Upper Nile State

Mapping Actors and Alliances Project in South Sudan An initiative of the Small Arms Survey’s Human Security Baseline Assessment (HSBA) Project www.maapss.org Update No. 6 MAAPSS Update 13 May 2021 Upper Nile State What’s new in Upper Nile? • The Padang Dinka administration of Upper Nile is controlled by Deputy • As MAAPSS previously reported in Governor James Tor Monybuny, a former February 2021, the beginning of the year governor of Central Upper Nile state. saw the appointment of a Shilluk Budhok’s weakness relative to governor for Upper Nile, Budhok Ayang Monybuny is indicated by Monybuny’s Kur, and his Padang Dinka deputy, James continuing use of gerrymandering to Tor Monybuny. Their appointments have arrogate the east bank of the White Nile sent shockwaves through the state, and to the exclusive control of the Padang greatly increased instability in Malakal Dinka; Budhok has done nothing to halt and the surrounding area. these tactics. Most recently, in March 2021, the Padang Dinka, with the • On 27 March, the day that Budhok was connivance of Minister of Cabinet Affairs to arrive at the airport in Malakal for his Martin Elia Lomuro, attempted to official entrance as governor, Abu redistrict Malakal out of Makal county, Shoq—a Padang Dinka militia force and make Wau Shilluk the county capital. recruited and organized in Baliet This would place Malakal town within an county—attacked Shilluk community area of exclusive Padang Dinka control. members at three different locations in This latest administrative attempt to Malakal. The Shilluk were heading to the push the Shilluk from the east bank of airport to meet the governor; the attacks the White Nile is worrisome because of a were designed to stoke fear in the proposed census that should be held in community. Six Shilluk were confirmed 2022; the Padang Dinka administration is dead, with another six sustaining hoping to lock forced-demographic shifts gunshot injuries. These attacks are only into county- and state-level populations, the latest in a line of attacks on the in anticipation of future elections.1 Shilluk by Padang Dinka militias, which have largely displaced the Shilluk from • Budhok’s weakness, relative to the east bank of the White Nile. As of Monybuny, is also indicated by his failure May 2021, the only hold the Shilluk still to appoint a mayor of Malakal. On 15 have on east bank is the Protection of March, Budhok chose Francis Nynyang Civilians (PoC) site, which the United Awok Ajang, but in a blatant show of the Nations Mission in South Sudan substantive power-relations dictating (UNMISS) plans to downgrade to an politics in Upper Nile, Monybuny blocked Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp the appointment. controlled by the government—in this case, the Padang Dinka administration • In the context of continuing unrest, that have displaced the Shilluk, and political contention over territories pushed them into the PoC. 1 Mapping Actors and Alliances Project in South Sudan An initiative of the Small Arms Survey’s Human Security Baseline Assessment (HSBA) Project www.maapss.org Update No. 6 between the Padang Dinka and the humanitarian assistance. Despite the Shilluk, and the massive displacement enormous housing, land, and property that has occurred during the South (HLP) issues involved in government- Sudanese civil war, Kiir’s government is organized movements of people, the supporting the intensification of returns operations of international of Padang Dinka groups into politically organisations—including the United contentious territories. These population Nations High Commissioner for Refugees movements are an attempt to create (UNHCR)—are helping the government durable Padang Dinka majorities in these achieve its political goals by moving contested counties. Padang Dinka populations into Baliet county. The UNHCR provided trucks and • Padang Dinka groups from the Ngok Lual buses to move the IDPs and organized Yak subsection are being moved into the delivery of humanitarian assistance Baliet county, with a majority of them when the IDPs arrived at three selected relocating from Melut. Deputy Governor sites in Baliet: Adong, Baliet town, and Monybuny is also from the Ngok Lual Yak Riangnom. The UNHCR organized these subsection, as is Chol Thon Balok, the returns despite disquiet among much of most powerful Padang Dinka in the the humanitarian community due to the government, who currently serves as political issues involved. Once again, the deputy minister of defence and veteran’s government of South Sudan is affairs. Support for Padang Dinka groups’ instrumentalizing aid to serve its political movement into Baliet can be understood interests. as Monybuny—and his boss, Balok— rewarding their constituency with land Why does it matter? and resources (as well as creating ethnic majorities in politically contentious • Johnson Olonyi, the leader of the Shilluk counties, as indicated above). This Agwelek, is already feeling alienated scheme commenced in April, and by mid- from a Sudan People’s Liberation Army in May, 5,654 people had moved to Baliet Opposition (SPLA-IO) leadership county; 2,500 remain in Melut. increasingly beholden to Kiir’s regime in Juba. In his latest act of rebellion, Olonyi • The large numbers of people moving into appointed himself 1st lieutenant general, Baliet represent a substantial proportion in a fit of pique at being passed over in of the county’s population. At the last the latest round of opposition rank- census in 2009, Baliet only had a inflation in Juba. Functionally, Olonyi’s population of 48,010. Since then, Akoka forces will no longer be part of the SPLA- county was created, split off from Baliet IO under Machar. However, without the (population: 9,833), and the Shilluk possibility of Sudanese support—which, population were displaced from the thanks to Tut Kew Gatluak’s role in Kiir’s county. administration, will not be forthcoming—Olonyi’s forces do not • One of the most important rewards that have the capacity to offer military Balok and Monybuny can give to their resistance to the continuing Padang Dinka constituency is consolidation of Padang Dinka power 2 Mapping Actors and Alliances Project in South Sudan An initiative of the Small Arms Survey’s Human Security Baseline Assessment (HSBA) Project www.maapss.org Update No. 6 over the east bank of the White Nile. Malakal PoC. Two minimum conditions Continuing violence against the Shilluk for the PoC site becoming an IDP camp may still force Olonyi’s hand, however, should be: and push him back to outright war, even if it is a war he cannot hope to win. o The police force responsible for IDP protection should not be composed of • Should UNMISS close the Malakal the very people who displaced the Protection of Civilians (PoC) site as Shilluk population into the PoC site. (If planned, the security of the Shilluk UNMISS were to withdraw from the population there will hinge on the Malakal PoC tomorrow, these are actions of a state government hostile to precisely the people who would it. determine the fate of the Shilluk.) • With a census scheduled for 2022, o There should be a far-reaching and government-organized population sustainable package of measures taken movements are likely to lock-in Padang to addresses HLP issues in Malakal and Dinka majorities in contentious counties elsewhere on the east bank of the and give sanction to the civil war’s White Nile. campaigns of ethnic displacement. However, considering UNMISS’ • Coupled with population transfers, the withdrawal of force protection from the gerrymandering of Makal county will Rubkona PoC, which subsequently left deepen ethnic tensions between the overall security for the newly designated Shilluk and the Padang Dinka, further IDP camp to John Bul Mayik––who as undermining the possibility of a commissioner of Mayom County raised sustainable solution to the political and the Terschuong militia that displaced ethnic problems of Upper Nile. southern Nuer into the PoC––and given that no substantive HLP work has been What now? done in Bentiu (where land has rather been ‘acquired’ by Governor Nguen • Before returns to contested territories in Monytuil), it is likely that an UNMISS Upper Nile can be countenanced, a withdrawal from the Malakal PoC will robust HLP program anchored in serious not meet the two conditions above, and Shilluk-Padang Dinka dialogue is needed, will increase insecurity among Shilluk with an emphasis placed on community- PoC residents. driven resolution to conflicts over land and politics.2 Without a formal Main Developments in Upper Nile agreement between the Shilluk and the Padang Dinka on these matters, any State politics humanitarian assistance with returns is premature. For Machar, Budhok’s appointment as governor continues a pattern of appointing • The conditions are not in place for a people within his family clique; Budhok is drawdown of force protection at the from Kodok, as is Angelina Teny’s mother. 3 Mapping Actors and Alliances Project in South Sudan An initiative of the Small Arms Survey’s Human Security Baseline Assessment (HSBA) Project www.maapss.org Update No. 6 Rather than building alliances via his by subsection and are ultimately appointments, Machar is increasingly answerable to Chol Thon Balok. Monybuny invested in maintaining the little power is so closely aligned with Balok that each that he has: survival, not growth, is the time he is given a government order of the day. appointment, the other Padang Dinka sections in Upper Nile decry nepotism— Appointing Budhok was one of the few the original reason he was removed as moves available to Machar. A Shilluk from governor of Central Upper Nile in 2019. Olonyi’s camp, he was palatable to the Shilluk population—witness the crowds Monybuny’s aims as deputy governor are that were to come to welcome him when to consolidate de jure control of the east he arrived in Malakal.

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