understanding land investment deals in africa - Oakland Institute

within the local government council are responsible forthe “mediation of consultation processes of land leasebetween the community and other investors.” 59 TheInvestment Promotion Act lays out the procedures forcertifying and licensing foreign investors to operate inSouth Sudan. It explicitly limits foreign investments inagriculture and forestry to renewable terms of 30 and60 years, respectively. Due to the poor uptake of theselaws, however, many government institutions are notaware of this restriction and continue to issue 99-yearleases to foreign investors for agriculture and forestryinvestments.“Land Belongs to the Community”The right of communities to exercise ownership andcontrol over their land and natural resources was at theheart of the struggle in South Sudan. During the civilwar, John Garang used the slogan “land belongs to thecommunity” extensively to rally popular support for theSPLM/A. In the post-CPA period, communities havebegun to expect and demand that they be involved indecisions relating to the use of community land. In theview of many South Sudanese, communities earnedtheir ownership rights by virtue of the sacrifices theymade during the civil war. According to Bukulu Edward,the speaker of the Western Equatoria State legislativeassembly:“When people were fighting for this land, therewere no resources for fueling the war. The [SudanPeople’s Liberation] Movement had to go to thechiefs, to the people at the grassroots level, andsay, “Give us your children. Let them come. We willtrain them to fight for this land. It is their land.” Thereturn for their sacrifice is the services, protection,stability, and peace that must be guaranteed bythe government. The people are the owners of theland, not the government. If they refused to givetheir children to go and fight—to go and die—wewould not be where we are today.” 60Despite the popularity of community land ownershipamong South Sudanese, some government officials areadopting a revisionist approach to this history, arguingthat the “land belongs to the community” policy wasmerely a clever ploy used to protect the resources ofSouth Sudan during the negotiation of the CPA and wasnot meant to apply in an independent South Sudan.Several high profile government officials are nowattempting to redefine the land law in order to give thegovernment additional control over community land.Given the importance of land to local livelihoodsand the fact that rural populations have sacrificed somuch in order to control their community lands, theseattempts to undermine community land ownershipare likely to face stiff opposition from groups at thelocal level. It is also unclear how the governmentcould roll back its commitments while complying withuniversally-accepted standards of due process. Thegovernment has already endorsed an expansive viewof community land ownership in the Land Act, andany attempts to redefine the law at this point wouldconstitute an expropriation for which the governmentwould be obligated to compensate the communitylandowners. Since it is impractical to compensatesuch a large population, there is very little scope forrestructuring the law without violating the rights ofrural populations.The Oakland Institute understanding land investment deals in africa: south sudan | 15