The Project
This project was inspired by research that I conducted April 2019 in Adjumani Refugee Settlements in Northern Uganda. Most of the refugees at these settlements are from South Sudan. I was researching food security and livelihoods, and through the experience was able to interact with a number of refugees. My translators at Boroli Refugee Settlement, as well as all that I was seeing, really inspired me to learn more and become more involved.
It took me about three weeks to settle on a topic simply because of how much there was to study and because of how many topics I wanted to learn more about. Initially it was hard to pinpoint the exact direction I would want to take since my knowledge in the field was very limited. I began by reading as much as I could, and the more I read, the more intrigued I became by the mentality of violence that is perpetuated both by decades of fighting and by the proliferation of weapons throughout the country. I was also really interested in the complex interaction between different ethnic and non-ethnic causes that eventually led to the start of the South Sudanese Civil War in 2013.
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That is what brought me to my (somewhat) more narrow focus of disarmament. I decided to explore the disarmament campaign in South Sudan as well as the role of disarmament in the perpetuation of violence in South Sudan. While there is literature on disarmament initiatives and the failures of disarmament, there is a lack of research on the implications of that failure. The literature also focuses more on analysing the outcome of disarmament rather than on the process that took place in the interim period between 2005 and 2011, and before the civil war in South Sudan broke out in 2013.
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Research Objectives
​This research aims to:
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Understand the political framework that guided disarmament in South Sudan between 2005 and 2013
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Explore why disarmament campaigns failed and the subsequent implications
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Question why certain states have no reported disarmament activities
Research Questions
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What was the political framework that guided disarmament between 2005 and 2013?
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How did disarmament contribute to the start of the civil war in 2013?
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Are there similar trends between states with no disarmament activities and states with disarmament activities?
Justification
Ultimately disarmament in South Sudan failed in the period between 2005-2013. It is important to understand the failures of disarmament and the implications to avoid making the same mistakes when the South Sudanese Civil War eventually comes to an end. Furthermore, this study will explore the relationship between geography and disarmament, which is an analysis distinct to what currently exists in the literature.
As of 2018, the government re-initiated some disarmament campaigns throughout the country, but as fighting continues, the results are yet to be conclusive.
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I selected the time-period of 2005 to 2013 for three reasons: (1) 2005 is when the fighting between Sudan and South Sudan ended; (2) 2005-2011 was an interim period set by the CPA that prioritised DDR in the country; (3) disarmament was scheduled to continue into 2013 before the civil war broke out.