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.

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.

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.

Juba and Khartoum : Border Wars, Negotiations and National Integrity

By Martin Garang Aher

The two nations of South Sudan and Sudan seemed to have bypassed the habitual melanoma that had in history, plagued the countries that have once been united from independence - reverting to war soon after separation. Rather unusual! But strange as it was, the international community witnessed the Sudanese bizarre and peaceful separation that many analysts, in forecast, believed would be preceded by upsurge of violence. Though these forecasters of war were wrong in speed with which war was prophesied to come, they were right in ‘time’ that it would surely take to come. Up until July 9th 2011 when the Africa’s massive country came crashing down into two states: Sudan and South Sudan, there was little hope that all would go well and peacefully without a farewell fire flare – well before independence of South Sudan or just as the two countries regularize their national borders and set up independent institutions.

To the Arab North citizens, particularly those who possess the will-power to attribute Arabness to themselves, and who by virtue of well positioning in the country’s power, they thought that disciplining South Sudan before it seceded was conceivably a matter of psychological settlement and a retribution for the damage done to national integrity. It also serves, as a ploy to blindfold the Sudanese masses that separation of South Sudan was not the making of the leadership in power – indicative of their constant flexing of muscles to prevent it from happening. Although the trick never played out, it was certainly tried.

Indeed, occupation of Abyei by Sudanese forces prior to independence of South Sudan was meant to correct the presumed wrong signatures appended to CPA peace documents; action that was literally driving South Sudan away into independence - which eventually occurred. Sudan claimed that occupation of Abyei was a result of retaliatory action of an attack on their retreating column of soldiers by South Sudanese army. So, it seemed beating South Sudanese army in the retaliation was not enough but to occupy its territory! The rationale is unfathomable in this case. No question at that point, the stage for war was, in effect, set.

What prevented a full-scale war at that point might have been a careful self-education of the people of South Sudan on the visionary Islamism nature of the old republic of Sudan. And so the trick was neither heeded nor allowed to tamper with the freedom that would have, in a single day of indecisiveness, shattered what was fought for in many decades.  One wonders now, why the SPLM/A that had mastered the tricks of the Sudanese army is falling fast into the trap. It was perplexing to hear president Kir announced in Juba that the South Sudanese army had taken Heglig. Though his position was based on the authenticity that Sudan started the war at the borders, he should have been aware that his position would solidify Jihadists peace distractors in Khartoum who see no reason to have smooth relations with South Sudan. Khartoum's agression must be treated in a similar way to that of Abyei before the referendum; only that this time, the nation must be mindful of the border line.

When Abyei fell to the Sudanese army prior to independence, South Sudanese were consciously obsessed with independence, not war.  The current twist in the tails between Sudan and South Sudan in which negotiations, the borders, citizenship status and oil become intertwined, points to the direction of other countries that historically never beat the temperaments and a sense of loss of each other in a civilized split-up. In such countries, war accompanied what was once a peaceful divorce in bloody exchanges that led to restrained relations. And this is one of the problems with peaceful resolution of conflicts through negotiations – the vanquished (including the one on the verge of it) never acknowledge the defeat; and wavering over remaining contentious issues of the conflict farther sow seeds for future confrontations.

As we saw in the breakup of Pakistan and India in 1947; where there was lack of clean division of the country in apropos to religious lines upon which the whole idea of division rested; and the actual lines of the borders were actually skewed in the areas of Kashmir and Hyderabad; that there was no doubt the wounds of partition would remain maligned for some time. South Sudan and the Sudan almost have a similar situation akin to what happened to the Himalayan nations.

With one third of the Muslims remaining in India and Indian Hindu population in bitterness over the partition – something that drove them rowdy and killing Mahatma Gandhi, their erstwhile religiously venerated figure – the seeds of war had been sown.

India and Pakistan had since clashed over their borders numerous times.

Those were India and Pakistan. Today, they still fight declared and undeclared wars, with caution knowing very well they have their nuclear warheads pointing at each other and madness from either side to use one nuke-headed missile would lead to a Mutually Assured Destruction of the two nations. No one can lecture them on the true value of peace today for they know more than be told.

With a reasonable fraction of South Sudanese population still languishing in North Sudan and North Sudanese businesses and government eyeing South Sudan for business and economic (and oil is the economic stimulant the Sudanese government needs to counter economic spiral) gains respectively, there is a cause for concern that what started in Abyei and now in Heglig, will transcend further into the future – long after the National Congress Party (NCP) and Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) left the political scenes in both countries.

Perhaps the Ethio-Eritrean circumstance provides a similar situation of uneasiness over the break-up between two countries. I consider this appropriate because the two countries fought over borders in the 1990s after Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia. The world media that witnessed the fighting told of the horrific nature of the war. So nasty and meaningless was the war. It was in contrast  with the fact that the bit of land in the contention was not economically useful or geopolitically de rigueur to either of them. The principle for war was only to maintain national integrity in terms of firm borders. The International Commission in The Hague established that Eritrea was to blame for starting the war by invading Ethiopia. As of 2012, the town of Badme, which was at the epicenter of war, is still under Ethiopian occupation even though The Hague based court ruled it in favour of Eritrea.

If South Sudan and Sudan inch in a full-scale war over the borders, I believe it is national integrity, which plays a critical role. With oil and national integrity complicating the scenario between South Sudan and Sudan, it is apparent that intermittent border skirmishes would not go away sooner than they suppose. Negotiations will only be deployed as vanguards for national integrity.

Who really wants to safeguard its national integrity more, South Sudan or the Sudan?

It is in answering this question, that the issue of national integrity becomes a little more complex. I suppose South Sudanese see the recent four freedoms agreement as simply another invitation of Arabs into the country. This is historically evident in the Sudanese common knowledge that the Arabs came to Sudan, spread their religion and never left. South Sudanese hardliners too, view Addis Ababa agreement on the four freedoms as a strategy schemed by the Sudan to encroach on South Sudan. To prove this fear, here is a comment made by an anonymous North Sudanese national on Sudan Tribune online newspaper on hearing that the two nations would sign agreement on the four freedoms:

‘What a great victory! that’s exactly what we were looking for, now on, we can own land, houses, move freely in the south, now the separation is meaningless, it’s just on the paper! Now the road has become widely open to our great mission of arabizing the South, we need to follow the same technique and method that our Arab great grandfathers had done when they came to Sudan, yes, we need to marry southerners ladies, that’s the shortcut solution in arabizing the south, our new generations will become full southerners but arabized! I personally prefer to marry from Western Equatoria, yes, Azande, what beautiful ladies! WOW!

(Sudan Tribune, 14 March 2012)

Northern Sudanese too, must have grown weary of the African resistance in South Sudan to the point that they panic over such agreements as antecedents for the possible loss of what they have already achieved. As such, whatever may reconnect South Sudan with Sudan must be nipped in the bud even if it means via the barrel of a gun.

The recent border clashes in Panthou (Heglig) echo what Islamists in Khartoum had reiterated about keeping the north Arabised and purely Islamic. In the words of Al-Tayyib Mustafa, a close relative of President Bashir, and leader of Just Peace Forum (JPF) of Sudan, agreement with South Sudan that involved the four freedoms: freedom of residence, freedom of movement, freedom to undertake economic activity and freedom to acquire and dispose property, poses threat to national, social and political security. His further calling on the president Bashir to scrap the deal as he did with the Addis Ababa framework agreement signed in July 2011 between the government and rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement - North (SPLM-N), referred to national embarrassment hence, national integrity.

To juxtapose Sudanese vox populi position on normalization of relations with South Sudan, it is clearly that of resentment and hate. The editor in chief, Al-Sadiq al-Rizigi of Al-Intibaha newspaper had denounced the negotiations on four freedoms and fumed that he sensed an American hand in it. His last words were that the deal would not succeed because it compromised their rights - Islamic rights. Khartoum newspapers report that other Islamic hardliners in Khartoum have threatened to ruthlessly deal with South Sudanese in the Sudan when April dateline passes. These religious theocrats and fanatics explained the reason for their anticipation of a genocide night to be that an I slamic country cannot have non-Islamic citizens.

Of course, keen followers of the Sudanese politics would note that recent attacks on the South Sudanese forces which led to clashes over Heglig, were obviously designed to scrap the ongoing negotiations between the two countries and to keep the border wars continuing in order to uphold national integrity. No doubts negotiations will still be used in the near future, again and again.

Duk Padiet Massacre: Result of Government Disarmament Imperfection?

By Martin Garang Aher

It is extremely appalling to continually see the killing going on unabated in Duk Padiet for two consecutive weeks. The media puts the death toll at 89. All these deaths are due to orchestrated violence by human action. It seems there is no immediate government gangbuster amelioration in sight for the people of Dukein who have been rendered defenceless through the disarmament process that took place in the area prior to independence. One thought such a bold move by the government to dispossess ever-feuding communities of guns would be accompanied by a certain ‘decree’ or measures aimed at thwarting attacks on the people deliberately made defenceless by the state. Since disarmament was done for the sake of national security and peace, it would have been wise if security apparatus were installed prior to taking the guns away from the people.

Behold government ‘decrees’ in South Sudan apply only to some things and not others. The results are now the shocking images and figures of dead women; young children, elderly and even able bodied men who could only run around unable to ward off the catastrophe befalling their people. Where is the peace and security upon which disarmament was based upon? The roaming-and-raiding gangs of Murle are persistently and callously butchering civilians in the entire Duk counties. Where are the swarms of police of Jonglei and RSS, which we always see proudly, displayed on the SSTV?

When disarmament started in the area in 2006, nearly all the communities in Jonglei: Dinka, Murle and Nuer nagged the government over the possibility of the latter to renege on the promises of protection made to the people. They were aware that they would be left alone once they have handed in their weapons. Judging from what had happened today, they were right! The security the government promised at the time has now turned into a created disaster.

Across the country, civilians condemned disarmament and the way it was approached. The people of Cueibet complained about the repercussions but were ignored. Nearly 3700 guns were collected in Lakes state, under governorship of Daniel Awet Akot. It did not take long before we witnessed attacks by the rival communities whose disarmament process treated with caution. It did not work well too with the people of Rumbek and Yirol. In Warrap, hundreds of people were massacred after the disarmament, and unto this day, killing keeps recurring. Government responses in all these cases had never made anyone contented that state security was guaranteed for them.

But what happened in Dukein was astonishingly baffling. The government disarmed Duk first, leaving the entire community defenceless. And then later, Ayod, Twic East, Bor Nyirol and Uror were subsequently disarmed. Pibor, Pochalla, Akobo, Fangak and Pigi were left behind with these latter areas ‘presumed’ ‘less aggressive’ based on tribal attacks. This was total madness! It neither rang a bell even to Mayen Ngor, the commissioner at the time, nor has it nudged Kuol Manyang to have a second thought over it. Law abiding status had been taken as aggressiveness in the case of Duk. And if this heeding by the people of Dukein were awarded with appropriate measures of protection to the civilians, it would have sounded an authentic imperfection on the side of the government. But no protection was provided!

In 2010, a peace conference was organised by Upper Nile Youth Mobilisation for peace at Liberty Hotel.  It was funded by PACT Sudan and UNMIS. In the discussions of that conference, youth leaders warned of rearmament if the government failed to provide security once they were disarmed. Of course the youth, who came from various counties including Pibor, were sceptical. Today areas that were deemed less aggressive in attacking others are the very ones massacring their neighbours, abducting children and taking livestock. The government, which thinks that South Sudan is an International Province of the West, sits and watch, sometimes shouting over the shoulder to the UN and the International Community, and in the crudest thinking of all, demands more disarmament. One couldn’t stand the Minister of Interior coming to Bor and began trumpeting about disarmament again to Kuol Manyang while the government’s past mistake still has its nasty results underway in Duk Padiet.

There is no much fortitude left for the people of Duk. The government must provide protection to the people of Duk Padiet. Though it forgot to set forth this as the precondition for disarming the county during the 2006 disarmament process, it will still be welcome. The same courage the government has in shutting down the oil pipeline is the same courage needed to provide protection to civilians. People first! The government must be a people’s government, not an oil government.

For any future disarmament to be successful, it must begin in the desert, not at home. And government must make clear to the people the measures it has taken to protect them before shifting the balance of protection. Security is exchanged with security and for the government to fear not to take head-on the marauding youth on a killing spree, what it fears for will surely come to pass.

Martin Garang Aher is a South Sudanese living in Western Australia. He can be reached at garangaher@hotmail.com

When Giants Change Gears

It is undoubtedly factual as enunciated by history that the world is usually, as could be perceived somehow, in disguisable serene when there is one mighty superpower on the throne. But this is not often so if the situations do not align with the wishes of the empire. Otherwise, the world headed by the United States today would not have wars going on in it.  Just like the empires that have long gone, the superpower has some responsibilities in what goes on, either normally or abnormally.

The biblical empires’ periods of calmness indicate that throughout history, mankind had become accustomed to the presence of one mighty power in order to remain disciplined and governable. It was evident in the following biblical empires:

1st world power = EGYPT (in power to 1491 BC) 



2nd world power=ASSYRIA (1491 - 606 BC) 



3rd world power=BABYLON (606 - 538 BC) 


4th world power=Medo/Persia  (538 - 333 BC) 



5th world power=GREECE (333 - 44 BC) 



6th world power=ROME (44 BC - 476 AD)[1]

These biblical periods were weird in many respects just like their heirs apparent namely: The British Empire in the grips of the UK and then the American Empire, now headed by the USA. Sheer miscalculations by the powerful can sometimes, as it had always been in history, put the world through periods of unrest and uncertainties. We all remember the Weapons of Mass Destruction that were never found in Iraq. The unproven assumption by the United States and allies that Iraq was manufacturing weapons of mass destruction, a situation that led to the invasion, was a miscalculation by the strongest. The resultant militancy by Al Qaeda and sectoral religious groups in Iraq was a reaction to an attack on their country which they knew was not justified. Many civilians have so far lost their lives in the wake of the war in Iraq and in the continuing militancy there.

In today’s 'planet America,' the game of the period had been played differently but much the same as in all other empires that have gone before it.  Though absolute force is not often used but used excessively when needed, the game has continued to be played based on submissions or alliances, political and economic control through dissemination and enforcement of democratic ideals and practices. No one can misjudge the weapon of economic control in which the mightiest and richest power asks and coerces all countries to play by the rules of the game. Through the use of this powerful market nuke, weak third world will continue to be pushed down into the economic abyss.

On November 7, President Obama came to Australia and announced in the Australian parliament that ‘the United States is a Pacific nation’ and authoritatively laced his speech with a forceful intonation of a highly regarded rhetoric; ‘we are here to stay.’

It was a tone that would nerve any emerging nation with the intention to prosperity without checks. No question the Chinese were not happy. They might have seen this as the US policy of containment of China in South East Asia. Remember that ‘Chineseness’ drives the Chinese and the Chinese-controlled economies of most countries in the region follow Chinese economic cultural attachment to mainland China. Some countries such as Singapore and Indonesia have Chinese with motherland attachments who are economically strong and control 90 percent of national economies. So what is America saying here? The East will always be yellow and this should be clear to any power at the helm.

Chinese reaction to American geographic assertion into the Pacific region was to denounce Washington-Canberra’s re-alliance in military cooperation closer to home, for this was the reason behind the rhetoric. Many nations, America included,  might see the Chinese uncontrollable advance in economic progress as the reason why the US is literally disconcerted. America could be right. Chinese developmental advances in the past decades had been marvelous. The speed at which they overtook Japan and became the second most powerful economy in the world still mesmerizes the Western world. 

The worry, however, is the evidence we have in history when two or more strong powers engage in sort of national or multinational interests. For instance, when America, USSR, and China swirled in a military confrontation over Korea in the 1950s, it resulted in the fragmentation of the Korean society and led to an eventual division of the country into two separate nations - with one country going wildly nuclear. Millions of relatives were stranded on either side of the border and the two countries, thereafter, became sworn enemies for eternity. Could the same situation be repeated in this disguised war of economic control? If the tactics applied in this economic supremacy become so serious leading to proxy skirmishes, as it is evident in the case of China and the US, the probability is zero that the least strong and friendly countries balancing both sides may end up caught in the mix of war and muscular exhibition.

Who should then worry if this scuffle ensues? South Sudan will be among those who should need to worry. In the same week that America made her intention in the Pacific, China declared it was boosting military ties with Khartoum. Sudan accepts one China policy, which threatens war if Taiwan declares independence and also denounces Tibet fiddling around with demands of more autonomy in China than they have now. China is a major trading partner of Sudan, purchasing at least one-fifth of its industrial oil through and from the country. It also fears the American eye of providence in South Sudan where most of the oil wells it depends on are situated and owned. China sees America in South Sudan as a potential threat to its source of oil. 

Had Sudan put one Sudan policy on the table of friendship with China? No one knows. But it would be clear Sudan needs Chinese support to control South Sudanese oil. The assurance Sudan got from China in establishing military ties was the reason that led to  Khartoum stepping up its military incursions in the Blue Nile, Nuba Mountains, South Sudan, and Southern Kordofan. It was a conspicuous demonstration that Sudan's actions were consequences of guaranteed support and backing of the giant: China. Sudan further exploited this opportunity and commenced forceful nipping of South Sudanese oil for payment in kind. Who was going to buy that oil? It would be awe for all to see the justifiable conditions under which South Sudanese national commodity would be traded without the consensual approval of the owner.

The truth is that Khartoum will not shut down South Sudanese oil flow, for China, the biggest partner would not like it. South Sudan can’t shut down the oil flow either for the wrath of the biggest buyer, which in this case is China, would be hard to bear. But the latter has the sole decision over her resources and would surprise the world in the scenario in which its national pride and independence appear to be at stake.

The Chinese and Russians have always been agitated where America appears to have an interest. American interests in South Sudan, though not so significant, may cause the young nation some snags. With Chinese in the north and American influence in the South, the situation is symptomatic to Afghanistan in 1979 where Afghans suffered under the feet of Americans and Soviets; Vietnam in 1955 where Vietnamese became the undergrowth between Soviets and Americans and Korea; a country that was split up willy-nilly while China and America saw eye to eye and nose to nose with the Koreans paying the price. Today the world may risk paying the ultimate price because one of the Koreas has Nukes!! These guns are awful. Whose making is it? Perhaps the empire can answer that.

Will South Sudan suffer the same fate? We pray not. But we must be careful.[1] The Chronology of World Empires, http://www.liferesearchuniversal.com/endlesson4.html

Pipeline: A Chord of Neo-colonization

If you were tuned to the world media in the recent weeks, Sudan came up top on international criticisms over attacks on South Sudan, not certainly verbally but apparently militarily. In this same week, the bloodletting of the Arab Spring neither abated but increased in Syria and Yemen nor did the everlasting Palestinian-Israeli hostility stop the Palestinians Freedom Riders from boarding the Jewish settlers’ bus in demands of their freedom. Unlike Sudan and South Sudan, several chords bond the residents of the Holy Land together. They are intertwined in the land, leading to the hostilities that run deep that only the Divine can unravel

But for Sudan and President Bashir, brutality is the chord that holds the country together. In this situation, the demands of the Sudanese in Darfur, Kordufan and the Blue Nile seem nothing but a teleological Sudanese syndrome of war in which togetherness could only be redeemed through more brutality. And this means holding on to people that the chord of unity does not support.

Recent threats against South Sudan and possible cross-border attack are indications that the chord binding South Sudan and Sudan is still held at heart by Khartoum besides the fact that the physical chord may be nonexistent or in the process of breaking. As usual, in the words of Abel Alier, all mess begins with dishonoring of agreements. The abrogation of the CPA in the case of Abyei and trashing of Popular Consultations hope for the people of South Kordufan and the Blue Nile regions have commenced Khartoum’s blasphemous killing spree. Memories of the past war chanting were in the air again.

And as usual, the Western World wasn’t moved. It appears people come in when somebody mentions the possibility of genocide. And this usually gives Antonov pilots and tank drivers of a bloodthirsty regime an upper hand to sonorously chant Jihadists’ hymns as they march on to their famous killing fields in the South.

It always begins with scornful language as an antecedent followed by ruthlessness and cruelty. As evidently witnessed even by the United Nations, the language employed by President Al Bashir and his military commanders was full of militaristic sarcasm. They were the preceding pretexts followed by displacement of civilians in Kurmuk and aerial bombardment of refugees deep inside South Sudan territory. Sudan-backed rebel attacks on South Sudan heralded this planned disruption of life in South Sudan.

Khartoum, in such actions, was invitingly luring South Sudan into a confrontation and waylaying her for a military showdown. And as Susan Rice from United Nations warned ‘South Sudan not to take the bait and respond in kind,’ it was already evident Sudan has offered South Sudan the war bait. Sudanese military fighter jets’ bombing of refugee camps and South Sudan rebels armed to the teeth by Khartoum wreaking havoc on civilians were undoubtedly many types of baits too luscious to ignore. But as one would wonder, what is the underlying reason for this show of aggression by Sudan and what will she achieve in a military confrontation with South Sudan?

It is all bitterness and one chord that still lingers between the two: the oil pipeline.

Recent events in Sudan are categorically and presumably the consequences of the failure of the New Sudan agenda and clear signs of the eventual implosion of the Sudanese republic in the swirling heat of dissatisfaction under the imposition of one fragment of a country’s civilization identity on the rest. However, evasive authorities in Khartoum are playing the game differently, the truth will always haunt them. The reality is that no matter how the juggernaut Khartoum’s military power and prowess might be, suppressing the will of the neglected masses through violence and vanquish will never ever bring peace. There is no way a government can be victorious over citizens that keep it in power. If at all there ought to be victory between the people and their government, it is always the people that emerge victorious, not the government. The government, as seen across many of the world’s nations, is a creation of the people.

Sudan is yet to come to terms with the reality that South Sudan is an independent country and a member of the United Nations, just like Sudan, operating on equal terms and privileges that a sovereign nation would do. The name South Sudan chose during independence must not dupe Khartoum for a possible forceful reunification of the two countries at any time in the future, not even militarily. The chord that bound them together had been broken for eternity.

So, why threatened and attacked South Sudan?

This may not be a threat per se but a clear sign of the start of what Khartoum had always threatened the South: disruption of oil supply and blockading the region for eventual suffering. Surreptitious support of the rebels against South Sudan is something already palpable and widely confirmed by studies. Small Arms Survey group had confirmed that a copy of AK-47, Type 56-1 used by the rebels against South Sudan is a Chinese cloned and supplied by Khartoum. The attack on the town of Kuek that killed 13 South Sudanese was a clear whistle of war though not answered on equal terms by Juba. International media in the region witnessed it. Lambasting and vilification of South Sudanese by Bashir himself as ‘'not conquerors of the country they live in now’' was also a well-intended provocation to lure the new nation into a violent confrontation in order to achieve the ultimate objective. The disparagement seems to suggest, ‘if you think you were conquerors then come out now and try it with us.’

Pipeline is off! Will such an announcement appease Khartoum? Yes, certainly. The truth is that all operations will come to a standstill in South Sudan.

And with the unsubstantiated reports in the media that South Sudanese leaders have amassed and stashed the sum of approximately 400 million dollars in foreign accounts, there is little concern that a threat of stoppage of cash and oil flow as a result of foreign aggression means anything. The kids and their many mothers are assured, at least financially whether there is going to be an economic blackout in the country or not.

South Sudan needs to be aware that bitterness in Sudan will never subside as long as there is an oil pipeline chord still tying Sudan and South Sudan together? And above all, the realization by many Sudanese socio-political vanquished groups that the fruits of struggle can be reaped whenever you hold a long and vicious war as epitomized in South Sudan has added a new interplay into the game.

South Sudan must willingly dissociate with the old republic of Sudan but the chord, in the form of a pipeline, will continue to be an instrument of harassment to the South Sudanese economy, and this may lead to the frivolity of consumerism in the near future. Before Khartoum shuts down this chord of neocolonialism, let an alternative route for the oil be found. Relations with Sudan will never be good and if we don’t believe it, we are living in fantasy.