Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T06:28:28.245Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The politics of displacement-related land conflict in Yei River County, South Sudan*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

Peter Hakim Justin  and
Mathijs van Leeuwen
Peter Hakim Justin*
Affiliation:
African Studies Centre (ASC), Leiden University, PO Box 9555, 2300 RB Leiden, the Netherlands
Mathijs van Leeuwen*
Affiliation:
Centre for International Conflict Analysis and Management (CICAM), Institute for Management Research, Radboud University Nijmegen/African Studies Centre, Leiden University, the Netherlands
*
Email: [email protected]
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Drawing on empirical evidence from Yei River County in South Sudan, this paper argues that, rather than a temporary phenomenon, displacement may lead to a drastic reorganisation of land occupation and governance. Such reorganisation may become strongly connected to broader political contention. In the case of Yei, existing legal frameworks and institutions are inadequate to deal with land conflicts resulting from massive displacement and return. Crucially, historical grievances result in the displaced no longer being perceived as powerless victims, but as agents of a Dinka agenda to (re)occupy territories in Equatoria, and as perpetrators in land conflict. Such politics of land-control and identity may turn land disputes between displaced people and returnees into a major source of instability. At the same time, those displaced people who are not well-connected politically may lose their land rights.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 3 , September 2016 , pp. 419 - 442
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This research is part of the research programme ‘Grounding Land Governance – Land Conflicts, Local Governance and Decentralization in Post-Conflict Uganda, Burundi and Southern Sudan’, funded by NWO-Wotro Science for Global Development, Grant number W 01.65.332.00, the Netherlands.

References

REFERENCES

André, C. & Platteau, J.P.. 1998. ‘Land relations under unbearable stress: Rwanda caught in the Malthusian trap’, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 34, 1: 1–47.Google Scholar
Autesserre, S. 2008. ‘The trouble with Congo’, Foreign Affairs 87, 3: 94–110.Google Scholar
Badiey, N. 2013. ‘The strategic instrumentalization of land tenure in ‘state-building’: the case of Juba, South Sudan’, Africa 83, 1: 57–77.Google Scholar
Berry, S. 2002. ‘Debating the land question in Africa’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 44: 638–68.Google Scholar
Boone, C. 2007. ‘Property and constitutional order: land tenure reform and the future of the African state’, African Affairs 106, 425: 557–86.Google Scholar
Branch, A. & Mampilly, Z.C.. 2005. ‘Winning the war, but losing the peace? The dilemma of SPLM/A civil administration and the task ahead’, Journal of Modern African Studies 43, 1: 1–20.Google Scholar
Chaveau, J.-P. & Richards, P.. 2008. ‘West-African insurgencies in agrarian perspective: Côte d'Ivoire and Sierra Leone compared’, Journal of Agrarian Change 8, 4: 515–52.Google Scholar
De Vries, L. & Justin, P.H.. 2014. ‘Un mode de gouvernement mis en échec: dynamiques de conflit au Soudan du Sud, au-delà de la crise politique et humanitaire’, Politique Africaine 135, 3: 159–75.Google Scholar
De Wit, P. 2004. Land Property Study in Sudan. Interim Report: scoping of issues and questions to be addressed. Unpublished report. Norwegian Refugee Council, UNHCR and FAO.Google Scholar
Deng, K., Deng, M., Pritchard, F. & Sharma, M.. 2015. Perceptions of Truth, Justice, Reconciliation and Healing in Malakal POC. Juba, South Sudan.Google Scholar
Dreef, S. & Wagner, W.. 2013. Designing elections in conflict-prone divided societies: the case of South Sudan. Frankfurt: Peace Research Institute.Google Scholar
Fanthorpe, R. 2001. ‘Neither citizen nor subject? ‘Lumpen’ agency and the legacy of native administration in Sierra Leone’, African Affairs 100, 400: 363–86.Google Scholar
Grajales, J. 2011. ‘The rifle and the title: paramilitary violence, land grab and land control in Colombia’, Journal of Peasant Studies 38, 4: 771–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harpviken, K.B. 2008. From “Refugee Warriors” to “Returnee Warriors”: militant homecoming in Afghanistan and beyond. Global Migration and Transnational Politics Working Paper 5.Google Scholar
Haslie, A. 2006. Between victim and warrior: political mobilization among Sudanese refugees in Uganda. Masters thesis, Hovedoppgave.Google Scholar
Huggins, C. & Clover, J.. 2005. From the Ground Up: land rights, conflict and peace in sub-Saharan Africa. Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies.Google Scholar
ICG 2009. Jonglei Tribal Conflict: Counter Insecurity in Southern Sudan. International Crisis Group, Africa Report 154.Google Scholar
Johnson, D.H. 2003. The root causes of Sudan's civil wars, Vol. 5. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Jok, J.M. 2011. Diversity, unity, and nation building in South Sudan. US Institute of Peace.Google Scholar
Jok, J.M. & Hutchinson, S.E.. 1999. ‘Sudan's prolonged second civil war and the militarization of Nuer and Dinka ethnic identities’, African Studies Review 42, 2: 125–45.Google Scholar
Juba, B. 2009. Breeding Fragmentation? Issues in the Policy and Practice of Decentralisation in Uganda.Google Scholar
Justin, P.H. & Kenyi, J.J.. 2015. Federalism, Marginalization and Local Geopolitics in Central Equatoria State: conflict and cooperation in the Equatorias. USAID Case Studies Series, 150–72.Google Scholar
Kalyvas, S.N. 2006. The Logic of Violence in Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Komey, G.K. 2010. ‘Ethnic identity politics & boundary making in claiming communal land: Nuba Mountains after the CPA’, in Grawert, E., ed. After the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan. Oxford: James Currey, 110–29.Google Scholar
Korf, B. & Fünfgeld, H.. 2006. ‘War and the commons: assessing the changing politics of violence, access and entitlements in Sri Lanka’, Geoforum 37, 3: 391–403.Google Scholar
Land Act. 2009. Laws of Southern Sudan: The Land Act 2009. Juba, Southern Sudan.Google Scholar
Lebrun, E., ed. 2006. The South Sudan defence forces in the wake of the Juba declaration. Small Arms Survey.Google Scholar
Leonardi, D.C. 2007. ‘Violence, sacrifice and chiefship in Central Equatoria, Southern Sudan’, Africa 77, 4: 535–58.Google Scholar
Leonardi, D.C. 2011. ‘Paying ‘buckets of blood ‘for the land: moral debates over economy, war and state in Southern Sudan’, Journal of Modern African Studies 49, 2: 215–40.Google Scholar
LeRiche, M. & Arnold, M.. 2013. South Sudan: from revolution to independence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Local Government Act. 2009. Laws of Southern Sudan: The Local Government Act 2009. Juba, Southern Sudan.Google Scholar
Mamdani, M. 2001. ‘Beyond settler and native as political identities: overcoming the political legacy of colonialism’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 43, 4: 651–64.Google Scholar
Mamdani, M. 2014. When Victims Become Killers: colonialism, nativism, and the genocide in Rwanda. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Martin, E. & Sluga, N.. 2011. Sanctuary in the city? Urban displacement and vulnerability in Yei. South Sudan. HPG Working Paper, December 2011.Google Scholar
Nyaba, P.A. 1997. Politics of Liberation in South Sudan: an insider's view. Fountain Publications.Google Scholar
Pantuliano, S. 2007. The Land Question: Sudan's peace nemesis. Humanitarian Policy Group Working Paper (London: Overseas Development Institute).Google Scholar
Peluso, N.L. & Lund, C.. 2011. ‘New frontiers of land control: introduction’, Journal of Peasant Studies 38, 4: 667–81.Google Scholar
Peters, P.E. 2004. ‘Inequality and social conflict over land in Africa’, Journal of Agrarian Change 4, 3: 269–314.Google Scholar
Richards, P. 2005. ‘The politics of gender, human rights, and being indigenous in Chile’, Gender & Society 19: 199–220.Google Scholar
Salehyan, I. 2008. ‘The externalities of civil strife: refugees as a source of international conflict’, American Journal of Political Science 52, 4: 787–801.Google Scholar
Scott, P. 1985. ‘The Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement (SPLM) and Liberation Army (SPLA)’, Review of African Political Economy 33: 69–82.Google Scholar
Sikor, T. & Lund, C.. 2009. ‘Access and property: a question of power and authority’, Development and Change 40, 1: 1–22.Google Scholar
Sluga, N. 2010. Still a Long Way to Go: Local Integration of IDPs in Yei, Southern Sudan. A paper presented during expert seminar on protracted internal displacement. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) of the Norwegian Refugees Council (NRC).Google Scholar
TCRSS. 2011. Laws of South Sudan: The Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan. Juba, South Sudan.Google Scholar
Unruh, J.D. 2003. ‘Land tenure and legal pluralism in the peace process’, Peace & Change 28, 3: 352–77.Google Scholar
Van der Haar, G. & van Leeuwen, M.. 2013. Post-conflict ‘Land Grabbing’: governance challenges. Washington, DC: Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty 2013.Google Scholar
Van Leeuwen, M. & van der Haar, G.. 2016. ‘Theorizing the Land – Violent Conflict Nexus’, World Development 78: 94–104.Google Scholar
Vlassenroot, K. & Huggins, C.. 2005. ‘Land, migration and conflict in eastern DRC’, From the Ground Up: Land Rights, Conflict and Peace in sub-Saharan Africa, 115–95.Google Scholar

Interviews

AD, Land custodian (Monye Menu), Rwonyi community, Rwonyi, 3.5.2012.Google Scholar
AM, Head-chief, Tore Payam, Tore, 25.5.2012 & 2.11.2012.Google Scholar
CA, 2012 int. Sub-chief, Morsak Sub-boma, Yei, 3.5.2012.Google Scholar
CB, Chairman of a community-based organisation, Yei, 3.5.2012.Google Scholar
CC, Court clerk, Yei Payam court, Yei, 10.11.2012.Google Scholar
DP, Head of the landowning family involved in the conflict in Giru village, Giru, 9.9.2012, 13.12.2012; 31.1.2013 & 2.2.2013.Google Scholar
GB, Head-chief of Mugwo Payam, Mugwo, 19.11.2012.Google Scholar
ID, an IDP from Kajo-keji living in Giru village, Giru, 13.2.2013.Google Scholar
ID1 is an IDP from Kajo-keji who had his properties destroyed during the conflict in Giru, and ID2 an IDP from Lainya, also lost his properties in Giru, Yei, 25.3.2013.Google Scholar
IPCS, 2012 int. Director, Institute for Promotion of Civil Society (IPCS), Yei, 3.5.2012.Google Scholar
JE, Executive Director, Yei River County, Yei, 27.11.2012.Google Scholar
JJ, Resident of Giru, an eye witness to the conflict between DP and the IDPs, Yei, 2.2.2013.Google Scholar
JZ, a retired primary school teacher who was resettled by SPLA forces to Kaya in January 1990, Yei, 4.11.2012.Google Scholar
MM, Office manager, Yei magistrate court, Yei, 12.1.2012.Google Scholar
MT, Security advisor, County Commissioner's office, Yei, 24.11.2011Google Scholar
PL, 2012 int. Priest of the Episcopal Church of Sudan in Giru, Yei County Court, 14.12.2012.Google Scholar
PS, Head-chief Yei Payam, Yei, 9.11.2012Google Scholar
RB, Chairman, South Sudan Land Commission, Juba, 28.10.2011.Google Scholar
RL, Office Manager, County Commissioner's office manager, Yei, 31.3.2013.Google Scholar
SA, Executive-chief of Longamere Boma, Longamere, 2.2.2013.Google Scholar
SS, Three soldiers at Yei military barracks, Yei, 15.12.2012.Google Scholar