The Bewildering Crisis in South Sudan
9 min readBy Nathanial Athian Deng, Canada
It is now nearly 3 months since the political struggles that not only led to tremendous loss of human lives and property, but also took on tribal dimensions started in the South Sudan. December 15, 2013 is a sad moment in the history of the South Sudan because it has resurfaced all the unspeakable atrocities — mass death and displacement of innocent children, elderly people, women, and people with disabilities — that the South Sudan citizens were about to forget or were to be protected from after the signing of the peace agreement that ended the over two-decade war between the people of South Sudan and the Arab Islamists in the Sudan.
I take this opportunity to thank all the Grosvenor Park United Church community for continually thinking and praying for the South Sudan and for sharing sadness with Sarah Tut and her family and I since the war erupted again in the South Sudan, our country of origin. Sarah’s family and I are examples of rich diversity or availability of tribes in the South Sudan. For example, Sarah and her family come from Naath (Nuer) tribe and I am from Jieeng (Dinka) tribe. I appreciate such tremendous support from each member of the GPUC community and I take pride in interacting with each other and letting other people know about the crisis that has unfortunately befallen our country and resulted in huge losses of human lives and property.
As the GPUC community deliberates on a plan to continually pray for peace in the South Sudan, I think there are a few things that the GPUC congregation would like to know in order to avoid falling into the political and tribal pitfalls that most the Western media and some South Sudanese seem to preach to those who don’t know more about the cause and course of the recent crisis in the South Sudan. Naath and Jieeng tribes are only two of the tribes that inhabit the South Sudan and they are not the only ones fighting against each other. There are over 65 tribes or ethnic groups in the South Sudan and all are affected in one way or another. However, the majority of the victims come from Naath and Jieeng tribes. The disproportionately high numbers of victims among the Jieeng and Naath communities is partly because of the fact that the war is taking place in Naath and Jieeng tribal territories of Jonglei, Upper Nile and Unity. Besides, the leaders of the two warring forces, Salva Kiir Mayardit, the commander-in chief of the armed forces and the president of the South Sudan, and Riek Machar Teny, the former vice president of the South Sudan and the present leader of the rebels, originate from Jieeng and Naath tribes, respectively.
The recent crisis in the South Sudan resulted from a political struggle in the ruling party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). The SPLM/A is a former South Sudan rebel movement that fought the Khartoum Arab Islamist regime from 1983 to 2005. It was formed on the basis of tribal presentation to probably enhance recruitment of young people. In addition, the Arabs had set South Sudanese tribes against each other by capitalizing on the tribal differences in the SPLM/A and paying the warlords to cause more rifts that would weaken the SPLM/A. Riek Machar was one of the warlords who rebelled against SPLM/A in 1991 and mobilized a majority of Naath sections to fight the SPLM/A, which was predominantly a Jieeng movement headed by a Jieeng leader, Dr. John Garang de Mabior.
As a counter strategy for effective peace negotiation, Garang had brought different tribal warlords who were fighting against the SPLM/A alongside the Arabs and integrated them in the SPLM/A. As a result, Riek rejoined the SPLM/A in 2002. He was warmly welcomed and given number three in the rebel movement. Garang was first leader and Kiir the second leader in the SPLM/A. Shortly after the signing of peace deal with the Arabs, Garang died and the military officials, both the existing the SPLM/A and the newly integrated commanders, pushed themselves to the top based on their ranks. Consequently, Kiir became the first vice president of Sudan and the president of the autonomous South, and Riek became Kiir’s deputy in the South. After the separation of South Sudan from Sudan on July 09, 2011, Kiir maintained Riek as his vice president due to the same fear of losing tribal numbers from the Naath tribe.
However, President Kiir and his former vice president Riek were political rivals over the control of the SPLM party and the South Sudan army since South Sudan signed a peace agreement with Khartoum in 2005, after the death of Garang. Also, the dissenting soldiers have remained loyal to their dissenting commanders and each of the former SPLM/A commanders who have turned politicians has his own bodyguards or loyal soldiers. These guards, collectively known as presidential guards or Tiger Battalion, live in Juba where the politicians’ offices are and are paid with taxpayers’ money like the national army. Nonetheless, the political rivalry between Kiir and Riek and the army’s loyalty to tribal warlords and leaders did not surface until President Kiir decided to reshuffle South Sudan cabinet in July 2013. The reshuffling resulted in high tension and magnified the political differences due to the fact that Kiir sacked or dismissed Riek, the former vice president of South Sudan and the vice president of the ruling party SPLM, from his vice president position together with other cabinet ministers.
After the reappointment of a new cabinet, the president left out Riek and other SPLM members (who no longer supported him in the cabinet) and those who had expressed their intent to vie for presidency against the president in 2015 elections.
As a possible mechanism to retaliate against President Kiir, Riek and other politicians who were sacked, took to the public on December 6, 2013 and openly criticized President Kiir. They accused the government of the South Sudan of many things, including corruption, dictatorship, and incompetence to deliver the services to the citizens. These SPLM disgruntled members called for reforms to review the SPLM party manifesto in order to resolve some of the political issues. As a result, the president called the SPLM National Liberation Council (NLC) to meet on December 14, 2013 to work on the core documents in the party and resolve the political differences between president Kiir and his loyal group on one side, and Riek and other SPLM disgruntled members on the other side. Riek was now loosely leading the disgruntled members because he was the vice chair of the SPLM party.
Nevertheless, instead of treating the party members respectfully and equally, the president and his loyal politicians insulted, despised and mistreated the disgruntled members on the first day of the supposedly three-day NLC meeting. Consequently, Riek and other SPLM disgruntled members boycotted the second day of the NLC meeting on December 15, 2013. Their absence in the meeting caused suspicion and debatable actions that resulted in the present crisis. War broke out in the army barracks among the presidential guards, the special army unity that comprises of the bodyguards for the politicians, on the evening of December 15, 2013. The government immediately accused 16 of the SPLM disgruntled members, who had not only convened a Press Conference on December 6 but also missed the NLC meeting on December 15, of staging a coup to overthrow the elected government. The government issued an arrest to all the suspected 16 politicians; some to jail or prison and others under house arrest. Nonetheless, three members, namely, Riek Machar and Taban Deng who are from Naath community, and Lado Gore who is from Bari tribe were not found in Juba on that night. As the search for the missing politicians and the fighting in the barracks continued, the mutinied soldiers were defeated and the targeted tribal killings happened to the members of the Naath community.
After the reactions to impose or oppose the arrest of the accused politicians, and the overall mistreatment of the disgruntled SPLM members resulted in the targeted killing of Naath in Juba, the Naath soldiers in different towns in Upper Nile, Jonglei and Unity states also mutinied against the government and started killing Jieeng people in towns like Bortown, Malakal, Pariang, Bentiu, and Akobo, among other town where Naath soldiers and communities were the majority in the national army. Riek Machar immediately accepted the command of the rebels who are predominantly untrained Naath youth, known as Jech Meboor, meaning White Army, and called on the army to overthrow Kiir and the government of the South Sudan through military means. On the other hand, the government of South Sudan has staged the counteractive defense to protect civilians from the rebels in different towns. The other 64 tribes and another part of the Naath tribe that is supporting President Kiir and the government of the South Sudan are fighting the rebels, who are almost all Naath members that support Riek.
As the war continues in the country, both the government soldiers and the rebels are committing unspeakable atrocities and recruiting young men and children as soldiers. The war is now concentrated in three states of Upper Nile, Unity and Jonglei where Sarah and I come from. The majority of the populations in these three states comprise of Naath communities who are fighting on the different sides of the rebellion and the Jieeng and Shilluk communities whose politicians are in still jail or released to exile in Kenya. Besides, Naath communities are fighting among themselves as well. The fighting that continues in Unity and Upper Nile states is mostly between sections of Naath who are supporting Riek and the rebels against the sections of Naath communities who are supporting President Kiir and the government of South Sudan.
Unfortunately, the rebels continually turn to sections of Jieeng in Atar, Boor, Duk, Panriang, and Twic East (my county) and kill the civilians because the president is a Jieeng. The rebels rationalize their action as infuriation resulting from the government’s action to target the innocent Naath civilians in Juba. To the rebels the war is between Jieeng and Naath. However, the government minimally protects these sections of Jieeng because some of the politicians who are arrested have prior political association with Riek, Taban and Lado, the accused politicians who had run away from Juba at that fateful night and who have accepted the responsibility to command the rebel forces to overthrow the government of South Sudan.
Among the 16 accused politicians, the president issued a decree that Rebecca Nyandeng Chol and Peter Aduok Nyaba should not be arrested because Nyandeng is a wife to John Garang, whom the president respects as the father of the nation, and Aduok is a person with disability. Among the 11 members who were arrested, seven were released and taken to exile in Kenya and 4 remained in jail. The 4 detainees have remained in jail for coup accusation and charges. The 3 remaining SPLM disgruntled members (Riek, Taban and Lado) have joined the rebellion and their grievances against the government are being listened to in a peace talk that was recently mediated by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. There is hope that the rebels and the government of South Sudan may reach a peaceful agreement to stop the violence and killing so that the civilians may return to their homes from the displaced and refugee camps. So far, over 10,000 people have been killed and over 1 million displaced since the war broke out in December 2013.
In summary, the recent crisis in South Sudan is not a tribal war athough it has unfortunately taken a tribal dimension. It is a political struggle and conflict and the IGAD mediators in Addis Ababa are trying to get political solutions to bring the warring parties together for a possible solution. It is sad that innocent people are dying in the crossroads of the conflict that have had many warning signs and which were mishandled and ignored. In most of the crises in Africa, politicians and military leaders usually trigger up tribal hatred and use it for individual gains. The presence of tribes is not the African problem.
Thank you for continually praying for peace in South Sudan.
(Written and submitted by Nathanial Athian Deng)
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