Thursday, April 26, 2012

Panya, Mende Na Wadudu: Lugha Ya Kumalizana



Ni kama watu hupata mdadi wa aina isiyoaminika wakisikia viongozi wao huwaita wenginge kwa majina yajaayo na udharaulifu na uonefu. Kwa viongozi wachache barani Afrika, katika miaka mingi iliyopita kuanzia 1994, hali ya matamshi haya ya ukorofi ilizidi mno. Ukifikiria ni kwa sababu gani viongozi wanaamua kutumia lugha ya kuchochea baadhi ya watumwa wao dhidi ya wengine, unashindwa kupata maana mwafaka. Mara kadhaa, lugha chochezi ilileta maafa wa halaiki kwa njia ya kuwadhalilisha wengine.

Juzi, tulisikia kiongozi wa Sudan, Omar Bashir, akiwaita viongozi wa chama kinachotawala nchini Sudan Kusini (SPLM) wadudu. Bashir alitamka neno hilo akiwa anasherekea hadharani hali ya vikosi vyake kuingia eneo la Panthou/Heglig ambalo lilichukuliwa awali, Aprili 10, 2012 na vikosi vya Sudan Kusini. Maafisa wa Sudan Kusini walisema walisukuma wanajeshi wa Sudan ambao waliwashambulia mbeleni, hadi wakateka kwa nguvu eneo la Panthou. Panthou, ambalo liko chini ya udhibiti wa Sudan, ni eneo lenye mtaji wa mafuta na kisima kikubwa cha mafuta ya kutosha kwa uchumi wa Sudan.

Katika harakati ya kushindwa vitani, mzozo wa maneno ulizidi baina ya pande zote mbili, Sudan na Sudan Kusini. Marekani, Umoja wa Afrika, Umoja wa Mataifa na serikali ya nchi nyingi nyinginzo duniani kote, walilaumu Sudan Kusini kwa kuvuka mpaka hadi Sudan na kupeleka mzozo ugaibuni. Lawama hili lilikuwa zito kibisa kwa serikali ya Sudan Kusini hata wakaondoa vikosi vyao katika eneo la Panthou. Hali hilo iliwaghadhibu wananchi ambao mbeleni walikuwa wanasherekea  ushindi wa wanajeshi wao.

Bashir alichukuwa fursa huo wa umoja wa kimataifa kulilaumu Sudan Kusini, na kuwachochea wenyeji wa nchi yake waone majerani yao kama wadudu. Hali iliyowabidi wananchi wa Sudan kuchoma kwa moto kanisa la wakristu jijini Khartoum. Waafrika wa kiasili wa Sudan Kusini walioko Khartoum waliteseka mikononi mwa raia hadharani katika upuzi lililofuata. 

Mnamo mwaka 1994, tuliona vile mauaji wa halaiki yalisababishwa kwa kuwachochea watu. Nchini Rwnada 1994, mwaka Afrika Kusini ilipata uhuru wake na wananchi walikuwa na furaha tele, na Nelson Mandela akiwa mwangaza mpia wa bara, mambo yalikuwa yanageuka vibaya. Kabila la Hutu lilianza kutekeleza uamuzi wa kuwatimu Watutsi. Wahutu waliwaita wenzao wa Tutsi, mende. Fujo na maiti yaliyotokea katika uhasama huo zilishangaza dunia nzima. Idadi ya watu karibu milioni moja waliuawa.

Katika Majira ya Waarabu, ambapo tulitahamakisha tafiri kubwa ya kisiasa katika Afrika ya Kaskazini, rais wa Libya, Gadafi aliwaita watu wake, ambao walihitaji mabadiliko wa mamlaka wake, kuwa panya. Aliwaonya kwamba atawafukuza katika kila pembe la jiji la Tripoli mpaka awacharaze vyema na vikali. Mwishowe, Gadafi mwenyewe ndiye alikamatwa akijificha ndani ya bomba. Idadi ya watu waliokufa katika harakati za kumwondoa katika mamlaka yake haihisabiki.

Kama ilivyonenwa, haba na haba hujaza kibaba, ni vizuri kufanya lawezakanalo kuzuia hali itakayowaua watu kwa wengi. Maneno yake Bashir ni maneno ya muuaji. Afrika na vilevile dunia nzima inayojali haki za binadamu zikae macho.


Saturday, April 21, 2012

Ten-Day War: South Sudan Withdrawal From Heglig Was Important


But, never ignore propaganda, it is another frontline.

It was strategically important for South Sudan to withdraw from Panthou. The new country has made its point amidst international fear that it might be crashed if Khartoum unleashes its military wrath on it. No one knew South Sudan would hold Khartoum by the throat, given Khartoum's bellicose rhetorics of war and continuous aggression on the new republic. The international community and Khartoum sympathisers failed to realise that it was the South Sudan that kept Khartoum in check for half a century and eventually liberating themselves from their hegemony. A few were surprised by the developments in Heglig and how SPLA forces handled the situation. No one knew they would be so remarkable. A disbelieving UK official said it beats logic to see the South Sudanese army performing the way it did. The comment came when South Sudan armed forces (SSAF) drove out Sudanese forces from Panthou and maintained their control by repeatedly repelling Sudan armed forces. The question now is, who will win the day if war becomes the only solution to the outstanding issues of disagreement?

The decision made by President Kiir to withdraw South Sudanese forces from Panthou, though painful to the South Sudanese community at home and in the diaspora, was significant and nationally strategical.  In the event of the skirmishes in Panthou, South Sudan nearly lost the confidence of  good allies and friends, a state that has been corrected and restored by the decision of the president to pull the troops out of Panthou. South Sudan cannot ignore the international community in which it had become a member. The crux of the world's social economic and even military power rests in having good relations with allies and friends and more importantly, winning their trust. 

The world now knows South Sudanese ability. Regardless of being a young nation, it can be aggressive if her national security is threatened. Khartoum too had learnt something from its aggressive cross-border incursions and ariel bombardment of South Sudanese civilians. The infantry that came had known what it means to engage another country's military. In the words of Gaduel, South Sudanese top commander that steered operations in Panthou, 'those enemy soldiers who escaped from Heglig will never think of joining the military again. They will be good civilians thereafter. They have learnt a hard lesson.'

The most critical aspect of this Ten-Day War was its ensnaring implications on the continent and in particular, the East African region. The Sudanese war had always involved the region in various ways: small arms proliferation and refugee influx into neighbouring countries. This new war was on the verge of drawing other countries again. The decision by South Sudan to ease tensions by pulling out its troops from the contested area was crucial in averting the regional aspect of it. Regionally, the sound of war was not played down. As the rhetoric and bellicosity become the advent to actual engagements, Uganda said it would join in if South Sudan was attacked. The southernmost South Sudan neighbour hinted at the sanctuary provided and the link that Sudan maintains with Lord Resistant Army (LRA). South Sudan is also economically important to Uganda. It imports relatively highly from Uganda than it reciprocally exports. This gives Uganda an economic advantage.

No one knows what Kenya was mulling since it has a multimillion/billion project involving the South Sudanese pipeline, railway and roads posing to prosper her citizens. One Kenyan newspaper commentator wrote that 'the war between the Sudans will burn us all this time.' This summarised the feeling of other Kenyan business magnets operating in South Sudan. Kenya would want to be praised for successfully steering to completion the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan, not manufacturing conflict, or allowing another to come up. If anything, its relative status of development will always be overwhelmed by refugees in the events of the war in the region.

The region is tired of the continuous Sudanese wars. Just as the escalations were heightening up, the top military brass of the Great Lakes Region met and decided to take a side in this third war, citing incidences where Sudanese Arabs always draw in support from the Arab world to kill Africans in South Sudan. Rwanda was among them. The Arab League had also called an emergency meeting to discuss the situation in the Sudans. The meeting was to be convened at the request of Sudan. If the Arab world takes a side - beware they will never oppose Sudan - expect someone else to match it up. See how complicated the situation nearly became and how South Sudan nearly dragged Africa and the world onto the verge of an all-out war? Even if it means that not everyone would join in to fight, those who would shoulder the responsibly of the displaced, the refugees and political asylum seekers resulting from the war would have been tormented further. The two nations themselves can become proxies in the war of natural resources.

President Obama of the USA was concerned. His direct video address to the two nations underscores the severity of the situation. He urged the two nations to consider the path of peace adding that those who follow the path of peace will always find a strong friend in the United State. With the history of past US assistance to the Sudan during Nimeiri's presidency and South Sudan having tasted the bitter sweets of American military assistance - there were nasty experiences with Reagan Tanks at the onset of liberation war - the best ploy was to listen and act wisely. It should also be noted that Khartoum's Islamic regime is America's worst human rights partner but a good friend in the war on terror. Nothing will be more pleasant than cooperating with the stronger nation on matters threatening its national security. America (USA) could be anyone's friend. 

The truth is that the international community had the confidence in South Sudan listening to them than Khartoum with its jihadist mentality in this war. At the moment, they are wild and weird and would not contemplate logical arguments. One Sudanese student from Khartoum university once said, 'the world, and the West in particular think that we (Arabs) are mad because we make too much noise in things that should be discussed quietly.' The problem is that when political issues become a bit tough, the Sudanese state manipulators switch from the temporal world to the sacred and subsequently become hysterical and garner supporters in the process. The behaviour has entombed the public psyche for decades.

In this war, the vagueness of South Sudanese on the Abyei boundary commission and the ruling of International Court of Arbitration doesn't register well internationally. Many in South Sudan believe it is the failure of diplomacy and that of the foreign affairs ministry. But it is not. It is time to note that the reason why the international community blames South Sudan for occupation lies in the acceptance, by South Sudan, of the ABC ruling knowing fully well that borders were not demarcated in the areas of Abyei and Panthou. If anyone is to blame, South Sudan and the negotiating delegation that went to The Hague, including the ABC itself, must have a piece. The international community too has made a mess by relying on imaginary borders rather than drawing the borders between the two nations. How do you know which one is Sudan and South Sudan when the issue of borders is under discussion? This would only mean there is a premeditated solution to the borders, which the AU and the UN are not communicating to South Sudan! South Sudanese people believe there is an international conspiracy surrounding its borders with the Sudan.

As for the Ten-Day war over Panthou, South Sudan has the right to lay it on the cross-border aggression by the SAF military and its supporting rebels against the Republic of South Sudan. Khartoum all along wanted South Sudan to say a goodbye of fire. It is now back to the drawing board where reason might replace rhetoric, fanaticism and dogmatic theocracy.

The element of propaganda had also emerged. One would argue that propaganda is a subtle way of obscuring the victories of your opponent while fully aware of them, but doing so to raise the morale of your people for a course. When applied to South Sudan by Sudan, it will always be followed by reason and extreme care to avoid lies. In Khartoum and with Bashir, at least economic pressures will not push down the government any time soon because propaganda had done its job so well to unite the nation. South Sudanese have also soildified their unity in this war. Patriotism and nationalism will be in the air for sometimes. Both South Sudan and Sudan governments have used propaganda maximally in the war on Panthou. As the US representative confirmed in Juba the SPLA withdrawal from Heglig and relayed the same message to Bashir, the ICC indictee in went out on Thursday, April 19 2012 and announced to the public and his beleaguered and weakened army that they would then get good news from the frontline in a few hours. South Sudan never made the announcement on Thursday and so went the lie from Bashir. And on Friday 20, the Sudanese claimed version of victory in the oilfields came just after South Sudan announced the withdrawal! A very smart way to drum up support from the public. Propaganda has its merits in situations like the one currently existing between the Sudans. In the old walls of Nazi Berlin, Germany, and the corridors of Kremlin in Moscow, USSR, propaganda was a portfolio held by officials on the government payroll. The USA was and is now not immune from this. Khartoum is just playing an old game properly.

As with Khartoum's rhetoric and the propaganda about the recapture of Panthou, South Sudanese should not be heartbroken. Just like during the CPA era and Torit incident, there will be some sense in the negotiations this time. But, never ignore propaganda, it is another frontline. One thing will catch attention if it did happen again. In the Torit battle during the CPA negotiations, some South Sudanese soldiers appeared to have been poisoned in the battle. The traces of dirty weapons used against soldiers would be my concern if I were in the South Sudanese military investigative team. The world must know all.


Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Sudans' 'Logic of War': Border Bandits or Regime Change?


The African Union and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) have described Sudan and S. Sudan as being locked in the ‘logic of war’ following the battle of Heglig. This hypothetic framing is the result of the ineffectiveness and failure of the African Union and United Nation Security Council respectively, to bring the two neighboring nations to an agreement on the modalities of the cessation of hostilities, border demarcation, and effective concession on oil transit fees. Not adhering to the implementation process of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in the three areas has also added to the blunder.

In the two years of the mediations between Sudan and S. Sudan by the African Union High Implementation Panel (AUHIP), there appeared to have been serious lapses and easy-going that have thus far, aided the mouth-frothing and hysteria at the post-secession talks between the two nations. Thus, we see the mustering of troops. The UNSC passed a resolution demanding Sudan to withdraw from Abyei but never acted on the Sudanese defiance when it reneged on that resolution. The African Union seemed to have accepted Khartoum’s demand of $36 per barrel for South Sudanese crude transit and refining, and not factoring in the fact that the pipeline was built from the oil money and should remain a shared facility.

As the much-awaited and widely predicted return to war unfolds, Obama’s Sudans may replace Clinton’s Rwanda and Srebrenica. Hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese are stranded in Khartoum and the flights between the two nations have been conditionally halted. They are already foreigners, a status that had similarly and automatically been accorded northern Sudanese in South Sudan. The Sudanese are avid haters of South Sudanese when in Sudan but when they are in South Sudan, ironically, they are brothers of the hosting one. One may fear that political engineers at the helms in either country may exploit the public panic of the population during this unwelcome war of power solidification. This is particularly applicable to the hardliners in Sudan who always encroach on opposition amidst the chaos.

What about regime change? One of the objectives, which the SPLA/M aimed to achieve in 1983 when it started the liberation war was a regime change in Khartoum and the wish to usher in a new Sudan built on equality. Of course, the regime in Khartoum changed soon after that, when President Nimeiri’s rule was ended in 1985. The kind of regime change that the SPLA/M wanted rather than itself remained elusive throughout the years.

Now the Sudanese state had adopted regime change in South Sudan as its cardinal objective and had already managed to pull South Sudanese rebellious people like David Yau Yau from the ranks of the SPLA. This behaviour of winning your enemy's foes usually complicates the Sudanese war politics. An issue of change, if looked closely, will lead us to the radical bearing that goes to the crux of national existence whether in Sudan or South Sudan. It is here that the unity of the Sudanese people across the dividing borders is tested to the maximum and further exploited at best by the politicians.

Had it not been the take over of Heglig by the South Sudanese Army, this agendum of regime change would not have been made openly by Khartoum.  As the battle to woo each other’s enemies to one’s side continues, oppositions on either side will have to endure labels of any column they will be fitted into and certainly, brace for sudden arrests.

The oil will remain the factor of change in all cases in the war of regime change. The AU and UNSC hypothesis of the two nations locked in the ‘logic of war’ is a truth that can be understood in the fight over Panthou/Heglig which now had an ideology of regime change. But ending SPLA capture of the oil-rich town is not foreseeable in the short while. If provocation led to the permanent refusal of Sudanese armed forces to withdraw from Abyei so was the provocation that led Juba to take over Panthou.

Indeed, the rebels will always matter. Khartoum blames its rebels for aiding Juba in the fight over the oil-producing town while Juba casts the same blame on Khartoum-backed rebels in South Sudan and further reduced its takeover of Panthou simply to a response in kind to cross-border attacks and aerial bombardment of its territories. As the bombardment is spreading along the borders and cross border-attacks following in the wake, the Sudans are technically in an all-out war.

The only thing that no one wants to predict, but leaves to the UNSC sanctions and the willingness of those who rule the roost in Sudan and S. Sudan, is the time when the traditional buy-time negotiations will begin again. One thing is certain though: the rebels’ futures may not escape dominating the talks if they ever occur. The Sudans have to choose one: either they continue to rebel against each other and be enemies contrary to their mutual progress –which they are now doing - or secure their sovereignties by disowning rebels. In any way, rebels will continue to be border bandits. And as we have already witnessed in the South Sudanese take over of Heglig/Panthou, their tricks can cause quite a stare.

Since the sources of finance have been throttled at both ends for the in-betweens, and Juba is becoming agitated for shutting down its oil only to see Sudan pumping up to lure its enemies and turns them around to counter it, chances are that withdrawal from Panthou/Heglig may require AU and UNSC to reframe the language of peace to exclude the words 'illegality' and 'withdraw immediately' and 'unconditionally' when courting South Sudan.


Monday, April 16, 2012

Dealing with Border Aggressions



War of Survival

South Sudan will continue to fight wars of survival with Khartoum as long as they share the borders. This must be taken in cognizance with the actuality of the current war at the borders and with all the seriousness for what our history of wars with Sudan indicates. There are indications as to why this is not just a whimsical fantasia but also a reality to be given considerable weight in order to guarantee survival.

Khartoum's goal will always be to drag South Sudan down into wars of attrition, as Sudan’s President recently expressed, or real wars of annihilation as we have always seen in the Sudan government’s strategy of targeting civilians rather than the military or armed rebels in events of armed conflicts. History must teach us what to do when you have an enemy that wants to do away with your existence. 

During the Second World War, the Jews were the victims of hate for reasons that were not ordinary but illusory. Their survival was either in their hands and that of their God or in the hands of anti-Semitic. As history proved, the Nazis were literally annihilating the Jewish nation. Nazi ideology was based on illusionary Nazi imagination, which purported an international Jewish conspiracy to control the world as opposed to the quest of the Aryan race. Even before the Devine could intervene, the Jewish race has, for all times to be remembered, suffered the most horrific tragedy in history in the hands of those who thought they were the right race to rule and inhabit the world.

When God, so be it, finally abetted their sudden extinction, and helped them achieved their independence and reclamation of their homeland, the loss of life among the Jewish people was in millions. In fact, evidence shows that about 6 million Jews of the nine million that lived in Europe prior to the holocaust perished by means of brutality.

Today, the world lives in the bad memories of the holocaust that befell the Israeli people. Israel as a nation went on to battle all the neighboring countries, including Egypt and Sudan for her survival in the Holy Land. It is a common fact that all countries surrounding Israel are her enemies. They have proven this in 1948, 1967, and 1974 Arab-Israeli wars. In all cases, Israel, with the determination from the learned experience, has emerged victorious.

Presently, the tiniest geography of what is Israel is one of the strongest among the nations of the world. However, its survival is still in their hands. And they have never failed to be vigilant on this potential and imposed end time on them. As a matter of survival, Israel remains the world’s number one vigilant nation. It has developed her capability and aligned it with the possibility of being targeted by their enemies anytime. They have even acquired nuclear weapons for this reason. Can South Sudan learn from this?

Destruction of human life

South Sudan has a lot to learn from the Israeli defensive mindset. To begin with, the Sudanese civil war had taken almost half a century ending in the time of South Sudan’s independence in 2011. Unlike Jews who have spent hundreds of years in exile, South Sudanese have realistic misfortunes to share with the Jewish nation. Many South Sudanese have been forced away from their homes just like the Jewish people. The difference is in the lengths of time, but equally, exile and suffering are our shared identity.

The convoluted wars in Sudan were in the frequency of two periods, much to the detriment of South Sudan and in which many southerners lost millions of souls. Livelihood was destroyed beyond any comparison in human history in South Sudan than in the North. The Any Anya I war, known as the First Sudanese Civil War, took seventeen torturous years and claimed 500 000 lives. Of these deaths, 400 000 were civilians and 100 000 were men and women comrades in arms. In the War of New Sudan, mostly referred to as the Second Sudanese Civil War, twenty million South Sudanese were killed. Analysts believe many of these were innocent women and children. Effectively, South Sudan had lost 2.5million people of its population of approximately ten million people. This could be more.

In the Nuba Mountain in the 1990s, the government sealed off the area to the outside world and began an indiscriminate bombing of the area in order to annihilate the Nuba people. The death toll was immeasurably high, and so were the displaced people. The government ensured there was no rest for the people to embark on farming drudgery, and farms remained fallow all year round. The government of the people intentionally imposed food shortages, death, and malnutrition on its own people. Had it not been for the international humanitarian intervention, Nuba would look different today.

Just recently in 2012, the governor of Southern Kordufan State was very well captured on video left behind by a fleeing Sudanese army commander in which he was advising his soldiers to kill, eat clean and take no prisoners because they did not have room for them. The people he was referring to were both rebel soldiers and civilians alike. Such was the command, cold-bloodedly aimed at annihilating the people and leaving behind only the land. The Sudanese government, when it comes to the non-Arab population, is always not interested in the people but the land. As seen in the events over the years, the Sudan government would rather resettle foreigners of Arab origin in Sudan than improving the situation of the African owners of the land.

Recurringly, in the 1990s, the government of Sudan was fortunate to have its national budget boosted by oil revenue. The sudden financial geyser enabled it to purchase very sophisticated weapons and embarked on the mission of annihilation of the people opposed to its values. Firstly, the SPLA soldiers were the first to be bombed with chemical bombs. There are people in South Sudan today who have been maimed and their health affected on a long-term basis by these weapons. Unlucky ones have died as a result of such unmerciful use of such lethal weapons. As usual, with government imposition of no-fly zones, such atrocities have not been witnessed internationally.

Equally appalling in the 1980s, 1990s, and early in the first quarter of this decade, the same principle of annihilation was applied in South Sudan when the government used the Rezeigat and the Baggara to carry out a scorched-earth policy that left the entire regions of what are today the states of Northern Bahr el Ghazal, Warrap and Abyei in complete devastation and with high cost in human lives. The aim was to kill all the people in these areas and if some escape death by the bullet, then they are denied all means of survivability through destruction of property.

So, the wars that the government of Sudan fight with the areas that are marginalized are to the marginalized: wars to change the injustices and demanding the change of government in Khartoum so that they usher in a responsible government that would take care and treat all people of the Sudan equally and humanely; and to the government of Sudan, the are wars to terminate and annihilate the dissenting and unwanted peoples.

Such is the paradox that international peacemakers often found it hard to bring the government of Sudan to the negotiations with the disenfranchised and disgruntled groups. The visions for peace are often parallel – the people that want to live and the government that wants to summarily annihilate them.  Circumstances of this nature could only mean - to Sudan government - that peace with anyone is a serious delay in accomplishing its mission.

With the agendum of annihilation of the African people in mind, it would be erroneous to think that war had ended in Sudan in 2005. Failure to recognize this anomaly calls attention to the failure to see and find out the motives that are responsible for the sporadic continuation of violence in Darfur, Blue Nile, Eastern Sudan, and along the borders with South Sudan. Sudan will never be in peace in the long term. The Sudanese government war adventure is a known element. Even where the justifications for war are not clear, the Sudan government will, in the eleventh hour, find a reason to fight with the country’s periphery. It is through violence that Sudan’s governments had been able to maintain power since independence; without which the populace would overthrow them over gross misrule.

In the ongoing skirmishes in Panthou, questioned why the army has not been able to dislodge the South Sudanese armed forces in the area, the Sudanese army spokesman said they were simply annihilating the S. Sudan army after which they will enter the town. It is all about finishing the people off. In the wake of the capture of Panthou by South Sudan armed forces, several voices in Khartoum, including that of the president, lamented and pre-empted the destruction of South Sudan. Top army generals and even president Bashir himself echoed and voiced annihilation rhetoric, saying that there would be destruction in the South. The aim here is not to solve the problem for which the South Sudanese army attacked the area, or the willingness to retake it; the annihilation strategy kicked in and the matter is thus, sealed in the destruction scorn. It beats logic why Sudan underrated South Sudan as a country capable of causing equal destruction to its enemies.

If we look at the fundamental reason behind the arrogance, reckless destruction of lives, continuous defiance to international peacemakers, it would be easy to understand that there is a surreptitious agendum that cannot be simply ascribed to resources, religion, or any kind of national layback on the political dispensation involving the periphery in Sudan. It is much more. It is an annihilation scheme. Sudan’s Arab descendants want to rid Sudan of the black African identity. The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the subsequent independence of South Sudan in 2011 helped thwarted the tempo of the agendum of annihilation for Khartoum’s jihadist zealots. They have however got what they wanted today. The international community in the name of the UN, EU, AU have given Khartoum the ticket of annihilation by blaming South Sudan for taking measures of self-defense and reclaimed its territory.

There has been a wrong attribution to the Sudanese state all along. Conflicts in Sudan have been perceived rather incorrectly hence giving dictatorial regimes in Khartoum leverage to having a heavy hand on the people of the peripheries. Such perceptions had failed to correctly construe the theme of the Sudanese conflicts often orchestrated by North Sudan. North Sudan simply sees the vast swath of land south of its borders as the potential resources hub, and the people there have to be annihilated and the resources taken away. Therefore, South Sudanese should not ignore this potential for war. Many scholars such as Francis Mading Deng, Amir H. Idris, Ali Mazrui, and others have written about war syndrome in Sudan in a more subtle academic leniency. They denote it as the conflict of identity, religion, resources, and other attestations.

This misnomer stands in the way of providing the public and international community with the correct casus belli for the unending wars between the north and South Sudan. The status of the Sudanese state and the long-term ambition it has set itself to achieve is clearly wrapped in the attitude to annihilate the people with African ancestry from the country. The Sudan government, in continuing to be irksome and ruthless with the population is an indication of a clandestine operation aimed at denying others an existence.

Monday, April 2, 2012

The Game of Hide and Seek in South Sudan's Corruption Scam



If South Sudan had inherited anything from the Sudan which is so counter-progress, so dehumanizing and so much against the very reason for independence, it is corruption.  Corruption or baksheesh, as it is known in Sudan and some nations in the Arab world has horrifically grown into a customary among the public officials of the new republic. It looks like the system in place - including the functions and operations of the anti-corruption body- has no enough tentacles to ensnare this malignant anti-development and bring it to its finale. A few months into independence as a sovereign nation and no sign is visible yet from the government on how to tackle issues related to corruption. The anti-corruption has thus slipped into oblivion. It never says anything even as public officials declare their wealth whether they are living below or above their means.

The only credible indication that greets the public, whenever a corruption case appears, is an attempt by the SPLM to round it off to one infinite answer - blaming some of the members within the rank-and-file of the movement for what is obviously government embezzlement of public funds. The public is left with no doubt that the scheme and other tactical planks used by the SPLM are for covering up the whole matter in a single wrapping. But could this be the real answer to the element of corruption in the system?

In 2007, an investigation was launched into what appeared to be the new country's huge financial scandal in which a finance minister, Arthur Akuein Chol, was implicated. The government was in sheer disbelief and shaken for what might transpire in such an investigation. The results of the investigation were going to delegitimize the ruling party in the eyes of the citizens who have placed a fair amount of trust in the people's party. Before the investigation could be finalized, Arthur was quickly arrested by the judge and minister who cared less about the due process of law as enshrined in the investigation. The judge, Justice Makuei Lueth, failed to wait for the due process of law which provides that, pending an investigation, a person should be presumed innocent until proven guilty. He covertly invited Arthur for some talks and promptly had him arrested. Even Arthur's lawyer wasn't aware of the events that were unraveling with his client. It was in the same spirit that Arthur was freed by his supporters who feared the game was intended to end in one man's show, in which Arthur was to be the only scapegoat and culprit in the corruption ring. The report to the parliament had earlier indicated that between 2005-2006 financial year, US$1 billion went unaccounted for from the national treasury.

A few years have since passed when earlier this year, Arthur Achuein Chol accused the SPLM Secretary-General, Pagan Amum, of having the knowledge of the whereabouts of US$30 million dollars transferred to the party's account. Arthur did make a mistake somehow by failing to differentiate between the SPLM as a party and its Secretary-General in the person of Pagan Amum, who is responsible for the affairs of the party. He later lost the court case due to that articulation error. It appeared he never stuffed the money into the personal account of the party's secretary, as acknowledged by the court in the defamation case. This was the deciding position of the presiding judge.   Surprisingly nonetheless, the court admitted that the money was wired to the party's accounts by Mr. Arthur Achein Chol as commanded by the 'orders from above.'  'The 'above,' too high to guess was not identified. The judge, Lado, under duress from the chief justice Chan Reec Madut, who made his intimidating presence in the court on the day of the hearing, presumably in an effort to protect 'the above,' fined Arthur the sum of US$37,000 for the defamation of Pagan Amum, the party's Secretary-General, or The SG, as he is famously referred to. 

Where then, had this fiasco left the nation? The vast majority of South Sudanese seem to think mechanically on the issue and have therefore settled on the fact that Arthur remains the culprit and Pagan Amum is innocent. The issue has therefore become a government-controlled and tribally or regionally oriented saga. No doubt while Pagan was keenly celebrating his innocence, the SPLM party was feeling an allergic impact from the ruling. The public too, gullible on the festooned personality of the secretary-general and the endeared party, never thought twice of what it meant when the judge declared Pagan innocent on the premise that the party's accounts were in receipt of the money. No one wants to hear that the people's party is implicated despite the fact that all the big sharks of the SPLM party have grown richer in a short span of time. Are we clear about the ruling in the first place?

Since the nation has inherited a robotic judicial system that characterized the old Sudan, no justice is independent and vocal enough to probe the SPLM for corruption. Arthur hinted again that he would appeal the case, probably to straighten his language more appropriately by bringing the SPLM into the arena as a suspect in the corruption case. If he goes on with it - though this would be a personal tragedy he must be hunting for - will the SPLM party honestly answer the charges of corruption brought against it, or will it pirouette in the weakness of the judicial system that has already made its mark in the country?

It is now clear that the culprit in the corruption scam is the SPLM party, not individuals like Pagan Amum, The SG, or The Scapegoat, Arthur Achuein Chol.

If the nation is serious about probing corruption, the former SPLM warlords, must not be allowed to twirl in the ring accusing and counter-accusing each other. They will only fool everybody. The body that shadows them, which is the party itself, must come with them to court.