INTERVIEW-Land disputes threaten South Sudan security -official
Thu Aug 23, 2012 4:25pm GMT
* Some foreign investors caught in legal limbo
* Official wants tribunal to deal with case backlog
* Influx of returnees from north adds to tensions
By Mading Ngor
JUBA, Aug 23 (Reuters) - With hundreds of thousands of ethnic South Sudanese
returning home after South Sudan became independent last year, land disputes
are intensfying and a dearth of land laws means the new country is unable to
cope, a senior land official said.
Chairperson of the South Sudan Land Commission Robert Ladu said the influx
was fuelling violence and threatening security in the new nation's capital
Juba.
"Juba is swelling too much because returnees are coming by roads, they're
coming by river, and they're coming by air," Ladu told Reuters in an
interview.
South Sudan seceded from Sudan under a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of
civil war. The new government is struggling to build state institutions and
impose the rule of law, while the judicial system lacks trained judges and
lawyers.
Ethnic southerners who had been living and working in north Sudan - many for
their whole lives - have returned in droves since the country voted to
secede in a 2011 referendum promised under the peace deal.
Few of the returnees own land or have enough money to buy it and they face
squalid living conditions in the South, where they have thronged urban
centres and strained already scarce services and resources.
Those who can afford to buy land have tried to do so as quickly as possible,
exposing them to "conmen" who sold them plots without proper papers, Ladu
said. Disputes erupt when the original owners come to claim the land, he
said.
"The outcome of that has been conflict over land," Ladu said. "They are
many. Imagine, I have just seen two near my house."
Some 80 percent of cases involving land disputes are not being heard, Ladu
said, recommending the government set up a temporary tribunal to handle the
backlog, a step he said would help prevent parties from rushing for quick
fixes.
"The land tribunal is very important. The cases related to land are not
handled expeditiously," he said.
Some foreign investors are also being tripped up by the lack of legal
structure because some entered leases without adhering to proper procedures,
Ladu said.
He said South Sudan will not honour pre-war contracts which were awarded to
foreign companies by Khartoum, except ones which dealt with oil.
Ladu added that the country's parliament also needed an overall policy on
the use of land over the longer term.
"We want to give land for foreign investments. With the land policy, we even
would be able to legislate laws like the lease law," he said.
"What are the periods of leases; in which areas; if it's for investment,
agricultural purpose, residential purpose for foreign leasing - all these
have to be specified in accordance with the law," he said. (Editing by
Alexander Dziadosz and Myra MacDonald)
C Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved
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Received on Thu Aug 23 2012 - 18:30:48 EDT
