The invention of incidents in Bazi
INTRODUCTION
This chapter zooms in on the various forms in which the South Sudanese semi-autonomous state manifests itself along the borders with Uganda and DR Congo.
After the historical overview in the previous chapter, this chapter starts with a de-scription of the border region by sketching the characteristics of the villages and towns investigated. The spatial features of the border are demonstrated and put in a context in which the state agents operate and shape the powers of the Southern Sudanese state. According to Sahlins (1989: 2), it is at the limits of a territory that the ‘state’s territorial competence finds its ultimate expression’. The presence of the border does indeed allow for the representatives of the state to enact, conduct and manifest the types of state power. This chapter illustrates how the area and the border itself show the various ways in which the state is expressed in different lo-calities.
These localities are conceptually defined as ‘pockets of state performance’, by which I mean those places where the powers of different levels of the state can be observed. The idea of pockets in Development Studies is linked to ‘effective agen-cies’ (Leonard 2010; Roll 2011) but I have a different understanding: pockets of state performance are spatially defined areas where state agents actively perform their powers. These pockets are found in the middle of a territory where the state is
‘distant’ (Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan 1997). There are pockets of dense state performance, which does not mean that they are effective, only that many state in-stitutions are present in contrast to other pockets where few inin-stitutions are working and are thus less dense.
This chapter is divided into two parts. The first provides an overview of the pockets of state performance along the border and shows the different paces that can be observed in the various pockets. I also try to define what is needed for the state to be performed. The presence of a checkpoint would seemingly provoke ac-tivity but then there are still large variations in the local force fields in which these
state powers are demonstrated and performed. How are, for instance, pockets con-nected to other pockets where the state is performed, or can they also operate in isolation? Pockets of state performance are characterized by a differential pace, of-ten despite their proximity. And they consequently illustrate different aspects of the state-building process.
The second part of this chapter focuses on one of the pockets of dense state per-formance: the role of state agents in Bazi in the production and negotiation of statehood. This is detailed in the specific context of the border with DR Congo as a space at ‘the intersection of state and society’ (Sahlins 1989: xvi). The presence of Congolese authorities contributes to the force field, which favours situations in which the Southern Sudanese state agents perform their powers. The dynamics between the different (categories of) actors are detailed to allow an understanding of the ways in which state agents need to invent or create situations that legitimize the exercise of their authority. As will be shown, this authority is not necessarily derived from the formal powers that the institutions in which they are active pro-vide but is rooted in a logic that was dominant in the SPLM/A guerrilla in which they were active and that allowed them to achieve the position in which they now perform the GoSS powers. In this logic, the issue of security turns out to be a pow-erful legitimizing force. This will be detailed through an analysis of an afternoon of skirmishes between the Congolese and the Southern Sudanese. The mixture of state agents on both the Congolese and Southern Sudanese sides with divergent interests in producing or manifesting their respective states creates a negotiation dynamics in which all ‘protagonists’ (Sahlins 1989) play a distinct and mutually reinforcing role.
The chapter also demonstrates how the performance of the state, through its agents, is connected to the border. The variations between these pockets along the Ugandan/Congolese border are shown. How do these different pockets of state density along the border relate to the centres of power in Juba and Yei? The chap-ter concludes by arguing that the border provides an excellent scene to study the performance of locally crafted authority. The agents operating in these pockets on the border base their claim to authority not solely on their formal powers but mix it with locally produced and negotiated claims. The mere fact that the state is being exercised on the border, irrespective of whether this performance contributes to or undermines the authority of the state, feeds into the process of state-building. State agents use different sets of legitimate claims depending on the connectivity of their particular locality to the centres of power. Through an analysis of the various char-acteristics of state performance, it will be shown that guerrilla logic and the new developments in Southern Sudan since the CPA express differential paces in Southern Sudan’s state-building depending on where they are observed.
(DIS)CONNECTED POCKETS OF STATE PERFORMANCE ALONG THE BORDER Before detailing the way statehood is manifested and being performed in Bazi, a journey is taken past the other border posts that were studied in this research. Dif-ferent forces are often at play in the villages despite their proximity. There are human and spatial characteristics that contribute to and condition the production of statehood. The regulations surrounding these are part of the strategies agents use to allow access (or not) (Sikor and Lund 2009). Border posts and checkpoints are resources that demand regulation, selection and enforcement. This access en-tails more than who is allowed in or out of the country and includes access to the force field among the range of state agents and institutions representing the central and local levels of government that, by default, contribute to regulating the border, in other words, the arenas where rule-making capacities are negotiated and di-vided (Moore 1973). The individual interests related to such access are to be seen through the perspective of people’s personal trajectories. To understand the ways in which this plays out in the villages along the Southern Sudanese border, it is necessary to focus on the resources and the repertoires of the actors there (Hag-mann and Péclard 2010).
It is argued that the powers of the state are not only being executed by individ-ual state agents but that they are, at the same time, also being shaped by these agents. In the context of Southern Sudan, the disconnect between the institutional framework by design and what actually happens in daily practice is as relevant as it is in many African states (Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan 1997; Blundo and Olivier de Sardan 2006; Chabal and Doloz 1999; Chalfin 2010; Roitman 2005). What is more interesting in this particular case is that, due to the CPA and the semi-autonomous status of the Government of South Sudan, various systems of govern-ance were to merge into one structure. Remnants of a government system designed in Khartoum had to be combined with the SPLM/A civil governance structures that emerged under the New Sudan administration in the liberated areas (see Chapter 3). This should be seen against the backdrop of an area where, in practice, very little governance had been in place. The numerous ‘indeterminacies’ in the state powers merging into one system of government (Moore 1978: 50) thus gave officers extensive discretionary powers.
The powers provided by the central government enrolled over the territory are not necessarily fading as distance from the centre increases or limited due to a lack of control. Instead, there are pockets of performance in the midst of spaces of non-performance. These are not just territorial but can also be legal or personal. An ex-plicit view on the ways in which state agents therefore contribute to these powers by performing them allows an understanding of the ways in which the central government attempts to effectively enhance its authority over the territory, which
seems to be only modestly embedded in more ‘formalized’, reproducible and ‘legi-ble’ ways (Scott 1998).
The active performance of statehood is not only confined to state agents of various sorts but is equally ensured by an ensemble of artefacts such as flags, ropes, uniforms and ranks. These silent manifestations contribute to the perform-ance and also produce the ‘state effect’ (Mitchell 1991). Silent performers become relevant when they are ‘legible’ and are understood by others who are supposed to read the message from their signs. The three mango trees planted by the Kakwa chiefs of the three countries in the border triangle at the top of a Ugandan hill in the early 1920s are a good example of a very early indication of state consciousness by people living along the border. The powers of the state in an area, for instance demonstrated by the border, are thus not only effective because of the people en-forcing them but also legitimized by those who endorse the authority of the state agents, as the examples of the chiefs in 1922 demonstrates. The result is a pocket of dense statehood, often surrounded by territory where the state is technically ruling but is not performed by state agents or symbolic representations, in other words is less ‘dense’ or even ‘absent’. The spatial analysis of the borders of Southern Sudan with Uganda and DR Congo demonstrate how the state is produced and how space, access and resources impact on authority and power.
Kaya
Coming from the trade and smuggling hub of Arua in West Nile, Uganda (Titeca 2006; Titeca and de Herdt 2010; Meagher 1990) and passing the Kakwa’s ancestral land of Koboko where Idi Amin came from (Leopold 2005, 2006), one arrives in Oraba where the border with South Sudan is at the bottom of the slope. Sometimes there are long lines of trucks waiting for clearance to cross into the booming import economy of Southern Sudan (Picture 4.1).1 On the other side of the bridge over the Kaya stream, a signpost welcomes people to Southern Sudan. Until separation and the independence of the South on 9 July 2011, entering the territory officially meant entering the Republic of Sudan. A visitor unaware of the situation could however easily ignore this reality because there is no reference anywhere to Sudan or its government in Khartoum. This is the case in Kaya but also in any other village or town in this border area that was liberated by the SPLA in 1997.
1 South Sudan has six formal border crossings with neighbouring DR Congo, Kenya and Uganda. Most goods, especially food and household items, enter Southern Sudan from Uganda. Nimulé and Kaya are the two main border crossings. The important one with Kenya is in Nadapal. Goods going to Juba mainly go via Nimulé as this is the shortest route from Kampala to Juba via Gulu. In early March 2009, the bridge over the Nile was not operational and all goods had to enter the country via Kaya. Picture 4.1 was taken at this time. As Southern Sudan itself produces very little, most trucks return empty.
While a tiny wooden kiosk still served as the immigration office in 2010, new offices were in the process of being built. At the time, the new building mainly served only to provide shade for off-duty officers. A little further ahead there is a big parking area providing space for the two key events in Kaya; trucks waiting to be cleared, and wooden kiosks and containers serving as offices for the numerous clearance agencies. Just behind the parking area hangs the rope that is lowered when people and vehicles are allowed in or out of the country. Not only the immi-gration office is new, the customs and traffic police have new offices too. Signposts indicate the various offices and flowers have been planted in the little gardens in front of the new customs building. Peace in Southern Sudan and the vast increase in trade have had an impact on this border town. There is a lot of money around and these new offices are just one expression of progress and the town’s wealth.
Kaya still shows continuity in the way most of the other institutions are housed and their organizations function. Behind the new customs buildings are the old ones. And in fact it is only the Director of Customs who has already moved to his new office.2 The rest, such as those of his deputy and of the Ministry of Finance’s Taxation Department, Public Security and the CID just have a spartan wooden desk. Military Intelligence, on the other side of the road, is also housed in a less stylish building. From the old office infrastructure, one can see that this border crossing was important long before the CPA. The newly built offices demonstrate the continuation of Kaya’s importance in Southern Sudan today. This not only holds for government infrastructure as the rest of the village breathes dynamics too.
The somewhat older brick buildings are now being replaced with new ones and there are numerous shops and many lodges. Ugandan women and Ethiopians and Eritreans run the hotels and the infrastructure generally is characteristic of a town with a transitory population. Most of the hotels survive by providing ac-commodation for GoSS staff, many of whom have permanent rooms. An economy has developed around the substantial numbers of state agents, the vast majority of whom originate from other regions in Southern Sudan and represent the different GoSS agencies in Kaya. Kissira is, for instance, the ultra-thin, folded sorghum pan-cake that is eaten in Upper Nile. In Juba it can be found in some of the small restaurants behind the GoSS ministries but I have never seen it in Yei and Bazi de-spite the presence of a Dinka community there. In Kaya though, you can eat it in the three biggest lodges. The place also has numerous black-market money ex-changers (Picture 4.2). As in Juba and Yei, these are mostly young Dinka boys who provide the cheapest exchange rate to petty and large-scale traders from all over
2 This new office looks very similar to the newly established government offices in Juba, with big wood-like desks, large sofas, heavy curtains, plastic flowers and air-conditioning.
East and Central Africa. At the smaller border crossings, they are absent but people in Bazi needing dollars just go to Kaya. There is no demand for dollars in the little villages nearby.
In addition to the organization of space at the border and the administration related to it, a local administration is functioning there to enforce the authority they have alongside the numerous GoSS agents. Just next to the rope over the street, the boma administration and the local police can be found. Unlike the GoSS institutions geared towards goods and people entering Southern Sudan, there is a feeling of permanence in the office of the boma administration: the local authorities deal with the people who live in Kaya. Foreigners who want to open a business in Kaya have to register with the local authorities who also mediate between local businessmen, ensure security in the village and, if necessary, collaborate with the local police in Uganda. If there is a serious incident, for instance a group of Mundari fighting with members of the Dinka community over the price and/or quality of a cow, the county commissioner is called to calm relations between the different communities. The state agents representing the GoSS, as well as foreign-ers, are thus also part of Kaya’s village life. Some of them request a plot of land to build a tukul (hut) from the local authorities and/or to marry a second wife from among the local Kakwa. To the local authorities, these people are one of the pa-rameters they deal with. Since many are from all over Southern Sudan and the wider region, the boma office is much livelier than the administrative headquarters in the village of Kimba a few km down the road.
Uganda is on the other side of the bridge. The two neighbouring local authori-ties know each other quite well and cooperate when required to do so. The Congolese border is not far from the village either. It takes about half an hour by motorbike to reach the border point that connects South Sudan, Uganda and Congo at a place called Asalia Musala, which means ‘the place where the three cooking stones meet’. There is no evidence of a border but the local administration has a tukul with a small SPLM flag on the table indicating that this is South Sudan (Picture 4.3).3 A few weeks before my visit, a woman was found dead on empty land near Asalia Musala. She had been collecting firewood when her head was cut off but the reason for the attack was unknown. The villagers feared new violence and the local police had not managed to find the attackers, who fled to DR Congo.
The boma administration decided to dispatch five police officers to Asalia Musala to secure the area.4 Although the police capacities without transport are limited, the suggestion of control and a state presence made the local people feel safer in this somewhat remote area.
3 Interview with local headmen and chief, Asalia Musala, 19 November 2009.
4 Interview with Kaya boma administrator, Kaya, 16 November 2009.
All in all, the border town of Kaya has the ingredients of a lively town repre-senting wide interests, resources and large numbers of authorities of various kinds seeking access to and control of these resources. Unlike its administrative head-quarters in Kimba, the state is densely performed in Kaya.
Kimba
The village of Kimba is the payam headquarters responsible for Kaya. It is situated between Kaya and Bazi along the main road connecting the border to Yei and Juba and resembles Asalia Musala more then Kaya. A few policemen smoke cigarettes and on the ground there are plastic sachets of ‘hunters’ gin’ or ‘royal wodka’ that are prohibited but widely consumed and small plastic South Sudan flags sit on the little desks in the office. Payam’s director – one of five in Morobo County – explains that his main task is visiting Kaya because of its strategic importance, or going to Morobo to see the commissioner. Besides managing Kaya and visits from Juba to the county headquarters, administering Kimba is not very demanding. When asked to describe his tasks on a typical day in the office, the answer was ‘filling out the attendance sheets’.5 The calm rural life here is remarkable compared to Kaya,
The village of Kimba is the payam headquarters responsible for Kaya. It is situated between Kaya and Bazi along the main road connecting the border to Yei and Juba and resembles Asalia Musala more then Kaya. A few policemen smoke cigarettes and on the ground there are plastic sachets of ‘hunters’ gin’ or ‘royal wodka’ that are prohibited but widely consumed and small plastic South Sudan flags sit on the little desks in the office. Payam’s director – one of five in Morobo County – explains that his main task is visiting Kaya because of its strategic importance, or going to Morobo to see the commissioner. Besides managing Kaya and visits from Juba to the county headquarters, administering Kimba is not very demanding. When asked to describe his tasks on a typical day in the office, the answer was ‘filling out the attendance sheets’.5 The calm rural life here is remarkable compared to Kaya,