Dr. Lam Akol’s new political vehicle: The National Democratic Movement (NDM)
10 min readThe Political Statement of the NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT
INTRODUCTION
September 2, 2016 (SSB) — The people of what is now the Republic of South Sudan have throughout history waged long protracted struggles against various colonial powers and political marginalization at the hands of successive governments that governed modern Sudan. In their noble wars of liberation which they fought valiantly, South Sudanese sacrificed over two million lives in order to achieve justice, equality, prosperity, national unity and to create democratic federal homeland. The wars of liberation were resolved through negotiated peace agreements that acknowledged the grievances of South Sudanese to govern themselves and determine their own political, economic and social destiny.
The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in 2005, ushered in a political dispensation, which permitted Southern Sudan to govern itself in the interim period that preceded the exercise by the people of their inalienable right to self-determination. The referendum on self-determination resulted in an overwhelming vote for the secession of Southern Sudan. The declaration of independence on 9th July 2011 was euphoric and momentous event in the contemporary political struggle of South Sudanese people. It was cherished and welcomed by South Sudanese patriots, regional and international friends. The citizens were jubilant and optimistic looking into a brighter future beyond their turbulent past characterized by violence, gross human rights violations, dictatorship and impunity to a future based on peaceful co-existence between various nationalities which occupy its propitious geography, good governance, prosperous economy, rule of law and above all a democratic state where citizens are equal before the Constitution.
Our people had many reasons to be optimistic as the nascent country is blessed and endowed with abundant natural resources at its disposal and had unwavering support from the region and the international community. Indeed many of our compatriots thought that the attainment of independence will be a beacon for attaining their economic and social aspirations. Alas! Despite the enormous resources at the disposal of our government since 2005, our people in towns and rural areas didn’t see the fruits of liberation, neither did they enjoy the economic benefits of independence. Instead they were subjected to bad governance, corruption, violations of their fundamental freedoms with impunity and denied basic services such as health, education and infrastructure.
The opportunity to build a vibrant economy and strong democratic institutions based on the rule of law and accountability was unfortunately squandered by the SPLM corrupt elites. The country which independence was watered with precious blood of its sons and daughters, became a tribal chieftancy governed by incompetent and inept leadership who lacks energy and necessary political vision and charisma to unite and modernise the country into one of the democratically stable and economic power house in the eastern Africa sub-region.
The SPLM worked itself into being the only political party ruling South Sudan with absolute majority both in National Legislature and the Executive. The SPLM extended its tentacles with iron grip on power to what is supposed to be the country’s national army and the security apparatus with devastating consequences. The army which should have been the pride and honor of South Sudan and its defender against external threats became an amalgamation of various tribal militias who are poorly trained, indisciplined and unfit to execute its noble task provided for by the Constitution. On the other hand, the National Security is not in a better shape either but became a tribal tool in the hands of the SPLM ruling tribal clique in suppressing independent opinion including the media, harassment of journalists with absolute powers and means at its disposal. The Security makes up 40% of the Government’s 2015 budget while service delivery ministries such as health and education respectively received about 4% and 5% each. Majority of South Sudanese citizens have lost confidence and trust in the army and National Security, as they are widely perceived and accused of perpetrating gross human rights violations including disappearances and assassinations of government’s critics in the country.
The state of affairs landed our country in a deep social, economic and political crisis: soaring cost of living, steady decline in the education and health sectors, a staggering number of unemployed youth, rise in crime and violence, total disregard to the rule of law and our country gaining the infamy of being the first among the most fragile states. The absence of economic transparency coupled with institutionalized tribalism created an environment where misappropriation of public funds has become a culture and norm in South Sudan. Corruption became rampant in the nascent Republic of South Sudan ranking it as fifth most corrupt country out of 175 countries in the 2014 Corruption Perception Index. The tribal clique surrounding the President and their business associates have built a strong kleptocratic system through which money is embezzled and siphoned out of the country to foreign bank accounts. These tribal mafias have established private Forex as means for money laundering and servicing of illicit transactions. To compensate for the deficit in its yearly budget, South Sudan Government has embarked on mortgaging the country’s oil to meet short term and security objectives. Equally, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reported in 2014 that South Sudan borrowed $328 million through a $1 billion line of credit extended by international oil companies working in South Sudan, with $59 million diverted to the purchase of weapons to continue fighting the war. Heavy borrowing is carried out without consultations with the National Parliament and in complete secrecy far from public scrutiny.
In eleven years since the implementation of the CPA, South Sudan drifted from fragility to failure and is now almost collapsing under the tensile cleavages triggered by power struggle within the SPLM political-military elite – former members of the national liberation struggle, augmented by former members of the National Congress Party (NCP) who crossed over to the SPLM on the independence day of South Sudan. The SPLM political military elite has crystallized into a class of its own pursuing ethnic nationalism and have fragmented the people of South Sudan along ethnic and regional fault lines. Thus, it was natural that the political contradictions triggered by the power struggle quickly degenerate into ethnic conflicts.
Consequent to these contradictions, that have simmered for a long time within the top leadership of the SPLM, violence erupted in December 2013. This escalated into a civil war with ethnic overtones engulfing the whole country resulting in the demise of tens of thusands of our innocent civilians, millions displaced including, for the first time, into UNMISS compounds, hundreds of thousands seeking refuge in neighbouring countries, destruction of the social fabric among our communities and tremendous destruction of property. Gruesome atrocities were committed against our people by both sides of the conflict. Hunger and extreme suffering followed in the wake of this destructive war. The IGAD region and other friends of South Sudan intervened as soon as the hostilities broke out in Juba seeking a negotiated end to the conflict to stop the war and bring peace. Following tremendous efforts, the mediation was crowned with an Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (ARCISS) that was signed by all the stakeholders in August 2015. However, this agreement does not address the fundamental contradiction in South Sudan – the condition of extreme socio-economic and cultural underdevelopment that submerges the consciousness of the masses of our people.
Despite its shortcomings, it was believed that the implementation, in good faith, of this agreement had the potential to create conditions conducive for the democratic social and political forces to emerge and to sprout onto the political stage to transform the oppressive reality created by the SPLM political military elite and their NCP collaborators, that have ruled the country since 2005. However, President Salva Kiir and his Jieng Council of Elders (JCE) denounced the agreement as foreign imposed and erected several obstacles in the way of its implementation. Examples include his imposition in October 2015, two months after signing the agreement, of the creation of twenty eight states through his Executive Order No. 36/2015, and his insistence not to withdraw his forces from Juba to the levels specified in the agreement. It is these forces that he finally used to attack and dislodge from Juba his partner in the agreement, the First Vice President of the Republic, and appointing a poodle in his place. This last step was the last nail in the coffin of ARCISS as we know it and thus igniting another phase of armed conflict.
In addition to the political malaise, the economy continues to shrink. The inflation continues to rise and the value of the pound falls day by day. The prices are rocketing and many people cannot afford a meal a day. Hunger is real even in the national capital. If no drastic measures are taken the economy is likely to collapse.
The collapse of ARCISS has pushed the country closer to the precipice. The two most important lessons learned from this development are that the peaceful opposition to this ethno-centred kleptocratic regime has been sufficiently discredited, and that the international forces that imposed the Peace Agreement in the first place have failed to impose its implementation. The people of South Sudan have grown to be skeptical of their promises. Therefore, our masses are left with no alternative but to use all means available to defend themselves from this bloody and callous regime. This calls on all the patriotic forces in our country to rise in unity so as to save South Sudan from imminent disintegration and collapse. The chariots of doom must be halted in their tracks by the patriotic sons and daughters of this great land.
NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT
In answer to the national call to rescue our country from the jaws of a weak, uninspiring and ruthless leadership, the National Democratic Movement (NDM) is born as a front bringing together the social and democratic political forces as well as civil society activists, who want the political discourse in the country to be centred on the transformation of the centuries-old conditions of extreme poverty, ignorance, illiteracy and cultural backwardness of the masses of our people. The Movement is founded on the principles and concept of national democratic revolution based on the core values of freedom, equality/justice and fraternity/solidarity anchored in their historical and philosophical perspectives. These values translate into fundamental rights and freedoms as provided for in the Bill of Rights enshrined in the Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan 2011, and in the UN Conventions of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.
The National Democratic Movement emerges in the context of social, economic and political engineering processes of South Sudan society and state in order to create conditions for the realization of a just and sustainable peace in South Sudan by addressing in a satisfactory manner our diversity through nation-building and development. The starting point in this respect would be to mend the social fabric that was torn apart by the ethnically tainted evil war since December 2013, and strive to bring about reconciliations and healing at all levels of the society.
The National Democratic Movement emerges to transform and place the masses of our people in the centre of the socio-economic development discourse. The NDP shall therefore engage with other political parties and social forces in the country to build a national consensus around the construction of a sustainable Political System in the Republic of South Sudan based on democracy and the rule of law.
This people-cherished political system, will not come of itself; people have to struggle for and engineer it. It must be a joint effort of all the political parties and social groups whose social, economic and political interests coincide with those of the masses. In this respect, it is imperative to deligitimize, demystify and disempower the political entrepreneurs and war mongers, who foster ethnic nationalism as a means of fragmenting the people in order to monopolize power.
The NDM shall publicize its political programme encompassing all aspects of social, cultural, economic and political spheres in society and the state in South Sudan. The general aspect of this programme is the rapid modernization of South Sudan society and the state. The modernization of South Sudan means the radical transformation of the social, economic and cultural underdevelopment of the masses of our people. This will entail changing their means and relations of social production making use of advances in knowledge, science and technology. This will underscore the sustainable development and utilization of the natural resources in agriculture both in large scale crop production and modernisng the traditional indigenous animal husbandry to transform the enormous livestock population from cultural wealth to economic assets; harnessing the water resources for energy production and transportation; building physical infrastructure in roads, railways, power transmission lines, information and communication technology; protecting wildlife and promoting tourism. There can be no political independence without economic self-reliance.
All these shall require a political and administrative framework that empowers the people in their regional and locality formations. This can only be addressed through the application of a democratic federal parliamentary system of governance. It must be remembered that the division of Sudan was engendered by the failure to manage diversity.
The NDP shall mobilize, organize and unite the masses and provide them with political and ideological tools through sustained political education, training and organization. The process of enlightenment is absolutely necessary and imperative for change of attitudes and to gain correct perception and transformation of the reality that submerges people’s consciousness.
This statement is, therefore, intended to announce to the masses of our people the launching of the National Democratic Movement as the vanguard of the struggle by all means against the corrupt, ethno-centred and repressive regime in Juba so as to build a national democratic state in South Sudan. It appeals to all the masses of our people in their different occupations and means of livelihood such as government officials, workers, peasants, pastoralists, artisans, petty traders and small businessmen and women to join this national effort.
Nairobi, Kenya, August 2016.
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