A Peace Agreement in Tatters

By Jok Madut Jok

Jok Madut Jok is currently the executive Director of the Sudd Institute, a public policy research center based in South Sudan.  He was educated in Sudan, Egypt and the United States and holds a Ph.D. in the anthropology of health from the University of California, Los Angeles in the United States (UCLA). He is also a professor of Anthropology at the University of Juba in South Sudan. He is a widely recognized specialist on conflict and political violence. Following the independence of South Sudan in 2011, Jok served for two years in the newly formed Government of South Sudan as undersecretary in the Ministry of Culture and Heritage. Jok has worked extensively in the aid and development sectors and is the author of three books and numerous articles covering gender, sexuality and reproductive health, humanitarian aid, ethnography of political violence, gender-based violence, war and slavery, and the politics of identity in what used to be the Sudan. Over the years, Jok has held several fellowship positions, including at the United States Institute of Peace, the Rift Valley Institute, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. His books include Sudan: Race, Religion and Violence (2007) and War and Slavery in Sudan (2001).  Jok is also co-editor of The Sudan Handbook (2010) and is currently finishing a manuscript on the breakup of Sudan as a further entrenchment of violence.

The devastating clashes that took place in South Sudan’s capital Juba between July 7 and 11 left hundreds dead and forced thousands to flee their homes. It has also left a city on edge, as security continues to be fragile and livelihoods shattered. It has worsened the economic situation of a country already in bankruptcy, as foreign traders who supply food markets were hit by both the looting of their shops and by insecurity on the supply routes from the neighboring countries.

The violence pitted units of the national army that are under President Salva Kiir against troops backing his long time rival, First Vice President Riek Machar Teny. The two were engaged in a civil war for the last two years, a war that was recently settled through the Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (ARCISS). This agreement was signed in August 2015, culminating in the formation of a power-sharing government in April 2016.

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