Struggles in South Sudan: Five Months to Resolve 55 Years of Structural Violence (World IN REVIEW‪)‬

Operative clause three of the first chapter of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) asserts the rights of South Sudanese to self-determination by referendum to define their political future. Years after the CPA's writing, the people of South Sudan have spoken. In the January 2011 referendum held in southern Sudan, 98.83 percent of the electorate voted for independence over continued unity with northern Sudan. The Southern Sudan Referendum Commission announced on February 7 that 3,792,518 southern Sudanese favored a split from the government of Khartounm after 55 years of Sudan's existence as the largest nation in Africa. The determination of the people of South Sudan to build a new nation from the ground up is clear, and they certainly seem to have the support of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. However, despite the clear election results and positive indications of support from Khartoum, southern Sudan cannot escape its debilitating history. For at least the past half-century, the South has been victim to structural violence, and both governmental institutions and social frameworks inhibit the population from achieving basic human needs. In the case of Sudan, this largely manifested in decades of civil war between northern and southern Sudan. Structural violence has also persisted for far longer, and in some ways more detrimentally, in the forms of institutionalized ethnocentrism, elitism, racism, and colonialism. Yet, in fewer than five months, South Sudan is set to emerge from its troubled past as the world's newest independent state on July 9, 2011.