Reporting from Juba, Sudan — A pistol sits next to a battered radio while Peter Bashir Bandi, a rebel turned political leader, lounges in a gold brocade chair listening to reports about what may soon be the world's newest, and most precarious, nation.

He speaks eloquently of democracy and stitching together a country from deserts and jungles. But his gun is seldom far from his grasp, a sign that southern Sudan has known little peace in Bandi's lifetime, tumbling through two civil wars that spread mass graves, famine and generations of orphans across the land.

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