Second Sudanese Civil War

During Sudan’s 1983-2005 civil war, massive numbers of South Sudanese people were abducted and forced into chattel slavery by Arab tribal militias armed and supported by the central Sudanese government. It is probable that tens of thousands of these people remain in captivity in the Republic of Sudan following the secession of South Sudan. While the problem is officially acknowledged by the Sudanese government, the United States government and the United Nations, the issue of war slavery in Sudan has never been comprehensively addressed by these actors, despite the heavy and continued involvement of the U.S. and UN in Sudan’s peace processes. The improbably low estimates of enslaved people published by UNICEF and the U.S. State Department illustrate the continuing official disregard for this human rights crisis.

This paper lists various types of knowledge and relates them to a repertory of civil society peace-building strategies. Taking the East Bank of Equatoria in Sudan as a case of a complex political emergency, the need for a well-informed, finely-tuned, multi-actor, multi-level approach to conflict is argued. In this concrete case, civil society peace action is shown to link such phenomena as lobbying in the capitals of superpowers, demonstrations for corporate responsibility at the HQs of extractive industries, mediation between warlords, capacity building workshops for grassroots women peace activists, expert meetings on the restoration of the rule of law, the establishment of grassroots conflict-prevention networks, participatory land-use-planning meetings of traditional elders, and facilitation of peace marches by religious leaders. These diverse interventions are shown to be linked by civil society peace action into a single whole aimed at strengthening the forces for peace and weakening the forces of conflict.