Being non-partisan and being neutral: The tenuous distinction that frustrates many

I am non-partisan. I am not neutral. Many people find this strange, even frustrating. I don't blame them. Being non-partisan should be strange to people who don't understand it from a personalized perspective I will explain here. 

I am going to make a distinction between being neutral and being non-partisan. This distinction is going to sound like what philosophers call a distinction without a difference. But hear me out. 

This is important. 

For many people, being "non-partisan" is synonymous with being "neutral" when issues with serious moral implications are being discussed. For instance, a neutral person would not blame one party to the conflict without blaming the other party. To remain neutral, the neutral person or organization must find something to praise or criticize on both sides. 

For many people, this is prudent. It ensures the neutral person or organization maintains the neutrality status. We see this necessary official neutrality with the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), the African Union (AU), IGAD,  troika countries (Norway, USA and UK), for instance. 

In most of their press releases or press conferences, they consistently "urge all parties to the conflict" to either "show restraint", "protect civilians" or "implement the agreement." They avoid addressing one party at a time. Adopting this approach is maintained most of the time even when they know that only one party to the agreement or conflict is  to blame. 

That's the general understanding and approach to neutrality. 

But I think this approach and understanding can be problematic. It can make some parties minimize the societal impact of their mistakes. 

But this is the standard language and approach diplomats use. It is not meant to lead to a solution, necessarily. Its primary aim is to maintain a modicum of positive working relationship between sovereign states. There is a critical diplomatic point beyond which diplomats don't tread. Unless they do not hold the host country in high regard or they do not care about diplomatic any consequences. 

As we have seen regarding the involvement of the regional and international bodies in Sudan and South Sudan, the success of agreements does not depend on the mediators per se. Not really. It depends on the quality of the leaderships of the warring parties or peace partners. For instance, the comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) that was signed in 2005 between SPLM and NCP succeeded not because of IGAD and General Lazaro Sumbeiywo, necessarily. Its success depended very much on the leadership of John Garang of SPLA and Ustaz Ali Osman Taha. 

This is not to take away from the incredible work of General Sumbeiyo and IGAD. But their role, as we would witness with the Agreement on the resolution of conflict in South Sudan (ARCISS), could not produce the same results as the CPA because of lack of a serious leadership with which mediators could work. The friendly relationship developed by Dr. John Garang and Ustaz Taha could not be replicated by Dr. Riek Machar and President Salva Kiir.

The neutrality we witness among regional and international parties in South Sudan is a face-serving mechanism. It is not meant to find a solution. It is meant to ensure a peaceful working relationship that serves the interest of the diplomatic mission is maintained. 

To me, being non-partisan and being neutral are not the same. Being non-partisan means I am not beholden to stand by and defend what a given political entity or organization stands for. Political parties will defend their positions by emphasizing their achievements and downplaying their mistakes or failures. You will never find a political entity that focuses on their mistakes and airs them to the public. Even when a political party admits its mistakes and failures, it will ensure it puts a strong emphasis on their achievements in order to overshadow their failures. 

However, opposition political entities will only focus on the failures of other parties. They will either ignore or downplay the achievements of the party they are opposing. This is where I am different. And this is where I need to emphasize how being non-partisan and being neutral should be considered different by South Sudanese and others. 

Let me give an example from South Sudan. I do not have any political allegiance to SPLM-IG and SPLM-IO. And I don't have any principled opposition to them either. I criticize them wherever they make mistakes and praise them whether they do what in my opinion is good for the people of South Sudan. But I do not do what IGAD, Troika, UNMISS and others do. I don't criticize them equally to maintain neutrality. That flies on the face of social reality. 

When SPLM-IO commits atrocities against civilians, I criticize them without looking for ways to also criticize SPLM-IG in order to be considered "neutral". A neutral person or party either refrains from criticizing at all, or finds something to criticize in SPLM-IG before they make their criticism of SPLM-IO public. I don't do that. I criticize SPLM-IO without worrying about whether nor not they will consider me pro-SPLM-IG. I don't worry about being seen as having compromised neutrality.

I also criticize SPLM-IG when it makes mistakes or commit atrocities through the national army, SSPDF. I don't need to bring in SPLM-IO all the time unless SPLM-IO has also committed atrocities in the same conflict. I don't worry that SPLM-IG will characterize me as pro-SPLM-IO. In fact some do. But that doesn't worry me. 

So I can criticize one party at a time. I do not need to think about being neutral. My position is based on what is good or bad for the people of South Sudan and the world. I don't have to worry about what a given political or military party thinks. So I can also agree with SPLM-IO or SPLM-IG as long as I believe what they are saying or doing at that given time is good for the people of South Sudan. 

So when I agree with SPLM-IO's position, it is very easy for people to conflate that agreement with partisan allegiance. I have also seen that members of SPLM-IO have mistaken my agreement with them as my allegiance to SPLM-IO. SPLM-IG members and President Kiir supporters have also mistaken this agreement to be my support for SPLM-IO. 

No. I base my criticism or praise on what I believe is good for the people of South Sudan and other vulnerable people of the world. 

It is also important to note that being a critic of the government puts a person most of the time in the same column of critics with the opposition. A writer or a person engaged in any activist or journalistic work will try most of the time to hold the government or the incumbent leadership accountable more it holds the opposition accountable. This is because the government makes more consequential decisions than the opposition. 

The main difference is that the opposition will find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to entertain the achievements of the party they oppose or the ruling party. They try as much as possible to find something to criticize or critique in the other party's achievements. It would defeat the purpose of being an opposition if they focus on what is good for the people if it goes against their party interest.

Parties do not prioritize people. They prioritize their political and ideological interest. But they use people as selling points and cover.

So when I say  "I am not partisan", I do not mean "I am neutral." I can spend a week criticizing one party without criticizing other parties if I believe the party I am criticizing is being more destructive to the people of South Sudan. This means I am not neutral in this case. But I am still non-partisan. That in itself does not mean I have joined the parties I have not criticized for a week. Time comes when I focus on their mistakes and praise the party I previously criticized.  Neutral people do not do that. 

So when I say "I am non-partisan" on my social media platforms or on #KuirthiyTV, this is what I mean. 

___

Kuir ë Garang (PhD) is the editor of The Philosophical Refugee and the host of KuirthiyTV. 

The dangers of uncritical ethnic allegiance

 

Photo: Mercy Corps

By the Editor

In this address at the 39th Ordinary meeting of African heads of state, President Salva Kiir Mayardit of South Sudan pledged to restore peace to South Sudan.

This is going to be a tall order. The president has been making similar pledges for the last decade. Yet peace remains illusive for the people of South Sudan. What we witness today is the withdrawal into ethnic bases. This is putting civilians and the country at risk. Northern Jonglei State has become a battle ground. Civilians have been displaced, some killed.

But it all begins with the political elite.

But South Sudanese civilians have been caught up in the middle of a war with which they have nothing. Elite start their disagreement over power and political ambitions but then end up passing the suffering to the people. Elite don't suffer the consequences of their actions. They benefit from it. This is South Sudan.

Yet, the very people who are affected by elite selfish actions still stand by these elite. Why? In-group bias as a function of ethnic belonging. Civilians will support political leaders from ethnic group even when these leaders do absolutely nothing for the people. This is the case even when these leaders have in the past put them at risk.

South Sudanese elite therefore stir up the crisis knowing that they will bank on their ethnic basis as a default position. They don't have to say or do anything for their ethnic groups to support them. Political differences among the elite is therefore transformed wittily into an ethnic problem and then to a survivalist issue. "Support us or tribe X will exterminates you!" 

Peace will therefore remain illusive unless South Sudanese unite across ethnic lines. 

In my recent conversation with Dr. Gatluak Thach, two issues emerged. Signing another peace agreement with President Kiir will be tricky because the president has shown that he's not interested in respecting any agreement. On the other hand, war is also not an option. It leads to more suffering and death. It also allows President Kiir, who has turned the country into an authoritarian system, to re-entrench himself. 

Peace and war are therefore both difficult, though not impossible. 

But the most important solution is for the people of South Sudan to stare realizing that the problem is not the people themselves. Tribes are not the problem. Leaders using tribe to gain support are the problem. They should therefore start rejecting leaders who turn South Sudanese against each other.

Mabior Garang Mabior: Practice respect, humility and service to the people

Photo: Courtesy of Mabior Garang's Facebook account

I wish Mabior Garang Mabior luck in his new ministerial role. It's a trying role in a trying environment; but he seems prepared and skilled. That is the nature of the system in South Sudan.

But I have a message for Mabior. For those of you with long-writings-phobia, skip this. Do something better with your time!

I urge him to be a little humble. Being John Garang's son doesn't give him a special epistemic position or a socio-political weight above and beyond what the people are prepared to stomach. Twi supports him, Jonglei supports him, and South Sudan supports him. He's one voice, one mind. Let him remember that!

Meaning his ministerial stature after Kiir's decrees come knocking will depend not on being Garang's son. It will depend very much on what he achieves and how he treats people. Not people who pander to him but also those who disagree with him. We know his achievements aren't going to be many (if any) given the anomic system within which he's going to work in South Sudan.

However, being John Garang's son matters. While Mabior is revered for his wit and individual decisions he has made, making him apparently a man of his own, we cannot downplay the role of his larger-than-life father regarding how Mabior is perceived by the powers that be and by the lay public. Garang's Mabior's name opens doors, inspires respect and, sometimes, terror. This is not only the nature of human relations in South Sudan. Name recognition applies all over the world.

This also means being Garang's son should come with a considered and considerate responsibility. The sons and daughters of "no bodies" he is wont to make fun of on his Facebook comments and statuses are watching. They may not seem much to Mabior, but leadership necessitates that he perceives them, and respond to them, as amounting to more than he is willing to entertain. The average civilian in South Sudan expects this.

A question of principles. Mabior left President Kiir for Riek Machar's rebellion because of how President Kiir ran the system aground. Mabior was right. Yet he came back to the same Kiir when the country under president Kiir is in a much terrible state. He now, somehow obsequiously, supports President Kiir. What has changed? South Sudan is worse than when Mabior was Kiir's staunch critic.

Granted, political alliances change. Commonsense. But alliances should change with one's principles not majorly compromised. Otherwise, one risks becoming a political entrepreneur, making South Sudan what Achille Mbembe has called an economic system of reciprocity.

As a political leader of some import in South Sudan, Mabior should start providing answers, respectful and respectable answers, than his usual dismissive, abrasive slights. He carries the weight of a legacy, if not the legacy (with a capital "L") whether he likes it or not.

Humility. When Mabior told Mading Ngor of Terab Media that he didn't join Dr. Riek, that Dr. Riek joined him, I knew Mabior was an intellectual, his father's son. But the political implication of the statement left me scratching my head. I started to doubt his political humility in an ethnically diverse country.

While Mabior sounded political and witty, he was very arrogant in that statement. Mabior didn't form any formal political or rebel movement before the crisis of 2013 in South Sudan to say Dr. Riek Joined him.

Yes, his joining Dr. Riek was considered scandalous by the likes of Mading Ngor. Therefore, Mabior had to distance himself from Dr. Riek's legacy without distancing himself. It was a hard sell. It was a double-edged sword. It shows how less Mabior thinks of others, even political leaders with whom he agrees.

I admire Mabior’s intellect and eloquence. No doubt. He's also informed. He reads, unlike some "intellectuals" I know. I admire his drive. This is something the younger generation in South Sudan needs now. He can inspire.

But Mabior Garang has one problem. Hubris. I'm not sure if it is a personality issue or it is because he is Garang's son. Otherwise, Mabior needs to treat the sons and daughters of nobodies of South Sudan with respect and humility.

______

Kuir ë Garang (PhD) is the editor of TPR.

Dr. Jok Madut and Dr. Aldo Ajou say Bol Mel is not President Kiir’s heir apparent

 

Dr. Jok Madut (left), Dr. Bol Mel (middle) and Dr. Aldo Ajou Deng (right)

The social media statements by Dr. Jok Madut and Dr. Uncle Aldo Ajou are confusing. I think they will have to explain the following to South Sudanese.

Dr. Jok said that what is being discussed about Bol Mel is based on assumptions and hatred of the man. He also said that Bol Mel has not expressed any desire to replace Kiir. And that Kiir has not said he's preparing Bol Mel to replace him. I will give Dr. Jok the benefit of the doubt because he shared these views on social media where most of us are not always serious and measured when sharing our views.  

I have come to know Dr. Jok as far more sophisticated and self-aware than the status being referenced reveals.

Here is my dilemma. I’m not sure if Jok is saying that for us to accept the argument that Bol Mel regards himself as the heir apparent to President Kiir then he must say explicitly, "I want to replace President Kiir!"?

I will wait for Dr. Jok to explain himself. Bol Mel will have to be a complete dodo to say publicly he will replace President Kiir!

No!

Bol Mel has shown a meticulous ruthlessness, a systematicity of a miskiin sekin! The English calls such a person a silent killer.

Also, there is never a case where politicians are clear about their intentions. Facts and politicians are like Trump and Truth, water and oil!

Since Bol Mel was decreed in, he's been like Kiir's right-hand man. He stood beside President Kiir when the man from Kampala came to South Sudan. He was the one sent to Ethiopia to smooth things over with the New Flower [Addis Ababa] after J1 prioritized the man from Kampala over Dr. Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia.

When he was appointed VP, Bol verbally, explicitly targeted Riek Machar, a member of the presidency. He also asked Madam Nyandeeng not to abandon Kiir! I'm not sure what he meant by that! He also mentioned that he would get involved in security issues. We must ask ourselves why?

Now, Riek is in detention and Upper Nile and Jonglei are conflagrations. That Bol Mel may be Kiir's successor is more of a presumption than an assumption. Enter Bol Mel as VP and boom! there is money for salary! This is what late Steve Jobs called connecting "the dots moving backwards."

How about Uncle Dr. Aldo?

He said Kiir cannot just make Bol Mel his successor, arguing that SPLM has succession structures. He's kidding, right?

Is it not the same Kiir who embarrassed Kuol Manyang, imposed Peter Lam Both and then tossed him, demoted Wani Igga to Secretary General and then made Bol Mel one of the deputy chairs of the SPLM? Did anyone in the SPLM make a whimpering sound?

Note this. If the president goes abroad for state visits, article 1.6 section 1.6.4 of the Revitalized Peace Agreement says that the first vice president becomes the acting president on a temporary basis. When both the president and the first vice president are absent, the president appoint one of the four vice presidents as acting president.  

Since Riek is now in detention, let’s see who President Kiir would appoint as acting president. Vice President Nyandeeng? Vice President Josephine Lagu? Vice president Taban Deng Gai?

We will see…

Note that section 1.6.5 says that if the president is mentally or physically incapacitated then the next president will be selected by the party of the president. Dr. Riek cannot become president through the revitalized agreement of 2018. Perhaps Uncle Doctor has a point here. If SPLM leaders are no longer afraid of Kiir then they may ignore his wishes and pretend SPLM has structures to respect.

But Kiir is, we are told, not physically and mentally incapacitated now. When it comes to succession, please don’t try Kiir! Try Kiir...just try...!

So Uncle Aldo is saying Kiir will, somehow, respect rules, laws and regulations when it comes to who is to succeed him? Come on Uncle Doctor! Has anyone ever defied Kiir? Pagan, Nyandeeng and Riek did! Where are they now? Madam Nyandeeng is protected by the ghost and the liberation aura of John Garang. She became VP through G [X] not through Kiir’s SPLM.

Uncle Doctor also said that we cannot blame Bol Mel for the corruption inherent in awarding contracts. Bol Mel is just a businessman, he said. Is this an implicit endorsement of corruption?

So Bol Mel is our VP but we should not hold him legally and morally accountable? Is that what we are now supposed to expect from our public officials? "Blame the government! I knew there was corruption but what did you expect me to do?"

Folks, Bol Mel is a public figure, for better or for worse. Allow us to unpack his public life! He comes with violence and money…and the slick, efficient smoothness of a high-end gigolo!


____________

Kuir ë Garang (PhD) is the editor of The Philosophical Refugee (TPR). 

A tribe called SPLA masquerading as South Sudanese

First Vice President Riek Machar and President Salva Kiir Mayardit

____

I know President Kiir, most of the time, says the RIGHT thing but does the WRONG thing. While he can incite tribalism sometimes, he tends to sound like a leader once in a while. Check his Independence Day speech. At times he says the right thing to the people of South Sudan.

His actions, however, are most of the time contrary to what could be called leadership.

But credit where due. His call for calm is the right thing at the moment. I have been saying this over the last two decades: that President Kiir should always come out and address the country anytime there is a national tragedy and speak to the people of South Sudan.

There is something calming about words from the head of state. Leadership is a psycho-social reality.

Honorable Michael Makuei, the Minister of Information and the government spokesperson, calms no one down. Well, maybe a few South Sudanese find his condescending press statements calming. South Sudan is a country bereft of leadership. 

He talks with a princely I-will-say-what-I-want-so-what-the-hell-will-you-do-about-it attitude.

On the other hand, folks from Sudan People Liberation Movement In Opposition (SPLM-IO), that is, their spokespeople, talk like there is a gun to their heads. But they have this impotent, annoying, self-righteous attitude like they own THE truth. Like Truth=IO! They make me want to...forget it!

What South Sudanese do not have are leaders who speak on their behalf, leaders who care about South Sudan and her peoples.

But note that Uncle Makuei is neither Jieeng (Dinka) nor is he South Sudanese. He is from a tribe called the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). This tribe has different clans. The largest two clans are "In-Government" and "In-Opposition."  Bɛny (1) Kiir are Kuär (2) Riek are their tribal chiefs, respectively. 

SPLA is a tribe that lives in the past. The future scares it. It is a tribe that does not apologize. It considers humility a defeat. It does not entertain criticism. Criticism is disrespectful to this tribe. It considers itself infallible. These people do not take responsibility for their actions.

They only like to point their crooked fingers.

But it is a tribe that is internally divided. SPLA as tribal people have used division to recruit two clueless colonies: Jieeng and Nuer. SPLA has so mentally colonized these two nations that they believe that members of SPLA are their fellow tribesfolk.

But President Kiir, once in a while, acts like a true South Sudanese, not a colonialist. He abandons the egregious, insidious values of his SPLA tribefolk every now and then.

Today, he acted like members of his colony: South Sudanese. But you can see in the same speech that his SPLA tribal attitude jumps out of him once in a while: He points fingers at "enemy of peace", who are, strangely, his SPLA folks and the folks SPLA has mentally colonized.

____

Kuir ë Garang (PhD) is the editor of The Philosophical Refugee. 

______

Notes

1. Bɛny is a Jieeng word for a leader

2. Kuär is a Nuer word for a leaders.

Is SPLM-IO Becoming Politically Irrelevant?

Left: President Kiir; Right: VP, Dr. Riek Machar

By Kuir ë Garang

What I have noticed about Dr. Riek Machar is that he believes if he sticks to the truth and facts, then things will work out well. For some strange reasons, he has internalized this morally necessary but politically unpalatable reality. For a politician, this is odd, and very much so. He has been pushing this narrative now for well over a decade, that the world would side with him because he says the truth and President Kiir does not. But as he very well knows, truth in politics is a casualty of political schemes, interests and hypocrisies.

This does not mean there is no such a thing as truth or that truth does not matter. The issue is this: Truth, yes; but cui bono, who benefits?

Since August 17, 2015, when President Kiir and Dr. Riek Machar signed the agreement for the resolution of conflict in South Sudan (ARCISS) and then revitalized it on September 12, 2018, Dr. Riek Machar labored under the bewildering assumption that President Kiir will implement the agreement as stipulated in all its provisions. He also believes that if President Kiir does not implement the agreement, then peace partners and mediators will force him to ensure that all the provisions of the agreement are implemented.

This is a strange state of mind in politics, especially in countries Stuart Hall has described as complexly structured societies. I can say South Sudan is one of them.

President Kiir has shown time and again that he is either not interested in implementing the agreement or he does not know how to implement the agreement. This is a warranted presumption. Why Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO) still believes that President Kiir will change and implement the agreement is beyond me.

SPLM-IO has no political leverage. They only believe that truth and facts are on their side and that regional leaders will see who is at fault. But Kiir is the president so how regional leaders approach him is not as a subordinate or someone they can force to accept their punitive dictates.

This is something SPLM-IO must understand. Hear this again: They cannot, and will not, force Kiir’s hand! He is their colleague even when they at times act condescendingly toward him. IGAD leaders tried threatening Kiir like an infant in 2015. We know what happened.

If President Kiir must change, then that condition of change must be a political leverage Dr. Riek and SPLM-IO develop, either within the region or within the country. The agreement itself is not a leverage, but SPLM-IO believes it is.  The case of the Tumaini Initiative is a good example. It shows they neither have political leverage nor are they taken seriously in the region.

Running to mediators and regional leaders regularly to share grievances and the contravention of the agreement by President Kiir will only prove to Kiir that you are politically impotent and potentially becoming irrelevant. When regional leaders share Riek’s grievances with Kiir as casual advisories among colleagues, then any chance of Kiir taking you seriously dwindles with time.

Mediators and regional leaders can only urge the parties to the agreement to work toward the implementation of the agreement. That is all they can do. The people of South Sudan suffer when the agreements are not implemented; but President Kiir does not. He suffers no disincentive when he runs SPLM and ARCISS through the mud. As a frustrated former Ethiopian Prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, once said about the South Sudanese peace talks in Addis Ababa in 2015, the peace process had become meta-talks, talks about talks, not talks about peace.

SPLM-IO and Dr. Riek must find a way, through their own internal political mechanics, to force President Kiir to implement the agreement. No one outside Juba will do that. When President Kiir removed the minister of defense, Angelina Teny, on March 3, 2023, all SPLM-IO could do was share their displeasure and disenchantment with his actions. That was all.

It is time to realize that SPLM-IO political relevance in South Sudan should no longer be through the revitalized peace agreement. It must grow as a political entity. This is time for a political make-over. Even when we all know SPLM-IO is not necessarily on the wrong about ARCISS, and we know that facts and truth are on their side, being doggedly fixated on R-ARCISS is a dangerous political naivete. SPLM-IO’s long-term relevance should be through an institutionalized, coherent platform as a political party. That is the future, and that is the future of South Sudan. If Riek has no political leverage against Kiir, and facts to this date show he does not, and if regional leaders only convey advisories to Kiir, then it is time for Riek to change course. Political and strategic monotony is a sure path to political oblivion.

SPLM risk becoming, or it has already become, politically irrelevant. Unless of course being in government and occupying functionless, but fat government positions is how SPLM-IO wants to remain politically relevant in perpetuity.

_________

Kuir ë Garang (PhD), is the editor of The Philosophical Refugee. Twitter/X: @kuirthiy

 

South Sudan's 2024 Elections: "Salva Kiir Forever!"

Photo: Ontario Municipal and School Board Elections

It is obvious that the scheduled elections in South Sudan in 2024 will not be free and fair. This is something the SPLM-in-Opposition has reiterated. Conditions in the country are not conductive for the conduct of free and fair elections, they have noted. 

So why would anyone want to take part in such elections? This is a very good question. Why would anyone indeed?

I don't have any convincing answer. But I have my answer (s), nonetheless. 

Ironically, supporters of President Kiir, the chairman of the SPLM-in-Government, ask a contrary question: Why wouldn't anyone want to take part in elections?

This is the same question the governor of Lakes State, Riiny Tueny Mabor, asked recently in the SPLM rally in Wau: "There are people who say, the elections should not be conducted? Why shouldn't they be conducted?" 

He either doesn't think there are any reasons to the contrary, or he doesn't care if such reasons exist. 

SPLM-IG supporters, who do not need any reason to justify why President should be president, find it irrational that there are people who are jittery about 2024 elections. They are not only confident about the elections happening this year, but they also take the permanence of the presidency of Kiir with a very dangerous intuitiveness. 

As the governor of Warrap State, Manhiem Bol Malek, said during the rally in Wau, it is "Salva Kiir forever! Forever!"

Imagine...forever!

The following sad facts do not bother Kiir's supporters: Millions of South Sudanese are refugees in neighboring countries; no passable roads; there is rampant insecurity; increasing intra and inter-ethnic feuds, flooding; hunger and diseases, etc. 

These are of course mere political theatrics. We see this everywhere. A Trump rally in the United States or a Neo-Nazi rally in Germany or Italy would have similar uncritical, emotionally charged remarks.