South Sudan VIPS Series (Part IV): The Political and Military Legacy of President Salva Kiir in South Sudan

By Malith Kur, Montreal, Canada

Wednesday, May 13, 2020 (PW) — After having examined the military and political activities of three influential figures in current South Sudan’s political scene, it is now appropriate to evaluate President Kiir’s legacy before moving on to the next stage. This is important for three reasons. Kiir is the only surviving senior founding member of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/ the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLM/A). Besides, he has kept a steady loyalty to the cause of the Movement. This commitment opened the doors for Salva Kiir to succeed John Garang following the tragic event of July 30, 2005. I am looking at three historical timelines here. The first historical timeline begins right at the formation of the SPLM/A until July 2005. The next two timelines highlight some elements of CPA’s implementation and Kiir’s ascension to South Sudan’s presidency in 2011.

Salva Kiir in the SPLM/A

Salva Kiir was one of the first founding members of the SPLM/A in 1983. But Kiir’s involvement in the SPLM/A was not his first experience of rebellion in South Sudan. He was part of the Anya Nya I movement. I am inclined to believe that Kiir’s experience in the Anya Nya One’s war gave him the military expediency and political stability to maintain steady loyalty to the SPLM/A. As a senior member of the SPLM/A political-military leadership, Kiir undertook many duties. During the initial stages of the Movement, he commanded the Timsah (Crocodile) Battalion, which was the third SPLA military unit following 104/105 and Jamus (Buffalo) Battalions. Also, Kiir was a chief security officer of the Movement. I would want to believe that Kiir remained a chief intelligent officer until he assumed the leadership of the Movement and the Government of South Sudan in 2005.

During the war, Kiir proved himself to be a successful military commander. He led SPLA forces to victory in different battlegrounds, including Kurmuk and Operation Thunderbolt, which swept away government forces from Western Equatoria in the mid-1990s. At that point, Kiir had many incentives to work hard for the SPLM/A. He had already become the Deputy Chairman and Commander in Chief of the SPLM/A following the departure of Karbino Kuanynyin Bol and William Nyuon.  Kiir rose to fill a senior position in the Movement left vacant by Karbino Kuanynyin.

But some anecdotes suggest that Kiir was working behind the scene, using his role as a chief intelligent officer, to push away Karbino Kuanyinyn and William Nyuon from the leadership position. However, Kiir was far more disciplined than those two gentlemen. Whatever the case might be, his political discipline eventually paid off. It cleared the way and propelled him to his current leadership position after the untimely death of John Garang.

 “Moses-Joshua” Metaphor and South Sudan’s New Beginning

John Garang had many political enemies in both South and the North of Sudan. Many extreme Islamists in the Sudanese circle of power loathed his philosophy of “New Sudan,” for they believed that it was against Islam. But one thing was sure. Garang had many admirers in different parts of Sudan and beyond. That was why his accidental death generated unprecedented shock waves across Sudan, and within the rank and files of the Movement he had led for more than two decades. Like Moses, he metaphorically stood on the mountains before he died, overlooking South Sudan. He advised his followers that he might not accompany them to the Promised Land, but they should march on under the guidance of his long-term companion Salva Kiir to take their positions in the country they have fought for all their lives.

Like Joshua, on the other hand, Salva Kiir emerged out of Garang’s shadow to face the enormous tasks of filling the shoes of a political giant whose influence had covered the region and beyond. Kiir is a poor public speaker and does not have Garang’s charisma, but South Sudanese’s loyalty to the SPLM has sustained his political survival ever since.

In 2010 President Kiir won the election with a landslide victory. It was a showcase of the SPLM’s undisputed popularity across South Sudan. It was also a sign of which direction the country was taking at the end of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). But some politically conscious South Sudanese knew that greed and political corruption would eventually cause troubles in the country, and the SPLM’s popularity might not override ethnic rivalries. They were right because a senseless war broke out in the country within two years of independence. Still, they were hoping against all the odds that an SPLM regime might bring a better new beginning for the nation.

Indeed, Salva Kiir inherited not only the SPLM’s popularity among many South Sudanese but also their hopes and high expectations for service delivery, economic prosperity, civil political discourse, and social liberties. South Sudanese were expecting the SPLM to deliver some of these things. They knew that service delivery as achievable because the CPA had given South Sudan a considerable share of oil proceeds, and the economy was beginning to flourish.  But corruption and poor economic policies drained away any financial gains the country had made then.

Among these hosts of demands, the only thing the SPLM did well was to guarantee a free and fair referendum in 2011, which set the country in the new political direction. South Sudanese enthusiastically embraced the new dawn of freedom under the supervision of President Kiir and the SPLM. But that was it because service delivery was swept under the carpet.

Kiir’s Legacy in Post-2011 South Sudan

President Kiir will always be remembered as the first president of the Republic of South Sudan. But it remains painfully clear that this noble legacy bears many scars. Since 2005 Kiir has presided over one of the most corrupt administrations in the world. Generals and ministers have stolen billions of dollars of public money and stashed them away in foreign banks without attempts to stop them. They have left the country bankrupt, and South Sudanese now rely on the meager handouts coming from Good Samaritans in Europe, North America, and Australia. That is sad.

The scheme to steal public funds by government officials has continued to occur at broad daylight despite calls from local and international civil societies and governments urging President Kiir and his regime to curb this practice. The first exposure of massive corruption among the officials of the Government of South Sudan (GOSS) surfaced in 2008.

It began with the “Dura (grain) Saga” when the government paid millions of dollars for grain it never received. Strange enough, however, the money was not recovered, and the government’s investigation did not lead to the prosecution of anybody for such fraudulent activity. But the World Bank investigators later found out that about 290 entities received payments from the government of South Sudan without making any commitment to honor the contracts under which they got paid.

The purchase of dura or grain was part of the government’s initiative to guarantee food security in the country. But the process was left in the hands of money laundering and profiteering groups without proper oversight from the different departments responsible for government dealings. How the money was released from the banks without credible authorization, background checks by the ministry of finance, or mechanism to trace the recipients is an indication that people at the high level of the government knew about that fraud.

Another high-profile corruption case came up in 2012 when President Kiir wrote a letter to 75 senior officials asking them to return about $4 billion of public money, which they had stolen. However, that attempt did not recover even a single dime. Nonetheless, some of those officials continued serving in the government, and others became part of the rebel groups in 2013. To date, no one has been held accountable for that massive financial crime.

Besides those internal revelations, South Sudanese have received reliable information about corruption in their country from the African Union and other regional organizations, which have investigated the causes of the current conflict in the country. They have found out that there were no real political issues associated with the current conflict in South Sudan but corruption.

Those findings have also been echoed by international organizations such as the Sentry Project. Wars and political violence taking place in South Sudan are direct results of a failed system of governance. These few examples of malfunctioning in the government have laid bare Kiir’s inability to rein in corruption in South Sudan.

South Sudan’s Social and Political Instability Under President Kiir

Apart from the endemic corruption, lawlessness is the order of the day in all parts of South Sudan. Since 2005 daily killings, communal warfare, cattle rustling, child abductions, and other extreme forms of criminal activities have plagued Lakes State, some parts of Northern Bahr el-Ghazel, Jonglei, among others. These things are happening because the government has failed to assert its authority in all South Sudan’s territories. The consequences of this reality are that the state institutions in South Sudan have failed. The criminals and warlords dictate what the government must say or do.

The 2013 power struggle within the SPLM made the dire situation in the country even worse. It has deepened power vacuum in different parts of South Sudan, giving armed militias more power to loot vulnerable communities with impunity throughout the country. The opposition groups have used the absence of functional government authority in some parts of the country to recruit vulnerable youths to fight their dirty war. The results are unbearable violence and chaos.

This chaotic military and political situation have continued to make life difficult for South Sudanese for the last nine years of independence, but meaningful change is unlikely anytime soon. Even those who were once optimistic about the current peace process in South Sudan have begun to doubt the commitment of different warlords to the revitalized peace agreement.

Indeed, South Sudanese witnessed in 2015 the signing of the initial agreement to stop the conflict, but the accord collapsed in July 2016, a few weeks after the implementation exercise began. The parties to the agreement never worried about the wellbeing of South Sudanese. All they wanted was to gain or maintain power. The same thing could likely happen with the revitalized peace agreement because the drivers of the conflict—greed and corruption— in the country have not gone away. They are still here with us.

During the formation of the government of national unity per the revitalized accord, the parties bitterly quarreled over ministerial positions as if they were the spoils of war. The opposition group under Riek Machar that once claimed to be fighting for reforms in the country showed its true color. Machar made a unilateral decision to employ his wife and son-in-law in senior government positions on the SPLM-IO ticket.

That action is not close to reforms but nepotism and corruption. It has now drifted to the level of state and local governments. The parties are now squabbling over which state each one of them should govern instead of planning better ways to repair the damages they have caused in the country.

Allocation of State Governments Per the Revitalized Peace Agreement

The allocation of state governors in South Sudan to different signatories to the peace agreement is reasonable, but it has emerged in the news that Riek Machar is not happy with it. He considers the process as a violation of the deal itself and has listed at least three issues or grievances. Let us look at these issues one by one.

First, Riek claims that the peace agreement gives the parties the authority to allocate states to the signatories, “not the presidency.” However, as far as we know, the presidency in South Sudan did not come through an election. It draws its political powers from the same parties who signed the agreement. The members of the presidency represent their groups at this institution and make decisions on behalf of such entities. Hence, Machar claim that the presidency cannot address the allocation of states to the parties makes little sense whatsoever.

Secondly, he has raised another interesting issue here. He suggests that the agreement dictates that the parties to the accord should choose the states in which they have “prominence.” I do not know what the concept of prominence stands for in this context. By the way, South Sudanese are not idiots. They should not always be fed with nonsense. Riek should explain what he means by “prominence.” Is it tribal or political? South Sudanese are not looking for prominent troublemakers. They need people who will help them rebuild their lives.

Thirdly, Riek has charged that the decision to allocate state governments to the parties was not on “consensus.” Yes, that is likely because he did not agree with the rest of the presidency. But we know one thing. The presidency met and decided to allocate state government positions to the signatories of the agreement. That meeting was part of President Kiir seeking consensus from all members of the presidency. However, if the meeting did not reach consensus, the voice of the majority must prevail to break the deadlock. That was what happened.

I think South Sudanese need to make it clear to the parties involved in the government of national unity that South Sudan is not a spoil of war. No party has the right to cut off any part that it wants and runs away with it. South Sudan is a country that requires service delivery and accountable government. Honest South Sudanese politicians should be prominent anywhere in the country. If the SPLM-IO, or whatever it is, was not fighting to have a political presence in all parts of South Sudan, then they need to shut up.

If they cannot govern Western Equatoria, for example, why would they govern the Upper Nile or the Unity States? I think political nonsense should not always be entertained, But they persist because they are part of corruption, impunity, nepotism, greed, and political incompetency that has diminished the authority of the state. In my observation, this political confusion is the legacy that President Kiir will eventually leave behind in the country unless he finds a new formula for governing South Sudan.

The author, Malith Kur, is a Ph.D. candidate at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. His research focuses on the patterns of cooperation between the churches, African indigenous religious institutions, and the state for peacebuilding, reconciliation, and social reconstruction of South Sudan. Kur’s previous research examined the Christian contribution to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a possible model for peacebuilding in South Sudan. He can be reached @ malith.kur@mail.mcgill.ca

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