Joshua failed South Sudan: The exodus of my country into the Death Sea instead of the Promised Land
9 min readBy Ngor Jameson Panchol, Juba, South Sudan
July 22, 2016 (SSB) — This essay will focus on pre-independent and post –independent period `, on how South Sudanese lost the sense of patriotism and nationalism through SPLM leadership due their autocratic mean of ruling than the promises they used to said and their denounce of the Arabs ruled as totalitarian regime that imposed Sharia law and Arab cultures on South Sudanese and this actually moved hearts of many people to follows the SPLM visions. The emerge of SPLM with charismatic leader like “Dr. John Garang” made the vision of Sudan people liberation movement sound louder and dominated whole Sudan because of democracy ideology which is total zero today .
After the death of Dr. John Garang De Mabior (Moses), Salva Kiir became the president of southern Sudan and first vice president of Sudan during transitional period of comprehensive peace agreement, and secretary general Pagan Amum usually used to say our Joshua referring to Salva Kiir as the one to lead New Sudan into the Promised Land. Vision for our forefather left without being accomplished due the sad helicopter crashed that led to his death and this left New Sudan in dilemma until now.
Failures of SPLM started when the comprehensive peace agreement was not fully followed by leadership or implemented after the issue of Blue Nile and Nuba mountain was not addressed in first place when their right to vote for popular consultation was nullify by Sudan government and SPLM was” deaf eared” about their concerned which was bypassed . They infiltrations of National Congress Party (NCP) political cadres and encompassed Sudan people liberation movement (SPLM), as their seniors advisors on political affairs, security affairs , and they were eventually seconded by the SPLM as their brilliant advisors hence later a vision failed, because those who used to be advisors during guerrilla war were abandoned and NCP where doing their mission of failing SPLM ,so that the comprehensive peace agreement is not implemented fully, and this how Nuba mountain and Blue Nile were actually halted not to vote for popular consultation due to the implications of spying agents of NCP by then .
Abyei referendum was also ignored by SPLM and go ahead with their election process in 2010 and all those should had been done before referendum ,but we all rushed to the self determination that let our brothers still left in suspend facing the totalitarian government of Omar El Bashir and Arabicinization policy including Sharia Laws which are not marching with Nubian cultures and Abyei Dinka that voted to joined South Sudan but their referendum was not recognized by both countries I call it wrong miscalculation by SPLM leadership to let them just go like that .
Corruption scandals become rampant to every minister and any government officials who are working, he /she had either indulge in to any corruption cases. The stolen four billion dollar by seventy five government officials was the signed of lacking patriotism by SPLM leaders to looted their own moneys for their own selfish interest ,was touching and contributed negative impacts on developmental programs in the country . However I will not blame thieves because the top leadership was not doing enough to protect they system and perhaps petro-dollars money were pocketed by some few individuals in the government and forget their own citizens , without building schools, hospitals and others infrastructures that would improve on living standard of people .
“I quoted Omar El Bashir addressing Sudanese people ,that Southern region will not managed to rule themselves if even though we give them total autonomy they will fight for power struggles ”. Post –independent period two years after independent people still practicing corruption and failed to draw on national agendas to plan on how to develop institutions and general development of the country. Bashir prophecy was proven right by Junubiin due to their careless manners and greedy for powers was order of the days.
After self-determination H.E. Salva Kiir and his cabinets never seat down to discuss on how future of the nation will move on and it wasn’t defined. With such indications accuses rise to those that talked about political correctness that they are planning coups, one year after independent deputy minister of defense was become the talks of Juba and some high ranked military personnel were also accused eight times by security elites and anti- freedom group sabotage that they are spearheading coup and at the end of the day security investigation failed to gathered genuine information to prove lurks labeled against the accusers was irrelevant and real was the baseless accusation by national security to fulfill their negative connotations.
Uhuru –Museveni advices on military reforms policy, downsizing ministries and removable of vice president was the outrageous moved that create high level of suspicions and feared among civil population because it was “rocket missile launched by Salva” and hence jeopardized the political situation, to removed such big number at one was egregious step taken.
Calling for political reforms by SPLM political bureau and national liberation council within the party created feared to some SPLM cadres , political tension from president since many cadres demanded for national convention in order to vote the chairman of the party and that individuals will take over flag bearer of SPLM and run for presidency in 2015 election . And this why it was enfranchised by the H:E Salva through intimidating people that voting will be held in showing up of hands not a secret ballot paper voting(“Karamojong style of voting”) .
After the enfranchisement of political bureau and national liberation councils demand to go for national conventional a lot of suspicions started and most of seniors SPLM political cadres wanted to be arrested and this later insinuated the mutiny that led the massacred of thousands innocent civilians in central equatorial and Upper Nile region after the tiger division involved into the party pressure .
Beating drum of democracy in South Sudan is consider as “a coup”, but our nation will not progress if the triumph of democracy is not blow all over the mountains, across the Nile, and all parts of the country, in order to transform this nation from where we are now there is need of freedom of speech, in order to achieve the democratic nation that will stand by rights and need of people.
Some people claimed to be pissed off when South Sudan ranked to be second to last out of one hundred and sixty three countries as the quasi state or not peaceful country to stage but the even valued our nation because we are totally not an independent state that one can be proud off , because the state is consider as autonomy were human beings are valued, having the democratic government and their territories are maintain not been encroached by the neighbors in which all of the above I mentioned are not exercised by the regime hence it cannot be called a sovereignty state according to Westphalia treaty 1648 and the discipline of political science can justify the argument. However fixing this nation, it will acquire those ruling elites to forge the unity and look for modalities to open the new chapter for development and democratic transformation.
If we need to be changing society , we need to stop spending much on national security (army) and adopt the global concept of security as human security and social security which cover the human development or it welfare , dealing in fighting against , climate security, bio-security, community security, personal security, economic security , environmental security , healthy security , poverty, and national social security funds and which is not a case with this totalitarian and authoritarian regime which invest heavily on national security issues in order to protect them from power, not give protection to citizens hence state machineries deterrent others arm of government and become the only body running country affairs.
State were presidential decrees considered to be effective without consultation from others arm of government, it let to the collapse of state automatic because whatever decision came with president is not favoring the interest of general public it is the interest of executive not people , therefore it had created a doubt from civil population and state government as “enemy.”
Economy, most of those countries that protect power by used of militarization ,no welfare of the people’s lives , economic institutions become weak and a lot of economic constraints arises like inflation , skyrocketing prices , a lot of crimes arises like high way robberies , prostitution , and pocket picking on the roads side and the main markets . A nation like South Sudan that spend eighty percent of national budget (80%) on purchasing military hardware’s is not going to developed fast since most of it incomes are spend on only one side of government.
They best ways for our government is to halted it much expenses on SPLA and other state machineries , instead of investing much on human security like dealing with the construction of health care’s , food security , climate security , and many more . To revamp over our economy, are government policies should be strengthen either through their decrees or any good policy that will let the revitalization of the our economic, it will be okay since decreed was the one let to the increased on the dollar and hence later caused devastated situation in the country .
Judiciary , in South Sudan today no rule of laws , since most of the judges are very corrupt due the army influenced in the court of law . The inference of state machineries to the judicial procedures are the most embarrassing thing since judiciary become very weak and weaker because intimidations, assassinations, harassing the lawyers are the orders of the days , if general or relatives to generals are found guilty of any nature of crimes they had committed, the general used his own exert force to let that be charged free regardless of the nature of crime, therefore no independence of the judiciary as the government very big institution.
With the absent of justices in South Sudan today corruption become most disastrous in the country since people with corruption cases are charged freely or not accountable of their did , this is ignorant of laws and it started with the army and executives who are caring less of their people . meanwhile parliament become the rubber stamp since they are influence by the executive and intimidated if there is any motion move in the parliament against the certain minister hence all institution collapses and only executive become the ring leader everywhere .
Creation of more twenty eight problems (28states) by president Kiir as an executive order under influenced of Jieng council of elders and slow progress of peace implementation will create another hazard that might destroy the whole nation than previous conflict because there is another holocaust alarming if the issues that matter are not fully addressed by the leadership and keep insisting with minor thing that can easily be handle.
In conclusion executive need to reduce their excessive powers and work with others arm of government in order to produce democratic state where rule of laws ,human rights , accountability , transparency , zero tolerant to corruption ,journalists and options writers are not hunted down due their writing on matters that concern. I wrote this article before 8th July incident but I failed published it due to some reasons.
Writer can be reach at pancholngor@yahoo.com
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