President Kiir & Dr. Riek Machar Should Seize the Political Moment & Hold True To Their Words on the R-ARCSS
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President Kiir and Riek Machar, Face to Face meeting in Juba, September 2019
By Ariik Atekdit, Tonj, South Sudan
Monday, January 13, 2020 (PW) — As we count down the 100 days which the two Principals to the conflict have agreed upon to the formation of the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity (R-TGONU), the living condition of a common South Sudanese has got so badly reduced to almost nothing due to the disadvantaging situation the nation has continuously faced for the last 8 years of independence. During the Referendum time, in 2011, South Sudanese could be found in peaceful swarms all united for a vote to secede from Khartoum. A vote for separation was like a vote for a dignified life. It was a choice for freedom, better security and getting out of a cage of slavery from Khartoum. A vote for separation was like a vote for the establishment of strong economic standard of every citizen and a boost for making South Sudanese first class citizens in their free New Nation.
We had lived the life of impossibilities during the days round up to January 9, 2011 with total unity that we didn’t hold true beyond the Austerity Measures’ Era. The unity we had gained and generated during that period was to the highest peak of every kind of any togetherness South Sudanese as a nation had ever forged. Before the independence, the population was looking up to more peace in the country, the population was looking up to economic growth and security stability in the nation. For so long we were looking up to those in the North as being the people who have characterized our lives to poverty and homelessness in the then united Sudan.
We never knew that our own sons in the Persons of Gen. Kiir and Dr Machar would push us to the wall of poverty. We never knew that South Sudanese would remain divided and that each one of us would be insecure should they go beyond the territory of their tribal or sectional boundaries as it is of today. We never knew that the nation would turn the resources to the killing of its own citizens. We never knew that we would set fire on buses carrying our own fellow countrymen and women and watch them paining, screaming and dying in the burning fire as we cheer and rejoice in the grass.
We never knew that the education qualifications that we have gained can be used to engineer tribal confusion and propaganda as means to getting to the power of the nation. We never knew that the generals and the PhD holders were so inexperienced to administer the nation. We never knew that they would think of using the innocent and untrained citizens to fight for their war of personal interests and power greed. We never knew that the nation with so many leaders like South Sudan would drag its own citizens back to war after splitting from Sudan, our disturbing North. And I personally never knew that the crisis which started in December 2013 could be reduced to the table of discussion of only two men (Gen. Kiir & Dr Machar) on the number of states and boundaries.
We never imagined all that until we see them happening in most parts of the country. That is the country we have voted for this time, 9 years ago. The experience has taught us more than we could have learned elsewhere. We have seen that South Sudanese leaders alone have stood up to supervise the killings of their own citizens. We have seen that our traditional names and facial marks can victimize us to death even when we could be the most innocent, law abiding and/or loyal citizens.
We have helped to establish a country where a Nuer citizen is an enemy in a Muonyjang dominated population and that a Jieng citizen cannot survive in a Nuerland with the Equatorians seeing that both the Nuer, Shilluk or Jieng are common enemies of the nation and have cattle mentality whose political agreements cannot survive. This is the new disheartening definition we have created for our country.
Indeed, our tribal links and political assumption of pseudo communal or tribal and regional support is responsible for lack of peace today in South Sudan. Dr Riek and Gen. Salva Kiir have refused to discuss to the end the issues of importance to lives of South Sudanese. Most of the time when they meet; they would want a new thing on a table and the situation continues to change until now that we have undergone several stages of the agreement signed as earlier as on 17th of August 2015. The negotiation of the agreement between the two parties first began in Addis Ababa in January, 2014, just roughly few weeks after December’s Conflict but until today we are still renegotiating it. This is by itself an explanation of lack of political ideology for the nation. May be the Nation has slipped onto the hands of wrong clubs.
In 2014 the IGAD bloc crafted the Agreement of Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (ARCISS). The oppositions were calling for the absolute removal of President Kiir during the negotiation while the government wanted Dr Machar to be a second Vice President after James Wani, however, both positions were unachievable calls. More still when 2015 arrived IGAD nicknamed the deal as the “Compromised – ARCISS”. The Compromised- ARCISS was introduced in order to keep the agreement alive and form the Government of National Unity that possibly accommodated both Gen. Kiir and Dr Machar.
Though the Compromised – ARCISS did not last it managed to install Dr Riek Machar as the First Vice President for roughly more than 70 days and kept Gen. Kiir the President for the country. The Compromise agreement was frame in a situation of: “Give and Take Initiative”. The Compromised-ARCISS gave the second top position to Governor Taban Deng after Machar fled the J1 dogfight conflict of July 2016. And throughout the time, the agreement keeps changing again and again almost now losing its main content.
Since the Government of National Unity is a Transitional one, the question of the number of states should not be totally satisfied by the quarrelling parties of the SPLM factions. I am seeing that Gen. Kiir and Dr Machar have taken the question of the number and the boundaries of the states as their personal project that one must struggle to achieve. The question is: Are we marking the boundaries of Omer Bashir’s 10 states or do we create borderlines on Salva Kiir’s recent 32 states? For me, I am confused.
Anyways, both Gen. Kiir & Dr Machar need to learn that whether the nation returns to former 10 states or stay at the current 32 states or else at 21 former districts, the destruction that the nation has experienced won’t make their camps to regain momentum or reputations in the coming era to qualify on us.
The last 10 states or 79 counties of the former 10 states did not have any defined boundaries yet we had officially recognized them during those years. The establishment of boundaries and reduction of states can polarize the land-related conflicts in South Sudan if not properly handled. Some people may see to it that mapping South Sudan with several communal boundaries will bring peace but it will and may encourage more conflicts.
Indeed, the true peace needs political commitment, meaningful law enforcement, maximum inclusive security for the citizens and intensive and nationwide civic education and awareness on how to love one’s nation through the love of fellow countrymen and women. Peace needs provision of jobs and engagement of youths in positive activities that the nation really appreciates.
Creating more developmental projects and training of the nation’s organized security forces could set the nation at the true peace more than determining the number of states or marking the borderlines of each community in South Sudan. Sometimes we need to be more realistic so that we can find a meaningful solution to the problem we are facing.
Ariik Atekdit is a former Journalist, freelance writer and analyst. He holds a bachelor degree from Upper Nile University in Education Biology/Chemistry. He can be reached @ email: ariqdudic@gmail.com. The ideas and views in this article are personal and do not represent the view of any association or organization.
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