomous government in southern Sudan (GoSS) as well as first vice president in the national government under Bashir from July 9, 2005, until Garang’s untimely death in a helicopter crash later that month. Salva Kiir Mayardit, a founding member of the SPLM, succeeded him in both positions. In the 2010 elections Kiir received almost 93 percent of the vote to continue serving in that capacity.
Meanwhile, for several years after the 2005 CPA was signed, thousands of refugees who had fled from southern Sudan during the civil war returned to their homes. They were helped by nongovernmental organizations and United Nations (UN) aid agencies, but their arrival imposed a heavy burden upon the GoSS and the region’s limited resources and increased still further the south’s dependence on food aid. The GoSS also received international assistance in the onerous task of building the infrastructure necessary to support a viable state as it prepared for possible independence in the future.
Moving toward southern independence
After years of planning, preparation, and anticipation, southern Sudanese citizens began voting in the weeklong referendum on southern independence on January 9, 2011. Preliminary results, released at the end of January, indicated that almost 99 percent of voters opted in favour of seceding from the north. That was confirmed with the announcement of the final results in February. Southern independence was scheduled for July 9, 2011.
The referendum for the Abyei region—to determine whether it would be part of the north or the south in the instance that the latter opted for independence—initially had been scheduled to occur at the same time as the southern independence vote. The referendum was postponed indefinitely, however, because of disagreements between the GoSS and the national government over voter eligibility in the region.
Preparations for the south’s secession did not go smoothly. There was an increase in fighting by various southern groups who were unhappy with the SPLM-dominated GoSS. Then, in April, a draft of the new transitional constitution for southern Sudan upon achieving independence was made public. It drew criticism from several southern Sudanese opposition parties for extending the term of the current southern Sudan president. It also angered the national government for laying claim to the disputed Abyei region as part of the new country.
As the July independence date grew closer, several key matters remained unresolved between the north and the south, such as the sharing of the country’s oil wealth, distribution of the country’s collective debt, and establishing the final border demarcation. There were more problems regarding the Abyei region. With the indefinite postponement of the Abyei referendum, its final status was still pending (the south’s claim to the area, included in the transitional constitution, notwithstanding). That continued to be a source of tension among those in the region. There had been scattered amounts of low-level violence in Abyei, but tensions reached a new high in May 2011, when Bashir ordered the invasion of the region’s primary town, also named Abyei. He maintained that the invasion was a justified response to southern provocation, citing an attack by southern fighters on northern forces and their UN peacekeeping troop escorts a few days earlier, but the invasion was widely denounced in international circles and elicited cries of protest from the GoSS. Days later, when Bashir proclaimed Abyei to be northern land and refused to withdraw the northern troops, many feared that the heated situation could reignite civil war in the country. Some of those fears were quelled when shortly thereafter both sides agreed to a demilitarized border zone along their common—albeit undefined—border. Then, in June, an agreement was reached that provided for a new, temporary north-south administration of the Abyei region. It also provided for the withdrawal of both northern and southern forces from the region, with Ethiopian peacekeeping troops agreeing to form an interim security force for Abyei.
In the weeks leading up to the secession, anticipation of the south’s long-awaited independence was tempered by the reality that several contentious secession issues remained unresolved with the north. The final determination of the common border and the sharing of oil revenue were among the most critical matters. With just days left before the south was scheduled to secede, both sides agreed to continue negotiations over the remaining issues after the south’s secession. On July 8 the UN agreed to establish a new peacekeeping mission, the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS), which would be deployed after independence to support peace and development in the nascent country. South Sudan proclaimed its independence on July 9, 2011, and the declaration was greeted with widespread international recognition. The country was admitted as a member of the UN on July 14 and as a member of the African Union (AU) on July 27.
Independent South Sudan
South Sudan moved quickly to assert its newly independent status and launched its own currency, the South Sudan pound, on July 18, 2011. The country had been using Sudan’s currency, the Sudanese pound, which it planned to continue using for some months while the South Sudan pound gradually replaced it. A week later, however, Sudan introduced a new version of the Sudanese pound, months earlier than was expected. Because South Sudan had previously purchased millions of the older Sudanese pounds to be used prior to and while the South Sudan pound was rolled out, the accelerated launch of Sudan’s new currency raised fears that South Sudan would be left holding a large amount of old Sudanese pounds that would be rendered worthless. It also inflamed tensions between the two countries and heightened concerns about economic instability in the region.
Continued problems with Sudan
Tensions were further inflamed by the unresolved issues lingering from the secession of South Sudan. Although some progress had been made with minor-level matters, such as a September 2011 agreement on opening several border crossings, the issue of oil revenue sharing—specifically, coming to an agreement regarding how much money South Sudan should pay Sudan for the use of Sudanese pipelines and port facilities to transport and export its oil—was quite contentious. South Sudan pointed out that the fees Sudan was demanding were as much as 10 times greater than the average rates paid by other countries in similar situations and refused to agree to the inflated price. In the absence of an agreement, in December 2011 Sudan began confiscating South Sudan’s oil to make up for what it claimed it was owed for the unpaid transit fees since the July secession. Ongoing talks to resolve the issue, led by the AU and held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, were not successful, and in January 2012 South Sudan began shutting down operations in its oil fields to prevent Sudan from taking any more of its oil. The action proved damaging to the economies of both countries but especially South Sudan, which relied upon oil revenue to fund almost its entire budget. Meanwhile, South Sudan investigated alternatives to Sudan’s oil pipelines and exporting infrastructure, including the construction of a pipeline through Kenya and another through Ethiopia and Djibouti.
A series of agreements addressing oil fees, borders, and other issues, signed by both countries in September 2012, initially appeared to resolve the standoff, but in reality it continued for several more months because of dissension between the two countries over how to implement some of the terms agreed upon. Talks continued, however, and bore progress when a commitment to implement the September 2012 agreements, with specific deadlines attached to the necessary actions, was signed in March 2013. South Sudan resumed oil production the next month.
In the midst of the oil troubles, another high-profile issue—the unresolved matter of border demarcation—also led to many skirmishes and at times appeared to bring South Sudan and Sudan to the brink of war. Such was the case with the high-profile battle that began in March 2012 over Heglig—an area that was, pending final demarcation, generally recognized as part of Sudan and home to one of Sudan’s most-important oilfields, although South Sudan also laid clam to the area. After South Sudan suffered repeated aerial bombardments and ground assaults launched by Sudan, South Sudanese troops occupied Heglig for several days in April, ostensibly to stem further attacks into South Sudanese territory, before withdrawing from the area after bowing to pressure from the AU and UN, which held South Sudan’s occupation of Heglig as illegal. Fighting in the area continued, though—as did Sudan’s aerial bombardments of South Sudanese territory—and grew to include the hotly contested Abyei region before finally subsiding in May, as both countries began withdrawing their forces from the region.
The status of the Abyei region remained a point of contention. In the absence of the long-awaited referendum that was to determine whether the region would be part of Sudan or South Sudan, the South Sudanese-aligned Dinka residents organized a nonbinding referendum that was held in October 2013, in which 99.9 percent of the voters opted to join South Sudan. Notably, the Abyei residents aligned with Sudan, the Misseriya, did not vote. The referendum and its results were not internationally recognized.
Domestic problems
Within South Sudan the government was faced with escalating ethnic violence, particularly between the Lou Nuer and Murle peoples in the Jonglei state, with cattle rustling being one of the main issues, as well as a seemingly endless string of retaliatory attacks that killed more than 1,500 people and displaced tens of thousands in the years following independence. The new government also had to deal with rebel activity from several groups active in Jonglei and other states, which also was closely related to ethnic divides. Amnesty offers from the government to the many rebel groups met with mixed success.
Signs of growing dissension within the ruling party, the SPLM, were evident throughout 2013. Kiir dismissed his entire cabinet in late July and shortly thereafter unveiled his new cabinet, which was smaller. Riek Machar, who had served as Kiir’s vice president, was not retained. Meanwhile, Machar voiced his ambitions to challenge Kiir for SPLM leadership and to be the party’s presidential candidate in the country’s 2015 elections, as did Pagan Amum, another dismissed cabinet member also seen as a political rival of Kiir within the SPLM.
The simmering tensions came to a head on December 15, 2013, when gunfire erupted between troops loyal to Kiir and those loyal to Machar. The nature of the incident was not clear, but Kiir attributed the violence to being part of an attempted coup, led by Machar. Machar denied the coup allegation and, in turn, accused Kiir of using the violence as an excuse to attack his political adversaries. Machar, however, soon emerged leading a force of rebel soldiers, known as the SPLA in Opposition (SPLA-IO; aligned with the ruling party splinter group, the SPLM-IO), and called for Kiir to step down. Tensions were ignited between Kiir’s ethnic group, the Dinka, and Machar’s ethnic group, the Nuer, and violence quickly spread to the civilian population. Fighting intensified, and both sides were accused of having committed human rights abuses.
Regional mediation efforts, led by IGAD, did not make any lasting progress. Beginning in January 2014 and continuing into 2015, several cease-fire agreements were signed, but they were quickly violated as fighting continued. In February 2015 it was announced that the elections scheduled for later that year, in June, would be postponed because of the unresolved conflict. To that end, in March both houses of the legislature passed a bill that extended the terms of elected officials, including the president and national legislators, for three years; the bill was later signed into law by Kiir.
Meanwhile, there was a growing humanitarian crisis in South Sudan, with the ongoing fighting leaving at least 10,000 dead—some estimates were considerably higher than that—and more than 1.9 million displaced a year after the conflict started. Although a famine in 2014 was narrowly averted by donor aid, there was still an increased threat of food insecurity for the population, as the fighting had disrupted farming efforts.
In August 2015 Machar and Kiir, under pressure from the international community—particularly Kiir—signed another peace deal. It called for a permanent cease-fire and the formation of a transitional government and also laid out a fragile power-sharing arrangement. Machar was to return as a vice president in the new transitional government. But, as with previous agreements, both sides violated some of the terms, and fighting continued. One particularly contentious issue was Kiir’s announcement in October that the number of states would change from 10 to 28; such an increase would interfere with the highly sensitive power-sharing arrangements outlined in the peace agreement. In spite of much criticism from all parties involved in the peace process, Kiir implemented the new state structure in late December 2015.
In early January 2016 the government and rebels and other parties agreed to an arrangement for sharing ministerial portfolios in the transitional government, with an implementation date of January 22, 2016. The government was not formed, however, as there were still unresolved disagreements, including that of the contentious new 28-state structure. Meanwhile, in March the UN issued a report describing widespread human rights abuses committed by both sides during the ongoing conflict, with the government-aligned forces being noted as having been responsible for more of the violations within the previous year. The horrifying attacks on civilians included killing, sexual violence, and the systematic destruction of towns, including the deliberate targeting of hospitals, UN bases, and churches. The authors of the UN report declared that the violations they had documented could amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity.
Eventually, Machar announced that he would return to Juba on April 18, to take up the position of first vice president in the new transitional government. His return, however, was repeatedly delayed because of actions by the South Sudan government as well as the rebels, much to the consternation of the international community, which had lost patience with both parties. Machar finally arrived in the city on April 26, 2016. He was sworn in as first vice president shortly after his arrival. Machar and Kiir then set upon the task of implementing the transitional unity government.
In the midst of the domestic troubles, there were some positive developments on the international front. In the last few months of 2015 and in early 2016, relations with Sudan showed improvement and included the reopening of the two countries’ shared border in January; it had been closed since 2011. In March South Sudan learned that it would be allowed to join the East African Community (EAC), a regional trade and development bloc. The country was formally admitted to the EAC the next month.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica