Wikileak on Bona Malwal
5 min readC O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KHARTOUM 000914 SIPDIS DEPT FOR SE GRATION, S/USSES, AF A/S, AF/C, AF/E
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ADDIS ABABA ALSO FOR USAU E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/07/2019
TAGS: PINS PHUM PGOV UN AU SU SUBJECT: PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR BONA MALWAL DISCUSSES
ELECTIONS, SOUTHERN WOES KHARTOUM 00000914 001.7 OF 002 Classified By: CDA Robert E. Whitehead, for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)
1. (C) Summary:
Charge d’Affaires Whitehead met with
Presidential Adviser Bona Malwal on July 29 at the latter,s
request. A former minister in the late 1970s under Nimeiri
and a long-time antagonist of the late John Garang, Malwal
continues to pursue politics in the South while maintaining
strong contacts with the North. He addressed the national
political landscape in the context of upcoming elections, and
delivered his usual blistering critique of governance in the
South. Malwal pitched the option of extending the 2005
Comprehensive Peace Agreement’s six year interim period for
two more years, until 2013. However, this is a proposal that
will find no support from the south’s Sudan People’s
Liberation Movement (SPLM). End Summary.
ELECTIONS
2. (C) Malwal opened the discussion by stating that the
National Congress Party (NCP) strongly supports 2010 national
elections due to their huge advantage in organization and
resources. The NCP also believes, he said, that the
elections will serve as referendum on the International
Criminal Court (ICC) indictment of President Bashir. He
noted that as things now stand, Bashir would emerge
victorious from the polls because the traditional political
parties in the North are moribund and no new political
groupings have emerged. He was dismissive of Mirghani and
the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) as a spent force, and he
said that he was increasing puzzled by the “bizarre” behavior
of Sadiq Al Mahdi and his Umma Party. Malwal said that he
had broken contact with al Mahdi after a “wasted” meeting in
which the former prime minister described his intention to
form an alliance between Umma and the NCP, only to announce a
few days later that he had come to an agreement with Khalil
Ibrahim’s Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). Malwal added
that al Mahdi was interested in changing the government but
not the system, and Ibrahim was intent only on taking over
the system by force.
WOE IS THE SOUTH—————-
3. (C) Malwal further asserted that the SPLM has no
competitive candidate to run for the national presidency in
2010 and that the South would prefer that there be no
elections at all. He continued that the senior leadership of
the SPLM was intent on moving straight to the referendum
instead, because the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS)
could not run on its record of four years of governance:
“there is no semblance of a government in Juba able to evolve
into an independent state.” He accused the SPLM of having no
sympathy for the average person in the South, and said that
the only way to avoid a “Somaliazation” of Sudan was to
protect the “victimized” population of the South by encamping
the Sudanese People,s Liberation Army (SPLA). He claimed
the SPLA was the only southern institution with any real
power, and that the 2005 CPA interim period should be
extended by two years to 2013. In his view, the latter would
give the South more time to prepare to govern itself.
4. (C) Malwal,s few good words were reserved for GOSS
President and Government of National Unity (GNU) First Vice
President Salva Kiir. (Note. Malwal and Kiir are reportedly
close due to common ties to Warrap State. End note) Malwal
said that Kiir was hard to read and had few original ideas of
his own, but that he would be the “ideal” leader of the South
in a peaceful period. Unfortunately, Malwal continued, Kiir
was ill-suited for the difficult environment that currently
prevailed. He went on to describe the SPLM,s inability to
quell tribal conflicts throughout its territory and
criticized authorities in Juba for preventing other political
parties from operating. He described the travails of his own
South Sudan Democratic Forum (SSDF), claiming that the GoSS
had blocked his vehicles from carrying him into the
countryside and had arrested his bodyguards. He said that
during the SSDF,s last congress in Juba, police had
physically wrestled away his microphone to prevent him from
delivering his thirty-page, two-hour concluding speech (Note:
Quite possibly to the relief of what he claimed was an
audience of 4,000. End Note.) KHARTOUM 00000914 002.3 OF 002
5. (C) Comment: We provide Malwal,s comments for what they
are worth. His description of the state of political parties
in the North encapsulates the pre-electoral period
accurately, and there are indications that the SPLM is not as
enthusiastic about elections as its putative GNU partner, the
NCP. The SPLM has struggled with governance issues, although
not as badly as Malwal claims, and he was hopelessly off the
mark in his belief that there is any possibility that the
SPLM would be willing to wait until 2013 to schedule a
referendum in the South. He was also off target about his
own appeal in the South and the popularity of the SSDF. A
long-time antagonist of John Garang with close ties to the
North, Malwal is widely-viewed by most Southerners of our
acquaintance as a stalking horse for the NCP, the Lam Akol of
yore.
Charge d’Affaires Whitehead
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