Dr. Riek Machar: The Humbling Return of an Unsuccessful Hunter
8 min read“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time” Abraham Lincoln
By Matur Majok Thiec, Nairobi, Kenya
April 14, 2016 (SSB) —- South Sudan and the world alike has inevitably attached the return to Juba, from exile of Dr Riek Machar, the Chairman of the “other SPLM”-the IO with swift implementation of CPA2, an agreement signed in August 26, 2015 by the two rival leaders, H.E President Salva Kiir and Dr Machar and brokered by the TROIKA and the regional block, IGAD in their relentless efforts to see a return to peace of the world’s youngest nation, South Sudan. Central in the agreement though, is the formation of a transitional government of national unity by the two rival SPLM factions, to be headed by President Salva Kiir and Dr Machar as the 1st Vice President, a position he previously held for 8 years prior to his sacking in 2013, with a bit of difference being the powers emanating from the Addis agreement; and subsequently, once more, relegating his predecessor and usual prey, H.E James Wani Igga to a position further below him in terms of powers assigned to each one of them.
However, for so long now, doubts have centred on the exact return date of the most power vice president as construed in the agreement. Many dates regarding his return have been fixed and mysteriously keep changing. Some of these changes are attributed to violations, others to technical and logistical constraints facing the two parties and the Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (JMEC), but the fact is, many dates are largely change as per the wish of Dr Machar as he is busy touring Africa in search of what he called mobilization for the morale and financial support for the peace implementation. Since the signing of the agreement last year, many advanced teams have been pouring in to Juba in preparation of his arrival.
This week alone, his Deputy, Alfred Ladu Gore got to Juba via Nairobi and news coming from his camp is that, Dr Machar himself is currently in his headquarters at the Ethiopian border town of Pagak a head of his would be coming to Juba next week. But what many do not know is that, this is Dr Machar, the man who behaves like a fighting ram which gets backward to gain momentum and moves forward to headbuts the opponent. The confirmed April 18, 2016 returns date still begs the question and that is a different topic for another day anyway.
My relevant topic concerns circumscribing what this war brings to the man in the centre of all the mess; Dr Riek Machar, whose life and ambition as we all know, gears towards ascending, by all means possible to the top seat in the land-the president of the republic. As the saying goes, “where there are choices to make, make the one you won’t regret”.
Irrespective of what the agreement provides for him and his SPLM-IO party, the 2013 war brings more negating effects than good to Dr Machar and his ambition. In addition to his unforgettable past records, he finds himself, yet again in an apologetic position and explicitly seems to have made a wrong choice all together. He looks more like a hunter, who on being unsuccessful, may necessarily decide to settle for less and take the un-hunted for such as mushrooms or fruits and forgo his primary target, the animals.
The war that he has succumbed into signing an agreement with the SPLM-Government at the end, have adversely polarized the Country on tribal lines and caused unprecedented effects on the lives of innocent civilians and their properties. Lives lost in hundreds of thousands as per UN estimate and put economic crisis aside, everything in terms of infrastructure particularly in greater Upper Nile unimaginably destroyed and brought to nothing, but ashes. IDPs are living in tatters across the country and yet the war only earns him a return to the same position under the same leadership and same government, which is something short of his main target. He will be deputising Kiir’s government, the government he defined as tribal, weak and by extension, corrupt etcetera.
As I alluded to therein, the negative effects of this war out-weight the positives on Dr Machar’s ambition. First of all, his short-sighted interpretation of the war as being tribal, that is, the war that fits the two major and sisterly tribes, Dinka and Nuer against each other in the pretext of achieving his ambition of changing the status quo and topples Kiir’s government, will continue to hunt him and may retrospectively hammered his desired political goal. Many readers of my piece, particularly those unknown to the facts, will start questioning my description of the link between the two tribes as being sisterly and would rather see it as rivalry, but the reality is that, beside the existing rivalry, the two have many things in common. They have interchangeable cultures on cultural level and when in war with a distant-enemy, whether this will change now is another question, but undeniably, the two fight side by side in defense of one another.
An hypothetical example is, when a Dinka guy fights a non-dinka/nuer, an on-looking Nuer guy automatically feels obliged and extend a hand of help to a Dinka fellow and vice-versa and I can’t see this changing in politics either. Any Dinka or Nuer candidate for a presidential seat in any elections in South Sudan will surely need the support of both tribes before looking further across the Country for votes. Now that Dr Machar fails to change the status quo and going by the provisions of the agreement which calls for an election in 2018, he will bitterly be forced to engage with the Dinka, the tribe he termed as enemies in search of votes as the few Dinkas he surrounds himself with, are mere opportunists who can’t win him sizeable votes in their respective Dinka lands; And as are the few Equatorians in his Movement.
Case in point being people like Alfred Lado Gore, although he may be a bit relieved with the going of former Central Equatoria State Governor, Hon. Clement Wani Konga, he will still find it hard to get an elected seat against many able Bari politicians I know, let alone gathering votes for his SPLM-IO boss.
Secondly, the SPLM-IO, look a stolen Movement as articulated by Mr. Buay Kandong Liem in his article published on PaanLuel Wel website on April 11, 2016. In the aforementioned article, I share with him, his views and assessment of the SPLM-IO and the management. Dr Machar has led down the very people who fought for him. The Nuer youth who sacrificed their lives and everything in his defence and their integrity and consequently earned the SPLM-IO movement a place in negotiating table in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia feel neglected and forgotten. Be it white army or any other Nuer youth sect. Dr Machar has only look to his proximity in appointments, promotions and many other important assignments within the Movement. Painfully though is the fact that, few opportunists, from the same Dinka tribe who he and his Deputy, Lado Gore constantly accused of domination in South Sudan took up very important positions in the Movement.
Many of these dinkas, unlike Nuer youth, did not acquaint themselves with the reality on grounds let alone feeling the pain it takes to fight Kiir and his Government. They vultured to Addis from different directions in comport and lavishly live in 5 star hotels but in the end, get rewards in expense of the owners of the Movement, the Nuer Youth. The youth who are daily witnessing their friends and relatives falling in front or behind at the battle fields and whose parents are enduring the harsh situation of living under the so-called UN protection and IDPs camps. This feeling of betrayal by the Nuer Youth will surely have a progressive and profound negative effects on Dr Machar’s ambition.
Thirdly and without elaborating on much, Dr Machar chances of achieving his dream democratically are gone with the old SPLM, the SPLM in which he was the deputy chair before squandering the opportunity in 2013 when he came out clearly and enviously declared his interest for the top seat, which resulted into this war.
The colleagues with whom he connived to have Kiir toppled, played it smartly and distanced themselves from his position of ascending to the top seat militarily. They instead, got rebranded as SPLM leaders Former Detainees or in short, G-10 and all is looking well for them now since their return from exile. Through Arusha reunification agreement, they got into the SPLM main stream under the chairmanship of President Salva Kiir and day by day, they are looking more like the unlikely heroes of Dr Machar’s revolution, as they have no past records hindering their forgiveness, either from President Kiir himself and South Sudanese population at large.
And what does this mean for Dr Machar, the man who have only won the “sympathy of the west”, not support? The man who turns the heroes (Nuer youth) to villains and whose, his past records will potentially continue to hunt him and as Dr Garang once said and I quote it verbatim: “Even if I forgive them, they will be known in history as people who stabbed the movement in Southern Sudan in the back. They will be known as people who at the point of victory when we were going to win in Juba, they stabbed us in the back. The people of the Sudan will judge that”
Nevertheless, even if, as it is, impunity is condoned in the Country and Dr Machar is appeased once again with a position, he has got everything squared to nothing politically. The few he has already fooled by his definition of the war will soon reconsider their positions and above all, Salva Kiir, who feels led down in the diplomatic front by his team, does finds himself in a better position at home than his rival, Machar.
Like before and by look of things, Dr Machar is returning again with nothing but explanation and apologies to the nation!
Matur Majok Thiec, LLB Student at the University of Nairobi. Email address; maturdimajok@hotmail.com
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