ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to explain the structure of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, how it has evolved in response to rebellion and the process of armed group integrations that have featured as a central element of peacemaking since 2005. It claims that the mixture of cleavages that have been both manufactured and cemented through the process of peace-making has structured the situation of renewed violence in South Sudan. The fractured and incoherent construction of the SPLA and the corresponding culture of rebellion, the chapter concludes is the key dynamic that enables continued war in South Sudan, and in many respects defined the nature of that war. One of the central aims of the chapter, then, is to explain the dynamic of integration and disintegration as a part of the culture of rebellion and how brokering peace is approached allows an understanding that the tool of armed group integration is central in the nature of war rather than a tool for peace. Another aim is to show how the appearance of various irregular proxy militia, is correspondingly is the result of fragmentation and factionalization of the security services and the existing state of affairs in South Sudan.
