شخصية سلفا كيير في الصحافة العالمية

The Unproductive Saga Within The SPLA (14)

For nearly two months, the internal dispute within the leadership of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) has been the subject of much talk – of insult to many innocent South Sudanese and even to families that may never have come close to political life at all in South Sudan. During this period, there have been accusations, counter accusations and denials. In short, the story had it that Colonel John Garang, the leader of the SPLA, had decided to arrest his number two man, Commander Salva Kiir Mayardit and to replace him with a more submissive individual within the SPLA. This is a rather world famous tactic of all tyrants. The instructions were that if Salva Kiir resisted arrest, he should be shot dead.

As a matter of self-preservation, Salva Kiir Mayardit decided to take protective measures by barricading himself at his headquarters in Yei, in central Equatoria. The confrontation between the two leaders of the SPLA became public. The entire South Sudan went into some panic and into self recrimination, accusations and abuses.

Typical of his well practised tactic, Colonel John Garang read the picture correctly. He stooped to conquer. Instead of forcing the issues, he issued denial after denial that there was any rift between him and his number two. SPLA delegation after SPLA delegation went to Yei, to persuade Salva Kiir to reconcile with John Garang – in other words, to give in.

My personal experience with those who organise reconciliations in South Sudan, between John Garang and those he has disagreed with is that one is not allowed to voice any grievances against John Garang. The aggrieved should just give in. The causes of the dispute are not permitted to be stated, “the Chairman” does not wrong anyone. The interest of the South is always at stake in any dispute with John Garang and the interest of the South is in the charge, only of John Garang alone. So, Salva Kiir Mayardit may be number two to John Garang, but he is, after all, a subordinate to this “invaluable” leader of South Sudan. He must give in.

It is not for me to guess what went on in the head of Salva Kiir Mayardit as he set there in Yei for weeks, receiving all these John Garang’s sponsored peace delegations to plead with him for reconciliation. Matters were made that more difficult for Kiir Mayardit, when his anger irrupted at the time and his effort to protect himself from the obvious dangers, were linked with the possibility that the moves he was making would derail the peace agreement that Colonel John Garang was now drumming up as being so close to being delivered by himself to the people of South Sudan. So, Salva Kiir Mayardit had to give in.

As an individual, the beauty of Salva Kiir Mayardit’s personal character, is not in any ambition that he may have to be a leader for anyone, but in his modesty and humility. He could not allow himself to go down as one who had denied South Sudan the attainment of peace that has become so urgent. So, after misleading so many young and old of South Sudan, that he was now prepared to undertake a change within the SPLA that might restore the unity of the people of South Sudan, Salva Kiir Mayardit packed and went to Rumbek, to be celebrated by the SPLA cohorts of John Garang for submitting to the leader once more. So, was it reconciliation in Rumbek or surrender? Take it as you may!

The tragedy of South Sudan, under the leadership of John Garang remains unresolved. Internal unity of the people of South Sudan and the attainment of peace remain central to this tragedy. The meeting of the SPLA leadership in Rumbek has not resolved anything. The trend within the SPLA was inevitably towards patching up and staying united as a movement under John Garang. That, cannot under any imagination, be translated into the unity of the people of South Sudan.

If Salva Kiir had determined that a change of leadership within the SPLA was now necessary, after 22 years of Colonel John Garang’s repression, murders and atrocities, it may have offered the people of South Sudan their first opportunity to unite and sort themselves out as they move towards peace. The leadership of South Sudan would have remained in the hands of the SPLA, since this would have been an internal leadership adjustment acceptable to the people of the South. In sober organisations that have institutions, a change from number one to number two is not dreaded the way it was being within the SPLA last month. It is another proof of the totalitarian nature of the regime that is called SPLA.

Whether Colonel John Garang will spare Salva Kiir Mayardit his life, something he is not known for and which the Colonel has not done to the many murdered leaders of South Sudan who fell victim to his mean and cruel heartedness, remains to be seen. Colonel John Garang is very adept in choosing his time to kill. But Salva Kiir Mayardit is a soldier, he must know what he has calculated for himself. If he is fool hardy about his own personal security, then tough luck to him. The last British Governor General of Sudan once said to the South Sudanese mutineers of the 18 August 1955 uprising in Torit: “Surrender like men and face the consequences of your own action.”

Whether or not Colonel John Garang will not sign a peace agreement for the people of South Sudan with the government of Sudan must also await the judgment of time. The Colonel may now well sign up the peace agreement. Given the current challenge to his leadership by Commander Salva Kiir Mayardit, he will know that much of what has already been agreed upon in the peace negotiations, has anyway concentrated power in his hands. He may now judge that in the circumstances, he has a much better chance of fighting his enemies, including Salva Kiir Mayardit under a peace agreement than in the bushes of South Sudan.

What has not changed, however, and will not change, until Colonel John Garang changes his ways of dealing with the people of South Sudan, or until there is a change of leadership within the SPLA, is that the people of South Sudan will not rest until they have a better leader than John Garang. This is the way of any struggling people, who have suffered so much, not just in the hands of their external enemy, but in the hands of their own so called leader. Remember Romania and all the revolutions of Eastern Europe after the collapse of communism there!

The people of South Sudan have not lost their direction, no matter what the SPLA leaders do or say. The peace that Colonel John Garang may sign, is not a peace that is crowning a military victory against the North, as some unrealistic SPLA leaders may want us to believe. This is a peace agreement that is a compromise in a stalemated military situation at best. Whoever signs this peace agreement, must not masquerade as a victor. Those who sign the peace agreement on behalf of the people of South Sudan, will do well to recognise that the only way that peace is going to work for the people of South Sudan, is by honestly co-operating with whoever they sign that peace with in Northern Sudan. This again, is something that a more honest and sincere leader like Salva Kiir Mayardit might have offered the people of Sudan as a whole, had he managed to take over the leadership of the SPLA. Peace needs a peace partner on both sides, not a perpetual conspirator, like Colonel John Garang.

Now that the Rumbek meetings have restored the leadership of the SPLA to Colonel John Garang, it is right to remind the people of South Sudan again, of what is at stake for them and why the internal shenanigans within the SPLA do not resolve anything for them. The people of South Sudan want an honest peace that will be implemented honestly, to their benefit, by a good and trustworthy leadership, which they still do not have. Internal unity within South Sudan remains shattered and needs to be restored. Only a consensus of the people of South Sudan, rather than an imposition by a strongman through a strong arm method will do it. South Sudanese must insist on a restoration of internal transparent democracies that the SPLA leadership has denied them for 22 years and continues to deny them. The weak civil society organisations of South Sudan, which the SPLA leadership has persistently attempted to recruit as auxiliary organisations for itself, rather than permitting them to exercise their own operational autonomy, must exert themselves in the interest of their people. These rights are not granted by anyone, they are fought for. The people of South Sudan are well capable of fighting for their rights. They must not give up, whatever the propaganda barrage of a corrupt and devious leadership.

When one looks at the political contour of South Sudan today, it is clear that the SPLA is the single most well organised. There ought to be no wonder, or dispute about that. After all, this was one time the only liberation army of the people of South Sudan as a whole. Not only had the people of the South supported it for that purpose, but they overlooked the terrible internal atrocities committed against them by the SPLA for that reason. But, it is clear that over the years, because of the terrible leadership of John Garang, there have been many breakaways from the SPLA of various armed groups of South Sudanese. If you add these to the large numbers of armed militia that sprang up in South Sudan, with the sole objective of protecting their own ethnic communities from the excesses of the SPLA and who have naturally had to link up with and become supported by the government of Sudan, then the SPLA becomes a minority armed group in South Sudan today, if you put all the militia together. Whatever the SPLA leadership thinks of itself and its military power, the only way to overcome the armed militia problems for the people of South Sudan, is to recognise them for what they are; honestly and genuinely offering them a share of power under the new peace agreement, rather than attempting to use a strong hand, in order to recruit them into the SPLA or fighting them, or abusing them. Once again, the solution here, can only be found in the South South dialogue that Colonel John Garang continues to oppose and stonewall.

Having said all that, there has already, clearly begun a nucleus of a very broad based South Sudan political front. It consists of most of the groups already mentioned in this piece, who are marginalised by the SPLA leadership. If you add to that, the clear malcontent with the SPLA leadership within that movement that one senses across much of South Sudan, then it is clear that the real enemies of South Sudan will simply wait to feast tomorrow, when the South Sudanese finally tear themselves to pieces, because of leadership failing. When that happens, the blame for that, cannot be directed towards those of us who speak out now, in an effort to prompt South Sudanese into their right senses and corrective action.

For now, the various political groups of South Sudan, who are disfranchised by the notion of the SPLA that only those who have become recruited into the SPLA membership, or support its “New Sudan” agenda, should speak or function, must not relent under whatever pressure. That would be allowing the wrong and a lie to triumph over right and truth.

The South Sudanese Conference – the flagship for the unity amongst the South Sudanese, which Colonel John Garang has dreaded and actively undermined and opposed over the years, must be pursued to its natural conclusion. Instead of insisting that the SPLA either organises such a conference, or even become part of it, perhaps, it is now in the best interest of the political process in South Sudan, that this conference is organised by all the South Sudanese except the SPLA. This should put an end to the continuing efforts of the SPLA leadership to recruit other South Sudanese opinion into its own, rather than listening to it and or dialoguing with it. It will also be in the short and long term political interest of South Sudan, that there is political accountability, pluralism and transparency. This, after all, is what democracy is all about.

There are many flying accusations by the SPLA leadership and their agents, that those of us who call for the South South dialogue, do so with the prompting of the government of Sudan. Cheap accusations like that, are always part of politics, especially in the deprived world of South Sudan, where individual’s understandable misery in life, is explained in what is perceived as a comparative affluence of one’s neighbour. Many SPLA commanders, who have unfortunately, been forced to convert their time and energies into private trade and money making, because of the mismanagement of the SPLA resources by the leadership, also suffer from the same accusations of buying and selling their time to someone else. In the end, these accusations never resolve any problems.

If the SPLA fails to persuade the government of Sudan, that it is a good and honest partner with that government with which it is about to sign a peace agreement, then the SPLA alone, is responsible for that failure. The government of Sudan, whoever holds it, is a crucial partner to peace with the South. If the SPLA fails to unite the South with itself under peace, then it cannot, at the same time, prevent those Southerners it has failed to unite, from communicating with the government; indeed, doing political business with the government of Sudan and with the entire North, is an unavoidable reality of political life. Any idle talk of money, of buying and selling opinion to the North, is both childish and cheap. It will not deter those determined to find the correct formula for public life in South Sudan.

Bona Malwal