By David Mayen Ayarbior, Juba, South Sudan
Introduction: Lost Opportunity and Wanton Destruction
July 19, 2015 (SSB) —- This set of observations intends to argue for certain propositions on how South Sudan could chart a better future out of an unfortunate present; how we can protect and increase on the little infrastructural gains we could all see in Juba and other towns across the country. In fairness, we had taken some steps towards economic growth and good governance before almost half of those gains were shattered in 2013.
An investment conference almost unprecedented in the region which was held in Juba 2013 had promised grand investment projects that would by now have steered our country towards the right path to prosperity. However, criminal warlords who are ignorant of the methods of nation-building destroyed the country’s investment climate and ushered it into a present that was least expected even by the most pessimist.
South Sudan’s present has opened our eyes to the fact that we ourselves are our biggest enemy and existential threat. A present which speaks loudly that we will never prosper until we set our independent nation-state in order; an order that is firmly anchored on institutions rather than on mortal beings of flesh and blood. Our territory will continue to be a slaughterhouse until such times when radical institutional transformation is undertaken.
Surely, there is nothing desirable in maintaining a status quo that could always erupt into self-inflicted wanton destruction of lives and infrastructure, characterized by rapes and killing of women and children in hospitals, churches and other places where they had taken refuge; ripping open pregnant women’s stomachs to snatch out fetuses; hunting for terrorized children in the bushes, etc. etc. etc.
There is nothing good in a present which is not a forgettable nightmare, but a fact that has shocked the conscience of citizens who were told that voting for ‘freedom’ meant voting for prosperity, end of running to refugee camps, and beginning of peace and prosperity.
Nothing good in South Sudanese militias unleashing hell on citizens who were simply waiting for schools, hospitals and clean water. These millions of innocent citizens whose lives have been utterly destroyed need to be assured that this unforgettable evil episode will not happen again to their living children.
Any devious pressure, whether regional or international, for reconstructing the past under a “big tent” or forming a separate Hezbollah-like army (instead of subjecting the entire country to DDR) will be tantamount to resurrecting the vicious wicked beast to once again stare in the eyes of our terrified children after killing their mothers and sisters. It will be setting the stage for a deadlier bloodbath in the not so distant future which might this time round cripple the newly established state.
Patriotic political leaders must this time collectively shepherd the country toward a more sustainable and peaceful big tent; a big tent built with the sole purpose of accommodating the people, not militia forces. A big tent that is a country for THE PEOPLE of South Sudan with all their tribes. A PEACE FULL state for the civilian 99% of the more than ten million population, those who constitute the majority of Colo, Bari, Nath, Jieng and Azande families who desire nothing more than an environment where they could take their children to school and hospital without much worry of being snatched and raped on the road by wandering angles of death.
Tackling the Root Cause of War:
South Sudan’s politics of ‘rolling back the carpet,’ ‘sweeping real issues under the carpet’ or ‘burying heads in the sand’ has characterized an endemic approach to conflict resolution which often miscarried. It is an approach which makes us South Sudanese be unfairly (or fairly) perceived as oblivious, if not outright ignorant, of the factual meaning of the phrase “nation-building.” We are seen as a people scared of tackling the real root causes of the recurrent threat to our national security caused by the disastrous politics of warlordism.
It is a skewed approach to conflict resolution that must be discarded by the current generation of political elites, if the country’s future will ever be characterized by sustainable peace. It must be cast-off if elite contemporaries mind about being celebrated historicals when the country’s nation-building page is written in the history books.
For a start, confessions have been made that tension often emerged after strong differences of opinion within the ruling party. Such difference in procedural and policy matters between senior party leaders often sent shocking waves down the spines of citizens even before they clash; evidenced by the pre-2013 environment.
This current war is a sad substantiation of what the re-instated SG and others confessed to be an established pattern in South Sudanese conduct of state affairs. But the question is whether the country will learn from this unprecedented butchery which resulted from what was exclusively an intra-party dispute? Whether political parties are willing to protect against victimization of innocent citizens?
It might be one step to the right direction that insiders confessed to dangerous patterns observed in 1983, 1991, 2004, 2008, and 2013. But after what has already happened, confessions and apologies (though good) no longer matter to the masses who logically might not swallow being killed and displaced with impunity, then blamed for being skeptic and unforgiving. This is the crossroads where our great revolutionary movement currently stands, and only delivering a civilian service centered peaceful country will be the least acceptable consolation.
Party-building and Nation-building:
An important inquiry on nation-building strategies relates to whether our political parties could collectively build a solid wall between party affairs (procedural and organizational in nature) and country affairs (nation building: peaceful coexistence, good governance, healthcare provision, economic productivity, educational and sporting excellence, etc., etc.)? What should it take, more than the current carnage, for us to comprehend the fact that nation building must transcend political party disputes; for nation building is a nobler objective and sole reason for which parties are established in the first place.
One indispensable strategy for the ruling party to deliver service centered sustainable peace in the short and medium run will be redefining old objectives and adopting new policies of ‘revolutionary’ restructuring of the state. Contrary to internal party affairs, the issues relating to state affairs ought to be what constitutes the true meaning of “People’s Liberation” in the abbreviation SPLM.
This ‘new’ meaning of liberation ought to be embraced in the context of people’s economic livelihoods inside South Sudan, in contrast to the old defunct expansionist context related to (armed) revolutionary goals of building a “New Sudan.” That same goal, to which this writer ascribes, could still be peacefully and successfully pursued by the willing on a completely independent track (as Dr. John Garang had suggested).
Hence, in order for the ruling party to emerge from the current crisis as the great and historic People’s organization it had always been, this essentially economic redefinition of its political outlook must constitute the pivot around which rotates all its future nation building endeavors; needless to mention starting from the current negotiations in Ethiopia.
Security Sector Reform as a Core Element of Good Peace:
To be more precise, any good deal from Ethiopia cannot be a ‘good deal’ unless it addresses ALL the underlying security sector reform issue which have exposed the country’s dangerous level of state fragility. As the wise saying goes: “no deal is better than a bad deal.” The new deal will only be a good deal when it moves away from elitist politicking and militaristic repositioning for tomorrow’s bigger destruction of the country, to addressing imperatives of sustainable security sector institutional reforms.
All observers in Ethiopia and at home agree that of all the three elements of institutional reform agreements to be signed, security arrangements retains the highest premium. It is where the do or die of the negotiations are found, not positions and percentages. It alone will distinguish good peace from bad peace.
While the “experts” in Ethiopia will iron out the details of the desired security arrangements, there is no ‘interference’ if observers (foreign or local analysts) outline what South Sudanese citizens expect out of those arrangements.
The first and foremost component expected is reducing the unmanageable size of South Sudan’s military forces (currently represented by the combination of SPLA and SPLM-IO forces). If we do an extensive research on the size of armies in the world it will be difficult to get many peaceful countries with populations of ten million having standing armies of over two hundred thousand strong. This is almost more than halve the size of the United States active duty army personnel. Reducing this unsustainable, extremely taxing, and dangerous size remains and imperative towards a win-win-win situation for South Sudan.
The first win is for the government which will be able to, as noted above, re-channel misdirected financial resources to other civilian based human developmental projects such as building inter-state and feeder roads, electricity and water grids, referral and regional hospitals, educational and sporting facilities, etc. It will allow our government to take towns to the people.
The second win is for the young men from those forces who will be subjects of DDR and beneficiaries of new productive skills; skills that will enable them lead peaceful civilian lives and build their families as productive citizens, after having sacrificed for good or bad their entire adolescence and youth for and against this country.
The third win is for the entire people of South Sudan who will then concentrate on forgiving each other and rebuilding their lives without fear of lurking new civil wars orchestrated by ever dissatisfied criminal warlords or tribal major generals.
Regrettably, in justification of retaining productive young man in the military’s active duty list, some agitated patriots might argue that our war with the ‘North’ has not ended, a paranoid contention also held by few influential citizens and politicians. However, the fact is that retention of such an unsustainable force constitutes a permanent threat to internal peace than to our enemies, real and imaginary. In fact, Khartoum will even be the first to want South Sudan having a force of one million strong for the purpose of self-destruction.
Finally, South Sudanese want to see their various faces in the organized forces. In this regard, a ratio regime of each state voluntarily contributing a maximum of five thousand strong to the national military; two thousand strong to the federal police force, and two thousand strong to the other national security institutions will take our country towards the promised land we collectively dreamed of when we were urban or rural refugees across the world or freedom fighters in the bushes.
Other ratios governing deployments of federal police and security forces to each of the ten states, such as 35% retention from the mother state and 65% from the other nine states, could be worked out with a view to national integration.
The fifty thousand strong of nationalists (fifty battalions, or so, whose deployments is beyond the competence of any masquerading newspaper article), highly trained and equipped can satisfactorily do the job both against external aggression (along borderlines) and internally (construction of railways, river ports, roads, etc. through engineering battalions).
It is ironic that with all the misapplied resources since 2005 and what is to be misapplied in future for maintaining that ominously big force, such a simple ratio regime might proof to be what is standing between good peace and bad peace.
As usual, defeatist and unproductive voices will contemptuously (if not angrily) reply: it is not as simple as you think! Who are you to propose anything!? Yet affected patriotic citizens know the fact that it is even simpler if we all have goodwill towards South Sudan. It’s not rocket science. That’s all it takes! Goodwill and restructuring of the state. To put it in communist language: to facilitate the withering away of the old state and building in its place the new state i.e. ‘radical institutional transformation of the state’. No young man in his right mind will resist this if well packaged and presented.
Selling such a security arrangements agreement as a win-win-win for all will entail that a thoroughly outlined comprehensive DDR plan which is openly supported by willing international partners is promoted as not meaning in any way, shape or form a defeat of neither side to the current conflict but a win for South Sudan and its future. DDR is indeed more than a reward as it is the most important means of security sector transformation in every post-war setting like ours.
Accepting this arrangement, or another of a similar spirit, will be the only true meaning of good faith negotiation. It will mean putting down our arms in surrender to South Sudan’s future prosperity and the future of our children and grandchildren. The solution is, thus, far beyond reinstating officers and men back to their previous positions, which is nothing more than rolling back the time to start from where it all began.
All parties embracing in good faith a comprehensive DDR program will be the only reason for the people to celebrate the expected peace agreement and jump-start our country again on the path to reconciliation, economic progress, and peaceful coexistence. That will demonstrate the only meaning of patriotism. That, indeed, will be a good peace to be blessed by desperate and terrified South Sudanese and their disillusioned friends all over the world.
David Mayen Ayarbior is the Press Secretary in the Office of H.E. the Vice President, James Wani Igga. He can be reached at dmayend@yahoo.com
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