Justice and accountability are key, not optional, to peace, stability and nation building in South Sudan
5 min readJustice and accountability (together with reconciliation) are key, not optional, to peace, stability and nation building in South Sudan: A response to President Salva Kiir and First Vice President Riek Machar
By Kuir Aguer Bior, Ontario, Canada
June 8, 2016 (SSB) — Your opinion, “South Sudan Needs Truth, Not Trials”, appeared on New York Times on Tuesday June 7, 2016. First of all, congratulations to both of you not only on forming the Transitional Government of National Unity but also on recognizing the importance of dialogue in the aftermath of the most recent conflict. Clearly, you were reaching out to the US and the UK. However, please allow me to extend this conversation to the people most directly affected by your war.
Like many South Sudanese at home and abroad, I am glad that after being persuaded for years to end war and restore peace, both of you now seem convinced to put behind the bitter, devastating power and ego war of the last three years — apparently to help build South Sudan. I wish you stick by this position. I am skeptical, because it is not the first time you have come together after your ego wars have killed thousands of South Sudanese. In 2002 you came together after the devastating conflict of 1991 – 2002. But then there was 2013 – 2015. My skepticism is not only fully justified by your past, unfortunately your opinion reinforces it.
Let me clarify how.
First, not many South Sudanese will agree with your claim that only the struggle united South Sudanese. Most of us remember this claim as one of many psychological weapons used by our nemesis in Khartoum to undermine our shared quest for freedom. After being dismissed for years as nothing more than a Khartoum propaganda (as it should), your leadership has ensured that this dangerous distortion has caught on among our international friends. Even so, I did not know that you actually believed it. For your information, the South Sudanese have always been united by history and shared dreams, and yes that includes the armed struggles, but our unity is founded on much more than armed struggles. Needless to say, we were not so united during the armed struggles — as you both know better than me. Why is this point important to clarify? Obviously, if the men at the helm of our nation do not understand what unites their people, how can they be relied upon to unite the nation?
To be fair to you, despite our differing views on this point, let me defer to you for a moment and suppose you are right that the struggle was the only force that brought our people together and that South Sudanese unity after the struggle was bound to wane. What did both of you do to sustain unity post-struggle? You might have your answers, but the most objective hint is the war of 2013 – 2015, which clearly indicates that instead of rallying citizens around harnessing the opportunity brought by independence to foster development and prosperity, you rallied them around your own battles for political supremacy.
You politicized ethnicity so much so that observers were not surprised when what started as a political disagreement became a devastating ethnic war overnight. What’s more, if you understood this point, your nation building program would have been operational way back in 2005, not in 2016. In fact, you would have understood that beyond liberation, your task is to lay the foundations of the nation by addressing the grievances created by over two decades of conflict with Khartoum.
Second and most importantly, your claim that South Sudan can be united only through a peace and reconciliation process without justice and accountability, as done in South Africa and Northern Ireland through a truth and reconciliation process, is the clearest indication that both of you are — once again — putting your immunity ahead of South Sudanese unity. I’m sure you don’t need reminding that South Sudan is not South Africa or Northern Ireland. Truth and reconciliation processes may have worked in those countries because they had (they still do) better security and legal environments to safeguard against repeat offenders. In fact, being serial offenders yourselves, you only need to recall that you did something similar in 2002. The political and military elites reconciled to some extent but did that stop you from igniting another war in 2013?
If you didn’t know, South Sudanese civilians value their lives too and they would be foolish to leave the safety of their children and seniors at your mercy again, even if your masters at the international community level did. You claim that pursuing justice would keep anger and hatred alive. To the contrary, impunity will. In the guise of peace and reconciliation, you are putting your own interests — to evade trials — above justice and accountability. As Abraham Lincoln once said, “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”.
This time, South Sudanese civilians who bore unimaginable atrocities during your war of political supremacy, together with international friends of South Sudan are not going to be fooled one more time. Contrary to your assertion that only truth is all South Sudan needs for nation building, nation building must in fact be founded on justice and accountability — not on Kiir and Riek’s immunity from the rule of law.
Finally, I appeal to South Sudanese to reject another Kiir and Riek attempt to use reconciliation as personal guard against taking responsibility for their actions during the war. I appeal to the international friends of South Sudan to make any and all financial assistance to TGONU conditional on Kiir and Riek’s support for the establishment and full cooperation with the Hybrid Court for South Sudan. I wish the scope for the Hybrid Court could be expanded to include the atrocities of the 1990s, some of which are well documented.
You can reach the author, Kuir Aguer, via his email address: kuiraguer@hotmail.com
The opinion expressed here is solely the view of the writer. The veracity of any claim made are the responsibility of the author, not PaanLuel Wël: South Sudanese Bloggers (SSB) website. If you want to submit an opinion article or news analysis, please email it to paanluel2011@gmail.com. SSB do reserve the right to edit material before publication. Please include your full name, email address and the country you are writing.
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