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South Sudan Civil War and a Fledgling Peace Renders Inevitable the National Democratic Revolution

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South Sudan Civil War and a Fledgling Peace Renders Inevitable the National Democratic Revolution SOUTH SUDAN CIVIL WAR AND A FLEDGLING PEACE RENDERS INEVITABLE THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION Peter Adwok Nyaba Introduction The people of South Sudan 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. John Garang, 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. 1 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 2 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 unity 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 Rumbek conference at the end of 2004 to resolve the crisis that sprouted between Dr. John Garang and his deputy Salva Kiir Mayardit 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. Riek Machar, 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. 3 Machar joined in scramble for the top post by the SPLM Secretary-General Pagan Amum and Madame Rebecca Nyandeng Garang.
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