Humanitarian Access Constraints and Rebel Groups in African Civil Wars: The Case of South Sudan

Abstract

Why do some rebel groups restrict the international community’s humanitarian access to the areas under their control, while other rebel groups allow it? This article aims to develop a theory regarding humanitarian access constraints with a focus on two aspects of rebel groups: (1) whether they seek international recognition as a state, and (2) whether they seek to have strong ties with the local people. I examine the plausibility of the theory by considering four rebel types over three periods of humanitarian access challenges in civil wars in South Sudan.

From the perspectives of legality and morality, humanitarian workers argue that warring parties should not impede humanitarian access. However, in order to improve the chances of humanitarian access to affected areas, it is necessary to understand the logic behind the decision of rebel groups to restrict the access.

It is true that some of the existing studies on civil wars have contributed to this area of study by pointing out the impacts of the types of rebel groups on their decisions. For instance, rebel groups in search of political legitimacy tend to accept humanitarian access since it will help their case, while groups without such a motivation do not accept the access. However, the existing studies do not distinguish between the two types of legitimacy, international and domestic. In addition, they fail to differentiate between de jure and de facto acceptance of humanitarian access on the part of rebel groups.

In this article, focusing on whether they seek international recognition or want to maintain ties with the local population, I classify the rebel groups in Africa into the following four types: Integrated rebels, who both seek international recognition and want to establish strong ties with the locals, tend to accept humanitarian access. Vanguard rebels, who seek international recognition alone, tend to accept humanitarian access formally, but not practically. Parochial rebels, who do not seek recognition but want to establish strong ties with the locals in limited areas, tend to accept humanitarian access. Fragmented rebels, who seek neither international recognition nor strong ties with the locals, tend to deny humanitarian access. In order to test the plausibility of the hypotheses, I examine the cases of humanitarian access in South Sudan during three different periods, 1985–1988, 1989–2002, and 2013–2015, over which humanitarian access constraints had attracted much attention. The main argument of this study is that we should analyze the relationships between rebel groups and local populations, rather than the groups’ relationships with the international community, as determinants of the success and failure in delivering aid to people in dire need.