Southern Sudan's Red Army : the role of social process and routinised violence in the deployment of underaged soldiers

• Main Author: Berger, Carol
• Published: University of Oxford 2010
• Subjects: 303.6608309629
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.551182

This thesis examines the role of social process and routinised violence in the use of underaged soldiers in southern Sudan from the early 1980s to the present day. It draws on accounts of southern Sudanese who as children and teenagers were part of the Red Army, the youth wing of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). They received training and/or participated in warfare as part of the organised guerrilla force during a 21- year civil war. By compiling a broad spectrum of recollections and providing a geographical and political context, this thesis endeavours to show the role of social process and routinised violence in the deployment of underaged soldiers by the SPLA. The exploitation of children and youth by senior adult figures within the movement was highly organised and reflected both the gravity, or desperation, of the military situation (Sudan's northern regime used a scorched earth policy and proxies) and cultural mores. I approach the question of the use of youth for military purposes from a socio-cultural perspective, illustrating the ways in which the dominant social mores of southern Sudan contributed towards the marginalisation of youth. They were seen as 'other,' in part through the complex representation of relatedness and hierarchy within the majority Nilotic-speaking peoples of southern Sudan. Within this larger group, strategic interpretation of kinship ties enabled the privileging of some and the disadvantaging of others. The former group is represented, in part, by those who were sent to Cuba in the early years of the war, many of whom were related to senior members of the' SPLA. The latter group, the disadvantaged, either remained within southern Sudan or did not survive the war. A second focus of the thesis is the intended and unintended cultural transformation experienced by members of the Red Army, both those who remained in Sudan and those who were dispatched to Cuba.