SOUTH CIVIL WAR AND A FLEDGLING PEACE RENDERS INEVITABLE THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION

Peter Adwok Nyaba Introduction

The people of won their independence on July 9, 2011 after nearly five decades of relentless struggle against the oppressive regimes of the Sudan. Barely three years into independence, was South Sudan in another devastating civil war following the eruption of conflict on December 15, 2013. What happened? The SPLMA leadership had a false notion, and resolution, of the objective reality that submerged the consciousness of the masses of South Sudanese people. Therefore the comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) it negotiated and signed with the National Congress Party (NCP), through the agency of IGAD, did not address the fundamental contradiction – the exterme condition of socio-economic and cultural underdevelopment of the people of South Sudan. The same contradiction resurged violently in the form of the current civil war, whose root causes must be located in the SPLM internal dynamics reflected in the bitter power struggle in its top leadership. These contradictions are linked to the following factors:

SPLM’s lack of ideology and political programme

The SPLM/A established itself, in 1983, initially, as a section of the national democratic revolutionary and anti-imperialist forces in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East to pursue an agenda of national democratic revolution through a revolutionary armed struggle. Its goal was to construct a ‘New Sudan’ based on justice, equality, freedom and prosperity for all (SPLM Manifesto, 1983). However these lofty ideals, the SPLM did not espouse clear political ideology to define the orientation of the liberation movement. Its modus operandis was militaristic, and operated on the basis of a professional colonial army rather than on revolutionary guerrilla codes and doctrines particularly in its relations with the masses of the people.

In 1990, a paradigm shift towards the imperialist camp1 occurred in the SPLM. This shift coincided with the collapse of the Socialist World System under the leadership of the Soviet Union. This prompted a realignment of revolutionary and political forces in the region. The SPLM jettisoned its revolutionary skin catapulting to its helm a reactionary political military elite whose agenda was only power and primitive accumulation of wealth – genesis of corruption virus in the liberation movement. This elite was completely alienated from the revolutionary theory and practice, and from the masses of the people. This marked the second abortion of the national democratic revolution2. The concept and vision of ‘new Sudan’ disappeared imperceptibly from the SPLM/SPLA written and oral literature.

1 This came in the wake of an announcement by Dr. , the SPLM Chairman and Commander-in-Chief of SPLA to send a contingent of SPLA combatants to join the American –led Western Alliance against Saddam Huseein in the first Gulf war. 2 The first abortion of the revolution was immediately after independence (1956) when the traditional and theorcatic parties chose neo-colonialism; the send was in 1971, when Nimeri aunch a counterreolution with the assistance of the imperialist forces.

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The CPA provided for the exercise by the people of southern Suda of their inalienable right to self-determination to be conducted in a referendum before the end of the interim period. This eventually led to independence.

Lack of political organization and institutionalised power relations

During the twenty-one years of armed struggle, the SPLM leadership shunt political organization and political education of the SPLM/A combatants as well as the masses of the people. It discouraged building of democratic institution in the liberation movement preferring militarized formations that entrenched a leadership cult of personality. As a comsequence of this, personified rather than institutionalized power relations evolved within the SPLM between the leadership and the membership on the one hand, and between the SPLM and the masses of the people on the other hand, which did not reflect sensu strictu relations in a liberation movement defined by comradeship and solidarity. This situation not only denied the people the opportunity to organize and unite ranks across ethnic and regional faultlines, it also promoted ethnicization and regionalization of internal SPLM relations and the liberation politics. Hence, ethnicity and regionalism became the drivers of internal contradictions in the SPLM and society in South Sudan.

Failure to transform the SPLM/SPLA into respective professional and specialized domains

The SPLM/SPLA evolved as a nilitary machine. The ‘M’ and ‘A’ were not perceived to be the respective ‘political’ and ‘military’ branches of the liberation movement. In fact the SPLM/SPLA developed and grew like Siamese twins cojoined in the heads that any operation to separate them would have resulted in their mutual death. Thus after the war, it became difficult to transform them into their respective professional and specialized domains i.e. political and military respectivelty. The SPLM failed to transform into the mass-based political party and the SPLA could not be transformed into what it should have been the Armed Forces of South Sudan. The political-military dichotomy became a physcial and psychological straightjacket, which affected its development into an authentic national liberation movement linked to the aspirations of all the people.

Personfication and ethnicization of internal political contradictions.

The SPLM had no political programme for transforming the oppressive reality which submerged the masses. Apart from the military confrontation with the enemy, the energy of the liberation movement was sapped in personal power struggle at the top, which generated splits and splinterism. Thus lack of democracy and democratic structure and institutions in the SPLM, meant that there were no avenues for channelling of the inherent social and political contradictions except through military hence violent means. These contradictions invariably emerged and mutated from political to personal and finally to ethnic spheres in the form of interncine fighting and ethnic conflicts. This is the pattern established in 1984 (split with Anya- nya II0, in 1991 (SPLM/A Nasir and Torit factions), in 1994 (split within SPLM/A-United), in

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1995 (within SSIM/A and also within SPLM/A-United) and finally in 2004 (within SPLM/A)3 but this Yei crisis did not erupt into violence. However, the conference called to resolve the contradiction between Dr. John Garang and his deputy Salva Kiir fudged it under a canopy to maintain a semblance of in the SPLM/A. However, Dr. Garang died in a fatal helicopter crash before he reconciled with his deput. This omission was to haunt the SPLM/A leaders and cadres in the post-Garang era in the form of witch-hunt against Garang’s close aides and lieutenants, which paralyzed the SPLM functions in government (Nyaba, 20104).

Governance failure during the interim period

The SPLM leadership and Government of Southern Sudan approached and implemented the CPA without a political programme to address the condition of extreme social, economic and cultural underdevelopment of Southern Sudan. It focused only on the conduct of the referendum on self-determination. This explain why in ten years (2005 – 2015) the GOSS has nothing to show in terms of physcial infrastructure, socio-economic development projects and services for the more than thrity-five billion dollars oil revenues that accrued to it. This money was lost to over-priced and unexecuted government contracts awarded to relatives, friends and foreign business associates of SPLM leaders and SPLA Generals, and outright theft from the government coffers. The system was embroiled in rampant corruption, nepotism, tribalism and abuse of office and power with impunity. The result was the uncontrolled insecurity, ethnic conflicts and open rebellions that cost thousands of innocent lives and destruction of property. By the end of the interim period Southern Sudan was in extreme state of fragility. That explains why on successful vote in the referendum, the UN Security Council placed South Sudan under Chapter VII of UN Charter as a condition for its recognition as an independent and sovereign state5.

Leadership wrangles, mutiny in Tiger Battalion, massacres of ethnic Nuers and civil war

As mentioned above, the roots causes of the current civil war are located in the SPLM internal contradictions and the unbridled struggle for power and wealth among its top leadership. The conference at the end of 2004 to resolve the crisis that sprouted between Dr. John Garang and his deputy did not address the uninstitutionalized basis of the SPLM public power and authority. The state of affairs remained so when Salva Kiir inherited the SPLM leadership and consequently the presidency of Government of Southern Sudan. The SPLM found itself in unfamiliar terrain, different from guerrilla environment ante, and therefore, this power configuration and relations were untenable.

The crisis came to the head in mid 2012, when Dr. , the SPLM First Vice Chairman and Vice President of the Government of South Sudan, citing failures in the SPLM and GOSS attributable to President Salva Kiir, declared his intention to context for the SPLM Chair come the SPLM 3rd National Convention in May 2013 as a prelude to contexting for the president of the republic of South Sudan come the general elections in April 2015. No sooner, was Dr. Riek

3 The inability to resolve the political contradictions amicably resullted in split in factions from which emerged splinter groups and militias. By the time the CPA was concluded in January 2005 there were more than twenty splinter groups and tribal militias operating in Southern Sudan. 4 “South Sudan: The State We Aspire to.” CASAS, Cape Town. 2010 5 Resolution of the United Nations Security Council No. 1966 of July 8, 2011.

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Machar joined in scramble for the top post by the SPLM Secretary-General and Madame Rebecca Nyandeng Garang. They untacitly declared their intentions outside the SPLM institutional and organizational precincts and therefore polluted the working environment between them and President Salva Kiir, who responded by paralyzing the functions of the SPLM organs, disorganized and dismissed all those he perceived and suspected were sympathetic to Dr. Riek Machar and Pagan Amum6.

On July 23, 2013, President Salva Kiir Mayardit dismissed the cabinet, dismissed Dr. Riek Machar as Vice President and issued a decree suspending and putting under investigation for corruption the SPLM Secretary-General Mr. Pagan Amum. These decrees were followed other measures that paralyszed the SPLM Political Bureau; in fact President Salva Kiir announced the dissolution of all the SPLM organs except his office as Chairman. President Salva Kiir then went on offensive against hid former deputy and many of his colleagues in the dissolved cabinet accusing them of having stolen public money. It was in this context that Salva Kiir sanctioned the formation of Jieng Council of Elders as a political support base and ordered the recruitment of three-thousand strong private militia ‘dotku beny’ outside the presidential guards ‘Tiger Battalion’.

On December 6, 2013, Dr. Riek Machar called a press conference in the SPLM House. He was joined by Pagan Amum, Mama Rebecca Nyandeng, Deng Alor Kuol, Alfred Lado Gore and many other comrades. The idea was to pressure the SPLM Chairman, President Salva Kiir, to call to session the SPLM Political Bureau in order to set the agenda for the National Liberation Council. President Salva Kiir viewed this as coup against. He order the convening of the NLC on December 14 and 15.

In the evening of Sunday, 15 December 2013, following the conclusion of the session of the SPLM NLC, mutiny erupted in the Tiger Battalion presidential guards largely made up of Nuer and Dinka ethnicities. Although the fighting was localized in the Army General H/Qs throughout the night, nevertheless, it extended, throughout the four days, to different residential suburbs of . The ‘dotku beny’ and the elements of the Nastional Security conducted house to house search targetting of ethnic Nuers in which more than tweny-four thousand unarmed civlians and soldiers, women, children, youth and elders were massacred including some ethnic Dinka who wore Nuer facial marks.

The massacres in Juba triggered rebellion of SPLA Divisions in Bor and Bentiu commanded by Nuer generals, which targetted in vengeance ethnic Dinkas. The Nuer white armies mobilised to avenge their kiths marking the escalation of the civil war. Dr. Riek Machar, who was indeed running to save his life declared he was now leading a rebellion laying credence to Salva Kiir’s coup narrative. The war now spread engulfed Jongeli, Upper and Unity states. The military intervention of the Ugandan People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) and the Dar Furi rebel Forces [SLM/A –Arkoi Minawi and JEM –Gabriel KhailIts and SPLM-North] on behalf of President Salva Kiir attenuated the ferocity of the war.

6 These included the SPLM cadres and officials in the General Secretariat and in the States including the elected SPLM Chairs and State Governors of Unity and .

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The IGAD mediation and the ‘agreement on resolution of crisis in South Sudan’

On December 27, 2013 an Extra-ordinary Assembly of IGAD Heads of State and Government convened in , under the Chai of the Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. The summit issued a communiques, which while endorsing President Salva Kiir’s narrative of failed coup against the state, also requested the parties to send delegation to to commence peace talks under the IGAD mediation7.

The IGAD mediation adopted a modality that was unsuitable, and therefore ran into troubles explaining the nearly eighteen months of continuous but intermittent negotiation. This explains its failure to bring peace to South Sudan as was admitted by the IGAD Chair on March 7, 2015.Its main flaws were: • the donor8 driven agenda - the principle of inclusivity, turned the talks between the warring parties into a ‘multi-stakeholders round table negotiations involving all and sunder: GRSS, SPLM/SPLA, the SPLM Leaders (former politcal detainees), the eighteen Political Parties, the Civil Society Groups, the Women Block, the Faith-Based or Religious Leaders and the so-called the Emminent Persons. Peace could only be negotiated by those fighting the war. Once an agreement has been reached to cease fire permanently, the. other stakeholders may be involved in constitutional making process. This is what happened in the CPA negotiations (1994-2005). • linked to the principle of inclusivity, the negotiators were tasked with finding the way forward i.e. establishment of transitional government of national unity (TGONU) insteadof addressing the root causes of the conflict. The issue of establishing the TGONU raised high the stakes that complicated the negotiations as the stakeholders argued about rations of participation in government. This explains why the talks dragged on without compromise. Establishment of TGONU before the parties reached the peace agreement was like placing the cart in front of the horse meant to pull it • The IGAD mediation was divided hence did not act resolutely. Ugandan participation in the war disquaified as a neutral mediator. Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda each had respective competing national security, economic and political interests in South Sudan. This affected their genuine and disinterested mediation efforts

The failure of the IGAD multi-stakeholders rountable negotiations prompted the crafting of another mediation modality – the IGAD Plus, to keep the mediation on tract. Notwithstanding the GRSS prevarications and reservations, the ‘agreement on resolution of crisis in South Sudan’ (ARCISS) was finally signed in both Addis Ababa and Juba August 17 and 26 respectively.

The ARCISS does not meet the warring parties’‘best alternative to negotiated agreement’ (BATNA) but the warring parties could put up with it in the best interest of the people of South Sudan. ARCISS does not address the root causes of the conflict.In fact, ARCISS leaves intact, and entrenches, Salva Kiir’s oppressive system, which is recipe for future conflict particularly

7 The IGAD mediation comprised Ethiopia (Chair), Kenya (Rapparteour), Sudan and Uganda members both at the level of the summit and at the level of the Special Envoys.. 8 The main donrs were the Troila countries namely of America, United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Norway

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that the transition is only thirty-months, and any disputes over the elections results at the end of the transition period is bound to flare up in violence.

President Salva Kiir’s Executive Order 36/2015 establishing twenty-eight instead of ten states, upon which was predicated the ARCISS, poses a serious political challenge. It violates the peace agreement and will render tricky its implementation. Not only that it has effaciciously generated inter-ethnic conflicts throughout , Unity, Jonglei and states on account of enthic and state boundaries. It only demonstrates Salva Kiir’s political bad faith and lack of interest in peace among the people of South Sudan.

South Sudan is now in a dire social, economic and political situation consequent to a civil war prosecuted for narrow personal and ethnic objectives. President Salva Kiir rejects ARCISS because it does not meet his strategic objective of economic and political empowerment of his ethnic Dinka to hegemonize and dominate South Sudan. He has not veiled this intention for Dinka hegemony and domination over other nationalities in South Sudan. The Jieng Council of Elders (JCE) justifies the policy establishing the false reality created by the Executive Order 36/2015, which makes Jieng territories 42% of total land area of South Sudan inhabited by a total of sixty-seven ethnicities and nationalities. This policy, which, through his agency, makes the Dinka control political power and economic resources of South Sudan has now inadvertently fitted them against all other sixty-four nationalities in South Sudan.

The SPLM/A (IO) leadership on the other hand has not provided any alternative political ideology capable of uniting the people of South Sudan against Kiir and JCE ethnic ideology. The SPLM/A (IO) has been prosecuting the war over the last two years no clear strategic objective. Its programme and strategy during the peace negotiation has been reforms of the system suggesting that it is not for transformation of the corrupt, kleptocratic system but rather to reform and take it over.

Besides the GRSS and the SPLM/A (IO), there are other political parties. Some of thse political parties have now coalesced into the National Alliance (NA) as a counter to the government policies. The NA has challenged the government in the Constitutional Court on the postponement by the government of the elections; on the unconstitutional extension of the president’s term of office; and last on the Executive Order 36/2015. The existence of a third political force, out side the armed opposition, inspires hope for democratic transformation in South Sudan.

The ARCISS implementation runs behind schedule. The Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (JMEC) was inaugurated only on Novembe 30, but the SPLM/A (IO) was not there to participate. The contradictory pronouncemnts of GRSS ministers and officials signals that the government is not ready for peace. The government is on military offensive throughout most of South Sudan where people have started to resist its political repression. With the help of UPDF and Ugandan Air Force it is bombing SPLM (IO) positions and civilian population in a manner that inspires no hope for peace and reconciliation in South Suan.

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A revolutionary situation is developing in South Sudan

The present situation in South Sudan is approaching what the Marxists call a revolutionary situation, whereby ‘the rulers fail to rule and the masses refuse to be ruled.’ The civil war is providing opportunity for revolutionary transformation of South Sudan missed consequent to paradigm shift that occurred in 1990. Without a defined collective leadership, the people in different parts of South Sudan are taking up arms to defend themselves against the government’s repressive policies. The proliferation of rebel groups, not necessarily aligned to the SPLM/A (IO), signals not only a growing discontent with the kleptocratic regime but also vote of indictment of the SPLM/A (IO) leadership for failing to provide alternative leadership, and to imbue the people with a revolutionary ideology and clear political programme to address the extreme condition of social, economic and cultural underdevelopment that submerges people’s consciousness permitting the bourgeois petit to divide them along ethnic and regional faultlines.

It is impossible to prevent from sprouting into existence an idea whose time has come. It has therefore become incumbent on the democratic and revolutionary forces in the armed and unarmed opposition to identify and recognize each other, coalesce and organize themselves into a wider coalition for democracy; chart a political programme to launch the national democratic revolution in order to destroy the present oppressive system and construct the national demcoratic and development state in South Sudan.

The anticipated political programme of this coalition reflecting progressive human values has become imperative to address the social and economic transformation of the centuries-old condition of abject poverty, ignorance and cultural backwardness of the masses of our people as reflected in their social means and relations of production. The construction of the national democratic state in South Sudan is imperative to address the nationality/ethnicity issues used as diversionary stategy by ruling elite to divide them along ethnic and regional faultlines. The national democratic revolution programme will launch the revlution in agriculture sector to eradicate once and for all poverty in South Sudan. The revolution in agriculture shall precede hand in hand with industrial revolution to enable South Sudan benefit from advances in modern science, medicine and technology. This will culminated in a cultural revolution leading to the production of a South Sudanese personality unfettered by legacies of colonialism, ethnicity and regionalism.

What is to be done?

The situation is getting clear by the day. President Salva Kiir is not ready for peace. No regional or international pressure will bend him towards peaceful resolution of the conflict as long as he still enjoys the political and military patronage of President Yuweri Museveni. The economy is in shambles, generating crimes and insecurity and exacerbated by the activities of the Army and security forces. This has forced emergence and proliferation of armed rebellion. The state is steadily sliding into failure and collapse. The only hope is to transform the situation into a revolution. It is imperative that all these armed groups link up with the social and political opposed to the regime and built a wider coalition for democracy to save the country.

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