Strife in South Sudan

Leo Tolstoy once wrote that, "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." The contagion of civil war has its roots in many different causes. In Colombia, until recently, it was a conflict between the government in Bogotá and its paramilitary right-wing allies and the narco-leftist forces of FARC. In Burma, religious and nationalistic tension chafing under authoritarian rule rumbles on as a low-level. In Syria, the civil war transmogrified from attempting to overthrow a dictatorial dynasty and replace it with a western-style democracy (with Islamic leanings), to carving out bits of Syria to be run under strictest interpretation of Sharia law with widespread violence and hostility to all less extreme than the bulk of the rebels.
It all saddens me as, apart from the initial cause seeking political freedom, it brings untold and terrible misery. So the disease has struck down the world's newest country, South Sudan. Independent since 2011, crises have punctuated its history ever since. Despite the initial promises of democracy, power has had its corrupting effect, along with the resource curse that encourages clientelism and desire to cling onto power. The president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, piqued at the high transit prices the old masters in Khartoum were charging for the transit of South Sudan's oil through Sudan, stopped all production of oil, cutting of his country's nose to spite his face, notwithstanding that 99% of South Sudan's economy is from the sale of oil. Khartoum by contrast was happy to wait it out. Eventually, international pressure made the president relent and accept that Sudan had his country (figuratively of the highest order) over a barrel. There has been the border skirmishes over the disposition of population and oil wells along the new border, with South Sudan being the aggressor. And now, Mayardit's former deputy has rallied parts of the army to rise up against the regime. In the computer game Tropico, if you piss off the militaristic faction or army sufficiently, they will rise up against you but you (as president) are not completely defenceless, as a loyalist section of the army will fight for you. Then the computer calculates the chances of whether you survive in power or not. Life imitates art (of a kind) as one part of South Sudan's military establishment remains firmly behind President Mayardit, who is donning military fatigues - a rare move for him. However it ends, the ordinary people of South Sudan will be worse off. That is the inevitable tragedy of civil war.