I was in Juba two weeks ago participating in the Rift Valley Institute’s annual series of lectures at Juba University, whose theme this year was historic peace negotiations. Three sets of negotiations were examined: the 1972 negotiations thatled to the Addis Ababa Agreement, the 1999 Wunlit people-to-people peaceconference, and the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The discussionsfocused as much on the implementation of these agreements as on the negotiationsthat led to them. The choice of case studies is evidence that South Sudan does haveexperience at peace making, but the question that confronts us all is whether thisexperience is relevant to the conflict that is threatening to tear South Sudan apart today?

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