Blog Posts in International Institutions

Just six months remain before the Somali Transitional Federal Government’s time is up to ready the country for more permanent governing structures and institutions after more than 20 years of civil war. Marking the start of that countdown, British Prime Minister David Cameron convened a high-profile conference today in London to map out plans for concluding the transition and rally support for the many costly initiatives currently underway inside Somalia.

But what’s the good of a ‘transition’ that primarily focuses on surface-level tasks—in and of themselves no small feat in Somalia—like replacing the current leaders and building more representative, streamlined institutions? To Somalia expert Ken Menkhaus, such a process would produce little more than new names and faces but with “the same frustrating outcome.”

The recent spate of violence in Jonglei state has drawn the world’s attention to the cyclical problem of inter-communal violence in South Sudan. When another round of violence between the Lou-Nuer and Murle people reignited in late December 2011, it was accompanied by disturbing press releases from the so-called Lou-Nuer White Army calling for the extermination of the Murle people, which appalled the public in South Sudan and beyond. Leading officials from Jonglei state, including the governor himself, do not give too much importance to these statements, but are they being too dismissive?