The Irrational SPLM-IO Rejection of 28 States
By Malith Alier, Juba, South Sudan
February 4, 2016 (SSB) — The year 2015 has come and gone with contrasting visions for South Sudan by the warring factions of the SPLM in government and that in the bush.
It was the SPLM in the bush to strike first by creating what it called 21 “federal” states in the country. Realising that the IO move might dent the government and the party support, the IG through the presidential order no: 36/2015 created 28 states to the jubilation of most people who wanted or have waited for such happening for a long time. It is an undeniable fact that majority of people around the country continued to celebrate the creation to date.
Let’s look at the arguments by IO rejecting order 36/2015;
- Order 36/2015 violates the peace agreement
2. Potential border conflicts
On the first point, the government argues that it does not violate the agreement but instead, it enhances it.
On the contrary, both parties have been violating the cessation of hostilities (CoH) of the 23 January 2014 by capturing and recapturing many towns and engaging in hostile propaganda. That went on unabated for a period of nearly two years until the Compromise Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed in August 2015.
The same is true about CPA on both sides of the conflict. The IO violates the agreement by promoting civilians to ranks of generals and we know some of them.
Both parties should have realised that anything can happen as long as there is foot-dragging and bickering on the implementation of the agreement.
The issues of internal borders causing conflict among new states cannot hold. The ten states were directly created out of the three former regions of Equatoria, Upper Nile and Bhar El Ghazal and there was no conflict at all. The IO argument that the 21 states are based on clearly “delineated” colonial boundaries is absurd.
No border or boundary is colonially delineated here and that is why our country is arguing over borders with all the neighbouring countries including Sudan. If the issue of internal or international boundaries was that simple, Sudan and South Sudan should have not fought over Higlig/Panthou in April 2012.
The internal borders are “soft” borders that nobody should die for. They’re not like international borders where you claim sovereignty and integrity. If we are not fighting the neighbouring countries because of borders then should we fight ourselves over internal boundaries because your land was given to such as such state?
The colonial administrations used to transfer areas from one region to another without tensions in the past. Greater Bor district was on a couple of occasions transferred to Equatoria and verse versa. Awerial was also combined with Bor to mention few examples.
Order 36/2015 is a phenomenon we should come to live with. Everybody agrees that expanding states is a popular demand but the politicians want to exploit it to gain credit. Some people are still not clear about who gets credit for separation. This is clearly the same with the twenty one, twenty three or twenty eight states. The other excuses are a cover or diversionary tactics.
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