Lydia Stone, author of the Small Arms Survey (SAS) report, Failures and Opportunities - Rethinking DDR in South Sudan, told IRIN, "It is not always the case that ex-combatants want to return to civilian life, or that they feel stigmatized by their role in the conflict; nor is it necessarily the case that DDR automatically brings greater security in a post-conflict setting.

 

 "For example, for the time being... greater security is achieved by keeping the soldiers in the army and paying them a salary than by pushing them out into a civilian life that offers little hope of finding a livelihood," she said.

 

 In many cases DDR is utilized in post-conflict states because, if left to their own devices, armed, unskilled, unpaid ex-combatants pose a clear threat to the success of the peace dividend in post-conflict states, 40 percent of which return to war, according to some estimates.

 

"The concept of 'reintegrating' ex-combatants back into a civilian life is largely redundant. This is because the dividing line between combatants and civilians is extremely blurred. Furthermore, the 'normal' society of Southern Sudan had been broken down during the war, so it wasn't as though there was a 'normal civilian life' to reintegrate into," Stone points out.

 

 There is also an absence of stigma attached to SPLA fighters, unlike members of abusive armed groups such as Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone, who were reviled for their war-time conduct. "The SPLA are seen as heroes, the liberators of Southern Sudan," she said.

 

 "There is not the same shame attached to having been a soldier during the war, nor the same imperative to leave the soldier's life. In fact, quite the reverse. So not only do SPLA soldiers have pride, they also have money. Clearly, this is not the target group envisaged in the 'traditional' DDR model."

 

 

 

Losinu criticized their efforts. "I had 500 cows before the war and then I lost everything. If the international community doesn't give me those cows and instead you construct schools and say that reconciliation is collective, I still always remember the 500 cows. We are different culturally. A Lendu and Hema cannot live in symbiosis."