State Proliferation is not the Panacea to Jonglei’s Multiple Problems
14 min readWHAT IS TO BE DONE: ONCE IN A DEEP HOLE OF YOUR OWN MAKING, IMMEDIATELY CEASE FROM DIGGING FURTHER
By PaanLuel Wël, Juba
In his article, Multiple States Solution for Jonglei’s Multiple Problems, Dr. Bior Kwer Bior, who graduated in 2013 with a PhD in Cell Biology from the University of Vermont, USA, and is currently the Medical Director of Bor State Hospital in Jonglei state, argues that the answer to the multiple problems in Jonglei state is a peaceful and orderly break up of Jonglei into four major states. The rationales for the exigency of the multiple states solution to Jonglei’s multiple problems seem to run thus. On one part, the Murle community has been an unbearable menace to the Nuer and Dinka communities of Jonglei state; granting the Murle a separate state would go along way in disentangling that problem. On the other part, The Nuer white army has committed two massacres on the Greater Bor Dinka community—the 1991 and 2013 Bor Massacres. Because enough is enough, more so because the Greater Bor Dinka community is hardly going to forgive and forget the atrocities meted out upon them by their Nuer cousins, it is better, runs the logic, to put them in separate administrative areas. Ensconcing them in their respective separate states would someway assist to mitigate the extant tribal animosity and might preclude any future massacre that may revisit Bortown.
And this quandary is highlighted by the abysmal failure of the past attempts to resolving these perennial ordeals in Jonglei. “To bring about an atmosphere of peace in Jonglei,” the author contends, “a lot of things have been tried. Disarmament was carried out, but that didn’t work. These disarmament campaigns actually left the citizens of Bor vulnerable to the Murle relentless criminal expeditions. Community peace talks have been held, but those bore no appreciable fruits. At the expense of the Dinka Bor people in the state government, peace has been bought from the Nuer and Murle, but that wasn’t enough.” Because of these seemly irreconcilable ethnic differences and disputes, the author goes on to underscore that “to think that the [Bor] Dinka and Lou Nuer will ever co-exist as members of the same state will be an illusion of the highest order. It will be hypocritical to ask [Bor] Dinka to forgive their Nuer counterparts in the face of these unearned aggressions. The Nuer can say the same thing about the Murle, and the Murle will probably say the same thing about the Lou Nuer or the [Bor] Dinka. It is unequivocally clear that the relations between these communities have suffered a calamitous failure. The sooner this is realized, the quicker the ultimate solution to the Jonglei’s problem will be devised.”
The author further maintains that “a lot of things have been tried” but they didn’t work. Thus, he calls upon his fellow citizens, Jongleans in particular, to think outside the box because “to think that these tactics, which didn’t work in the past, will work now is crazy.” His thinking outside the box, which is barely outside the box for that matter, is that the panacea to stalking problem in Jonglei is one offered by none other than David Yau-Yau’s SSDM/A-Cobra militia group: state proliferation. One could palpably feel the author feverishly muttering: ‘give each militia according to their demand’, outrageous and impractical as it may be crystal clear to all concerned. This is what the author presents as the unprecedented “great political window of opportunity” that the nation cannot afford to waste, a rarity that must be seized on first sight. The author ends up proposing the dismembering of Jonglei state into four greater warring tribal states: Greater Bor State, Greater Pibor State, Greater Fangak State and Greater Akobo State.
This rejoinder does not in any way pretend to present a metanarrative on the remedy to the ills of Jonglei state. Rather, this is just but a refutation of the author’s assertion that the solution to the multiple problems confronting Jonglei state lies in the proliferation of states and ethnic balkanization in that state.
ON THE ONE HAND,
Is state dismemberment and ethnic balkanization the panacea to the cyclical multiple problems in Jonglei state? Surely, it is one thing to balkanize Jonglei state but it is another altogether to construe that that would be the remedy to the manifold ailments of the embattled state. After all, it is markedly clear to everyone that Murle has been attacking Eastern and Central Equatoria states, and sometimes deep inside Ethiopia in search of cattle to loot and children to abduct. The new Nuer and Dinka balkanized states would be as easily susceptible (and accessible) to the perennial menace from Murle as it was the case in the old troubled Jonglei state. Even if one were to concede that the establishment of Murle state might transitorily provide the political solution to Yau-Yau rebellion, how that approach would cure the socioeconomic and cultural aspects of the conflict is not made plain by the author. The Murle, certainly, would still be stalking, raiding Nuer and Dinka villages of cattle and children. There would be nothing to impede them in the ‘State Inflation’ model as advocated for by the author.
If state proliferation is not the key to the threat posed by Murle raiders to the Nuer and the Dinka communities, so is it not the case with the white army attack on Bor, an attack that always ends in massacres. Even if the Nuer, the Murle and Bor Dinka were to have their own separate countries, let alone states, the danger of the perennial conflict (the case of Murle) and the shadow of an impending massacre (the case of the white army) would still be as palpable as it has been, and is currently the case, in Jonglei state. The author appears to have mistaken his proposed Jonglei balkanization scheme for the Berlin Wall that had physically divided the city into non-interacting enclaves or the current Wall dividing the Jews from the Arab Palestinians. Will the author be audacious enough to propose such ghettoizing of Jonglei communities in the idealistic pursuit of peace and political stability?
The author has confessed to having previously feared the balkanization of Jonglei as a recipe for creating nothing less than “many warring tribal states”. Then the author, like Apostle Paul on his way to Damascus, had a dramatic change of heart because (1) Jonglei is allegedly disintegrating anyway and it is not a serious crime against South Sudan to speed up that inevitable process, and supposedly (2) there is a debilitating issue of mismanagement in the far-flung expanses of Anyuak, Jie, Murle and Akobo and that is resolvable by, to rephrase Dr. John Garang, taking States to the villages. Indeed, Malith Alier, in his article, How will President Kiir Sell his Agreement with Yau-Yau to the Greater Bor People?, describes Jonglei state as “the sick man of the Republic of South Sudan like the 19th century Turkey used to be in Europe.” Whereas it may be the case that Jonglei is ungovernable, and could be an internal classic case of a pre-failed state scenario, there is no reason to fancy that salvation lies at the ashes of its eventual demise. On the contrary, the disintegration of Jonglei state may herald the breakdown of the entire country, not its renaissance. Jonglei is not just the largest state in South Sudan, it is the most influential one. The Anyanya-2 uprising in Akobo and the SPLM/A rebellion in Bor commenced in Jonglei. Such political giants as Abel Alier, John Garang, William Nyuon, Arok Thon, Majier Ghai, Ghai Tut, Akuot Atem, Nyachigak Ngachiluk, John Luk, John Koang Nyuon, Kuol Manyang, among numerous others, hail from this flustered state. Above all, it is inhabited by some of the most notorious communities in the country—Dinka, Nuer and the Murle.
As for the devil of mismanagement, it is not just that the influence of state government in Bor stops at Pakwaw be that as it is arguably the case, it is the case that the failure of the state government is a statewide tribulation. It affects the counties of Great Bor, the counties of Greater Akobo and Fangak as much as it does on Greater Pibor and Pochalla counties. No one ethnic group has a right to monopolize that tragedy. Mismanagement and neglect is a state and a national problem, first given birth to and incubated in Juba, and then exported to all the ten states of the republic of South Sudan. State proliferation will simply be the quickest and easiest replication of that very problem, not the opposite, in the villages across Jonglei state. If Bor can’t do better than Juba, what could possibly make one contemplate that Pibor or Akobo would do better than Bor? There is no wisdom in incessantly digging the hole deeper and wider!
Moreover, what is not so clear is the benchmark applied by the author to arrive at, and justify, these supposedly peaceful and economically viable sisterly states. Is it the population, geographical landmass/area or ethnic make up relative to the already legally existing states? How does one go about defining a sizeable, manageable state anyway? Take Warrap state, for example, which is the most densely populated state in the country but by far much smaller in area relative to others. Should it be divided up too to avoid the obvious quagmire of having such states as Greater Bor that would be nothing more than the tenth of Warrap state population? In short, should density, ethnic makeup or landmass determine the proliferation of state in South Sudan? It is preposterous to talk of ‘pursuit for peace’ as the criteria for balkanization of Jonglei state as there is no reason whatsoever to suppose that a Murle Continent, a Nuer Country or a Bor Dinka State would avail and guarantee peace and harmony among the denizens.
More practically, the cost of administering these new areas would be daunting. Already, because of budgetary constraint, the federal government in Juba, that takes more than 80% of the national budget, has recurrently failed to conduct by-elections for dead or incapacitated elected MPs and relieved state governors. Preparation for the 2015 general election—such as the conduct of proposed national census, the constitutional review committee and internal party elections such as that of the ruling SPLM party that is yet to be legally registered in South Sudan—have virtually stalled. The government is embroiled in a costly protracted war with Riek Machar and the white army, and that is besides the simmering standoff with Khartoum over border demarcation and Abyei.
Whilst it is veritably the case that the current federal (Juba) government and state (Bor) governments have done absolutely nothing to improve the socioeconomic conditions of the people in those political areas, it is not crystal clear how the proliferation of states/administrative areas would make the delivery of goods and services any better. There is every reason to believe that the proliferation of states would do nothing more than increase and entrench multilayer state bureaucracy, grand corruption, patronage and nepotism.
On The Other Hand,
Some facets of the enduring conflict in Jonglei state has nothing to do with manageability per se but rather a militarized political grievance against alleged rigging by the SPLM party. The fundamental problem between Juba and David Yau-Yau’s SSDM/A-Cobra militia group was never a question of state mismanagement but rather a political question between Boris Judi and David Yau-Yau over the state parliamentary seat of Gumruk constituency. However, the rebellion later graduated into a statewide quandary when David Yau-Yau’s “ragtag bands of guerilla fighters” began concentrating their sustained attacks on Nuer and Dinka villages and towns, in addition to government military outposts in Murle land.
Yau-Yau’s rebellion, the author avers, is the archetypal example of “Juba’s hasty attitudes to meddle in the local politics…” Yet, it was not meddling as such for what transpired was the typical case of the primary election within the party that Yau-Yau, according to the SPLM party official record, lost badly. Later on, it was a state parliamentary election of which Juba was constitutionally mandated to oversee and Yau-Yau was again declared a loser. None of the two instances depicts a classic example of Juba interference in local politics for it was the case all over the country, not just in Murle land. And so was the allegation of election rigging—George Athor Deng in Jonglei state, Angelina Jany Teny in Unity state, Daau Aturjong Nyuol in Northern Bahr el Ghazal state and Alfred Lado Gore in Central Equatoria state, among numerous others, all claimed to have been rigged out by the ‘system’.
Therefore, the allegation that Yau-Yau took to the bush because of “elections rigging by the SPLM, import of Mr. Boris by the SPLM to take over the Gumruk constituency seat and the general neglect of the Murle tribe by the government in Bor town” is as unsubstantiated as his assertion that the solution to Jonglei multiple problems lies in the proliferation of states in Jonglei. First and foremost, the claim of “election rigging” is a common pretext advance by such weakling as Lam Akol who was defeated by a margin of more than 90%. It has been the Achilles’ heel of electoral democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa as hardly anyone ever accepts humble defeat but rather rush to shout, “election has been rigged and there will be dire consequences unless the election is immediately overturned/nullified and I am declared the winner”.
If Sub-Saharan Africans were to attend to every whimsical claim of “this election was rigged”, they would never have time to institute a functioning government. The rule of the majority, the sacred tenet of democracy, cannot be supervened by the tyranny of the defeated minority. Thus, since the allegation of election rigging has become as ubiquitous as urban prostitution, there is no reason whatsoever to take Yau-Yau on his own words, than to believe and embrace his opponent, without prior forensic study of the case involving the Gumruk state parliamentary election of 2010.
Likewise, the allegation of Mr. Boris having been imported/exported into Gumruk from Buma should rather be seen as a desperate attempt by the political opportunistic Yau-Yau to explain away his heinous crimes meted upon all communities of Jonglei state, including the Murle who borne the brunt of the conflict as their home areas were turned into the battlefields between the government and the SSDM/A-cobra militias. As far as Boris is concerned, and this is what informed the SPLM party to back him, he is as much politically and culturally connected to Gumruk constituency as much as Yau-Yau, and the claptrap that he is an outsider is the invention of Yau-Yau in the absence of a better argument for his rebellion.
As the author rightly points out, the government was indeed slow to appreciate the magnitude of Yau-Yau’s insurgence and was even ill prepared to attend to the conflict once it committed itself to fending it off. Yet, as the author has shrewdly shied away from venturing into speculating the exact course of actions that the government should have pondered and taken to end the conflict, it was a conflict with no easy military solution. Principally, it had become a proxy war between Juba and Khartoum, as the latter was earnestly bankrolling the rebellion. Secondly, military solution was severely thwarted by the hysterical actions of the UNMISS that was largely seen by the victims of Yau-Yau rebellion to have been sympathetic to the David Yau-Yau. Therefore, although Yau-Yau’s ragtag army was wrecking “serious and deadly havocs on the villages of [Greater] Bor Dinka, Lou Nuer and Anuak as well as on the villages of Mundari tribe in central Equatoria state” and in spite of the fact that “these communities lost thousands of children, livestock, lives, trust and love for the Murle people”, the government was in no better position to militarily crush the rebellion.
Indeed, the 2011 transient peace between Yau-Yau and Juba did not address the root causes of the fundamental problems in Jonglei. Still, that was not a license for Yau-Yau to resume his outrageous and senseless war. After all, the federal government has utterly failed to render socioeconomic development and political stability across South Sudan, irrespective of regions, states, counties, Payams and Buma or ethnic groupings. If the manifest failure of Juba were to be the basis to declare and perpetuate war in the country, Yau-Yau would be the last person to lead one, and Murle community would be but a minority among the agitators.
AND THEREFORE,
The citizens of the beleaguered Jonglei state must not necessarily just “jump upon this opportunity earnestly and push for these political dispensation” without first dissecting the problem presented, and examining the solution advanced, by the author as ideally and practically as it can be adopted and applied with immediate and tangible results on the ground. Thus far, there is no palatable reason to deem the author’s proposition of state proliferation and ethnic balkanization as the answer to the recurrent multiple problems in Jonglei. Rather, the purported ‘multiple states solution’ model would turn out to be a multiple states problems for Jonglei’s multiple problems as it would likely exacerbate, perpetuate and multiply the current multiple problems in the state.
Jonglei state multiple problems are a manifestation of Juba multiple problems. It is the national problem of state failure and leadership hiccup. It is not solvable from state level but only from Juba. Whatever is wrong with/in Juba is also wrong with/in Bor and would no doubt be wrong with/in Pibor, Akobo etc. Above all, the author need not necessarily rely on old tried ideas to proclaim salvation in Jonglei. The idea of state proliferation is nothing more than the instinct for southern secession to solve Khartoum problems, and the notion of ethnic balkanization is an importation of Kokora into Jonglei state. Separation from Khartoum didn’t solve any of the earliest predicaments of South Sudan. Importing Kokora into Jonglei won’t work magic just because the Nuer, Murle and the Dinka are balkanized into their respective ethnic enclaves.
Lastly, although his proposition is theoretically misconceived (the issue has nothing to do with mismanagement per se and David Yau-Yau is only a political opportunist) and practically dangerous (its implementation won’t solve the problem but would rather perpetuate and aggravate it, setting a perilous precedent across the country), Dr. Bior should be commended for taking his time to define and highlight the problem of Jonglei state, and more importantly for striving to prescribe a viable solution. On his part, this is a radical transformation for someone who has been idiosyncratically preoccupied with Madam Nyandeng de Mabioor, the window of the late SPLM/A leader, Dr. John Garang. One would hope that he has finally come around to appreciating and embracing his new societal status in the country, and would henceforth cease from getting embroiled in depreciating ranting that is sadly below his intellectual eminence and social standing.
PaanLuel Wël (paanluel2011@gmail.com) is the Managing Editor of PaanLuel Wël: South Sudanese Bloggers. He can be reached through his Facebook page, Twitter account or on the blog: https://paanluelwel.com/
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