Congratulation to JMEC for the 1st successful step in the implementation of the peace deal
5 min readCommendation to JMEC for 1st Steps
By Mayen Ayarbior, Juba, South Sudan
January 14, 2016 (SSB) — All neutral and peace-loving citizens and genuine friends of South Sudan must be delighted with the manner in which the Chairman of the Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (JMEC), President (former) Festus Mogae has kick-started the implementation of the IGAD-Plus peace agreement. Before the arrival of the SPLM-IO advance teams, and because of loud and negative rhetoric from some peace detractors, a few citizens had grown skeptical on whether they would at all arrive and implementation starts.
Now that the SPLM-IO advance team is, thank God, already in Juba and started working with their compatriots on bringing sustainable peace to their country, a country which they equally value as every other group, much hope is on the horizon. The “doubting Thomases” whom Vice President Igga had been citing for assurances have now seen Cde. Taban Deng Gai plus Former FDS meeting with President Kiir and all other senior government officials. He has not only attended the SPLM Extra-Ordinary Convention, but even addressed it.
With President Mogae and Cde. Taban on the ground working with their compatriots in Juba, reasonable confidence was quickly built and Ministerial portfolios amicably divided by the former protagonists. While some may have expected that such portfolio distribution could have been treated with suspicion and cynicism by each of the three SPLM factions, statements out of each camp have been encouraging.
This is a good sign indeed, that all factions have recognized and appreciated the fact that the incoming Ministers and their deputies are not going to include North Koreans, for they are exclusively patriotic South Sudanese who had, regrettably, differed acrimoniously over fundamental issues of statecraft. We hope that meaningful institutional foundations are laid by the same people so as to resolve future political differences, without resorting to destroying the country.
Applying a standard analytic technique in the field of state building, the main three elements of these problematic issues of statecraft could fall within the three broader categories of political, economic, and security. JEMEC’s mandate seems to be revolved around two of the three categories, political and security.
To his credit, President Mogae did not waste time as he started steering his commission to tackle both issue areas simultaneously. This could be observed in the commendable parallel steps taken on the path to formation of a Transitional Government of National Unity (TGNU) and launching of the Strategic Defense and Security Review (SDSR) process.
Of course, together with an economic task force which should be urgently formed, both TGNU and JMEC have their historic tasks already cut out. Their roles could be seen as historic in the sense that they are tasked with creating the foundation of a nation-state called South Sudan. To borrow the words of our competent compatriot, Cde. Majak D’Agot, which he accentuated during their meeting with VP Igga in Washington DC, “we have no historic recollection of South Sudan as country,” simply because the nation-state which is now our own had never existed as a sovereign entity up until 2011.
Such insight of Cde. Majak’s as he applied it to South Sudan, which I structurally shared in my book on civil war and state failure in Africa, and is also long propounded by many founding fathers and writers of post-independence Africa, could be used by President Mogae and members of JEMEC, indeed by the TGNU and SDSR, as a campus which is to guide their foundational work.
Each of the three basic elements of statecraft at hand ought to be taken as being at a creational stage, if they should outlast the people engaged in creating them. In other words, we ought to look at South Sudan as a grand complex political and security project which is built on the ashes of a long history of liberation wars, which are fundamentally different from nation-building ‘wars’. The tools used in both ‘struggles’ and their objectives are diametrically divergent.
Some may misconstrue the contention that we do not have a recollection of a country called South Sudan. Surely, the population which has become citizens of independent South Sudan in 2011 have a proud recollection of a joint protracted struggle against external oppression. Yet, history teaches us that glorification of historic struggles do not in any way, shape or form, create stable nation-states, especially when revolutionary hangovers persist to identify the value of citizenship and patriotism.
To that extent, the recently concluded civil war has been a strong nock on our heads and the heads of the friends of South Sudan that all of us (everyone) had been consumed by the post-independence euphoria for much too long. On Goss’s side (all three factions), this was most characteristic in the manner how the SPLM clung tooth and nail to its “A” component, even during purely political undertakings. It was observable in the manner decorated generals failed to fully metamorphose into statesmen as they moved their former ‘headquarters’ to Juba. We all hope that TGNU will be a different (civilian) political animal all together that is controlled by statesmen.
In conclusion, as most of us appreciate the initial work of President Mogae as head of JEMEC, we should continue to place his (our) historic tasks into our own context and analytic perspectives. In that regard, one thing must be clear to the most optimistic of citizens. That is: we are not yet out of the woods, even though commendable steps have been taken in a journey of a thousand miles. Hats up for those steps and for JMEC to initiate them.
Mayen Ayarbior has a Bachelor Degree in Economics and Political Science from Kampala International University (Uganda), Masters in International Security from JKSIS-University of Denver (USA), and Bachelor of Laws (LLB) from the University of London. He is the author of “House of War (Civil War and State Failure in Africa) 2013” and currently the Press Secretary/ Spokesperson in the Office of South Sudan’s Vice President, H.E. James Wani Igga. You can reach him via his email address: mayen.ayarbior@gmail.com.
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