AMERICA’S LONG SHADOW IN SOUTH SUDAN: WHY THE POLITICS OF THE SPLM-IG’S INGRATITUDE IS DANGEROUS AND SELF-DESTRUCTIVE

When most powerful nations viewed Southern Sudan merely as a distant battlefield with no strategic value, the United States remained engaged. When millions of South Sudanese were dying from war, starvation, displacement, and disease, American taxpayers funded humanitarian corridors, refugee programs, peace negotiations, schools, hospitals, feeding centers, and international diplomacy.

When Khartoum attempted to crush the South militarily, Washington gradually became the principal external force pushing for a negotiated settlement that culminated in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and eventually the independence referendum of 2011. To now portray the United States as an enemy, while simultaneously surviving on American-funded humanitarian structures, is not merely contradictory; it is politically reckless and morally dishonest.

The United States Did Not Arrive Yesterday

The relationship between the United States and Southern Sudan did not begin in 2011. It stretches back decades. Following the collapse of the Addis Ababa Agreement and the outbreak of the second Sudanese civil war in 1983, the South descended into one of the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophes. Entire communities were erased by famine, aerial bombardments, disease, and displacement. During these years, international humanitarian assistance became the thin line separating survival from extinction.

The United States became the largest single donor to Sudanese and South Sudanese humanitarian operations. Through USAID, the World Food Programme, UNICEF, faith-based organizations, and international NGOs, billions of dollars flowed into emergency food relief, medical support, refugee protection, and civilian survival programs. The landmark Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), launched in 1989 under the United Nations framework, depended heavily on American support. Humanitarian flights crossed hostile territories to deliver food and medicine into areas abandoned by the international system.

During the catastrophic Bahr el Ghazal famine of 1998, the world witnessed one of the largest humanitarian airlift operations in modern African history. At the height of the crisis, nearly eighteen aircraft were flying daily to feed approximately one million starving civilians. Those planes did not fly because the SPLM-IG existed. They flew because American taxpayers, international donors, and humanitarian agencies believed South Sudanese lives mattered.

America Helped Build the Road to Independence

It is impossible to discuss South Sudanese independence honestly without acknowledging the decisive American role. The United States was instrumental in supporting the negotiations that produced the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005. American diplomats, regional allies, and international pressure were central in forcing Khartoum and the SPLM to the negotiating table after decades of war. Washington also invested heavily in the referendum process that allowed South Sudanese citizens to vote overwhelmingly for independence in January 2011.

Technical assistance, electoral support, diplomatic guarantees, and international lobbying were all part of the American effort to ensure the referendum succeeded peacefully and credibly. On July 9, 2011, the United States was among the first nations to recognize South Sudan as an independent sovereign state. President Barack Obama described independence as “the light of a new dawn.” With all these tireless efforts to achieve the independence of South Sudan, it is sad today to see many of the same political actors benefiting from the state created through that diplomatic process speak of America with hostility while relying almost entirely on foreign-funded state survival mechanisms. That contradiction exposes the tragedy of South Sudanese governance.

The United States Became the Financial Lifeline of South Sudan

Since independence, the United States has provided more than $9.5 billion in assistance to South Sudan. Cumulatively, from 1983 to the present, estimates place total American support between $15 billion and $18 billion.  This support has not been symbolic. It has financed:

1. Emergency food distribution;

2. Refugee and IDP protection;

3. HIV/AIDS programs;

4. Maternal and child healthcare;

5. Water and sanitation projects;

6. Education and youth empowerment;

7. Trauma healing and reconciliation programs;

8. Civil society and independent media;

9. Mine clearance operations;

10. Peacekeeping structures through UNMISS;

11. Capacity-building for ministries and local institutions.

12. Even today, roughly 70 percent of South Sudan’s population depends directly or indirectly on humanitarian aid. The United States remains the leading contributor to those operations.

In many counties across South Sudan, the only functioning health center exists because of international donors funded substantially by Washington. The only food available during floods or conflict arrives through donor-funded humanitarian systems. The salaries of many humanitarian workers, vaccination campaigns, nutrition centers, boreholes, and emergency shelters are sustained by external assistance dominated by the United States. This is the uncomfortable truth: while some politicians insult Washington publicly, millions of ordinary South Sudanese survive because of American-supported humanitarian systems. This can be best described as the ingratitude of the highest order.

The SPLM-IG’s Politics of Dependency and Deflection

The tragedy is not that the United States has become frustrated. The tragedy is that the South Sudanese ruling elite appears surprised by that frustration. For years, Washington tolerated delays, corruption scandals, broken peace agreements, attacks on aid workers, shrinking civic space, and repeated failures to implement reforms. But the patience of international partners is not infinite. The United States has now openly warned that continued support depends on governance reforms, transparent management of public resources, and genuine implementation of peace agreements. This is not hostility. It is accountability. The criticism coming from Washington today is rooted in observable realities:

• billions in oil revenues disappearing without meaningful public services;

• civil servants going unpaid for months;

• hospitals collapsing;

• humanitarian shipments facing illegal taxation and extortion;

• peace agreements repeatedly violated;

• opposition leaders detained or marginalized;

• elections discussed without credible political space.

When Secretary of State John Kerry stated in 2015 that “legitimacy is not a presumed right,” he articulated a principle fundamental to democratic governance: governments derive legitimacy from protecting citizens, not merely occupying power. That warning remains painfully relevant today.

America’s Interests Are Strategic, But Also Real

Critics sometimes argue that the United States supports South Sudan only because of oil and geopolitical interests. Certainly, Washington has strategic calculations, like every major power. The Horn of Africa matters to American security policy because instability in the region affects:

• Red Sea trade routes;

• counterterrorism operations;

• refugee flows;

• regional conflicts;

• Chinese and Russian influence;

• global energy security.

China dominates South Sudan’s oil infrastructure through CNPC and related investments. Russia increasingly seeks influence through security cooperation and energy deals. Washington understands that abandoning South Sudan entirely would create a vacuum quickly filled by rival powers. But acknowledging strategic interests does not erase the enormous humanitarian role America has played.  

China invested primarily in oil infrastructure. Russia seeks geopolitical leverage and security partnerships. The United States, by contrast, became the primary financier of food aid, refugee assistance, healthcare, education, peacekeeping, and humanitarian protection. There is a difference between extracting from a country and sustaining its civilian population through decades of war and collapse. The work of the USA and its Allies in South Sudan shows that they are the strongest friends to the people of South Sudan unlike other countries which are cooperating with South Sudanese leaders for their own benefits while ignoring accountability aspect.

The Dangerous Fantasy of Replacing the United States

Some voices within the ruling establishment appear to believe South Sudan can simply pivot away from Western partners toward alternative geopolitical alliances. That is an illusion. Neither Russia nor China has demonstrated willingness to replace the scale of humanitarian financing currently provided by the United States and its Western allies.

Commercial investment is not humanitarian protection. Oil contracts are not famine relief.  Security cooperation is not public healthcare. The brutal reality is that the current South Sudanese state still depends heavily on external humanitarian architecture for its day-to-day survival. To antagonize the largest donor while offering no viable domestic governance alternative is strategically irrational. The fact that the USA says it cannot support or continue in relation with the Government of South Sudan does not mean that it is abandoning the South Sudanese people but it means that it will be forced to look for an alternative government that can deliver services in South Sudan.

The Real Crisis Is Governance, Not Foreign Interference

The SPLM-IG often frames criticism from Washington as foreign interference. But foreign governments did not loot public revenues. Foreign diplomats did not fail to pay civil servants. Foreign aid workers did not destroy national institutions. South Sudan’s greatest crisis is not American pressure. It is internal political failure. The country earns billions from oil revenues while citizens remain among the poorest people on earth. Roads are absent, hospitals are collapsing, schools are underfunded, and insecurity persists despite years of peace agreements.

Meanwhile, the international community continues financing basic survival mechanisms that should ordinarily be the responsibility of a functioning state. That is why the rhetoric of anti-American defiance rings hollow. A government that depends on external humanitarian assistance for national stability cannot credibly posture as a victim of foreign domination while refusing accountability.

Conclusion

The United States is not a perfect actor, nor has its foreign policy always been altruistic. American engagement in South Sudan has often mixed humanitarian concern with strategic calculation. That is the nature of global politics. But historical honesty demands recognition of one undeniable fact: no foreign country invested more consistently in the survival, liberation, independence, and humanitarian protection of South Sudanese people than the United States.

From Operation Lifeline Sudan to the CPA, from the independence referendum to billions in humanitarian assistance, Washington stood beside South Sudan through famine, war, displacement, and state collapse. The current politics of ingratitude emerging from sections of the SPLM-IG establishment is therefore not merely shortsighted. It is a dangerous refusal to confront reality.

A mature government does not survive by insulting its principal humanitarian partner while failing its own citizens. It survives by reforming itself, honoring agreements, protecting public resources, and rebuilding trust both domestically and internationally. South Sudan does not need propaganda against America. It needs responsible leadership worthy of the sacrifices that made the nation possible in the first place.

The Writer, Juol Nhomngek Daniel, is a South Sudanese legislator, constitutional, administrative and human rights lawyer, He serves as a lecturer in Constitutional and Human Rights Law and is the Deputy Dean of the College of Law at Starford International University in Juba.