South Sudan: Buying Off Elites to Stop Fighting Won't Work. Here's What Might

12 March 2018
analysis

Offering warring elites rewards to lay down arms hasn't worked. The profits of conflict must be removed and the focus shifted to the ground level.

Mediators trying to end South Sudan's deadly ongoing conflict have typically attempted to do so by "buying peace". As the death toll rises and the humanitarian situation deteriorates, external diplomats have have essentially tried to get warring parties to stop fighting by offering them a share of the national pie. A core part of their approach has been to come up with incentives to make peace seem more attractive than war.

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