What's behind south Sudan unrest?

Scrambling for access to natural resources, settling ethnic scores, fighting over cattle and Christian extremism, are among the causes of the resurgence of violence in mainly Christian south Sudan.

Every month since the beginning of the year has brought its share of ethnic bloodshed in south Sudan.

Hundreds have been killed in different parts of the south, but the reasons behind the killings differ.

On Sunday, more than 100 people were killed in Jonglei when members of the Lou section of Nuer ethnic group raided the village of Duk Padiet, where the Hol section of the Dinka form the majority community.

Clashes between rival ethnic groups in south Sudan erupt frequently -- often sparked by cattle rustling and disputes over natural resources, while others are in retaliation for previous attacks.

However, a series of recent raids has shocked many, with an apparent sharp rise in attacks on women and children, as well as the targeting of homesteads.

In the latest violence, "it is quite clear that the focus of the attack was on the organised forces themselves," said David Gressly, regional coordinator for the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) in charge of monitoring the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between north and south.

The conflict is in south Sudan is internal and has nothing to do with the current central government in Khartoum.

At the end of the civil war, several southern militias were integrated into the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army, the mainstream rebel group that now leads the autonomous regional government in the south.

"That integration is not completed and there continues to be friction," said EJ Hogendoorn, International Crisis Group's Horn of Africa project director.

"Many of these units remain much more loyal to individuals within the SPLA or the SPLM than the institutions themselves. So there is a real fear that these units could in one way become independent militias again," he added.

Historical rivalries with the region's largest ethnic group, the Dinka of late SPLM/A leader John Garang, prompted some Nuer to form a breakaway rebel faction and militias among other dissident ethnic groups throughout the 1983-2005 civil war.

Since the war ended, security forces have launched several attempts to seize arms across the south, a region awash with automatic weapons left over from the devastating conflict.

However, previous disarmament campaigns have been criticised for exacerbating violence. Heavy-handed but ineffective, they have left some regions at risk of attack from their still armed neighbours.

More than 2,000 people have died and 250,000 been displaced in inter-ethnic violence across south Sudan since January, according to the United Nations, which says the rate of violent deaths now surpasses that in Darfur.

There is also the influence of Christian extremism on some of the locals.

Attacks by rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) fighters in West and Central Equatoria since December have also affected some 100,000 people, according to UN estimates.

LRA launched a series of bloody attacks after Uganda, southern Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) began a joint operation against them last December.

For two decades the Christian extremist LRA has abducted thousands of children in northern Uganda and committed hideous atrocities, slicing off victims' ears and noses and padlocking their lips together. The conflict has killed tens of thousands and uprooted 2 million people.

Many Sudanese children were abducted by the Christian group, notorious for kidnapping children to use as sex slaves and combatants.

The guerrilla group aims to establish a theocratic government in Uganda, based on the Christian Bible and the Ten Commandments.

LRA leader Joseph Kony is said to have named one of his sons "George Bush" in 2006.

Some brutal methods used by south Sudanese civilians brutally murdering each other resemble some of the tactics of the Christian extremist LRA, who had recruited many for its biblical cause.

Source: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=34506