Power Struggle Or Ethenic Conflict—The Root Causes Of The Civil War In South Sudan

The outbreak of civil war caused a tremendous catastrophe in South Sudan which was the youngest country in the world, and there are two different opinions about why the devastating civil war eventually broke out. Some people suggested that it was the ever-lasting power conflicts in Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement(SPLM) that provoked the civil war, while the others claimed that the real rooted cause of the civil war was the sophisticated ethnic relations. So, what is the root cause of the civil? Finding the root cause is the main aim of this article.SPLM was firstly established during the Sudan north-south war, this movement, as an initiator leading the national independence revolution, successfully became the only one legitimate political party when South Sudan was founded. However, the period of time of power conflict within SPLM was nearly as long as that of SPLM itself, power conflict accompanied SPLM from the time of north-south war to the signing of Comprehensive Peaceful Agreement and the independence and development of South Sudan. During the war times, the common desire for achieving national independence united a variety of forces while the power conflict was temporarily suppressed, which ultimately liberated South Sudan after encountering so many obstacles. Nevertheless, the failure of SPLM’s transformation, difficulties in political party’s restructure and the failure to transfer or suppress the political leader’s desire for power through state institutions, finally led power conflict to a comprehensive nation-scale civil war.There are also complicated ethnic problems in South Sudan, such as clear feature of ethnic politics, frequent ethical confrontations, fragments and diversity of ethnic groups, all of these can be regarded as catalysts to foster power conflicts. After South Sudan got its independence, the ethnic problems were gradually appearing in reality, and as a result, the youngest country was eventually driven into war of conflicts by the political leaders deliberately utilizing the ethnic contradictions who are from different ethnic backgrounds with individual supporting forces.This paper argues that the power struggle between the leaders of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement is the direct cause of the outbreak of civil war in South Sudan. While the failure of governance is the root cause of civil war----the one-party dominance, lacking of political ideas, and imperfect institutional construction of SPLM; the weak National structure;the failure of army integration. As a result, power struggle between the leaders can not be solved through legitimate channels. Finally,under the the complex South Sudan ethnic conflict, personal political ambition and lusting for power replaced the weak political system construction, which eventually leading the country into violent conflict.