Recently I’ve received several
messages asking about my safety and security a la crisis in South Sudan. First of all let me state that I’m safe and
sound in Khartoum and really there is no reason to worry about my security
here.
The
truth is of course that while typing this comfortably from my neighborhood in
Bahri it seems unfounded that a crisis in Juba, South Sudan could affect me. It
would be the same as if I were sitting in Washington, DC and war broke out in
Mexico. However, the questions do have a legitimate basis. The existence of the state of
South Sudan came about two years ago. It was the result of a decades long civil
war in Sudan between the North, made up a mostly Arab Muslim population, and the South,
made up of a more African Christian population. The motive of the war wasn’t necessarily
ethnic or religious, it was a political conflict, of the center vs the
periphery, with Muslims in Darfur and the Nuba Mountains joining the ranks of
the South’s rebel army, the SPLM, to fight the center in Khartoum. The war ended in 2005 with the signing of an internationally brokered peace agreement that
detailed elections and a referendum on the status of the South should take
place. The South has a long history prior to independence of being administered
separately from the North. Everything from the education system, legal codes,
and language of governance were different. It didn’t surprise anyone that the
South voted for succession in 2009. It did surprise analysts when the North,
peacefully allowed the succession to occur.
Upon receiving independence, in part thanks to the support of the international community including the
United States, analysts outlined the challenges the South would face as
independent country. The biggest of which were development and security sector
reform. South Sudan was given the title of World’s Poorest Country in 2011, so
development concerns were very real and very much tied to security. Secondly, there was the challenge to take a rebel force and create a national military
structure. Additionally, a government that represented the interests of the many
ethnicities or tribes of South Sudan had to be established to keep any ethnic tension
at bay.
Flash forward. Has South Sudan
failed? Actually there are a number of political events that led to the
conflict erupting today. President of South Sudan, Salva Kiir has had extensive
problems of corruption in his government. In, June, he reported there was a
missing 4 billion dollars from his budget. Many of the problems and complaints in
development started to mirror that in the North; resources go to the center,
the capitol and not to the periphery. Kiir also caught our attention when he fired
his cabinet this past July and then went to fire his Vice President Riek
Machar. Machar, ethnically Nuer, had recently made public his bid for the SPLM chairmen position seemingly looking ahead at the 2015
elections. Machar and Kiir, ethnically Dinka, have a history of clashes in 1991
when there was some internal fighting amongst the SPLA in Bor a town outside of Juba.
The events that sparked the current
clashes occurred on December 15. It is unclear whether there was a coordinated
coop attempt and reactionary suppression amongst the Presidential Guard. This
event whether planned or incidental became a flashpoint of insecurity that
opened the doors to the opportunistic violence we are hearing about today. Machar
escaped Juba and took the town of Bor, a town predominately Nuer, with his
rebel army. There are reports of ethnic targeted killings coming from both
sides, but this can not confound the motivation and cause at large...a
political power struggle between the elite leaders in South Sudan.
As talks begin in Addis Abba,
Ethiopia today a cease fire has not been negotiated as of yet. Bolstered Machar
now holds onto an oil rich base in Bor and Kiir recently received troops and
full backing from Uganda. Peace talks could end the violence but could also be
a political maneuver to appease the international community while behind the scenes
both sides could be escalating preparations for continued fighting. The international community and the United
States should emphasize there is no military solution in South Sudan, only a
political agreement can resolve the crisis and prevent civil war. The people of South Sudan deserve peace. Their leaders need to set aside their selfish aspirations and do what is best for their people.
For further reading:
Generally reporting by Western Media on the S.Sudan Crisis
has been atrocious either straight up lazy or incorrect factually leading me to
think even, The Kingston Reporter, could conduct better journalism. Here are a
few articles that didn’t make me #facepalm.
Longform But Excellent
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