The Politics of INU-ism in South Sudan
By PaanLuel Wël, Juba
In his recent interview on BBC Hardtalks with Stephen Sackur, President Salva Kiir Mayaardit made a number of blunders that have magnified the creeping question of “what is going on with the President these days?” Of course, it is not the issue of INU-ness of the interview though it was pretty weird to think that my President would use the word ‘INU’ in response to a question from an unsuspecting Kawaja.
My first main issue has everything to do with his transparent ‘truth’ that the Darfurian Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) was brought to South Sudan by Taban Deng Ghai when he was the governor of Unity state, and that the Ugandan People Defence Forces (UPDF) was brought to South Sudan by Dr. Riek Machar when he, in his capacity as the vice president of South Sudan, was leading the peace negotiations between the LRA and the Ugandan government.
Firstly, the substance of such claims, like that of the so-called attempted coup of December 15th, is too thin to be taken seriously. Secondly, the President is not a fool and he knows that no one would believe him—not just because Taban and Riek have nothing to do with the coming of the two foreign forces into South Sudan but more so because even if it were true, it would still be the case that the two gentlemen would have not dealt with JEM and the UPDF without the full knowledge of, and prior authorization from, the President himself. Not least, the rebels might be asking, why would foreign forces brought by Riek and Taban end up on the side of the government rather than the rebels’?
By disputing such specious claims, I believe that I am doing the President the favor he deserves and which the likes of Hon. Ateny Wek are not giving him. What would it means were we to accept and believe that JEM and the UPDF came into the country without the knowledge of the President? To think that the President has been and is continuing sleeping on the job would be a gross underestimation. The meriting query would be: who or what else could be in South Sudan without the invitation and/or the prior knowledge of our President?
To muse that JEM and UPDF are in the country illegally is a dangerous line to take because it paints our President in bad light. Salva Kiir Mayaardit is a longtime military intelligence officer—from his days in the Sudanese army in Malakal to his heroic times in the war of liberation. It is preposterous to think that he is now endangering his own reign (by allowing anyone and anything to penetrate and take root in the country) when he had worked so hard to protect the movement from enemies, both from within and from without.
The claim carries the mutation of INU-ism because if you can answer unsuspecting Kawaja in Arabic, it is easy to decree that the presence of JEM and UPDF in your own constitutional and legitimate jurisdiction has everything to do with someone that you are fighting for power usurpation. Possibly, the coup might have happened the first time Riek and Taban brought UPDF and JEM into South Sudan without your knowledge Mr. President. So what is going on with the President these days?
My second main issue has everything to do with the statements uttered by the President on his return journey from Addis Ababa after meeting his nemesis, Riek Machar, for the first time since December 15th. At the airport, the President, as if he was joking, publicly said that the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Haile Mariam Desalegn, had forced him to sign the peace deal with Riek Machar. Well, for one, he could have been joking except that no one has come out to clarify the statement and he is currently being copiously quoted as such without the slightest protest or further clarification from Juba.
One, it was very undiplomatic and un-presidential for President Salva Kiir to have publicly disclosed such sensitive matters to the media. Two, if he had been deeply humiliated by the manner at which he was compelled to sign the peace deal, then he should not have just narrated what had happened but rather should have disowned the agreement as well, publicly, to show his displeasure. Up to now, the agreement is theoretical in place and his statement at the airport of having signed the peace deal under duress is also in place—the international media is quoting him.
The people around the President should act to put the house in order before it is too late. Hon. Ateny Wek should free himself from the big man syndrome and be as keen and proactive as he was “beating the drum of truth” with the Citizen Newspaper. Ateny Wek, you are only barred from speaking against the government, but not for the government, wake up and speak up!
This mess carries the mutation of INU-ism because if you can answer unsuspecting Kawaja in Arabic, it is not that hard to mistake what is due to God for what is due to Caesar. The image created of our president, one that is uninterruptedly being fattened by subsequent statements and actions, is leading some western governments to question the mental agility of President Kiir. So what is going on with the President these days?
My third main issue has everything to do with President Kiir’s assertion that it was John Kerry who forced him to extend the presidential election to 2017/8. The president made the announcement of the postponement of the general election at Juba Airport upon returning from Addis Ababa. Then later on BBC, he claimed that it wasn’t his decision but those of the Americans and Western countries; that it was John Kerry who told him to do and say so.
Surely, there is a pattern here. It is either that our president is being forced to do something, anything, everything against his better conscience by the Ethiopian Prime Minister and the American Secretary of State. Alternatively, it is that something, everything, anything is being done under his radars as JEM and UPDF were allegedly brought into the country without his full knowledge or prior authorization.
In both cases, the best the President can do and has done and might continue to do is to report the matter to the media, be it the BBC or the local ones. He did not, does not, and might never see the wisdom of taking remedial action (if his assertions were true) against the ‘illegal’ presence of the UPDF and JEM. He does not see the wisdom of publicly disowning those decisions/agreements forced upon him in private such as those by John Kerry and PM Haile Mariam Desalegn of Ethiopian.
During the Panthou/Heglig Crisis, President Kiir is famous for having told off UN Secretary General, Ban-ki Moon, that he was not under his jurisdiction but a leader of a sovereign state. What is preventing the President from exercising his constitutional, sovereign, powers that he would put himself at the mercy of foreign nations such as Ethiopia or the USA, assuming his claim is anything to go by?
This crisis of constitutional powers carries the mutation of INU-ism because if you can answer unsuspecting Kawaja in Arabic, it is not that hard to forget that you are the head of a sovereign nation, full member of the UN, and that you are answerable to none but your own citizens of the republic of South Sudan. So what is going on with the President these days?
My fourth main issue has everything do with the insinuation from Juba that the current problems in the country have the hallmark of western interference. President Kiir himself has revealed that his government is being victimized by disgruntled western nations (US, UK, EU etc.) who felt shortchanged (after allegedly securing Juba independence from Khartoum) because all the oil contracts have been granted to Chinese companies. President Kiir seriously believe that “some countries that helped South Sudan win its independence are unhappy that they have not been rewarded with a portion of the oil and mineral largesse buried inside the bosom of the nation, and that, in turn, they have upturned their noses against Juba and are fuelling the conflict there.”
President Salva Kiir truly entertain the thought that the West want to bring down his government and then install Riek Machar because, according to him, the West reason that Riek is someone they can work with unlike Kiir who is too pro-China and eastern-leaning. This was why, of late, the president has been drumming up the mantra of “African solution for African problems.” Yet, John Kerry, while in Juba, publicly and officially backed President Kiir by warning the rebels and informing the world that Salva Kiir is the constitutionally, democratically and legitimately elected President of the Republic of South Sudan. That was not enough because in Juba, there is no reason why the Americans should not be drone-hunting down Riek Machar as they are doing with Konyi.
According to the Minister of Information, Makwei Lueth, Juba is being seen in the West as being too pro-China and “that is why there is a struggle to remove a government that has refused to listen and install one that can listen”. Makwei is infamous for having once declared that President Obama has officially joined the rebellion of the white army in South Sudan. It is the same thinking informing Minister Makwei’s pronounced hostility towards IGAD, once describing the group as being the main obstacle to peace and reconciliation between armed rebels and the government of President Kiir. Another time, he lumped them together with Obama as being rebel sympathizers, if not actual members.
The attempt to use the West as a scapegoat for our own internally manufactured tribulations carries the mutation of INU-ism because if you can answer unsuspecting Kawaja in Arabic, it is that easy to decree that South Sudanese internal problems were secretly invented in Washington DC and London and surreptitiously Wi-Fi-ed to Juba. So what is going on with the President these days?
Finally, my main issue has everything to do with Juba’s wishful thinking—having failed to militarily defeat Riek Machar and his white army—that they can somehow, someday, turn Riek Machar into Joseph Konyi of South Sudan and his rebellion into the LRA brand. It is craved that in a protracted war, Riek and his bloodthirsty white army would succeed to commit enough human rights violations and atrocities that the West would be induced to brand them ‘terrorists’ in the uniform of Joseph Konyi and his LRA outfit. Subsequently, US drones, UK and EU aids would be flowing to Juba and Riek Machar would be hunted down to death and his white army into extinction.
To say the least, it is daydreaming because it is not happening and it is not going to happen. Riek is a South Sudanese leader with a large following. His followers have deep grievances and the legitimacy of their grievances is in the barrel of a gun, the gun that Juba has repeatedly failed to silence, five months of warring spree notwithstanding. Juba, instead of relying on wishful thinking should rather do the necessary thing: soak their inflated ego in a glass of whisky and drink it, to paraphrase President al-Bashir of the Sudan.
Some futile proposals for the interim government have been flouted, one in which both Kiir and Riek are required to stand down in favor of a neutral body and another one with a collegiate presidency of five technocrats. None of them would work because in South Sudan the viability of any interim leader is directly proportional to the number of gun-wielding supporters he/she commands. Barring international military intervention (and there is no reason whatsoever to suspect that the Americans would involve themselves in South Sudanese messy conflict, with little relation to their immediate national security), it is only the political and military constituents of President Kiir and Riek Machar who have the muscle to form and maintain a viable transitional government.
Bringing them together in a temporary coalition government is the priority. Juba should therefore make peace with the rebels and the rebels should make peace with Juba. The two bloody-hands parties plus the political detainees should then institute an interim government of national unity with Salva Kiir as the President, Wani Igga as the Assistant President, Riek Machar as the Prime Minister to coordinate and supervise the activities of the interim government, Pagan Amum and Nhial Deng as deputy Prime Ministers to assist Riek Machar. The transitional government should then be tasked with not just political and security reforms but, first and foremost, with working towards the realization of long lasting peace and reconciliation among South Sudanese people.
Government fantasy of turning Riek into Konyi and white army into LRA has the hallmark of INU-ism because if you can answer unsuspecting Kawaja in Arabic, it is very easy to imagine that you can solve the problems of the world, let alone those of South Sudan. So what is going on with the President these days?
The politics of INU-ism must cease immediately ACHAN INU it is destroying the President and it is my constitutional, democratic and legitimate duty as the most concerned citizen of the Republic of South Sudan INU to ring the alarm bell and bring these INU-ism into your full attention.
Wake Up Juba!!
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