Inter-Communal Violence and Land Ownership in South Sudan: Bari-Mundari Land Boundary Conflicts in Mangalla

Abstract

This paper aims to use this boundary conflict as an entry point to reflect upon two major issues. First, we intend to use the eruption of the dispute between Bari and Mundari to analyze and historicize the Bari-Mundari land and boundary conflicts that date back to the colonial era. Land disputes are not only limited to political dynamics, but also reconfiguration of state and local administrative units have added to the fuel. The research establishes that land in Mangalla has become an issue of intense contestation between the two ethnic communities because, partly, it is a productive agricultural land for growing sugarcane. The two communities, as result, compete over rights in the wetlands with either group accusing the other of encroaching its boundary or territory. This study relies on secondary sources. Archival documents that consisted of colonial and post-colonial documents relating to the land boundaries between Bari and Mundari were used. Most of these documents were accessed from the University of Juba’s library. These documents include: Colonial land reports, land commission reports and government correspondence on land issues. The real issue lies in the unclear territorial boundary demarcation between Mundari and Bari that dates back to the colonial period. The conflict has a deeper history which one cannot understand without exploring both the colonial and post-independence history of creating, demarcating and defining states as territorial and administrative units.