Press Release: Reaction of The Free Citizens Red Flag League (FCRFL) to IGAD's Power Sharing Proposal
5 min readTuesday, May 22, 2018 (PW) — Having read and digested the current proposals by IGAD which it called a “New Proposal” on Power Sharing and Security Arrangements, the free citizens of South Sudan all over the world made a collective choking sigh of disillusionment and despair.
IGAD (and Eastern and Central Africa in general) has been governed by some of the most useless and wickedest dictators in post-independence Africa. The region was governed by Idi Amin Dada (Uganda), Mobutu Sese Seko (Zaire), Jean Bedel Bukasa (Central Africa), and now Umar Al-Bashir (Sudan), to mention but the worst of the worst.
It has also experienced some of the most atrocious human rights violations in the sub-continent. Events like the Rwanda genocide, the confirmed cannibalism and extrajudicial killings by erratic and idiosyncratic presidents like Idi Amin Dada and self-proclaimed “Emperor” Bukasa, and the Darfur genocide, all remain freshly imprinted in the memories of contemporary leaders of Eastern and Central Africa.
With such appalling records of authoritarianism and state-sanctioned genocidal acts against innocent citizens, some of the leaders in the region have developed a uniquely skewed conception of political sovereignty and sources of power.
IGAD’s “new” regrettable proposal should be received from that region-based misconception of whose power is it that the organization uses when it boldly suggested to be “shared?” Is it people’s legitimate power; the one that should naturally be used to serve the citizens’ security and economic interests?
It has now transpired that it is not people’s power which IGAD is talking about. For if it were, then IGAD would not have dared to insult the memories of the thousands of innocent civilians whose execution was documented by an AU commission whose seat is in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), and of those millions who are currently trapped in refugee camps in Eastern and Central Africa.
It is insulting to the people of South Sudan, the refugees, IDPs, and UN camp prisoners to now confirm that the giant wolfs that have been lurking outside the fences and borders with blood in their mouths are being fed by non-other than fellow Africans whose countries were scenes of familiar appalling atrocities. They are being fed and shielded by IGAD in order to continue preying on the citizens of South Sudan and balkanize the country.
The power “sharing” arrangements by IGAD, which retains Executive Power in the hands of the same butchers and kleptocrats, exposes the organization’s lack of interest or vision in finding a sustainable solution to South Sudan’s crisis. They are just printouts of the old failed agreement, except for a change in dates. Shamelessly, IGAD put it down in writing that it thinks that protecting VIPs (whatever that means) is more important than protecting the people through facilitating genuine peace in the country.
IGAD’s power-sharing agreement is a backward looking proposal rather than a forward oriented well-studied one that is based on glaring facts all over the place. There are no explanations in their preamble to justify the pertinent question of “Why?” Why does IGAD think the regime in Juba deserves to retain (misreported as share) people’s power?
IGAD, which is entrusted with brokering peace, owe an explanation to the citizens of South Sudan whose lives and country have been destroyed by a regime whose deeds have surpassed the deeds of Idi Amin, Bukasa, and Bashiir. Let IGAD enumerate some achievements that justify their baptism of an extension of ‘Executive Power’ to the same individuals who have had absolute power for thirteen years and used it to destroy everything that defined South Sudanese as a proud people.
IGAD must know that power should be given back to the people, not shared among their oppressors. It is people’s collective power, one that they had earned through blood and sweat of generations of heroes and heroines, which has now been hijacked by a few senior citizens, new Bukasa-like self-proclaimed “emperors” who rule the country by decree.
IGAD must know that no single individual or group of people, no matter their position in any one of many liberation struggles, can sanely claim the power to have altered or expedited the historical trajectory towards which the independence of South Sudan was going.
Therefore, no organization in the region and the world at large has the right to abrogate the hard-won sovereignty of the citizens of South Sudan and give it to human predators. For more than two centuries, the resilient and proud people of South Sudan have resolutely united against external oppression and genocide; there is no reason whatsoever to undermine their collective power to resist oppression of ‘new masters’ in their sovereign state.
Even though South Sudanese were caught by surprise when their hard-won territorial and political sovereignty were hijacked and used against them by their own sons, there is no reason for IGAD to think that they are so helpless that siding with the wolfs would be the right choice.
After coming out with such an abhorrent proposal, it seems right to now insinuate that some African brothers and sisters believe that helpless refugees may not be able to afford individual envoys of IGAD, AU and JMEC the necessary fortunes to build castles in their own countries when this mediation saga is over.
Unfortunately, a resignation to a perceived unchangeable status quo in a region once ruled by human predators may have influenced the decision as to whose side IGAD members decided to go. It is, therefore, a region-wide deep rooted tragedy of leadership and honour that is the main weak link South Sudanese and the international community ought to confront, not only the regime in Juba.
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