SOUTH SUDAN SELF-DEFENSE: South Sudanese Wealth Belongs Only to South Sudanese
3 min readBy Deng Lueth Yuang
April 2, 2015 (SSB) — What is our competitive advantage in East African region? We are the Oil giant and Food Basket of Eastern Africa.
We, South Sudanese, should always put our ‘money’ where our ‘mouth’ is: Stop investing in foreign lands. Build South Sudan with South Sudan resources – develop our oil and food industries.
Our rich endowment is the only nuclear weapon we should redesign and deploy against these 6 unbecoming African neighbours – Kenya and Uganda (to the South); Central Africa Republic and Congo DR (to the west); Sudan to the North, and Ethiopia to the East. And above all, the Double Agents of Dooms will mind their own businesses.
Those African neighbours wear sheep skins during the day, but wolf skins at night. We should cut down this tall Baobab tree that they hit at night so they become wolves who want to feed on us.
In his March 18, 2015 state of the nation address, Mr. Pres. Kiir mentioned an ‘agriculture revolution’ for people of South Sudan to realize their potentials. That is a plus which need to start right away instead of waiting for peace to come like the postponed elections.
Similarly, the oil industry which has been badly hit by civil war should be uplifted, protected and more wells explored and drilled so as to increase the production capacity in order to compensate for falling oil prices. Rather than letting these monies end up in individuals’ pockets, the government should utilize them to reclaim agricultural lands, buy machineries and hire agriculturists while at the same time setting up agricultural institutes throughout the 10 states of South Sudan.
Otherwise, failure to do so, South Sudan will be a laughing stock of the world. And all these adjectives will befit us – young nation, baby nation; never a state; no national army but an amalgamation of ethnic militias; corrupt; leaderless; imports driven economy; Museveni satellite state; illiterates, and the list goes on and on.
My worst fears are our nation, South Sudan will become:
A Haiti for foreign aid and UN dependency syndromes,
A Congo DR for crossfires of transnational armies,
A Somalia for factional ethnic parties and militias,
An Eritrea for untouchable oligarchs and demi gods,
An Ethiopia for ‘paper’ democracy,
A Yemen for proxies fighting,
And etcetera.
The well-being of this young nation is YOU and ME. But our leaders must first set the tune of the guitar – show visionary leadership. That they mean ‘good’ for all of us.
Deng Lueth Yuang has a BA and MA in Economics. Find him on Facebook.Com
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The articles of Mr. Deng’s type act as voice of many voiceless individuals in South Sudan. I wish the president, council of ministers, council of states and the national assembly can read your article Mr. Deng and implement all the things you outlined in paragraph six. So that our beloved country (South Sudan) can change in all aspects. Can our country always be referred to as young nation, while South Sudanese themselves are not all young?