Dr. John Garang Speaks: The Call for Good Governance in the Republic of South Sudan
What is Government in the View of Dr. John Garang? Dr. John Garang Talking to the SPLA Military Officers about Leadership and the Role of the Government in Readiness for the Post-CPA Era in the Republic of South Sudan
Transcripted by PaanLuel Wel, Juba, South Sudan
November 27, 2015 (SSB) — With the advent of peace, comrades, we have reached a new phase of our armed struggle, a new phase of transforming the guns and the bullets—that is military power—into political power, and using the political power to achieve socio-economic development rapidly. This is because there is no meaning of revolution—the revolution is meaningless, unless it makes our people happy, unless the masses of our people, as a result of our glorious revolution, become prosperous.
Socio-economic prosperity quantifiable with the degree to which people go ahead and advance in their individual and communal lives: they get food, they get shelter, they get clean drinking water, they get healthcare services, they get social amenities, they get economic infrastructure such as roads, they get jobs and so forth. Unless we provide these essential services to our people, unless the revolution provide these things to our people, then the people will prefer the government of the NIF that provide salt to the government of the SPLM that does not provide anything to its people.
This is simple arithmetic: if the SPLM cannot deliver anything and we just shout REVOLUTION! REVOLUTION!; and yet the cattle of the people are not vaccinated; their children are not vaccinated or sent to school; there is nothing to eat, there are no roads, there are no basic necessities of life—there is no cloth, no needle, not even a razor blade—when the barest minimum of essential things of life are not available, then the people will drive us into the sea, even though there is no sea here, they will find one. Mind you, we have no other choice.
The old Sudan has really been based on a fiction, on deception. [Arabic] Hakuma—the government, is considered to be something that has a heap of resources, a heap of money, [Arabic] that it has the money; it has the resources. And then people want to take from [Arabic] the government; people want to loot these heaps of resources, these heaps of free money [Arabic] from the government. Comrades, there is a big contradiction here, you see, [Arabic] a government that has impoverished its citizens, a government where citizens are very poor to support themselves, to make a simple living, that kind of government cannot have anything, it cannot have heaps of resources, heaps of money, because where else, if not from the citizens, will the government get its resources from, its money from. It is from the people; it is from production [Arabic] that a government obtains its resources from, because Hakuma—the government, in and of itself, has nothing.
[Arabic] What is the government by the way? What is it? Ye monydiit yinde—what kind of an old man is he? Where is he from? Remember that, people that are poor have a poor government too and people that are weak have a weak government too. These are natural facts because where else will things fall from, which part of the sky? [Arabic] It is only when people are strong, then they will have a strong government; it is not the other way around. It is only when citizens of the country are rich, then they will have a rich government; it is not the other way around. Our concept of the government has misleadingly portrayed the government as a power thing [Arabic] with a lot of resources, and people want to benefit from it, to milk it. It should be the other way round, for it is the people who must be very productive in order to make their government a big thing with a lot of resources, to make their government strong. There is no any other way other than that.
This misplaced conception of the government is the major problem haunting many developing countries in Africa and in the world, because the administration, public administration, has become the biggest industry in many African countries, including the Sudan; it absorb a very big portion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In fact, administration should only facilitate production, should provide conducive atmosphere for economic production, should provide the optimal situation for production.
So the New Sudan, beginning with the Movement now because there should be no passing between the Movement now and the New Sudan, for it is the Movement that merges into the New Sudan. [Arabic] There is no another time that we shall say we are now entering the New Sudan, that we have now arrived in the New Sudan, because it is the Movement that develop into a New Sudan, we are actually already in the New Sudan. Therefore, there is no another time coming for the arrival of the New Sudan, we are already there and in it.
So the New Sudan, beginning with the Movement now, must be based on concrete production, on real economic production, we must produce things; otherwise we will have no future. Now, by saying that let us start with nothing and get a lot, and end up with a lot of resources, somebody may objects and protests that it is impossible. This can be done; it is doable comrades. Some of our places in the countryside are very productive: Koor-Chum is very productive, Maruah is very productive, the area between Raat and Pochalla is very productive—this is alluvial soil from the Boma plateau. But in order to be economically productive and viable, in order for our economy to be based on concrete, real production, we must rid ourselves, our people, and our country of the aid dependency syndrome. Food aid from the UN [Arabic] has destroyed our work ethics; it has destroyed our people since Itang and from all the refugees’ camps.
We will organize our food production system, and anyone who wants to eat relief food, the UN humanitarian food, they should go and be refugees in Kenya or in Uganda or in any other country, but not here. [Arabic] And let the relief food be distributed to them from there. Anyone who lives in agricultural areas, let them farm, plant and grow their own food. Our civilians should grow their own food; they should practice and engage in agricultural activities, for it is the civilians themselves that will be feeding the soldiers protecting the country. Even the army that is not engaged in direct war, let them farm. [Arabic] Then we can confidently and proudly tell the relief peoples that “take away these dirty beans of yours and go away with it, we don’t need it anymore”.
We are going to do this, because the only way you can have something is to be economically strong. And in that strength, from that power, we will create [Arabic] our own resources; nothing falls from the sky. When we liberate the country tomorrow, we got to work! [Arabic] We must work in order to get things. Nothing is going to come free. And we are going to dismiss these relief peoples because they are the ones destroying our country! [Arabic] They make people lazy. People say that relief food will come, why should I bother to toil, and if the relief food doesn’t come my dear people, what will we eat? Therefore, we must depend on ourselves; we must learn to rely on our own resources, our own food, produce within the country, not dirty beans donated from outside. This is very important for our economic viability and political stability as a nation. It has to be done; it must be done because there is no other options, no alternative. Do we want to be the worst copycat of the past and present Khartoum regimes? Then why did we allow ourselves to die in vain and our people to suffer for no reason? Where is the promise? Where is the vision? People will ask and you will be expected to provide the answers.
Lastly, we must tackle corruption in our society, not just within the corridors of power, within the government. You see, our people view the government, the role of the government, in a very strange, frightening way. The government is seen as an object to be looted. For example, when somebody become a minister, five years later the people will start saying, look at the son of so and so, he has been a minister for five years and he has not even built himself a hut, he has no car, not even a suit. This is the root cause of corruption in our culture, in our country and in Africa. The same people that are ready to cast the first stone at you are the ones that will shout the loudest how the son or daughter of so and so has not even bought himself a suit, built herself a nice house or bought the latest car. As a leader you have to know where your priorities are and what your vision for the country is; otherwise, you would get distracted and end up plundering the country in the name of building yourself a hut, in the name of buying a suit or a new car.
This is why we in the SPLM/A need to have, must have, a clear vision about the social, political and economic development, strategies and priorities. We must accomplish this or else we would end up just like the various governments that have come and gone in Khartoum. We were not fighting them because they are Arab or Muslim or Northerners: it is because they were not delivering on anything that any citizen in any country in the world would rightfully expect from his or her government. If the SPLM/A-led government does not deliver on its promises, it will be doomed like various governments of the North. To govern is not a God-given right to be taken for granted; it is a social contract between the governed and the government of which each side, particularly the government, must abide by and fulfill its side of the bargain. Otherwise there would be Intifadha and you are thrown into the sea, into the Nile.
PaanLuel Wël, the managing editor of PaanLuel Wël: South Sudanese Bloggers (SSB), graduated with a double major in Economics and Philosophy from The George Washington University, Washington D.C, USA. He is the author of Who Killed Dr. John Garang, the editor of the essential speeches and writings of the late SPLM/A leader, Dr. John Garang, published as The Genius of Dr. John Garang, vol. 1-3, as well as a co-editor (with Simon Yel Yel) of President Salva Kiir’s speeches before and after independence: Salva Kiir Mayaardit: The Joshua of South Sudan.
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