The Peacecraft ® Center Mission to South Sudan.

Following its recent intensive, successful Mission to South Sudan, The Peacecraft Center is readying the next stage of its Sudanese operations  -  now being planned for Summer 2011. 

The Peacecraft ® Center (PC)  -  the Swiss Centre for Mediation against War  -  is a not-for-profit arm of the Geneva School of Diplomacy & International Relations. The Center’s recent mission to South Sudan included fact-finding as well as extensive plans for mediation and capacity building. The visit to Juba, capital of the soon-to-be-named Republic of South Sudan was headed by the Center’s President, Dr. Colum Murphy, and included also as Political Officer, Ms Andrea Attig and, as Interim Coordinator, Suddha Chakravartti. South Sudan, the world’s newest country, is destined to become independent on 9 July 2011. The three-person Peacecraft team travelled from Geneva to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, before arriving in Juba, South Sudan, on 23 March 2011.

The purpose of the mission was to assess ways in which The Peacecraft Center could be of assistance to the world’s newest country as it faces the challenges of nation-building. The visit of the Peacecraft team followed the recent referendum in which the people of South Sudan voted overwhelmingly for secession from Northern Sudan and for the creation of a new state to be called The Republic of South Sudan.

The mission focused on potential for collaboration with the new government of South Sudan in the political, humanitarian, educational and business areas. The Peacecraft team was warmly welcomed by the government:  many of its ministers and leaders expressed specific confidence in the Peacecraft Center as a future  -  and already very welcome  -  partner.

The new Republic of South Sudan urgently needs a security pact or arrangement, a foreign trade agreement, and a strengthening of relations with its neighbours:  diplomatic missions will need to be established with the D.R. of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia and the about-to-emerge new (failing?) state of Northern Sudan. Moreover, the new resource-rich country of South Sudan will become a member of the United Nations and an important new player on the regional, African and world scene.

Humanitarian issues   

Some 80% of  S. Sudan’s citizens are illiterate. Some 30% struggle with hunger. Though a strong educated class exists in the country, all contributions of the PC and GSD are welcome. Situated as the PC and GSD are  -  at the heart of the most diplomatic neighbourhood on the planet, amid Geneva’s some 200 International Organizations  -  the PC is perfectly placed to guide South Sudan to where it can receive the help it badly needs.

Through its GSD faculty expertise, the PC is also in a position to advise the GOSS (government of South Sudan) on political policy, diplomatic skills, monetary and fiscal policy, trade issues, education concerns, health problems  -  and a host of other issues.

Legal issues

Constitution drafting and creation of strong democratic institutions as well as healthy checks and balances on power to be built into the new country are matters of great urgency for South Sudan and offer broad possibilities for the PC to be of very substantial and sincere help.

Conclusions and “the next steps”

The Peacecraft Center will now be preparing short-term courses for a wide variety of Sudan Sudan officials. The PC will also be helping with raising general literacy levels throughout the country.

As emphasized by numerous South Sudan officials there is also an urgent need for returning rebel fighters to now deal with the traumas of war and manage the difficult  transition of their fellow soldiers and units into law-abiding new citizens and building blocks of the new state. The PC will help with this psychological counseling and retraining. Finally, a small number of Fellowships or Part-Fellowships will be provided by GSD to assist the necessary educational aims of the new leadership. 

The potential for development of the new Republic of South Sudan is very great. A new country, South Sudan is some four times larger than Switzerland but with a population of only some 10 million. The country is rich in oil, diamonds, gold, copper and minerals sought after by high technology. Moreover, South Sudan is rich in water resources from both the Nile and monsoon rains and has a varied landscape that also includes an important rain forest of great value.

The new country, however, faces now a danger that is perhaps greater than the enemy it faced in decades of recent war  -  the emergence of the least admirable aspects of human nature in individual drives for power and wealth at the expense of fellow citizens, democracy and liberty. While the present atmosphere in South Sudan is one of victorious euphoria, the likelihood now of such emerging power struggles among different factions is extremely high. Without strong institutions and without a strong system of checks and balances (which do not yet exist) South Sudan is in danger, alas, of falling into dictatorship and authoritarianism of one form or another  -  as so many countries in Africa and elsewhere have done. The Peacecraft Center has offered its (very welcome !) services in preventing or slowing down the emergence  -  through mediation, communication and capacity building  -  of such undesirable and assuredly cruel outcomes, disappointing to a whole people who have fought for and deserve a thriving and prosperous and free Republic of South Sudan.

As an early and useful next step the Peacecraft Center has therefore invited prominent South Sudan leaders to a series of round-table discussions in Geneva in late Summer of this year, 2011.

With its long experience of conflict mediation and its across-the-board access to state-of-the-art mediation and related skills, the Peacecraft Center is in a good position to help the new country. The Peaceraft Center is also able to bring to the table the best expertise,  advice and training programmes and place these at the disposal of the new leaders of the new country. This peace process is their process: it belongs to the people of South Sudan, not to foreigners. Nevertheless, the Center is ready to place its renown, its long experience and its skills entirely at the service of the people of South Sudan  -  making a small but vital contribution, therefore, to the always difficult pursuit of peace and the urgent tasks of nation building.

(Note: readers who wish to contribute to this peace process are invited to contact The Peacecraft Center by e-mailing it at: info@thepeacecraftcenter.com For this and similar projects, unpaid Internships with The Peacecraft Center are also soon to become available. Readers with views, suggestions, access and contacts are also welcome as to other areas of the world where the mediation and related skills of The Peacecraft Center can be best and most effectively utilized.)