11 Years later: Remembering the December 15th Killing in Juba, South Sudan
Bentiu, UNMISS Camp
By Deng Vanang
15th December tragedy reaches 11th year since it began in 2013. Seething rage in victims and their relations may not be as furious as it was when conflict erupted as passage of time partly heals. Though its memory is still deeply engraved in most survivors’ hearts and minds. Blame games are still much alive about what had happened and what shouldn’t have happened. Notable absentee in the minds of many is asking the question of what has changed 11 years after horrific incident. Have South Sudanese learned from this past tragedy to shape the future? And whether or not the government owns up to its misdeed for constructive redress or the victims recovered and said bygone is bygone. Either scenario is yet to happen given the current air of continuous mutual suspicion and mistrust. What indeed has happened is the slow down of previously rising tension 2018 peace deal has offered, with the same 2013 principal political rivals returning to the dinning table and sharing the spoils of conflict, though lingering fragility to overturn the table can’t be wished away.
As visible 2013 war’s echoes still vibrate in partly triggering rapid and present state collapse. And from its rubbles emerged internally competing youthful factions for power aimed at exploiting the state’s rudderless policy direction, dysfunctionality, compromised health of aging President and entire opposition politico-military meltdown that makes internal change of government more viable than external one. Pre-war’s voices for change are even growing more louder for democratic overhaul of state governance. The conflict political dynamics including state’s intransigence due to more radical, hardline political posturing in J1 governing elite to change tact have created the whole new lots of extremist forces demanding complete sovereignty from nascent Republic than angling for more autonomous powers from the centre across the country.
However, in the heat of pursuing divergent interests, most of the aforementioned political players fail to discover the hidden opportunities or gold mines the genocide has bequeathed to concurrently advance positions and ready the ground for a shared national destiny. One is the genocide has unearthed our secret inner ill-feelings towards each other, giving us early warning to better adjust and possibly retool.
It generates spirit of openness to dialogue unlike in the past when we were conspiratorially bottled up. It jolts nagging urge in most of us to innovate deterrent solutions against future recurrences.
While invaluable lessons are equally learned that violent impunity failed to silence the opposition as intended and neither has opposition’s attempted revenge reversed the state’s terror as we speak.
The above positive outcomes from bitterness of conflict lay the middle ground to open a new chapter. Government to take first step in realization it isn’t inconceivable state doesn’t suffer crises. It is the way it intelligently manages and turns them into opportunities by accepting and correcting the wrongdoing. Not necessarily in apologizing openly in public, but in calculated silence by genuinely making peace with opposition and implementing the resultant agreement that fully addresses public grievances leading to and resulting from the conflict for the common good. Which can no doubt strengthen its right and resolve to govern and subsist than weaken it. This requires it to make hard choice from the two extremes of either remaining stuck in the darkness of the past or crawling into brightness of the future. If it chooses going by the dark past, then opposition utilizes it much better than it does, with it to blame heavily for destruction and insecurity against which state formation was originally mooted. Should choosing the future become the state’s wisdom, hence the state peacefully and cleverly renegotiates itself back into the lost legitimacy by whole heartily accepting peaceful conflict resolution, while taking credit for its success.
On the other hand, opposition and victims viewing the devastating conflict and ensued loss of lives from overall negative point of view can be its greatest undoing since survival of the state depends on its people collective and reasonable flexibility, shrewdness and ability to correct bad past in order to move forward in whichever way situation dictates. Mainly focusing on a positive flip side of the regrettable conflict against permanently dwelling only on its negative aspects in ever changing war’s dynamics prevents opposition and victims from looking for solution to it. Negative and empty rage minus proposing constructive and middle of the road solution to conflict deprives the vindictive and recalcitrant opposition of popular agenda of the day, a sure downward spiral into political oblivion. Much as it impedes objective and renewed thinking, while reigniting bitterness for endless cycle of violent revenge. The common necessity for both sides is to reach out, accept the challenge and craft ways to navigate the future.
Courageously facing the future begets our zealous match forward, while addressing the challenging inequities along the rough road to a common destiny far greater. By both remembering and addressing horror not to recur than perpetuate it in acts of impunity and vengeance.
For the quest to close the dark chapter in history of the nation isn’t merely in appending peace pacts and singing reconciliatory tones. It is rather in genuinely translating those words into more tangible actions through balanced state restructuring policy governance and people-centred development programs as the only avenues in reconciling and reuniting a bitter, divided nation.
Deng Vanang, Chairman and Commander-In-Chief of holdout opposition United Democratic Revolutionary Movement/Kuilueel (UDRM/K)
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