The only viable way to end the tribal mayhem in the Republic of South Sudan
By Edward Laboke
It’s heartbreaking (if true) to hear that senior government officials call for the international community to help mediate the insurgent and cattle rustling dangers facing the country. Although we appreciate the legacy of the Mesopotamian civilization of city-state autonomy, where the cities of Ur, Summer and Babylonia ruled themselves independently, such legacy are serious misfits in the 21st century.
We rightly have 10 states in the Republic of South Sudan and within these states we have counties and cities. What is happening here similar to the Mesopotamian era is that, counties that mostly are drawn on the bases of tribal occupancies, appear to be opportunistic avenues for conflicts brewing. Despite that the appointed commisioners have some education and military backgrounds, they prove incapable simply because of the militant constituence of our village populations. Let’s not forget that most of our villages have been militarized during the war and no counter indoctrination initiatives of any kind has been conducted given that we haven’t militarily defeated our enemies.
Secondly, if sysmpathies of camps within the RSS leadership is dragging the government effects down, then we are in for a second Somolia in Africa. Although decentralization is a better way of involving citizens in governance, it appears we need to set limits to certain organs of the government to serve beyond regional boundries as the army does. We need city and the state police who are trained at the state and national levels respectively. Better living and service conditions of the police needs to be prioritized.
The police need to know that they are the community peace-keepers rather than community harrassers as it appears to be the order of the day in most third world nations. Immigration, riot, traffic and ordinary police should know their limits and not cross-over at will. Strong work ethics and severe consequences should be emphasized at training and of course employed in the field. If some police have been purged because of their miscoducts, less more will engage in similar behaviors. The same should happen with the military who often times come and harrass the police to take out people from the hands of the police. This is no way we can run a nation.
Thirdly, it’s time for our parliament to take action and not let senior civil servants to call for international non humanitarian missions to the country. It’s also time for our villagers to be educated that it’s only good to send in at least members of parliament who have some education because they are going to discuss with other educated people from different language groups; and where language barrier could become serious obstacle to little or not educated MPs.
Our parliament and executive should therefore, do the following:
1. Draft and pass abill (if not yet) for mandatory disarmament
2. Draft and pass another bill for reorganization of the deployment of the organized forces in the ten states (meaning) at least 90% of the police, wild life, prison warden and fire marshals should comprise at least 50% from the nine states with only 10% should come from that state.
3. Change of lifestyle initiatives, such as dependently entirely on animal products needs to be phasely introduced to the communities whose sold life depends on the animals.
Similarly, agricultural communities should also be urgued to rare animals.
4. Religious leaders should also step up to the challenge because all happiness values are enshrined in all religious doctrines.
5. Any noncompliance group should not be lullabied but be dealt with to fullest extent of the law so other groups may learn from.
6. Finally, the central authorities at the state and national levels should not only provided fundings but keep in check, all the mechanisms employed in all the efforts in the regard.
Edward
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