Armed and insecure

DIVERSION, ILLICIT TRAFFICKING AND ‘SEMI-OFFICIAL PROLIFERATION’ 191
South Sudan’s lack of policy and practices necessary for managing surplus arms, not to mention
funding limitations, have not been helpful in preventing diversion and trafficking: “the SPLA is
unable to demonstrate adequate controls over its existing arsenal; losses in battle are routine and
poor stockpile security is the norm”. 192 In addition, “South Sudan has not systematically destroyed
surplus or non-serviceable firearms since obtaining independence in 2011,” according to another
Small Arms Survey report. 193 Security forces have been reported to pass on weapons to the
civilian population, while soldiers have been accused of reselling weapons to the population that
the soldiers had collected after they were removed during disarmament campaigns. 194
Border areas have also seen weapons traded between pastoralist, tribal groups, militias and
other armed groups. The South Sudanese White Army—mainly ethnic Nuers from Jonglei and
Upper Nile states and associated with Riek Machar—procure weapons and ammunition locally
from traders across the border in Ethiopia’s Gambella region, according to Conflict Armament
Research, which maps arms flows in conflict zones. In the words of its director Jonah Leff, “the
majority of small arms that are available from traders locally are AK-type assault rifles. PKM
machine guns and RPGs are also available, but in much smaller quantities. However, German
HK G3 rifles sometimes cross the border from Ethiopia and Kenya”. 195
Arms were also distributed among citizens by the Khartoum government and the SPLA in the
years before the CPA, according to civil society organisation Saferworld: “In Lakes State (in
today’s South Sudan), the SPLA provided weapons to cattle keepers to enable them to protect
themselves and their communities from cattle raiders. The arming of these youth groups, known
as the gelweng, allowed the SPLA to shift their focus and efforts from community security to the
ongoing war with the north.” 196 Tribes are said to operate on the principle that there can be no
security except through the possession of weapons. “One only needs to read the newspaper
on any given day to understand the problem that the proliferation of small arms has caused
in South Sudan. For instance, armed robberies in urban centres, the hijacking of vehicles,
aid vehicles being detained, hundreds killed in cattle raiding, hundreds more killed in revenge
attacks – such incidents are devastatingly common throughout South Sudan,” according to
Saferworld. Meanwhile, the government’s inability to provide security to its citizens further fuels
the internal demand for arms.
UN investigators have also highlighted that the supply of weapons at the community level has
been part of the South Sudanese government’s war strategy. “The practice is so pervasive that
191 For an in-depth look at arms flows into southern Sudan between 2005 and independence, including patterns of diversion and illicit trafficking, see Small
Arms Survey, ‘Skirting the Law: Sudan’s Post-CPA Arms Flows’, HSBA, September 2009, http://www.smallarmssurveysudan.org/fileadmin/docs/working-papers/
HSBA-WP-18-Sudan-Post-CPA-Arms-Flows.pdf.
192 Small Arms Survey, ‘Reaching for the gun – Arms flows and holdings in South Sudan’, HSBA, April 2012.
193 Small Arms Survey, ‘Excess Arms in South Sudan’, HSBA, April 2014.
194 Further reading about South Sudan’s security and disarmament problems: BICC, ‘Guns are for the government’, 2014 and SSANSA, ‘The Catch-22 of
Security and Civilian Disarmament’, September 2013, http://www.paxvoorvrede.nl/publicaties/alle-publicaties/the-catch-22-of-security-and-civilian-disarmament.
195 The Guardian, ‘Africa’s arms dump’: following the trail of bullets in the Sudans’, October 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/02/-sp-africaarms-dump-south-sudan.
196 Quoted in The Guardian, ‘Africa’s arms dump’: following the trail of bullets in the Sudans’, October 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/02/-
sp-africa-arms-dump-south-sudan.
54 PAX ! Armed and insecure