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The Story of South Sudan's Salva Kiir Mayardit

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The Story of South Sudan's Salva Kiir Mayardit From Guerilla Fighter to Independence Politician: The Story of South Sudan’s Salva Kiir Mayardit Jamestown Terrorism Monitor Volume: 1 Issue: 11 December 1, 2010 By Andrew McGregor Salva Kiir Mayardit With the January 9, 2011, referendum on South Sudanese independence only weeks away, a long-time rebel commander turned politician stands to become the first president of a new African nation with both abundant oil reserves and a highly uncertain future. Salva Kiir Mayardit, a Roman Catholic Rek Dinka from Warrap State in Bahr al-Ghazal Province, fought in both of Sudan’s civil wars, finishing the second as chief military commander of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M). [1] Background In 1967, a 17-year-old Salva Kiir joined the Anyanya Rebellion (1955-1972), an armed effort to establish a separate state in South Sudan. Following the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement that brought an end to Sudan’s first civil war, Kiir was among those Anyanya guerillas who were integrated into the Sudanese Armed Forces, or the Wildlife Protection Service (many other irreconcilable fighters went south to Idi Amin’s Uganda). He graduated from the Sudan Military College in Omdurman and went on to serve as a major in Sudanese military intelligence. Having joined the renewed Southern insurgency in 1983, Salva Kiir’s skills and influence were recognized when he was made a member of the SPLA/M High Command Council, alongside notable southern soldiers such as Colonel John Garang de Mabior (who emerged as the SPLA/M’s Chairman), Lieutenant Colonel Karabino Kuanyin Bol, Major Arok Thon Arok and Lieutenant Colonel William Nyuon Bany. Of these figures, only Salva Kiir survives today. Kiir began to play an important political and diplomatic role in 1993 when he led the SPLM delegation to the Organization of African Unity-sponsored Sudan peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria. Kiir filled the role as John Garang’s deputy following the death of William Nyoun Bany in 1996. He again led the SPLM delegation to the initial Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD)-sponsored Sudan peace talks in Kenya’s Eastern Province that paved the way for the ground-breaking July 2002 Machakos Protocol. The Machakos Protocol was the first in a series of eight protocols that ultimately led to the Naivasha Agreement, formally known as the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), signed in Nairobi on January 9, 2005. The signing of the CPA in Nairobi set the stage for the 2011 referendum vote and for the equal distribution of oil revenues between North and South. Increasing differences between Kiir and SPLA chairman John Garang in 2004 led to unsuccessful attempts by Garang to replace the popular military leader as commander-in- chief of the SPLA (Sudan Vision, July 8, 2005). There were, in turn, rumors that Kiir was planning to depose Garang and install veteran politician Bono Malwal in his place. John Garang was Sudan’s foremost advocate of a united but democratic and federated Sudan that would incorporate the country’s highly diverse peoples into Sudan’s narrowly defined power structure, traditionally dominated by three Arab tribes of North Sudan. His particular vision of a “New Sudan” often placed him at odds with the rest of the SPLA/M leadership, many of whom advocated for an independent South Sudan. These divisions grew as the civil war showed few signs of ending and attitudes toward the North hardened. Garang became increasingly intolerant of internal challenges to his program and used force to maintain ideological discipline. However, Garang’s vision appears to have died with him in the helicopter crash that claimed his life in July 2005, only months after successfully negotiating the CPA that ended the civil war with Khartoum. Unlike the late Garang, Salva Kiir is a separatist who quickly steered the direction of the SPLM from an organization officially vouching for national unity into an independence movement. Kiir was girded with strong ground support with a dearth of vocal opposition for the shift. The CPA established a Government of National Unity (GoNU) in Khartoum and a Government of South Sudan (GoSS) based in Juba, Central Equatoria State, with the GoSS president automatically becoming first vice-president of the Republic of Sudan. Since Garang’s death, Kiir has served as first vice-president of the Sudanese GoNU and president of the GoSS. Kiir was not everyone’s choice as the movement’s new leader, but it was important to follow the established line of succession for the SPLA/M to maintain its international credibility as a partner in the CPA and prevent the movement from splintering. The result was a unanimous vote on the part of the SPLA/M High Command Council to elect Kiir as SPLM chairman and commander-in-chief of the SPLA. He was later reelected by unanimous vote in 2008. Kiir is not known as a forceful speaker but has used other methods to establish his public presence. Like most Nilotic peoples of the region, Kiir is unusually tall by Western standards and cuts a distinctive look in his typical black suit, red tie and broad-brimmed black hat (the latter innovation has since been adopted by many of Darfur’s rebel leaders). Disengaging from the New Sudan It was widely expected that John Garang’s appointment to first vice-president of the Sudan under the terms of the CPA would mark the beginning of a new approach to the crisis in Darfur, but his death and the subsequent takeover by Salva Kiir as vice-president instead marked the beginning of a more muted approach by the SPLA/M to the Darfur crisis. The movement’s attempts to unite the fractious Darfur rebels have been largely unsuccessful and even the SPLA/M’s limited efforts to help forge a solution to the Darfur crisis have been discouraged by Khartoum. Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) recently demanded that South Sudan arrest Darfur rebel leaders who are residing in the region governed by the GoSS (Sudan Tribune, November 8). Salva Kiir has, nonetheless, encouraged the unification of the many Darfur rebel movements, and his discussions with Dr. Khalil Ibrahim’s Justice and Equality Movement (JEM - the strongest rebel group in Darfur) have proved particularly worrisome for Khartoum. With Kiir uninterested in the national presidency, the SPLM decided to run Yasir Sa’id Arman, a northerner and longtime member of the SPLM leadership, for the presidency in the April elections. However, Arman and the other leading challenger, former president and Umma Party leader Sadiq al-Mahdi, both decided to withdraw from the election citing irregularities. Following the withdrawal of the SPLM from the presidential contest, Kiir stunned many by saying he had voted to re-elect National Congress Party (NCP) chairman Omar al-Bashir as president of Sudan (Sudan Tribune, April 18). Kiir has accused Khartoum of sending only 26% of Sudan’s oil revenues to the southern capital of Juba, rather than the 50% designated in the CPA (Sudan Tribune, October 1). Nearly 50% of the revenues that have reached Juba have gone to an ambitious rearmament program in the South intended to place the SPLA on a more even footing with the conventional forces of the SAF. Nascent efforts have even begun to create a South Sudan Air Force. Pardoning Thy Enemies Under the terms of the CPA, the SAF and the SPLA became the only legal armed groups in Sudan. The many independent or pro-Khartoum militias operating in the South were given the option of disarming or joining one of the legal armed forces. Naturally it became imperative for the SPLA/M to integrate these forces rather than allow pro-Khartoum armed groups to continue their existence in the South. The process, however, has been slow and even appeared to be failing in the last year as a number of SPLA commanders rebelled against Salva Kiir’s government in the aftermath of the April elections, which the dissidents complained were fixed in favor of Kiir loyalists. In January 2006, Salva Kiir’s negotiations with longtime anti-SPLA militia commander Paulino Matip Nhial resulted in the traditionally pro-Khartoum Bul Nuer commander joining the SPLA/M. The so-called “Juba Declaration” incorporating “other armed groups” into the SPLA/M was a major coup for Kiir and an important step in convincing remaining Nuer and other tribal dissidents to cooperate with the SPLA/M in the lead-up to the referendum. Paulino Matip was rewarded by being made deputy commander of the SPLA, with promotion to full general in May 2009 (splamilitary.net, May 31, 2009). As Kiir began preparing South Sudan for the independence referendum (and the possible outbreak of hostilities following a yes vote for a separate state), a series of small rebellions and mutinies by SPLA/M generals and officers threatened to destroy any chance of a unified approach to the question of the Sudanese Republic’s formal bifurcation. Many saw the hand of Khartoum and its proven “divide and conquer” approach to any threat to central authority behind these rebellions. Though Kiir initially responded with force to these challenges, he ultimately turned to an amnesty in September 2010, which, combined with the seeming inevitability of a Southern vote for independence, succeeded in bringing nearly all the rebel commanders back into the fold. It was a bold gambit – before the decision, many Southerners were calling for the utter destruction of the mutinous commanders; after the decision, the families of loyal SPLA troops killed in combating the rebellions were outraged by such pardons (New Sudan Vision, October 11). The main individuals concerned in the amnesty were the following: • Lieutenant General George Athor: George Athor, a Dinka tribesman, ran as an independent for governor of Jonglei State in the April elections after having failed to receive the nomination of the SPLM.
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