Analysis Of Igat's Role In Mediating The Civil War In South Sudan

IGAD has experienced a continuous institutional and functional evolution,and it has played a positive role in handling security crises in the subregion.After the outbreak of South Sudan's civil war in late 2013,IGAD quickly launched a mediation operation.However,the IGAD-led mediation failed to yield satisfactory resolution immediately.The mediation orienting to establish a power-sharing government enhanced the belligerents' divisions and confrontations severely.The peacekeeping programs relying on ceasefire monitoring experienced repeated failures,and gave rise to the four years iteration of mediation-ceasefire-outbreak-mediation.The passable peace in South Sudan based on an inclusive power-sharing agreement among parties finally restored with the help of multiple external actors in 2018.Although IGAD-led mediation in South Sudan was more proactive,pragmatic and open than the past operations,it still encountered similar frustrations as before,such as the complicate nature of the conflicts and weak governance capability of IGAD.The predicaments in South Sudan emphasized the threats to the IGAD-led security governance mechanism,including latent dangers caused by historical conflicts between ethnic groups,unconsolidated coordination caused by the complex international politics in the subregion and the capability deficits undermined by IGAD's insufficient funds.The case in South Sudan also manifested a more fundamental problem facing by the Horn of Africa's security governance mechanism,namely,the dilemma of the security governance concepts and methods.IGAD was guided by the concept of liberal peace,which led to its main pursuit of "technical" improvement in security governance,with a narrow focus on promoting "negative peace" and "human's security" through peacemaking and peacekeeping tools.The concept of liberal peace set a premise of political democratization in peace process and showed indifferent to issues that can eliminate the roots of conflicts.The Horn of Africa countries may re-examine the concept of liberal peace and the value of development peace,which advocates a path to peace and security by promoting economic development and enhancing economic integration in the subregion.This is a path to eliminating the social roots of conflicts and strengthening the capabilities of Horn of Africa's security governance mechanisms.