This peace process in Addis Ababa is just a program of self-enrichment, NOT PEACE
By Majok Arol Dhieu, Juba, South Sudan
Wednesday, 20 June 2018 (PW) — Whoever relaxes reading will disarm himself academically and land himself in a passive position. For those who refused to be cowed into alcoholic’s friendship, your knowledge hasn’t yet evaporated but with lapse of time, should you sip one cup of an alcopop made from dried yeast, you will risk frittering the knowledge away. Help yourself!
A magician without sick people brought before him for some days would slaughter a chicken in conjuring people so that problem befalls them, and then he would benefit in solving those problems. This’s the same case with IGAD in solving South Sudan problems.
The decaying classes and the labouring masses are tired of peace process being repeatedly postponed. What is wrong with this compromise peace and its revitalization forum whereas other peace deals have been hastily signed as if bees were chasing the signatories out of hall?
If this’s a compromise peace deal and the word compromise mean, an agreement in an argument in which the people involved reduce their demands or change their opinion in order to agree, then why do IGAD allowed too much demand from rebel’s side?
As I’ve been following up with news, rebels are seeking nation’s second top office if Kiir-must-go becomes impossible. Is IGAD one of the SPLM factions that are confusing the situation or really independent IGAD as I know or should IGAD be a wolf in sheep clothes this time? Favouring one side in any agreement is a grave mistake and IGAD must bear in mind that demand for top positions was one of the root causes of the civil war.
In every country after independence, there’s always a civil war, we can’t deny that.
In other words, paradoxically, feuding has a place in any society to maintain status quo but there are limitations to it. Among its limitations is the fruitful peace agreement between feuding parties so that one side especially rebels, give up its weapons and be transformed into a political party.
What are the reasons that made IGAD paused talks, in Addis Ababa again? One unimportant reason was said that the government officials have had a running battle with rebels over the control and dominance of government power (s). Should this not be contrary to the word compromise? Are the rebels not yet aware of the 2015 peace agreement in which they demanded two armies and lastly got their fingers burned?
The question of who will control who sound meaningless. In management hierarchy, the senior controls the junior. Why IGAD always put contradictions in the agreement while there is already known ways forward? The president must have overall powers to control his cabinet in order to reach elections successfully and if not, then this’s an approval of continuation of conflict. There’s no way the junior control the senior. In order to do this, IGAD must have powers to scrape insatiable demands out of the paper for peace to be reached.
In the face-to-face meeting proposed last week which hit our exhausted ears on the social media and in all media houses, though where the two will meet still a misgiving, let there be possible solution reached. We’re tired.
It’s not where the two will meet that is the problem but what they’ll agree on, and how they’ll be controlled by peace mediators. Sudan would have done it successfully because since Khartoum’s government officials laid down their butcher knives, they’ve been very friendly to South Sudan.
We’ve only been bedevilled by the ideologies of our own without Sudan. For instance, how many SPLMs have we formed so far? As far as I know, round six SPLM factions were formed with too many different opposing ideologies. Good enough, three of them such as SPLM-Nasir, SPLM-United and SPLM-DC have got the short end of the stick and died out at their infancy but the reasons in which they were formed are still echoed in the citizens’ ears.
Therefore, IGAD must aware that the talks are only between SPLM factions’ leaders especially the SPLM government and the ousted corrupt officials and their running dogs who are still claiming SPLM leadership even today.
For us the masses, any country, which will help unclog these bottlenecks, will receive an appreciation from all South Sudanese and more importantly from multitudes of unemployed and underemployed youths. We are tired of these itching issues at hand such as prices of the commodities which have gone into orbit this year, to the extent that the salary of unskilled employees can’t buy even 20kgs of maize flour.
With this situation, what matters a lot now, is to bring amicable solution to all leaders of various SPLM factions who are conflicting over resources and positions by only controlling them toward peace talks. If they are allowed to choose what will be good for them, we’ll be waiting for peace until the infinity and the situation will be deteriorating.
Not to be economically with truth, there’re some issues in the past which should have been righted for the future by both leaders but as far as I can tell, I don’t believe that in the light of the future which the facts portend that current rate of corruption, or anything like it, can be justified, though there will be a wide-ranging legal framework that IGAD will provide temporary to TGoNU for thirty-six months.
In light of this, we can no longer wait until the conditions are ripe; we’ve to tell the IGAD to impose peace on SPLM factions’ leaders. Even, the leaders from both conflicting sides must know that, the way forward is to give peace a chance and work toward elections so that the citizens will vote them in or out of the offices to attain legitimacy.
Rebels should have been made to remove their high demands which they’ve made early and government should have been directed to reduce its opinion in order to rescue the country before it’s left to sink or swim. This should have been the work of IGAD. Although South Sudan moves on chaotically, allowing parties to enjoy themselves here and there, what will be the fate of the next generation and how do IGAD mediators expect citizens to trust them in peace negotiations?
By and large, IGAD must know that what has been conflicting the two tribes all along is the clash of cultures and beliefs as both of these tribes don’t trust each other to lead, but so far, they’ve learned a very good lesson. Both of them need peace because they’ve picked each other mannerism and they’ve seen violence as the backwardness.
The only still headstrong people are those who want positions, but the masses need absolute peace because the list of things that so many women, men, young girls and children are forced to undergo from both sides of war were pitiable.
In this time of stress, there are benighted youths across the country, suffering heavily from the toll of unemployment and left in a very parlous state, which if there was peace, they’d have been doing unskilled or skilled jobs to help their families.
Allow me also to be tempted to say that, lack of basic needs especially food also push people into unlawful action. Delaying peace, help IGAD mediators and government officials get money but it deteriorated the situation and will push people into more unlawful actions.
The victims are the people in the country but the SPLM factions’ leaders who are negotiating their positions are very okay. Because IGAD has failed to cast its net wide, the suffering people are excluded in the talks and although few are included, they are strictly guided.
There’s this belief in those old days, when a poisonous snake bite a person, “The bitten part should be quickly amputated and cauterized to stop the poison from spreading to the whole body”. This idea no doubt gains credence in those old days till when the experts replace it.
IGAD should have applied this belief by cutting short all those blame games between the SPLM factions and prepare a way forward responsibly and independently, but now IGAD is another curse that has worsened the situation.
If we want to submit to the facts, the period for the members of parliament and the president himself to stay in power has expired. This current legitimacy came in as a result of the unlawful usurpation of power by those brutal usurpers—-history knows their names very well.
Let the rebels be reminded that it was the work of their hands that bring this too much confusion because had it not been this unlawful act, elections would have been done already.
This time, let there be no originality in the peace process, makes a peace with no usurious interest rate, and make a peace that knocks all the others into a cocked hat in order to win the hearts of the masses.
Put the case of gains outside and also cast out the intention that the more you delay peace process, the more you’ll be pocketing billions of dollars. Consider the condition of the masses as the crucial factor.
The writer is a South Sudanese residing in South Sudan, and can be reached at an email address: majongaroldit@gmail.com
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