Sudan: The Military Had Aways Been the Problem

Photo: today.ng

Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok's civilian government had militarily been  dissolved and himself arrested. The Sudanese Military continues to do what it had done best for decades: toppling the civilian governments and always claiming to rescue the country from tumbling over into chaos and other national security concerns that, if not addressed using the power of the gun, would set the country on the path to disorder, failure and possible disintegration. This hypocrisy is outdated; but it has managed to confuse many people who, in dire situations and as a last resort, call on the same army they abhor to take over. Such was the case before the military took advantage of the situation in Khartoum recently. 

But the Sudanese masses are now privy to the army's every malicious move. The military was believed to be behind many subterranean coup attempts against the government, the latest of which has so far become successful. The success of the coup put an end to the 11-member joint Civilian-Military power sharing government, the Sovereignty Council, led by Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok. The action takes the regularity of military coups in Sudan to another level. When Bashir was ousted in 2018, available studies show that Sudan had had about 15 military coup attempts, five of which were successful. Now the list goes on. 

The Civilian-Military leadership led by Prime Minister Hamdok, to many observers of the Sudanese politics, was an unholy alliance that was not meant to last for long due to historical animosities between the Sudanese military and the civilian governments. The animosity had led many to believe what had really happened was that the military carried out a subtle counter-revolution against the civilian protesters in 2018. The civilians, fed up with military government's malpractices since their 30 years of misrule in which they successfully glided the country into a break up while continuing to starve them, rose up in the name of the shortage of bread. President Bashir had no option but to order the ruthless paramilitary, the Rapid Support Force, which he had used against the people of Darfur and Kordufan mercilessly, to solve the threatening street protests across the country. But the problem failed to go away. The civilians were resolute in their demands and actions irrespective of several deaths they suffered in the process. The army,  fearing that it was being outdone by the civilians whose future government might send most of them to the dock, turned around and joined the civilians, delivering what could be described as a coup-de-grace against President Bashir, their commander in Chief. They claimed, to the cheers of the protesters, to not wanting to shoot at their parents and siblings on the streets. They then worked their way up to being partakers in the government. The only group they sacrificed and arrested was President Bashir and his immediate circle. 

The choreography of power grabbing by the military had gone on one too many in Sudan despite the institution having emerged as the only body that had worried the Sudanese people, set back the building of national identity and cohesiveness, destroyed lives and livelihood and property, and above all, caused a deep social gap among the various Sudanese nationalities and the country as  a whole. In overthrowing Hamdok's civilian government, the military had read the mood from around the world which seems to cuddle the civilian government in the Sudan. As the world begins to open up to Sudan, normalising relations and fostering closer engagement, the military establishment has sensed a threat. They know, as could not be accurately dismissed or considered, that Prime Minister Hamdok might be used internationally to crack down on those wanted for crimes against humanity in the Sudan's long, violent and costly wars. No doubt if The Hague Tribunal focuses deeply on Sudan, most Military Generals of the Sudan Armed Forces would have serious genocidal questions to answer in Darfur and in Kordufan. Their success now in bringing down this civilian-led government is a way of fighting back. They know that as the case against President Bashir, who has already been arrested and facing numerous charges, has come to include the crime of overthrowing the civilian government in 1989, that Hamdok and his civil partners, backed by the international community (both state and non-state actors), might go after them. Stopping them before they act became of necessity. 

Truly, the Sudanese people have much to condemn the military for: they know that had the National Salvation Front, later the National Congress Party, not forced their way to power in 1989, Sudan would have achieved peace with the rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, and there would have been no drawn out war of attrition, which cost many families their sons and daughters in their primes. They know that the actions of the military neither prevented the division of the country nor are they solving economic crises facing the country on daily basis. It suffices to say that without the historical negative Sudanese military interferences in politics, the division of the country into Sudan and South Sudan would not have happened ten years ago. The hope had always been that had the various civilian governments that had been stifled by the military given the chances they needed, the country would have found a solid uniting foundation and solutions to the multiple problems that impacted it. But the complex Sudanese theocratic politics never allowed anything like that to take hold. Various Sudanese military sciolists have had a history of bypassing what united the Sudanese peoples and had always done the exact opposite.

With the battle now pitting the defenseless protesters against the army with tanks and fleets of pickup vehicles, which are manned by cut-throat national security operatives with people-disappearing capabilities, one thing is clear from the Sudanese people who have nowhere to go: there will be no backing down no matter how much force is being used against them. They know that the kind of the country they want had already been defined by those in the now South Sudan who left when their call for  a meaningful Sudanisation fell on deaf ears, especially on the ears of the Sudanese military. That call was very correct then as it is now, and it has become the yardstick for measuring one's Sudaneseness. It doesn't matter then who gets the power using what means in Khartoum. If the call for power-sharing in any government, wealth sharing in national development and achievement of rights for oneself is not heeded, no amount of military interference  will be tolerated. The Sudanese have come of age, and are here to qualify the epigram that the, 'Sudan will never be the same again.'

Chad After Idriss Deby: Giving Power to the People is the Best Option

Pint.2021. Field Marshal Idriss Deby

The killing of Idriss Deby by the rebels of the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT) and the installation of his son, Mahamat Idriss Deby - also known as General Kaka - by the military against the constitution will not end Chad’s endemic political tragedy. Only the civilian government can bring stability to the country. Chad’s political tragedy since independence had been power: who should hold power and how to replace them. It had always led to the cycle of violence against both the civilians and the leaders, the latest of which was the killing of President Deby in the northern region of Tibesti.

The violent death of Idriss Deby was not the only moment in history in which Chadians had witnessed the brutal killing of the country’s president. The first was the 1975 assassination of the independence president, Francois Tombalbaye, who was secretly killed and buried in a remote town in the region where President Deby would later meet his fate. These two tragedies meant that Chad had not been peaceful in 60 years since independence. Political volatilities and pervasive rebellions had played major negative impacts on the country’s political, cultural, economic, educational, health, and infrastructural developments.

Oftentimes, hostile neighbors in the names of the Sudan and Libya had caused or fuelled Chad’s tragedies. With the help of the former colonial power, France, President Idriss Deby had himself warded off many close calls with some of Chad’s unswerving rebels emanating from these countries. The history of Chad since the killing of Tombalbaye had been a history beset in bloodshed, deviation from the aspirations of the people, and disappointment. 

Above all, Chad is a country at the frontline given that climate change remains a threat to all countries on the planet. It needs enduring peace and stability to be able to focus on responding to the constantly and relentlessly expanding Sahara Desert, which threatens the entire Sahel region from the Red Sea to the Atlantic coast with bareness, rising temperatures, lack of water, and depopulation.

This begs the question: can Chad accept the death of Idriss Deby with equanimity and rechart the path towards a genuine political settlement? Nothing is impossible and a few suggestions can be advanced in that regard. 

Key among these suggestions is cooperation among the leaders. The military, rebels, and civilian leaders can work together to save the people from endless political tragedies by allowing stewardship of the people-centered government to take effect. If this happens, decades of bloodshed, hopelessness, and many other concomitant effects of war would be halted. The generals in the army and in rebellions must understand that a military solution to the country’s internal political problems is not a viable option but could only lead to more misery and disappointments. 

Secondly, working together requires sitting together to resolve problems. The call now is specifically on the military leadership to heed the voices of the people and pursue peace: firstly; either the transitional authority headed by General Kaka relinquishes power to the civilians to organize the elections, or shares power with the civilian authorities to organize a transition to civilian government; secondly, respond positively to the rebels and peacefully negotiate a comprehensive solution to governance problem in the country. Does Chad need help to carry out such commitments? Of course, regional and international bodies and governments have to come to the aid of Chad.   

To begin with, through regional cooperation and international assistance, Chad can be turned into a peaceful oasis in the dunes. As mentioned earlier, it must commence with the neighbors that oftentimes interfered in her internal political dynamics. The community of peace-loving nations must bring pressure to bear on Chad’s neighbors and urge them to commit to good neighborliness that encompasses security cooperation agreements. Such agreements will ensure that proxy wars are not entertained. 

Additionally, the same security cooperation should apply to the countries of the Great Lake Chad Basin: Nigeria, Cameroon, and Niger. Their attention should not only focus on the unfortunate Islamists’ activities of Boko Haram - which Chad is helping in the fight - but also on maintaining security cooperation for better stabilization of the middle Africa region. 

Thirdly, the economic community of West African States (ECOWAS), which had been a regional pacifier and peace enforcer, must not tire to turn attention to Lake Chad Region. The bloc’s support in West Africa ensured that Charles Taylor was made accountable for war atrocities in Liberia, leading to his arrest; conviction, and detention in HM prison Frankland, UK. Such bold steps are needed to ensure that politically struggling nations like Chad find lasting peace and stability. 

Fourthly, the continental body, the African Union, should maintain pressure on the military authorities in Chad to allow civilian government to be formed. Thirty years of military rule under former president Idriss Deby have not accorded Chad any semblance of peace but continuous wars. If deploying a neutral force between the warring factions and the regime in N’djamena will force all to the negotiations for a binding agreement, then it would be a worthy call for the African Union to undertake.

Finally, the former colonial power, France, should take the responsibility of waging peace in Chad. If France desires peace at home and seeks the assistance of Chad in fighting the Islamists/Jihadists in the Sahel, as Chad had dependably been doing, then France must not appear to be soft on the rebels and military rulers but to side with the people so that the democratic governance is realized. Anything short will always be read along the lines of the endorsement of the status quo. Most of Chad’s rebel leaders such as Mahamat Mahdi Ali of FACT (former deposed President Hissène Habré’s kinsman) and Mahamat Nouri of The Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD) are cozied in Paris. They can comply with peace initiatives if pressured by the host. If this happens, peace will ring in Chad, and if it does, genuine democratic governance will endure – and there would be no reason in the future why a democratically elected president would rush to the frontline a day after winning the elections only to die in battle. 

Nine-day Revolution: the Meteoric Rise and Fall of Kerbino Wol and the 7th October Revolution

Photo credit: Wol's FP

Revolutions generally aim to restructure society either partially or completely. Whether they would be short-lived or go on for a longer period depend entirely on their composing doctrines and on the reception by the general public upon which the revolutionary benefits befall. Revolutions, in the actual sense of the word, seek to force a change through. Few revolutions in history could be said to have been peaceful. Many were bloody and had left behind trails of historic destructions of both property and human lives. Revolutions, some argue, are all-around giant monsters that feed on the targeted victims but would suck in the initiators if not carefully managed. This is precisely what happened with The 7^th October Revolution.

On the 15^th June 2020, news flooded in that on Sunday 14^th June 2020, the leader of The 7^th October Movement, Kerbino Wol Agok, was killed in action by government forces in Ayen Mayar village, in Amongpiny. The area of the alleged battle is in Eastern Lakes State, central South Sudan. The battle rendezvous is somehow controversial as those conversant with the area point out that Amongpiny and Ayen Mayar are two separate villages, several miles apart.

Kerbino’s death came nine days after his famous Voice of America’s South Sudan in Focus interview with John Tanza, in which he announced his intentions to oppose the government through armed insurrection. Despite conflicting reports on the nature of his killing, it was evidential he and many of his men were killed in their maiden and final week of military operations. Thus, the time it had taken the creepy joint operation between South Sudan Peoples Defence Forces’ (SSPDFs) and the local Agar Gelweng to eliminate Kerbino Wol and his newly assembled force will go down in the history of South Sudan as the speediest time in which an armed insurrection had been located, vanquished and terminated. Two other incidences occurred before but were handled differently. The first was George Athor who launched his rebellion following irregularities in the gubernatorial elections in Jonglei in 2010. His eleven months insurgency ended with his killing in February 2011 in a confusing scenario. Before his killing, the government entered into peace talks with him. He was killed while on a mission to explore ways to end the war with the government. He was posthumously framed in a way that fit the narrative: that he was on a recruitment mission in Equatoria where he was intercepted by government forces. The story was nightmarish to be believed. The second, whose mentioning here serves as a control to Athor and Kerbino, was the capture of Major General Stephen Buoy Rolnyang. Buoy was arrested in May 2018 after defying orders to report to Juba. His action of moving his forces to Mayom was deemed a rebellion. He was charged with treason but was later pardoned. 

Many critics who hail from the Dinka Community have, to this point, reluctantly accepted the much-touted argument that it is dangerous to be a rebel if a Dinka. It's an argument too hard to dispute for one crucial observation, visible in the government's response to disgruntled members of the opposition hailing from the community. The cases of Athor and Kerbino are good examples. Paul Malong was another; he only avoided danger by accepting to return to Juba from Yirol. Had he proceeded against the advice offered to him in Yirol, Rumbek East would be counting two. What does this story portray? The story portrays to the rest of the citizenry what's left unsaid. It also paves the way for interpretation that the government's military razzmatazz doubly serves as a warning and as an announcement to certain citizens to either stick to the fold by default or be treated as castaways. The consequences are dire.

The mysterious Kerbino

The name Kerbino was not on the revolutionary radar in South Sudan. It could not be located on the list of known grandmasters in the art of rebellion and militia. He never held a ministerial post, never been a general in the army, and had not self-appointed a commander in the country’s ever-teaming militias. Like a meteor that splashes across the sky, he appeared and disappeared leaving behind questions to be explored. Some learned about him after his death, leading to mixed reactions and confusion at a time when the country continues to face issues of peace implementation. Kerbino was mysterious. Unlike other warlords who would pull huge security dilemmas, create impossible scenarios, kill with impunity, and trade their dangerous selves for government positions, all without harm, he was a minor in the field of mischief. Taking to the bush when all the known strong warlords were in town scheming for political domains, amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, made him a sitting duck.

Worst still, his rebellion was cantankerously formed; it was high on emotions and bitterness. The 7^th October Revolution did not adequately scan their terrain of operation. They did not weigh the tenacious might of South Sudan Peoples Defence Forces and the securitization abilities of intelligence agencies that protect the seat of power. Due to this lack of the existing military realities and foresight of what they were dealing with, the revolutionists were located on the same day they went on air and were tracked successfully to the last day of their destruction. If there was something that the 7^th October Revolution misjudged, it was the reluctance by South Sudanese masses to enthusiastically take up arms as it used to be during the wars of liberation of 1955 and 1983 with the Sudanese governments. The revolution could not be embraced enthusiastically. South Sudan is a changed country. It is not that euphoric anymore. Little binds people together. The nationalism that used to hold everyone together had sunk to ethnic or tribal sub-nationalism. A few nationalists that there are, have come to associate any military struggle to individualism. Also, there seems to be general awareness sweeping across the country, an awareness that perceives any wars post-2011 as wars of individual interests. A politically conscious South Sudanese will tell that the ruthlessness with which the country self-inflicted since 2013 far outshone gallantry demonstrated in all previous wars of liberation.  It was total madness, a death dance of ego rather than of substance. Nobody really wants to see the repeat for a simple seat distribution in Juba. Citizens now know that the slow pace of public infrastructural development, low investment in the health sector, abject poverty in the rural areas, and annual endemic starvation, which is habitual during rainy seasons, are indications that violence had played a prolonged destructive role. How could Kerbino Wol miss that glaring reality? Some may point to frustration, irritability, and the sense of humiliation he felt after coming out of prison.

Kerbino the Jesh el-Amer

Kerbino was a lost boy. Prior to his invisible name of the lost boy assigned to him in the West, he was part of the Red Army of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army. He was not lost. He was known but then, like his colleagues, vanished intentionally and dramatically. A young man born in 1982, at a time when Anyanya Two roamed the rural areas of Sudan, Kerbino falls within what in the West is the Generation Y or the group fondly known as the Millennial Generation, or Millennials in short. This is the dot-com generation born between 1981 and 1996 into the world of the Internet, multimedia, and presently, social media. Now, adults, the Millennials are nerdy young men and women with tight shirts and pants and confidently chatting away on phones and boasting about their social media followers.

Unlike in the West, children born in this space of time in the then Sudan had little education and technology due to the adverse nature of the surrounding in which they entered the world. They were born into the war, grew up surrounded by dangers, and always fleeing from something, real or apparent. Oftentimes, they are the danger themselves. Many of them had quit fear and adopted resilience and adaptability.  Like Kerbino who joined the liberation struggle at the age of twelve, they refused to be the subjects in flight but on assault. Kerbino bravely walked to Dima, Ethiopia, where he must have trained as a revolutionary child soldier. He later went to the United States where he built himself educationally and professionally and returned to South Sudan to complete what he started: build a prosperous nation through hard work. Like all South Sudanese in the diaspora, the yearning to return home and to make the country a better place through one’s personal involvement remains a preoccupation and a craze. Since independence, multitudes with disparate capabilities and intentions streamed home. Some tried to revive their old rural lifestyle but were overwhelmed; others got caught in the roughness of the political situation and escaped back to the diaspora. A great majority toured the country, got dissatisfied with the overall progress, and left to contemplate their next trip.  

Kerbino the Entrepreneur and Prisoner

After returning home, Kerbino established a multimillion-dollar security business and philanthropy. He employed many young people and influenced many others to work harder. He enjoyed the country of his dream until he was awakened through arrest in April 2018 by the security forces and kept in Juba’s infamous Blue House for months without charges. In prison, they protested. He was alleged to have led the riot on the 7^th of October 2018. This day would later form the name of his revolution. It was after the riot when the government was heard in his arbitrary detention for the first time.  In jail with him was Peter Biar Ajak, an academic who was summarily arrested at the airport in July 2018 and held without charges in the same premises with Kerbino Wol. Holding people without charges is nothing new. During the war, SPLA soldiers used to joke that, ‘we arrest the person before committing the crime, then they commit one.' Kerbino was handed a ten-year sentence for a crime in jail; the charges were terrorism, sabotage, and treason. He was later pardoned by the president in a general amnesty and released into the world in which his bank accounts were frozen and assets and business unaccounted for. He hit the road a confused and bitter man.      

Kerbino the Revolutionary

Kerbino announced the formation of the 7th October Movement on June 5, 2020, seeking to bring about change in the country. He died trying. The death of Kerbino Wol Agok, like the death of late Commandant, Kerubino Kwanyin Bol on the 9^th of September 1999, occurred in the open and in the most horrifying circumstance. Unlike Kwanyin Bol, Wol Agok died in the hands of the free, the South Sudan People’s Defence Force of the independent Republic of South Sudan. Unlike Commander Kerubino Kwanyin Bol whose death could be attributed to the connivance of the long-time enemy in Khartoum, Kerbino Wol had all the privileges, mercies, humanity, and nationality that should have saved his life. His 7^th October Revolution, which sounded like a students' uprising, was just a budding movement of the distraught and the restless youth, protesting for a right. If the government was keen on keeping him alive, Kerbino would have lived. Barely two weeks into the rebellion, and without having launched any attacks, one wonders what the rush to ending his life was for? No one would be convinced that all avenues for negotiations were exhausted on Wol and his movement. No deadlocks were necessary for a two-week rebellion. A lot was not done before humanity was turned off. Kerbino was young, ambitious, and talented. The country stands to benefit from people of his caliber and would have benefited from him had he been coolly tamed and brought back to the fold. He was not that dangerous.

Hurdles in the Formation of the Transitional Government of National Unity in South Sudan

South Sudan is gearing up to the climax of the Revitalized Agreement on the Restoration of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS). The climax is supposed to occasion the formation of the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity (R-TGONU). But this looks to be in limbo despite the dramatic hopes that peace, in its real form, lands on Saturday, 22 February 2020.

The past plays the future in the R-ARCSS

The R-ARCSS and The Agreement on the Restoration of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (ARCSS) are one and the same. It was the failure of ARCSS that brought about its revitalization. In echo to the political climate during the August 2015 signing of the ARCSS, political wobbling has resurfaced in earnest among the antagonists. President Kiir and his government are desperate to accommodate Dr. Riek Machar and the SPLM/A-IO group but the latter has no hurry. Dr. Riek Machar wants all the stipulations in the agreement to be implemented accordingly. Thus the formation of the government on 22 February 2020 will likely be blighted with problems of exclusion (by the government in Juba) or pull out (from the rebel opposition).

Up to this point, the path to an all-out peace is nothing less than a thorny case and Dr. Riek Machar is clearly not making it any easier. It was clear in his timely rejection of the Final Resolution of the Meeting of the Presidency on the Number of States and Boundaries issued on February 14, 2020. The resolution was rushed in favor of his movement and was grounded on a good gesture to give peace a chance. He should have jumped to that gesture promptly. However, he quickly issued his rejection on February 15, 2020, chastising the government on the statuses of the three administrative areas of Ruweng, Pibor, and Abyei. Perhaps, he was calling to mind the unfortunate past experiences.

Five years ago in August 2015, president Kiir reluctantly signed the ARCSS at the last minute and attached several pages of his own demands, and forwarded it to the mediators. It was a clear signal that he had little trust in the agreement. It could be argued that such action contributed to the later collapse of the agreement. Riek is still aware of that as well as the nasty security corollaries that ensued. If he was not petrified this time around, then he was rather more cautious not to take the same dangerous political highway. He probably did not want things to repeat themselves unpleasantly. No more confusing and dangerous 'annexes' or 'appendices' as it was in the beginning in 2015 agreement; which led to the 2016 J-1 shoot-out and heightened in an uncalled for 40-day escape marathon to the Democratic Republic of Congo; is now when President Kiir is again toying with the number of states and grooming too many VPs to counter his weight; and ever shall be conflict without end.

The ARCSS syndrome

The ARCSS lives in the R-ARCSS. Like ARCSS, it is proving even more problematic to implement. Since it was signed in September 2018, it has been pushed from side to side with all parties unable to reign in their differences. The formation of the TGONU was expected in May 2019 but, to no one’s astonishment, was deferred due to disagreements over security arrangements and territorial issues emanating from the government's creation of the new states. It had been the rebel opposition that contentiously argued against all actions and compromises made by the government. The government on its part has not been true to peace protocols as it kept changing goal posts whenever implementation drew near. The six-month additional time given did not help, forcing IGAD mediators in November 2019 to add yet another 100 days or three months up to February 22, 2020. The IGAD threatened consequences if the deadline was missed. Since IGAD is toothless but still feared, the approach of the deadline has emboldened the rebels who pressed harder for their demands. They hope to benefit in the fray if any punishment is handed down, thinking they have nothing to lose. The whole point of dragging the feet has come to center heavily on the number of states and the three administrative areas.

The Three Administrative Areas

Apart from Ruweng, the other administrative areas have been part of every agreement in South Sudan. Abyei is the baggage from the partial failure of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Greater Pibor Administrative Area was part of the 2016 government in which the SPLM/A-IO was a key ally. If anything is new, it is Ruweng, and it had been threatening and her rhetorical monologue had been loud enough for all to hear. But it is unreasonable to blame the people of this region for being too sensitive and skeptical when all they see and smell around them is death. History is still too raw for the Ngok people on this eternal frontline to be asked to forget. The atrocities of Malakal in which even the unborn children were pulled out from their dead mothers’ wombs and macheted still traumatize people in the area and countrywide. If the Ngok people of Ruweng believe governing themselves as an Administrative Area offers them a break from the cycle of atrocities, then the presidency could make good on this arrangement by surveying the land and establish permanent boundaries with their neighbors or work on the past problematic maps of colonial Sudan and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan to bring about a permanent solution to this area.

Pibor, as stated earlier, is a case older than the SPLM/A-IO. The Cobra Militias of Pibor under David Yau Yau share a discontent with the Late  George Athor's Movement, both of which emerged from the gubernatorial election shambles in Jonglei state in 2010. The Pibor armed group was there when Dr. Riek Machar was a vice president. Peace with David Yau Yau was reached before that with the SPLA-IO. Throwing this in as part of the problem means that the SPLM/A-IO expects wide-ranging conflicts to flare up in the country.

With Abyei, the SPLM/A-IO must come out clearly as a national political player and states its position rather than lumping it within the meaningless Anglo-Egyptian boundaries and districts that served no good to South Sudan but isolated the region from the rest of the world. The clash of modernity and ruralism in every South Sudanese today is a result of the Closed District Ordinance. As much as arguments in its favor point to the temporary stoppage of the slave trade, its adverse impacts far outweigh what was purportedly being controlled. Failure to resolve the Sudanese problem in Abyei is the responsibility of all South Sudan political stakeholders. Leaders must remain true to the course of the people. 

The 32 States then and now

The government’s decision to redividing the country into 28 states and later 32 states at the time was reactionary in nature. It did not want to be stuck in the past because the rebels, during the negotiations, were calling for more states and especially the 21 colonial districts; a call that would reintroduce memories of the time of the Anglo-Egyptian proxy rule. Many have come to believe that Dr. Riek wanted to win the favor of the UK, the former colonial power that is part of the Troika countries supporting the peace process in the country. The government also realized that the August 2015 ARCSS was inclined on awarding oil-producing areas to the rebels in the Upper Nile Region, thus ethnicizing the country’s natural endowments and making the region even more contested. It thought it right to correct the misconception since some international and regional powers were erroneously keen to associate the rebels with the oil. It also perceived that the ARCSS, signed in August 2015, attempted to split the country into two strong domains, one controlled by the government and the other by the armed opposition.

The division was, therefore, partly to place the resources where they belong and to dissuade those who might be thinking that the government was just sitting on an empty eggshell. The reaction was immediate and bloody. As the weight of the decree reverberated across the country, it began to be understood in the rebel corners and among the anti-ethnic hegemony in the country post-independence that the action, by its very design and execution, placed all major oil wells within the Dinka territories and further annexed a few patches of land here and there, particularly the Nuer lands and those of the Shilluk Kingdom. As much as the division of the country into 32 states was good for enabling people to locally develop their immediate areas, the circumstances in which it was introduced have created new geographies of ethnic enclaves where land wars were, in the process, set to become real and eternal.

Fear of Elders

It was in the division that many believed emerged the powerful Jieng Council of Elders (JCE). This assemblage of tribal sages, many of who were, and still are, seasoned politicians from the days of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan until now, have members hailing from all tribes and territories of the Dinka. They stand accused of having influenced the government in redrawing the borders and continuously providing a leaning rod to the government in dire political and military situations. Minus the elders, the opposition believes it can outwit the government to win the population to its side. The JCE has since become a catchphrase for anyone who has a bone to pick with the government. Others go as far as castigating whoever is working with the government and delivering services to the people. Seeing the government fall has become a preoccupation of some desperate tribal cliques and hateful individuals who did not benefit in peacetime, never benefited in the bloody chaos, and have no heart left for the country except welcoming a recolonization in dubious forms, hoping a mysterious master will have a lofty handout.

Beneficiaries of 32 States

No one can predict that the return to 10 states, plus, 3 administrative areas will not have its own casualties. The level of political confusion has grown wild in the country. It is plausible to state here that in trying to speed up the formation of the government, meant to consolidate peace or bring about it in the first place, not every citizen will be euphoric. Given that some happy and joyful people of yesterday have been denied states and local administrations today and without proper consultation and heavy hearts, returned to old places for peace to descend upon them, makes it clear that peace will have enemies from its recipients. Collapsing the government by reducing it from the operational 32 states to ten or thirteen – if we add the three administrative areas thus created - would not be a simple return of the tidal waves. The Juba government will now have more on its plates to deal with. That includes numerous public officials who have been made redundant or have lost their jobs in the big calculation for peace, many citizens trying to come to terms with the sudden dispossession of their new states, lands, and territories, and bitter others who have lost friends and dear ones in the commitment to make the new states operational to deliver services. Some of these dissolving states have already put up new public infrastructure in the shortest time possible and were happily making them fully functional to their respective people. These are the groups that will eye both the government and the SPLM/A-IO with fully rolled-out eyeballs.

In all this, it appears Dr. Riek and his SPLM-IO wield enormous power to enable things to move or stall them. Since the war began in 2013, no major developmental plans have been initiated in the country simply because people have to deal with the war first. The government and its machinery seemed to enjoy this deflection from public scrutiny and have relaxed the commitment on many important projects such as building a lasting road network. The pre-occupation of the government had always been how to stop the war first. Any criticisms or meaningful analyses of the situation in the country have often been pointed in the direction of the war.

The SPLM/A concept of peace through development has become a thing of the past. Dr. Riek has got what he never used to get during the bygone days: waiting for him. The SPLM/A mainstream has no history of waiting for people walking on the sidetracks. Dr. Riek knows this. When the ‘theatrical coup’ of 1991 occurred, the remaining SPLM/A took a giant leap of faith and initiated many projects and redoubled war efforts such that by the time he came back to the fold in 2002, he had no idea where to start. The SPLM/A was a real, undeclared four-by-four vehicle without reverse gears. It was completely divergent from the one in sight today. William Nyuon Bany confirmed this when he returned to the movement after his stint in the bush within a bush. He was said to have put it that the SPLM/A seemed weak when one was inside but an impenetrable strength and a progressive movement when one viewed it from the outside.

Riek and the Dragon Behind him

Why had Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon become a bone that cannot be swallowed nor expectorated? It leaves many to say now that if Riek Machar and the SPLM/A-IO were a genuinely registered political party, devoid of the threats of use of arms and bloodshed that often ensue, South Sudan would have announced her democratic strength in her unyielding opposition. But, to all South Sudanese both at home and in the diaspora who have been yearning for peace and the resultant progress that follows, Dr. Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon is undeniably holding everyone hostage. People have been reduced to begging him to come home. It is a slap in the face to all by the man who was essentially chased away and nearly lost his feet while running. He was humiliated but has now returned the slap of humiliation slowly and painfully with the determination of a stalking Panthera. To his political opponents and to all citizens of South Sudan, it is a damning warning. South Sudanese are not always tolerant of any individualistic leader. They have disowned many leaders who exhibited such characters. But Riek Machar Teny keeps coming back more powerful than each time he left. No one knows exactly the dragon in the shadow of the man. That’s what scares the government, the people, and President Kiir in particular.

Wildfires and Unrelenting Winds in Aweil

In most African villages, far from the reaches of local and global media and research, climate change has no name. But people know about the natural order of things. They have done so for centuries. They know about the seasons of the year and could detect, with immediate certainty, when anything out of the ordinary disturbs the serenity and benevolence of nature. With bare bodies, people can tell if it is too hot or cold in the present time in comparison to the times of yore.

If being omnipresently aware of the natural surrounding and sudden variations that happen in it constitutes climate change, then the climate has not been so unmerciful in the years gone by but now. People now know that when natural disasters – those that have never occurred – do occur, they have to find the right answers and the correct modes of response. They ask rhetorically hard questions and begin to seek some tangible answers in this regard.

In the South Sudanese constituency of Korok, an event that surprised the locals happened recently. A little bush fire in an open sudd area – known locally as 'The Toc' – was swallowed up by massive wind turbulence and spun around for hours before it was launched into a speedy conflagration, consuming people, houses, trees, livestock, crops, and anything that could catch fire in its wake. When it all subsided, over fifty people lay dead, incinerated beyond recognition. Many more sustained third-degree burns. The situation was a nightmare. Its eerie menace fed into the local traditions, mores, and mythologies, trying to explain away the horror that had befallen people for the first time.

People began to ask: what is it? Why have fires like these happened? How comes fires could leap over hundreds of meters of open grounds to set ablaze far places with unimaginable fierceness?  What has changed in our routine seasons of the year that winds and fires have become so ferocious and unpredictable?....and many more questions are still being asked. The answers are still to be communicated to these communities.

This, to the doubting Thomases in the climate change argument, shows that the conditions of the atmosphere are not the way they used to be. Even unschooled villagers have come to understand it.

To remember the victims of the combined ruthlessness of winds and fires in Korok, here is the lamentation in Dinka about the once known natural area that has now turned into a deadly monster, spitting hot and blowing faster than usual:

Kɔrɔk Acï Dëp

Karaŋda acï nyopwei

Ye Karaŋ Abɛɛl

Aye Karaŋ Aŋeŋ?

Aye ŋɔ̈ɔ̈i amääth

Alɛ̈ ke Kɔrɔŋdaan tööŋë

E wɛ̈t yic apɛidït

Ekëya

Ɣok aŋuɔt ɣothiëc

Yeŋö gɔp baai wei

Yeŋö nyop ye wei?

Ŋön ye yɔɔɔɔɔt

Ku wiiiiu

Gɔl Majöŋdaan Ayät

Ɣet Wunlaŋ?

Kɔrɔŋ ce reedic

Ka raan loi awanwan!

Yen kuc raan la rwanyrwany piiny!

Ku abak

Acë guöp la ŋäpëŋäp!

Yeŋö loi yeen?

Ye giir, ye mac?

Aye lueel alɛ̈ ke Wärajak

Yen abï giir ku mac.

Kujal kuc

Yeŋö ku e tonydaan thɛɛr

Ŋïc piu ruël

Ku giir yakthok?

Yeŋö cë rot waar ye ruöönë?

Cë wärdaandïït ë jiɛɛk

Yenhom wɛ̈l ɣook

Bï ya wär ë dot?

Tuɔnyda yeŋö?

Yeŋö pɛ̈l yïn këdhie

Yïnic pät ë piu ku rɛc?

Ca nhom määr Puurkulël?

Ku kuc mac liääp kek yom?

Ka cïn kë kwany ka gup!

Käla wiuëwiu

Käla wutëwut

Käla lökëlök!

Ka tuc kuapuɔl

Cë wut lil Wärdït

Maɣoo! Maɣeey!

Tiëŋkë tol nhom!

Tonydaan dïït Wärajak

War yïnhom tony thɛɛr.

Ɣok acï gup la däŋëdäŋ

Cɔl ɣook aben puöth liɛr

Ku kuëthku

Buk waak bɛn kiit

Ɣo nɔ̈ɔ̈k nhïïm...

"Tonydaan Wärajak

Ka cuk päl

...Raan aba yiik amook

Tuɔnyda waa...x 2"

Show Us Your IDs: Ethnic Patriotism And The Killing of Simon Dhieu In Yei River County

Photo credit: Online Africa

@oafrica

·

Dec 25, 2014

Ethnically targeted killing is heightening in South Sudan. The constellation of killings out of tribal detestation, ordinarily executed following effective identification to establish the correct ethnic origin of the person(s) to be killed, has, to this juncture reached its zenith.

A few days ago, presumably April 13, 2016, Simon Dhieu and his co-worker of the Danish Demining Group (DDG), based in Yei, were gunned down by a group of unidentified Dinka haters on the outskirt of town. They were on their usual routine – which involves locating and destroying mines and other unexploded ordnances – exploring suspected areas to be demined. Their killers, who stopped the commercial vehicle they were traveling by to the demining site, made no secret of what they were looking for. After forcing them out of the vehicle, they asked about their ethnic origins. The specific identification process employed by these determined killers included asking if there were MTNs or Dinkas among the occupants of the vehicle, numbering about eight people per the narratives of those who witnessed the scene.

Sensing the gravity of the situation, the demining workers grew numb, unable to speak for fear of being caught lying, which might have led to further catastrophic consequences; or as a ploy to hide the identities of their colleagues that the assailants demanded to know. Either of the two, the ploy did not work. The assailants asked for identity documents at gunpoint and were subsequently produced under intense nervousness. Satisfied with their search and identification that Simon Dhieu and his friend were Dinka people (the other who said his mother was a Kakwa from the area was spared), they separated them from the group, undressed them, tied their hands behind their backs, faced them away from the rest, took aims and in an unembellished bestial ferocity, shot them all in the back. The two young men, intelligent and dedicated nation builders who, on daily occasions, risked their lives demining their new country from mines and other unexploded ordnance left behind by two decades of civil war - especially Yei River County – contorted and collapsed in front of their colleagues. The mother earth, unpreparedly, received their lifeless bodies pushed down on it by the curvature of space. On the ground, they lay never to get up again. Their colleagues looked on completely petrified, outraged but powerless.

Dinka The MTNs

The killers were out looking for the MTNs, a euphemism for the Dinka people. MTN is a South African-based Mobile Telephone Network operating in many countries around the world, including South Sudan. But to understand its contextual use in this ethnic-based targeted killing, one has to understand the Hutu paramilitary génocidaires of 1994 - The Interahamwe Militias - that likened Tutsi ethnic group members to cockroaches and set about to exterminate them; Omar el Bashir, the Sudanese president’s likening of South Sudanese to insects (hasharat) that should just be sprayed dead. More broadly, think of any other time someone likens another person to a monkey, a dog, or a pig – wishing to do unto them the treatment such animals would receive. The perpetrators always used these euphemisms to deny themselves any feelings of sympathy or remorse. It is a human way of turning off humanity and revealing the devil within in its full disgracefulness. But in this case, a simple analogy is that MTN coverage seems to be everywhere, just as Dinka majority in South Sudan could be found anywhere in the country, hence, the MTNs.

The killing of Simon Dhieu and his Dinka co-worker is one count among many: between Juba and Yei, people have been pulled out of vehicles and killed; between Juba and Mundri West and East, vehicles heading North of the country have been ransacked and travelers killed mercilessly; out of Rumbek to any direction, extrajudicial killings have been meted out on tribal identities. Even in Juba itself, people say it would be stupid to walk in the streets at night without checking your back. Suburbs have become lethal tribal areas with people from particular regions of South Sudan settling exclusive from others. 

Lethal Tribal Identity

At the moment of their death, and in the realms of the spirits – if there exists a metaphysical ability enabling the dead to extend earthly tragedies into conclusive discussions in the worlds beyond the physical – Simon and his colleague would still, be questioning their abrupt and tragic human-engendered demise.  No doubt, even those alive and who have heard or witnessed the killing are probing for answers as well. 

There is a need to fill-in the gap left by the deaths of these two young nation builders with answers. They had no time to ask their killers. Their killers were filled with rage. Simon and his friend were, in turn, filled with fear and questions. They died before working out anything for resolution or understanding. The only message that brutally departed with them was the question and confirmation of their Dinka originality. In South Sudan, a nation that must assert itself among the nations of the world, telling the truth should be part of nation-building. But, in telling the truth about who they were, Simon Dhieu and his Dinka colleague stumbled on a mystery: having been born Dinka was a deadly natural reality that kills at once upon pronunciation or realization. That was why they were killed. They might want to know why it was lethal to be found or born a Dinka? Would they have survived had their killers known that in the Dinka blood runs a shared DNA strains linking them with Kakwa, Acholi, Shilluk, Anyuak, Nuer, Taposta, Luo, Atuot, Aliap, Didinga, etc? Would they have been spared if they had a chance to remind their killers that, despite being the Dinka they so much hated, they both shared the history of marginalization and, now, independent South Sudan?

The Nation Built on Tribal Allegiances

To suggest that South Sudan is a nation built on the glaring reality of ethnic patriotism, one cannot be accused of overstating the network of the South Sudanese society’s identity crisis. We have seen this in government where communities rally behind politicians hailing from their areas; we see it in the South Sudanese army, paramilitaries, and militias where people we have blood relations are the ones we support and stand by irrespective of inabilities and misleading, often destructive dreams; we know this when we speak and argue with pervasive national character and suggesting revolutionary changes while discreetly, wishing that these changes be done by somebody closer to home; we see it in the employment sector, where entire tribes dominate key structures of subsistence; in the airport and immigration where rules only apply to tribes other than mind; in service delivery queues where if the officials delivering services are of my blood relation, tribe, region, or any other category that fits, we must be esteemed queue-jumpers. If ethnic groups favor themselves over everything, then the end of everything will always be an ethnic clash - clashing over resources, government positions, national projects, administrative areas, and all that the country throws at her citizens. South Sudanese must rise and meet the challenges of true nationalism. It is not right to speak with national rhetoric while practicing ethnic patriotism. Nations of the world that are now considered prosperous, peaceful, and strong did one thing: they shunned ethnic allegiances and accepted to be one and the subjects of a nation.

It is in shunning ethnic loyalties that the deaths, like that of Simon Dhieu and his colleagues would be brought to an end. If it starts effectively at the national level, other gruesome deaths related to ethnic loyalties would surely be curtailed.