In South Sudan, power flows from the barrel of a gun; this must change

There is no end in sight to South Sudan’s manmade apocalypse so long as its ruling “gun class” runs the show.

These ethno-regional, sectarian warlords have benefitted from the conflict through organised violence and plunder. On a number of occasions, they have organised pogroms against their own people on the grounds of ethnicity, political affiliation and social geography. The gun class has tapped into age-old ethnic cleavages to ensure that power flows, literally, from the barrel of the gun.