Alex de Waal and John Young on South Sudan’s Independence: A Concerted Campaign of Disinheritance
By PaanLuel Wël, Juba, South Sudan
June 12, 2015 (SSB) — In his controversial article, “Cat fight among the South Sudan experts and the failure of peace-making,” published by the Sudan Tribune website on 11 June 2015, John Young, the author of ‘The Fate of Sudan: Origins and Consequences of a Flawed Peace Process’ blatantly claims that “…the creation of an independent South Sudan was dependent on the US since the SPLA never controlled more than a fraction of the country…”
John Young is the latest “expert” on South Sudan to offer his unsolicited opinion on how the United States supposedly “turned over South Sudan to the SPLA.” At first it was the American Foreign Policy magazine, “Unmade in the USA,” which contended that the independence of South Sudan was “midwifed” by the US, a byline that was later adopted and popularized by Alex de Waal in a two-part documentary film on Al-Jazeera television.
Alex de Waal insinuated that the 2011 CPA-mandated South Sudan’s referendum was “fraudulent” and “fishy” because, according to his logic, “there are very, very few places in the world you could get a vote of 99 percent, and Western countries and democracy advocates would be applauding it. Most of them would be looking, more carefully they’d be saying, there must be something fishy here.”
While John Young made a name for himself by describing the 2005 Comprehensive Peace agreement (CPA) between the NCP and the SPLM/A as “a flawed peace process,” probably because it led to the independence of South Sudan from Khartoum, Alex de Waal termed the entire plebiscite “fraudulent” and “fishy” and therefore invalid and void. According to him, South Sudan is not a sovereign nation, legally speaking.
Now John Young is talking of South Sudan being handed over to the SPLM/A by the West. These assertions make one think about the American Revolution, particularly the crucial role played by France. One wonders if John Young would advance the same argument and declare that the American Revolution was “midwifed” by the French or that the French handed over the USA to the American people.
The second argument by John Young is the contention that the defunct South Sudan Defence Forces (SSDF) of Paulino Matip Nhial, recruited and armed by Khartoum to protect the oilfields from the SPLM/A, were more or less equal—in prestige, numbers, and organizational and military strength—to the SPLM/A. To John Young, and possibly Alex de Waal, the mere presence of Khartoum-armed and –supported militia groups such as the SSDF and the Equatoria Defence Force (EDF), among numerous others, was sufficient proof of the rejection of the SPLM/A by local communities as an occupying army.
Yet, if one were to consider the British royalists during the American Revolution who had sided with the British monarch against the American revolutionaries, it would be utterly absurd to assert that those royalists had as much claim to the American Revolution as the American revolutionaries. Much to the credit of the SPLM/A leaders, the “Khartoum royalists” were not victimized in the post war South Sudan as much as the British’s royalists were in the post–revolutionary America. While many of Khartoum’s royalists are serving as honorable ministers in Juba, none served in any of the administrations of Washington, Adam and Jefferson—the American founding fathers.
In fact, much of the current chatter about how ‘the US midwifed the independence of South Sudan’ from Khartoum and about ‘an independent country midwifed by the US . . . handed over, on a silver platter, to the SPLM/A’ is based entirely on sheer ignorance of the liberation struggle of the South Sudanese people. If, by modest estimate, the history of the liberation struggle in South Sudan began with the 1955 Torit Munity, then the South Sudanese had been struggling for over 50 years by the time the CPA was signed in 2005, leading to independence in 2011.
Yet for those dark years—from 1955 up to the late 1990s—the US has never been at the side of the South Sudanese people to midwife their liberation struggle and independence. On the contrary, the US was indeed on the side of the oppressors of the people of South Sudan, notably the Khartoum government. The US kept their distance from the Anyanya One freedom fighters; only Israel helped, lately for that matter, from 1970 to 1972 under the leadership of Gen. Joseph Lagu. When the SPLM/A was formed in 1983, Khartoum was the biggest beneficiary of US aid and armaments in Africa while Ethiopia was the biggest recipient of USSR aid and weapons. Consequently, out of necessity rather than ideology, the SPLM/A, at its inception, adopted socialism as a survival tactics because America was in bed with their enemy Khartoum.
In the lead–up to one of the US election in the 1980s, Vice President George H. Bush cited the US assistance to Khartoum as one of the proudest successes of the American foreign policy in beating back communism. The communists that Bush senior was referring to were of course the South Sudanese people fighting under the banner of the SPLM/A for their freedom and liberty. This is not something you would expect John Young and Alex de Waal to know, notwithstanding their “expertise” on South Sudan.
The hostility between the SPLM/A and Washington did not subside till well into the 1990s. For example, when the late SPLM/A leader, Dr. John Garang, visited the US in 1987, the US State Department categorically stated that they were not ready to talk to the SPLM/A or work with them. The State Department told Garang’s friend, Brian D’Silva, that Garang should not even “have that meeting on any US government’s property.” This is in spite of the fact that Garang was educated in the US, with a PhD in economics from Iowa State University. To Washington, Garang and his movement were communists and Khartoum was the friend.
The sweet romance between the US and Khartoum began to unravel around the first gulf war when the NIF-led government in Khartoum backed Saddam Hussein against the American-led coalition. It later evaporated completely when Khartoum was discovered to have played host to Osama Bin Laden. September 11 marked a turning point in the relationship between the US and the SPLM/A vis-a-vis the Khartoum government.
President George W. Bush came out strongly in support of the liberation struggle of the South Sudanese people against the advice of the lukewarm State Department. Even then when the first peace talks commenced, the Americans and the British were against the referendum clause that would allow the option of secession. For those who care to read further, the intrigues involved in these international deliberations are laid bare in Hilde Johnson’s books, “Waging Peace in Sudan: The Inside Story of the Negotiations that Ended Africa’s Longest Civil War,” published in 2011 by Sussex Academic Press.
For sure, the US played a critical role in a later phase of the liberation struggle of the South Sudanese people, much as France did during the American Revolution. To think, let alone to celebrate, that the French midwifed the American Revolution would be absurd. The same proposition holds true for the case of the South Sudanese liberation struggle.
Therefore, the ludicrous claim that the US “midwifed” the independence of South Sudan is bogus at best and malicious at worst. It is an attempt to disinherit the people of South Sudan from the history of their liberation struggle. South Sudan was not handed over to the SPLM/A by anyone; it took over 50 years of blood and flesh for that independence to be achieved. Freedom is not given; it is paid for. The brave people of South Sudan, not the US, fought for and midwifed the independence of their own nation.
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PaanLuel Wël, the Managing Editor of PaanLuel Wël: South Sudanese Bloggers, is a South Sudanese national currently residing in Juba, South Sudan, where he works for one of the International NGOs. He graduated with a double major in Economics and Philosophy from The George Washington University, Washington D.C, USA. He is the author of “Return in Peace (R.I.P) Dr. John Garang” and the editor of the speeches of Dr. John Garang, published as “The Genius of Dr. John Garang, Vol. 1 &2“. He is currently working on two books to mark the 10th anniversary of the death of Dr. John Garang: Vol. 3 of “The Genius of Dr. John Garang” and “Who Killed Dr. John Garang“, an account of events and circumstances leading to the death of the late SPLM/A leader in July 2005. You can reach him through his email: paanluel2011@gmail.com