Rescue South Sudan Mission: Who owns it?
8 min readBy Dut-machine De Mabior, Nairobi, Kenya
June 3, 2015 (SSB) — The political atmosphere in the Republic of South Sudan has never been the same since the planes that ferried the G-10 delegation of five membership and the foreign dignitaries headed by H. E Cyril Ramaphosa, the Vice President of South Africa, touched down at the Juba International Airport on the evening of 1st June, 2015.
The visit, being the first of its nature since when the SPLM Leaders, Former Political Detainees (FDs) were released and the South Sudan presidency requested the neighboring Kenya to host these members amid fears of unscrupulous security uncertainties; there has been a hell of debate surrounding what is termed to be THE RESCUE SOUTH SUDAN MISSION.
In this writing, I am expressing the little I know about who owns the mission.
Who Owns the Mission?
Upon arrival at the airport, the head of the delegation, Hon. Deng Alor Kuol publicly declared that; “We have returned to rescue South Sudan from… ” This statement has received mixed reactions from the public. Before anything, whether we like it or not! South Sudan needs to be rescued from the war, economic hardships, deteriorating foreign policy and possible collapse of the governing system into warlords.
I don’t blame those who have no reverence to the statement because in the words of Hon. Alor, who are the ‘we’ mentioned? Others confused the ‘we’ for the FDs (G-10). I beg to differ here; we outstandingly know that no single faction of the SPLM can restore the country to harmony. The SPLM-IG tried to restore order by suppressing rebellion, the suffering has increased and it has been a CAPTURE-RECAPTURE TECHNOLOGY MANUFACTURTING MORE GRAVES.
The SPLM-IO tried to capture as many towns as possible to get into J1 in Juba, a nightmare it has been! The SPLM-FDs has tried to persuade IGAD and the region to speed up the peace process, it has taken longer than imagined. It therefore means no individual group can claim to bring peace back to the country without the other factions.
Hence the ‘we’ in the statement of the former most senior minister of Cabinet affairs means the SPLM PARTY (3 factions but not his own faction of SPLM-FDs). This impression has to be corrected because the anti-FDs are preaching it coupled with a political meaning. The Rescue South Sudan Mission is an endeavour of all the SPLM party factions to restore the country to order.
If there is a group that denies participation, than I am yet to know. Mr. Alor went ahead to add, “We have come to dialogue with our colleagues in the government of the Republic of South Sudan to rescue the country.” The statement means that their collective responsibility will rescue the country indeed.
So I in this paragraph conclude that the Rescue South Sudan mission belongs to the SPLM and the people of the Republic of South Sudan who are in dire need of peace. Whoever opposes it is the enemy of peace and South Sudanese should take note of such actors. They are the enemies of future.
Rescue South Sudan and Corruption.
My colleagues in opinion writing have expressed doubtful concerns of how the SPLM can rescue the country yet they looted the public. This opinion has been argued unfairly only tied on the FDs upon misconception that they claim the Rescue South Sudan Mission as their own. To go on with this argument, the public must know of what the unfair reasoning is meant for.
First of all, the country needs not to be rescued from looting; it only needs to be rescued from war. I would comfortably join you singing the same song if the FDs delegation claims to rescue the country from corruption and maybe yes, maybe no, they were also and are still corrupt.
To make the point straight, every list of suspected corrupt officials contains even the members who are still senior ministers in the regime currently. If the corruption claims were not meant to score political points, then it should not be always claimed that the FDs looted the country.
We all know of the famous list of 75. For argument sake, assuming all the FDs were included, then the three big men in the rebellion, Riek, Taban and Gore, then Mama Rebecca; we can still compute simple arithmetic; 75-10-3-1=61. This computation shows that there are still 61 thieves at large in Juba. Why do we then always claim that the FDs looted the country when we are aware of the larger number of culprits in Juba?
A thief is a criminal and if our regime is not using corruption as a political tool to discredit potential competitors, then it should have prosecuted the ones within its reach. But what are we saying, “The Juba residents are mighty, FDs and the rebels looted the country.” Let’s at least be fair to ourselves that all the SPLM party has been corrupt and distribute the blames reasonably and to where they are due not where your political opinion dictates.
In reality, the number of the 75 officials is roughly 68 in Juba having deducted members of the FDs and rebellion who were not in the list. Mark you my siblings, only the union of the ‘looters’ in these 3 factions of the ruling party will rescue the country.
So arguing that, you need not certain people because they are corrupt is misplaced as far as the Rescue South Sudan Mission is concern because if a corrupt leader is ever harmless, their absence from the capital would not almost brought the country to its knees. We need all of them and we make them account later in life.
As far as corruption claims are concern too, let’s also try to separate our president from the law. This is to mean that not whoever he suspects of corruption is corrupt. To be straight on this, NO SPLM official, NOT even a single one has been charged and convicted by a court of law to confirm the claims. I am also sorry to say that, the corruption claims forwarded by the list has H. E in there.
This tells me that in South Sudan, everyone accused of corruption is either guilty not excluding the commander-in-chief or all are innocent. Why the presidency prosecutes no one for corruption claims tells my conscience that the chain is longer than it can be imagined.
I still believe our bosses could be corrupt but only the reunion of this corruption tag leaders will rescue the country. I am yet in person to confirm from a competent court that someone is really corrupt that I may join the pool of singers.
Rescue South Sudan and Causes of the War.
The root causes of the war have been defined by the Arusha Accord. It was caused due the discrepancies in the SPLM leadership which the SPLM leaders (all) accepted responsibility of the war though the individual contribution to the cause of the violence could differ in magnitude.
I have to remind my fellow compatriots that a war can only be stopped by those that caused it although a different rationale must be applied in solving it. So arguing that FDs caused the war and may not solve it is invalid.
Yes they were part of the cause because they are not and should not be immune to the collective responsibility of the SPLM leadership but they and all the SPLM leaders in the various factions must apply a different rationale in solving this war.
However, to what magnitude did they contribute is something that was answered by the court case in Juba. I may not need to reiterate the obvious! The leaked AU report tells us partially the true culprits though I may compromise the authenticity of the document because it’s not official.
Rescue South Sudan Mission and Surrendering
My fellow men must know that Juba, South Sudan is a home to all South Sudanese. In the quest to finding the negotiated solution to these crises, our leaders will one day return home not because they surrendered but because home is home! Also Juba, in the recent talks is just a venue of the talks and should be treated as such.
We all know Salva Kiir is the president, yes, the legitimate president and resides in Juba. It doesn’t mean any other South Sudanese coming home has surrendered! FDs went home, Juba; in particular J1, to engage their president on what they can do collectively to stop the raging war which they caused collectively and must solve collectively.
As I conclude, we must support Rescue South Sudan Mission no matter to which side of the SPLM divide we belong because it is an initiative of all the SPLM factions to restore the country to harmony. The rationale of who looted does not apply because the country only needs be rescued from war not corruption.
To whether who caused the war, the SPLM did that although the magnitude differs. Simply, if the SPLM was a group of devils, then we obviously know who the Lucifer, the leader of devils would be. We need peace at all costs.
The author is a student of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Kenyatta University, Nairobi Kenya.
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