High Time AU and UN Stop Pampering Warmongers, Heed the Cry of Civilians
By Deng Vanang – Dares Salaam, Tanzania
February 18, 2018 (SSB) — Before going straight to the column, I have to relate one moral and still important story to the readers within the string of events which happened in Africa within the span of 24 hours of Wednesday to Thursday, 14th – 15th February 2018.
Call it a miracle for the believers, while a mystery for nonbelievers. This wonder only God’s chosen few acknowledged, but never dared share it lest they are verbally lynched in public.
It was spiritually coded message sent to our leaders in both government and the opposition on the one hand and Igad mediators on the other by none other than Almighty God through His usually unseen Angelic emissaries.
But all have been so deaf and blind to comprehend the message, except glaring glory of power and allure of ever tempting United States Dollars till this day.
While those in power were entrenching in loosening authority and ones in opposition were busily sojourning upward to grab the same in negotiation boardrooms, in the same Addis one Haile Mariam Desalegn, the Ethiopian Prime Minister, and the host was voluntarily spiraling down from the helm.
In so doing and he said, he is prioritizing peace in return for his downfall. That is message number one as delivered to Kiir by Angels.
In Harare, Zimbabwe opposition politics doyen, Morgan Richard Tsvangirai went in annals of his country’s troubled history a hero, leaving behind an emasculated Mugabe ostracized and ejected from power by his own party, ZANU-PF he founded.
Being mourned in death, he is remembered as having said in 2008 that it was pointless for him going to Statehouse while stepping on human corpses.
In reference to his refusal to challenge Robert Mugabe for stealing his obvious victory in an election marred by violence so that people died no more.
This is message number two for Riek Machar from the Angels in Addis.
While IGAD mediators on the same day resembled South Africa’s ex-President Jacob Zuma who was crying foul and desperately clinging onto high pillars of power while being pulled down by rowdy protesters amidst allegations of corruption that dishonorably drew the curtain on half a century political career.
He finally lost the battle to Cyril Ramaphosa, while seriously complaining at exactly12:47 PM local time.
Igad mediators epitomizing Zuma, are clinging to bias mediating role in order to make money at the expense of dying innocent South Sudanese.
Though they didn’t own up that night Zuma resigned amidst public outcry in South Sudan, they will eventually do one day.
That is their message number three God sent them in Addis through the unseen hands of His Angels. End of story.
Conflict
To begin with, what had started off as a small spark IGAD is failing to put out, it is now the spreading bushfire that is consuming every family and homestead in the war-torn country.
Those thinking the slowly consuming fire is far from their reach, they are living in their own delusion.
With such intensity and those supposed to be responsible to extinguish it look the other way, then the popular call for AU and UN’s takeover or installation of moderate voices must only grow louder.
These warmongers driving conflict are, by the law of South Sudan and international humanitarian law, out of their constitutional limit to still rule.
At legal disposal are several known case examples that can be cited and subsequently applied to undo their heartless savagery.
Here in Africa, we have Liberia in the late 1990s and of recent past, the Central African Republic.
In both cases, war like armed factions failed to reach the amicable solution to bring to an end the crisis.
Until the UN decided to look for neutral figures so that normalcy returned.
In order to usher in an era of moderation, tolerance and holistic democratic transformation.
Geared towards an inclusive economic development in an environment of tranquility and social justice.
The UN was informed by three common senses to arrive at that conclusion.
Sovereignty belongs to the people as enshrined in every country’s constitution.
Based on the law of natural justice that dictates nobody holds an absolute right to incapacitate or take another person’s life even if it is his/her child.
With no one having the legitimacy to rob others of their property and eventually kill them for his and family’s comfort as is currently the order of the day in S. Sudan.
Then, where are these cardinal virtues in regards to S. Sudan’s case?
AU and UN ignoring or delaying assumption of these inalienable rights to life for the suffering S. Sudanese people, as an integral part of the larger commonwealth of nations, then they must, therefore, be accused of complicity in violence and outright bias.
If only they are in Addis with an aim of renegotiating back the same tiny class of privileged individuals to the very positions of power over which they previously fought and still continue unapologetically to maim and kill innocent citizens.
IGAD
This is proven by IGAD’s currently released draft peace proposal through which government unrelenting spirit to continue with the war is seen.
Which if it is accepted the way it is or even though minor changes are effected, shows little sign the document will end the war.
To hide the trick, government shed crocodile tears and barked that proposed four Vice Presidents are unheard of in world history and shall only complicate an already problematic governance in the country.
In its provision, government taking Vice President number one under whose governance cluster is entrusted is obviously an affront to the IO.
Adding to another worrying element putting the army under the sole control of the President and Vice President number one from the same party that signals a raw deal to the opposition fraternity in general.
Making security of the agreement more vulnerable to violations, including intimidation of opposition political parties, independent media and civil rights groups.
Also retaining old members of National Assembly most of whom pair with either Kiir or Taban and giving 55% slot to the government, which is 10% above the general opposition combined 45%, is the glaring advantage to the government in not only securing Speaker post during an election in Parliament but also muscling parliament to rubber stamp and stonewall its anti-reforms agenda.
The same draft proposal is approving Kiir’s controversial 32 states through which communal lands of some ethnic communities have been annexed to their politically correct neighbors, which further fuels the conflict IGAD is trying to resolve.
Similarly the draft proposal seems to be silent on National Intelligence Agency, which is a tacit approval that it will firmly remain under the party of the President and his Vice President number one.
The draft proposal doesn’t moreover recognize the gains made in Greater Equatoria, Western and Northern Bhar el Ghazal States by the armed opposition groups and allow Kiir to still control those areas.
While it at the same time recognizes the gains made by government through Taban switching side when SPLM/A-IO’s old power sharing quota of 46% reduced to 28% with a loss of 18%, as government’s slot goes up by 55% from previous 53% with an increase of 2%.
And finally, IG still controlling security forces and all states in the former 8 states gives it some monopoly to temper with the direction transnational government affairs will take and future elections in its favor.
In nutshell, President Kiir whether directly or indirectly still controlling executive powers, Legislature and security forces to claw back in Judiciary through intimidation, then what has actually changed? Nothing.
These framework proposal drafters deliberately fail to understand the history behind the ongoing civil war in South Sudan, in as much as they absolve the perpetrators from the alleged criminal offenses.
Including the President, who since 2005, despite being accorded immense human and material resources, unwavering locally embedded popular good will and unconditional international support to succeed, miserably failed to deliver the goods as expected of him.
Now, with people calling for federal system that withdraws resources from what shall be more liquidated center he is and devolves them to what will be more consolidated peripheries where many of his enemies shall gather and bay for his blood.
Who, together with the people, have also withdrawn their confidence in him, while the international community has already done the same.
How will he succeed, if given a second chance, where the above mentioned privileges no longer exist?
The answer only lies with him to this begging question.
On the other hand, one of his kind and main rival is rapidly losing peoples’ trust big time on three counts.
First, is his practical failure to rein in his opponents including the President ever since 1991, in spite of standing on the right side of history.
Second count, he is insistent to ascend to national leadership as President when he is struggling to govern a singularly homogenous ethnic group or a united rebel faction for the last 27 years.
Giving no heed to ‘’he who is entrusted with little can only be entrusted with more, said Jesus in the Bible.’’
An advice he is not taking in, if all he does is blocking and destroying countless generations of potential leaders who, if given the opportunity, can either help him perform successfully or separately fair far better than him with his help.
A misdirected effort that makes him more of an asset to the status quo he vows to challenge, while a liability to change he champions, leading to current unnecessary delay of his coronation that would have been possible more than 20 years ago.
Much as his increasingly showing signs of autocracy, corruption and nepotism for which he always blames his opponents of perpetuating, particularly the President, are his current undoing.
Which do not only threaten to disqualify him as the purported Messiah long suffering South Sudanese have been waiting for.
But also make a third lock in his own eye he has to dispense with first and foremost.
The author, Deng Vanang, is a graduate of the Catholic University of East Africa in Kenya with a bachelor degree in Philosophy and political sciences. He got awarded with undergraduate diploma in public relations and management at Kenya school of exports and imports in Kenya. And in later years secured a post-graduate diploma in print media journalism from the University of Nairobi as well as a post-graduate diploma in peace and development studies at the University of Juba, among several short courses certificates in both information and governance from East African region and Republic of South Africa. He once served in SPLM/A during the war of liberation as political commissar and other political groupings in the post-war period. He became a Director in GoSS’ Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in Juba until 2010 while serving as the columnist with various newspapers before and after the December 2013 conflict erupted. He can be reached via his email: dvanang@gmail.com
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