Do South Sudanese people still need to rely solely on SPLM revolutionaries to survive?
8 min readBy Ariik Atekdit, Juba, South Sudan
October 24, 2015 (SSB) — Yes, people relied on Dr John Garang and other elements during the liberation struggle. But then would this continue even after the creation of South Sudan into the nationhood? Is not time to rely on the system and its objectives?
I am one of the people who think clearly that SPLM is a party whose members are not its supporters but of individual elements’ alliance. If that is the case; for how long will the party depend on such false membership? A false membership in which one joins the party because of the relationship they have with some individual leaders not the relation with the SPLM.
Some big elements in the SPLM think that they are more important and stronger than the SPLM itself. This is the reason why our country has been pushed into the crisis that we were not prepared for. Some individuals in the party among G10, SPLM-IO and SPLM in government thought that they were more essential than the party. Some individual leaders thought that without SPLM, the country called South Sudan will not survive and that without them in the SPLM, the party will not prosper.
However, there is nowhere on earth where you find individuals becoming more important than the organization itself. If that false belief was not traded the recent conflict of the SPLM factions would have not been deadly like the way it is today.
In reality there are some few cases in which elements can be treated importantly but unless that element is respecting the laws of the system. Majority of the SPLM members have been imposing themselves on the nation in such a way that they continue to betray their own party that they should rather respect and utilize to forge them to power. In this way it is only the members of the SPLM party who are a greater challenge to the SPLM survival. And that has led to the current crisis. Before independence SPLM elements have pointing fingers at some South Sudanese that are supporters of Arabs and that they are the true enemies of the South but today it is the SPLM factions dividing us in a way.
Any political organization likes to continue to survive on the ruling throne of the country. However, that cannot happen out of blue. It must be organized and the party’s documents must be made used of. I was surprise as to why SPLM has been trying to negotiate here and there wasting resources and time in order to re-unify?
How can factions who are fighting each other care to be one political party again when they have no common interest and ideology? When you have violent-type of power struggle in one party it means that you are different. And if you are different you are of the opposite interest and cannot achieve one goal using a similar formula. When some members of that party work hard to see the regime change of their own party it means that they are not any longer within.
I would suggest the ruling party’s factions to create their separate and different parties and try their leaderships in the country but peacefully. I see no reason why Dr. Riek Machar would struggle to come back to join the same party together with Salva Mayardit and be a deputy than ruling his own political organization called SPLM-IO.
The recent dissolution of the SPLM secretariat should give a pathway to Pagan Amum to fashion his own party. In fact it will be up to the ordinary SPLM members to join the faction of their choice just like what Dr Lam Akol did in 2009. Dr. Akol created his party and so he got his political members from the SPLM party and the SPLM-DC became very popular in the country. That has given Mr. Akol now a clear space to debate on national issues. I am not against or supporting any SPLM factions but if these people had hated each other to such extent of destroying the nation’s sovereignty then why would they need to be in one political party again?
For so many years the region that has today becomes the Republic of South Sudan has been in wars with various regimes in Khartoum to make a political change to the country. Sometimes our brothers in SPLM thought that they were the only organization which fought against Khartoum. That war was a people’s popular guerilla war. Southern Sudanese were committed to fighting Khartoum otherwise if it were not accepted by all, late Dr. Garang alone with few elements holding positions now would have not managed to capture a single village in the Sudan.
However, while the wars were fought by generations the fact is that the current SPLM party in South Sudan was the sole explanatory movement to have brought a change that has made the greater Sudan split into two nations.
Though the ruling – Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) was not the first political and guerilla movement to fiercely face the Arab-based governments in Khartoum, it got the upper hand in the 21st century when Dr. John Garang de Mabior and colleagues negotiated a comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) in Nairobi and strongly accommodated the interest of the Africans and marginalized Sudanese.
The come about of the Sudanese popular CPA deal registered the SPLM party in Khartoum and in the Sudanese history and especially when the South Sudanese and black Africans were able to get a position of the first vice president in the Sudanese Government of National Unity and altogether forming an autonomous government in the region with its African values and powers not dictated from the fearful Arabs in the north anymore.
Because it was a job well-done the South Sudanese trusted the guerrilla SPLM turned politicians to pursue the South Sudanese interest of creating their own nation through a referendum vote if the unity of the Sudan were not made attractive. While the SPLM monitored the voting process it was the citizens who casted their own unrigged votes to choose secession.
For the reason that the same party was now more popular in the region and well-established more than any other southern political party it was obvious that they took over the chance to lead us to the independence of the country.
Before independence, though, there were so many problems already in the – SPLM-based GOSS, the citizens could still blame Khartoum of maybe playing a role of working against the unity of South Sudan elites in order to still control the southern region, and so we continued to overlook the SPLM mistakes and inexperience.
Thousands of people came from Khartoum and other cities of the North Sudan in a greater exodus to South Sudan to celebrate the independence of what now became the world’s newest nation. The elites solemnize the SPLM flag to be the country’s flag to stand among the world’s nation flags. The national anthem was created in English and sang across the young nation, even by those who did not know English. But of recent we are singing it at the weekend’s bars.
The independence came when the very SPLM elements were not ready to establish a nation. They were not ready for the country because the public resources were looted by individual elements who wanted to pay themselves back for the unpaid struggle and liberation of over 21 years in the bush.
The dura saga was already reported before independence. Uncontrolled cattle raiding and the killing of hundreds of people without justices and investigation before and after 2010 elections proved it right that the people of South Sudan chose separation to come and continue the second phase of suffering from their own liberators.
Because the SPLM party was seriously losing its intentions and fundamentals; elements assumed to using the name of Dr John Garang de Mabior in order to gain its popularity among the Sudanese and the then southerners. In fact many SPLM members became party members because they were loyalists and sympathizers of Garang and therefore they joined the party that Garang established to liberate his people.
Today it becomes another war of SPLM factions, the war of elements that claimed of having fought across the bushes of South Sudan to liberate it from the Arabs. However the reality remains that our people refused to follow the law-documents of the party and that of the nation. It is not an issue of whether you have in the bush or not. But can you lead us now properly in cities?
Our elites have refused to work for establishment of institutions. South Sudan needs to be institutionalized. When it is institutionalized, it will be people to fear the institutions but today it is the opposite.
There are today some elements that the institutions fear to question, though had committed very deadly crimes and mistakes. If that was not the case Mr. Mayardit wouldn’t have been keeping quiet and leave the position of his deputy vacant for all that long time of over 20 months of war.
President Kiir should have not signed the Arusha agreement and reinstated Mr. Pagan when the very Pagan has internationalized the South Sudan politics and called his own party a failed organization.
SPLM party should show to the South Sudanese the visions they have been talking about in the past not the type of elements they had during wars of liberation. We must give the system a chance to speak.
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