To Örebro University

Drawing on Judith Butler’s Frames of War and the concept of grievable lives, this paper examines the situation in Southern Sudan during the Second Civil War (1983-2005). Much of the South Sudan People’s Liberation Army’s funding for its armed resistance came from a criminalised economy that diverted humanitarian aid intended for the civilian population. In its most extreme form, this aid was stolen and resold to civilians at inflated prices. The civilians were framed, in the literal sense of the word. Similar patterns of aid exploitation were observed by the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone and armed actors in Somalia, where humanitarian assistance was systematically redirected to sustain violence. These criminal economies formed an integral part of guerrilla governance.

The new state of South Sudan, which emerged after five decades of violent resistance against the Government of Sudan in Khartoum, tops the corruption statistics, two-thirds of the population remains dependent on humanitarian aid, and the country is in a widespread political and economic crisis, exacerbated by the non-international armed conflict in the neighbouring country Sudan. From the perspective of the civilian population, there is a continuum of violence and harm, which first was framed as a necessity to liberate the country from oppression of the Arab government in the north. Later, it was reframed as a battle of power and recognition. These frames guide the interpretation of a situation, and the framing involves a “highly reflexive overlay of the visual field” (Butler, p. 9). The visualities include starvation, governance mismanagement, and exploitation.

This paper explores how armed criminal economies shape access to humanitarian aid and how this determines whose suffering is seen and valued. It links grievances to guerrilla governance, revealing how war economies obscure or highlight lives deemed worthy of grief.