Contenu du sommaire : Le Sud-Soudan est-il bien armé pour sa survie ?

One Sudan, Two Sudans, Many Sudans? In the aftermath of the Sudanese republic's split into two countries, this article looks for notions of an indivisible, a dual, or even multiple Sudans in contemporary-history writings about the country. The author uses a counterfactual approach, one justified by the relationships that still run through the region. He suggests that although some histories of the country affirmed the existence of “two Sudans,” helping create South Sudan in 2011, other historiographers have supported – and may well again – the idea of a common Sudan or that of a Sudanese “family.”

Challenges of State-Building in South Sudan This article analyzes the challenges of building the state of South Sudan. After two civil wars, the country finally negotiated its independence. The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the party in power, the National Congress Party, and the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement stipulated that a referendum on self-determination would decide South Sudan's future. In 2011, the plebiscite overwhelmingly favored secession and resulted in South Sudan declaring independence six months later, on the 9th of July. Since then, the country has been engaged in a delicate state-building process. In this article, the author examines existing systems – whether permanent or not – and argues that modern state-building rests on the institutionalization, bureaucratization and democratization of the state apparatus. The author extensively examines the choice between a federal versus a unitary model in this specific case. He also discusses yet-unsolved issues – security, corruption, and tribalism – and discusses how a freedom movement may be transformed into a stable democratic state.

State-Building and Training in South Sudan In this article, the author sketches out some of the major issues inherent in setting up the new Sudanese state. The designing of new institutions is far from being a cakewalk: rather it means working with interrelated and often varying interests, where old disagreements and new uneasily coexist with new administrative models.

Politics, Parentage and Religion Among the Nilotic Peoples Colonization and Sudan's civil wars have had tragic consequences for the Sudanese. However, the conf licts did not completely destroy the ancient social, political and religious structures of two Nilotic peoples, the Dinka and Nuer. In their own way, rather than submitting to economic (work, money) and legal changes (modern laws), the Nilotic peoples have “digested” change. Their lives continue to revolve around livestock. This article looks at livestock's role in religion, conflict resolution, and social and matrimonial relationships. The latest “innovation” in conf lict resolution seems to get the better of the former system of mediation by “religious chiefs.” Rif les have replaced lances and the blood spilled does not have the same value; it exonerates all responsibility and possibility of reconciliation. Previously, the central government combated clandriven conflict, creating a feeling of national identity; now it is incapable of stopping intertribal conf licts between hundreds or even thousands of young warriors fighting each other for livestock. These young fighters display ancient, primordial motives, but lack the moderating inf luence of now-absent ancestral and religious structures.

A Bit of France in the South Wau in the Bahr El Gahzal Region: From the Marchand Mission to Father Hubert Barbier The spread of Christianity played a driving role in South Sudan's nation-building process. This article discusses Catholicism's impact on Wau, a city in the Bahr el Gahzal region. Following on the Marchand Mission, the founding settlement of Wau, missionaries from the Comboni Mission worked to further spread Catholicism. After the horrors of Sudan's First Civil War (1955-1972), the Catholic Church Wau made a diocese in 1974, setting up an ambitious medical center and appointing a white Frenchman, Father Hubert Barbier to run it. Despite damage caused during the Second Civil War (1983-2005), the medical center building and its services endure because of Father Hubert's efforts to raise awareness in France about the center's work.

Diamonds (from Bokassa) Are Forever Protected Africa, the French president's private domain under the Fifth Republic, has gone from being the “King's secret” channel for diplomacy, as embodied by Jacques Foccart, to a source of highly-publicized scandals. The so-called “Diamond Affair” in 1973, when the notorious dictator and Central Africa Emperor Bokassa gave the then-minister and former French president, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, two diamonds, serves as the archetype of this change. The Diamond Affair dramatically altered how France's Africa policy was perceived; it fell from a lofty platform for national independence, as imagined by General De Gaulle, to a series of lowly scandals studded with shady secret agents. Digging through the media coverage of “Françafrique” should allow us to understand the “Foccart Syndrome” and see past rumors about the Africa Unit in the Elysée Palace, long considered the French Republic's most secret black box.