RIEK QUEST FOR POWER AND THE NUER
5 min readBy Reng’o Gyyw Reng’o, Addis Ababa
I wish to talk about Riek Machar’s hubris for power in South Sudan and how he wants to access the power. The “how” question, has been answered by the use of Nuer as the only mean for Riek to acquire power in South Sudan. The two have spoiled each other’s opportunities. The Nuer has spoiled opportunity for Riek and Riek’s failure every time spoils the image of the Nuer in the eyes of the South Sudanese.
Riek Machar attempts to seize power is ever diverted by the Nuer’s actions. First, in 1991 the coup against Dr. John Garang failed when the Nuer rose in support of their son Riek Machar, and in the process diverted their “revolutions” turned against the Dinka targets instead of the political leadership. This led to the Bor Massacre.
Again, Riek Machar challenged Salva Kiir’s leadership and when the Nuer soldiers in the presidential guards rose in support of Riek, it preempted the window of opportunity Riek had forged with a good number of non-Nuer politicians. The Non- Nuer colleagues of Riek would have canvassed nationwide support for him. This opportunity was again lost because the Nuer soldiers acted impulsively and diverted another opportunity for Riek Machar.
Peter Gatdet Yak and James Koang, two leaders who would act responsibly as national leaders, instead brought themselves down to the tribal level, created apprehensions in the minds of other tribes, when they declared their rebellions as revenges against the Nuer killings in Juba, of course which I think was true. The whole business became self-defence for other ethnicities. Riek’s opportunity was spoiled. Nuer defections from the army of South Sudan led to them being ostracized by the rest of communities. Riek lost support from the rest of communities. Hence he lost opportunity to access power.
Killings in Akobo, captured of Bor and killings, ethnic targets of non-Nuer in Bentiu at oil sites, Bentiu and Malakal towns made the Nuer’s revolutions senseless and ethnic in character. A leader with a national cause and moreover a community with a national cause would try its best to live above hatred and revenges, by even liberating and protecting those people who do not come from their own ethnic groups. Tit for tat, makes the national cause flees. Unless, the Nuer did not have the national cause as their agenda, their cause is trampled under revenges which is still ongoing.
While I condemn the target killings of Nuer in Juba and of recent in Bor, everything has become revenges against revenges. More target killings reported in Bentiu makes the whole thing visionless, directionless and unacceptable. The Nuer’s leaders and armed people are mobilizing other communities against them indirectly or directly. May I ask Riek Machar and the Nuer, was the real cause to avenge the Nuer killed by the Dinkas or national army or to liberate the country? I heard you talking about having ideological differences with Salva Kiir?
Don’t you think there is a big and clear gap between what you are pursuing and the actions of your ethnic soldiers. The Nuer, yes can conduct a revolutionary war on their own but not the way they have been doing it since 1991. You remember you were joined in 1991 by Dinkas such as Telar Riing Deng, Makeer Benjamin, Dhol Achuil, DengTiel Ayuel Kur, Dr. Achol Marial etc against John Garang, their own ethnic brother but when you and the Nuer launched the Bor Massacres, they redefected back to the Movement and rejoined John Garang. They said if the war was about the Nuer against the Dinka, then why should we be part of it?
Now, the eleven detainees were clearly your supporters against President Kiir. However, when your people overtook them in their support of you, they decided to keep aloof. They have refused to join you in the rebellions. And can I tell you and my people the Nuer, the eleven politicians refused not because your soldiers were and are Nuer but because of the nature of the destruction, killings and ethnic targetings in some places like Bor. Why killing in the church, mosques, mad people on the streets, hospital, the aged and children? Why?
I remember the words of an Old Gaawar man, Chuol who spoke during the Greater Upper Nile conference in Juba of recent, where he said, ” there is something unique with this blackman that makes him difference from the whiteman, the yellow man and the red man. This blackman easily forgives and easily forgets.” And Mzee Chuol added a question, ” what brought the Nuer to Bor?” To me, his message required soul-searching for a leader like you.
Like the 1991 group which had supported you, the recent groups were overtaken in support of you and not only that, they became secondary victims of your soldiers’ actions. Thus, they withdrew their support.
Unless, really your war is ethnic, which no one can help if it is, but if it is national in character and aims at rescuing all the South Sudanese, then the approach and methods are and have been wanting. You need not blame the South Sudanese for anything, you need to look inwards for mistakes. The Nuer have spoiled your opportunities. Advise them to stop killing their “enemies” for them to have wider support across the South Sudanese society.
And whenever you fail in your attempts, the Nuer as a community consequentially suffers because of those failures. The situation thus becomes a chicken and an egg issue between you Riek and the Nuer.
These are my observations. I am far away from both parties in the conflict.
About Post Author
Kiir history and events
3rd January 2014 Melbourne Australia
RE EVENTS IN JUBA, DECEMBER 2013
A recent letter to a website of a South Sudanese, Paanluel Wel, written by South Sudanese members of the SPLM Australian Chapter and decrying the current crisis which has spread from Juba to other key strategic centres in South Sudan, includes among advice for the resolution of the problem the following words:
“The president is a beacon of kindness, love and reconciliation for his people and nation, and would persistently explore all options to restore trust, peace and unity among his citizens, we trust President Kiir and his entire government will restore trust peace and unity among his people…”
To Australian ears words such as “a beacon of kindness, love and reconciliation” sound like childish flattery and would never, never be directed at a Western politician. Kiir is naively described in this letter as “good” but hitherto helpless in the face of vague “government” mismanagement and human rights abuses: “perhaps he didn’t have [the] right people around him,” as the letter says. Yes, that must be it, of course: history tells us innumerable stories of “good” men in power who mysteriously surround themselves with out-of-control thugs.
What is the context of those sentiments then, when few if any South Sudanese seriously believe there has been a “coup” attempt on Salva Kiir’s presidency – as has been reported widely in Western newspapers – and many legitimate questions can be raised about Kiir’s participation in and statements regarding atrocities carried out by his own Presidential Guards, which he has characterized disingenuously as simply a “misunderstanding”?
Why do even diaspora South Sudanese play the flattery game? Is it because they think the psychological reaction of the President will benefit from such an approach? Or because they are thinking along tribal lines and cannot be fully frank about, let alone condemn, his actions? Or because they are aware of negative ramifications for themselves if and when they return to South Sudan, or even if they remain outside South Sudan, including Australia? Or because they are hoping for lucrative government appointments on returning to South Sudan? Or because they are already receiving payment for espousing the “right” attitude?
On 16/12/2013 it was reported that the house of ex-Vice President Riek Machar had been destroyed and all his bodyguards killed, but that Machar had escaped. This was not only horrifying but mystifying. How could Machar have allowed this to happen, especially if, as has been endlessly repeated, he was staging a coup? What kind of “coup” is made up of one dismissed politician and a couple of dozen bodyguards?
Reports came that the Presidential Guards, consisting (largely for the sake of appearance, it seems) of not only Dinkas, the tribe of the President, but also others including Nuers, were on orders disarmed, after which Nuers noticed that Dinkas only were being quietly rearmed. The subsequent murders of Nuers in the ranks were followed by attacks on Nuer civilians in the streets and homes of Juba.
This ethnic massacre spreading from within his own militia – a militia for which we can only presume he is responsible – was the start of the military component of the crisis which had begun as political manouverings of President Kiir: the sacking of the Vice-President and dissolution of the entire cabinets and threat to dissolve the Parliament, and the careful fabrication of the “coup” plot, including taking into custody eleven ministers accused of participating in it. These actions were designed to set the scene for military rule and avoidance of the democratic process, a process unnerving to Kiir whose interests – and the interests of his formerly poor family, clan and village community – are closely bound to the benefits of corrupt rule. (Who in the South Sudanese community is not aware of the properties being bought in foreign countries, privileged students being sent to study abroad and even suitcases full of US dollars being opened at airports outside South Sudan?)
Meanwhile, not only are South Sudanese orphans being neglected but still more are being created by the actions of a shamefully compliant military.
Juba is a fast-changing place, and wealth and privilege have been reportedly appearing in a disconcerting fashion; visitors have been shocked by the presence of massive armchairs placed in the churches at Christmas for the politicians and the luxury of the Parliament lounge-rooms, especially when a short bus ride away from Parliament the only hospital in Juba has no electricity in the wards and doctors are obliged to use torches. Also noticeable was another manifestation of privilege: the way in which the President is not only protected from criticism, but elevated on television with a kind of daily reminder bordering on cult-hero worship, while a typical article in a newspaper printed in Juba dripped with admiration, only coyly suggesting ways he could do “even better”.
Riek Machar, the accused coup leader, enjoys no such protection, despite his equally important role in achieving victory over northern forces and independence for South Sudan. From being dismissed, he has now been ascribed “rebel” status as if he were George Athor or Gatluak and deserving of summary execution. Furthermore, “1991, Bor” is repeatedly invoked by the government and compliant press, for two reasons: one being to dismantle his reputation by suggesting that a man responsible for the massacre of thousands of Dinkas in the past is not fit for public office, let alone the presidency, and the other being a subtle justification for current attacks on Nuer.
The attacks go one way. Nobody is retaliating with “1983 and 1986, Malakal” as a reminder of Kiir’s treachery and inhumanity, when Nuer were killed in great numbers by Kiir’s own Tiger battalion, or his little-mentioned atrocities directed at Twic Dinka victims in Warrap State from 1995 to 1996, or his killing of SPLA commanders and other leaders from 1984 to the 1990s, or his collusion with Khartoum’s Nimieri in a war which was ostensibly being waged against the Islamic regime. And who has brought up Kiir’s invitations to Muslims, since he became President, to “spread their religion” – the religion invoked by Murahileen as they savagely attacked Kiir’s own Dinka people? “Don’t just operate here in Juba”, he said. “Go to Torit, go to Yei, go to Warrap and other places.”
In Yei locals were indeed unpleasantly surprised by just such a scenario: jellabiya-clad Muslims who were apparently checking a site for its suitability for a new mosque, and their reaction to such development was of anger and dismay. Many in South Sudan were equally dismayed by Kiir’s government’s invitation to Muslim traders to settle permanently in South Sudan, his praise of their behaviour, and his call for return of confiscated land to Muslims: as if the Islamisation of South Sudan were his first priority after a war specifically waged against forced Islamisation.
The war with Sudan is not over. Sudan still kills Christians in the Nuba Mountains with impunity. South Sudan needs unity and common purpose to resist its persistent enemy and develop prosperity by means of all the manifold resources it is blessed. Salva Kiir could be renowned for building highways to disaffected areas, or for developing efficient regional hospitals, or for creating conditions conducive to utilising the goodwill of the world it has attracted because of its tragic war.
Instead, the President has overseen a government which overly rewards its members, which has created bureaucratic obstacles to development, which has punished the press for less than sycophantic attitudes, and which has stymied the democratic process and blamed the opposition it has attempted to paralyse for violence carried out by the President’s own militia. These are the actions not of a politician but of a gratuitously violent and vindictive soldier.
Furthermore, Kiir has failed to resolve the question of oil revenue and this is the main component of the financial corruption of his regime. Once Khartoum has been paid for transport of the oil through its territory and after the oil is sold overseas, revenue which should be sent to South Sudan for the benefit of its citizens is instead being deposited into foreign banks, to which Kiir and his cronies only have access. Even the salaries of government officials and the armed forces are not paid.
Salva Kiir appears to continue to carry resentment he felt from as far back as 1973, when he was found to not possess the necessary criteria to become an officer in the Sudan Armed Forces. The resentment, jealousy and anger he demonstrated throughout his military career still seem to drive his behaviour.
When Kiir joined the SPLA in 1984, there is evidence that he was taking orders and payment directly from Khartoum to betray the movement and therefore the people of South Sudan. After finally being granted status as Military Intelligence Officer he devised a project for training Islamic Security Officers in the Dinka language in Khartoum. He was even assigned the task of eliminating other founder members of the SPLA/M, and indeed he succeeded. In 2004, he attempted a coup against the late John Garang, who his name is erroneously yet repeatedly linked with as a hero of the liberation of South Sudan, in order to fulfil his secret agreements with Nimeiri and Bashir. The Tiger battalion which carried out his agenda is the same battalion which is now responsible for the atrocities of December 2013.
Thus old events have ramifications for the present, including in particular Kiir’s paranoia regarding the democratic process. Based on Kiir’s military record and character, the inescapable conclusion must be that South Sudan will disintegrate under his leadership. Riek Machar, as well as many other young, qualified and willing South Sudanese people, can be seen in the context of Kiir’s failure as viable alternatives. What is tragic about the current situation is that so many people are uninformed and therefore unable to make reasonable judgments about the character of either the President or his opponents. We cannot garner the truth from spokespeople for Kiir’s government who are loyal to his interests and not those of the country.
The international community somehow has to ensure that a long-term democratic solution is found for South Sudan, rather than meaningless peace talks which will only prolong the extended crisis. For a start, a human rights criminal investigation, as has been suggested, must be carried out as soon as possible in a frank and fearless way.
By Aguer Rual
aguerrual@ymail.com