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. 

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

The Troika should up the ante against Juba if their words are to have any meaning in the lives of South Sudanese

Lately, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States, commonly known as "Troika" in Sudan and South Sudan in the context of peace, have been talking...and talking...and talking...a lot. 

This has not always been the case. They have been, since the mid-1990s during the North-South war in Sudan, action-oriented  

Today, with embassies in Juba, all they do is issue ineffective press releases or statements. That is all. Necessarily diplomatic, yes. But what does that do for South Sudanese? Nothing.

For any change to materialize in South Sudan, the incumbent leadership must be subjected to something that would make it petrified. So far, nothing of the kind has been availed. Virtually nothing.

Targeted sanctions have not worked. Arms embargo has not worked. External pressure has not work. 

On July 3, 2026, Mr. Michael Adler, the US ambassador to Juba said words that continue to make me scratch my head. They make me scratch my head not because they are untrue. No. They make me shake my head because they have become platitudes. 

Here Ambassador Adler:

Is Adut Salva Kiir a proverbial wolf in a sheep's clothing?

President Salva (left) and Adut Salva Kiir (Right)

When Adut Salva Kiir was appointed President Kiir's special envoy for special programs in August of 2025, many of us received her appointment with high hope. We overlooked the nepotistic element. We had good reason. She promised to be different. What stood out for me was her promise to South Sudanese Gen Zs and all the voiceless South Sudanese.

 At the time Kenyan Gen Zs were protesting the high cost of living in Kenya.  She duly told South Sudanese young people that they had the right to express their grievances without fear of reprisal. That was the first time a high-ranking official had said something like that. Protests are taboo in South Sudan. For the powers that be, protests reek of revolution. 

But Adut appeared different, almost presidential. She pledged with that beguiling soft-spoken voice that she is

"representing those who served our nation. I'm representing the vulnerable. I'm representing those that have unspoken voices. I'm representing our fathers, their struggle. I'm representing a nation that had high hopes. And I don't take it lightly." 

How could one not like that?

There was good reason to hope that Adut would be strategically and politically different. She had lived in Australia, a relatively freer society, a society in which institutionalism and the rule of law are very accented. She appeared to know the value of reasonable disagreements and the logic of political and civil space. She even said she would have "an open-door policy. You can come to my office and I will listen." 

There is more. 

And more importantly, she said she was "open to criticism as well. I may not like it all, but I will take it in." 

It seemed like the dawn of a new day. But we were too optimistic.

Private reports and social media engagements by people very close to the first family and J1 informants are painting a different picture. Adut was only wearing a mask of amiability, of magnanimity. 

As things stand now, Adut, it seems, is no longer interested in service provision and national development. She wants to be Adut the wielder of unbridled power, an unaccountable power. 

She has been, apparently, sucked into power politics. She is no longer someone who is interested in changing South Sudan for better. She is interested in power as South Sudan's heiress apparent. 

Mabior Riiny Lual, a former MP in the South Sudan's transitional legislative assembly as an opposition figure, wrote on his Facebook account on May 25 that Adut was about to have herself decreed into office as Vice President for economic cluster and the first deputy chairperson of SPLM, the ruling party in South Sudan. 

This means she would replace Dr. James Wani Igga. Vice President Wani is now the first deputy chairperson of SPLM and the Vice President in charge of economic cluster.

This means the SPLM and the presidency would be led by father and daughter. But there seems to be an obstacle to her ascendancy. 

In my recent conversation with Mabior on KuirthiyTV, Mabior also mentioned that Adut is the one who does not want the former Vice President, Dr. Benjamin Bol Mel, to be released from detention. According to Mabior, Adut threatened to commit suicide if Dr. Bol Mel is released.

South Sudan needs peace, reconciliation and healing - NOw

Photo: South Sudan Eagle Media

South Sudanese have not known peace. They've only known war. This is almost becoming the national culture. When they are not suffering from deadly, internecine ethnic feuds, then they are suffering from state brutalization or neglect.

Even the period after the 1972 Addis Ababa Peace Agreement, which was supposed to be peaceful, was not entirely so. The elite, instead of taking advantage of the relative autonomy in the interest of the people, they turned the regional government into a theatre of mindless elitism (see Elijah Malok's book) and ethnicized politics. Service provision became secondary.

Today, the government of the day has a chance. It has all the trappings of a conventional government, at least structurally speaking. Functionally, that is a different conversation.

But there is no denying that we are way passed the failed state stage. We are in an anarchic stage. There is no order. The massacre of Nuer civilians in Ayod, Northern Jonglei by the lawless, undisciplined SSPDF (who seem to have turned the national army into, largely, an ethnic army), the recent massacre of over 200 Jieeng civilians in Ruweng Administrative Area by armed Nuer youth from Unity State, and the recent inter-ethnic massacre of civilians in Terekeka in Central Equatoria, are examples of such anarchy.

Something must change!

A recent warning by Hon. Pagan Amum of Real-SPLM of the risk of genocide is tragically coming true. Things should not continue this way.

But there is no government in place, really. There is even no one in power. The recent categorization by Hon. Lual Dau of United People's Alliance of the four competing, anti-people centers of power is one illustration of such political anomie and lack of a genuine, people-centered power center. These power centers are all rent seekers, red in the face with graft and corruption!

What we have is power struggle. It's chaotic. But things look orderly and calm from the elite's perspective. Their photo-ops with foreign dignitaries give them the impression they are successful leaders engaged in state-building.

The powers that be in South Sudan are not affected. Their families are safe. They get money through informal, neo-patrimonial channels of clientelism. The recent mass of arrests wasn't an anti-corruption and anti-graft campaign. It was clientelism betrayed within the graft brotherhood and sisterhood. No honor among thieves, they say!

The majority is suffering. South Sudanese are slaves in their own country, worked for free by their own leaders. Liberators!

What South Sudan needs now is not needless ethnic divisiveness. What we need is a serious leadership to accept PEACE unconditionally; and then launch a HEALING and RECONCILIATION agenda.

We need a people-centered leadership who can travel the country, even at the risk of their lives, to reconcile the people.

South Sudan is a failed state, par excellence. It is now risking a total self-destruction as ethnic groups have no law and order structure and relations.

__________

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

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.

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.

South Sudan's Dr. Riek Machar Reportedly in Khartoum for "Medical Treatment"

Photo credit: gurtong.com

Following reports by the United Nations on August 17th that United Missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) has extracted South Sudan's opposition leader and former First Vice President, Riek Machar, from the South Sudan-Congolese border on humanitarian grounds, Sudanese authorities have now confirmed that Machar is Khartoum for medical treatment.

Given the volatile relations between Juba and Khartoum, it was therefore imperative for the Sudanese officials to inform Juba that their reception of Dr. Machar was purely on 'humanitarian grounds.' From the pictures being circulated on social media, it's now apparent that Machar is in a very bad  shape medically.

Dr. Machar fled Juba at the beginning of the July following the resumption of fighting between his body guards and the president's body guards. While it isn't clear what happened on July 8th, the two parties have been accusing one another of having started the fighting. Machar claims he fled Juba fearing for his life while the government claims Machar was plotting to either kill the president or stage a coup. None of both claims have been independently verified.

Soon after Machar left Juba, Taban Deng Gai, the then SPLM-IO chief negotiator, was selected by IO officials in Juba to replace Machar 'temporarily' as both the IO leader and the First Vice President (FVP) until he [Machar] returns to Juba. Given the fact that Taban has changed his rhetoric, it's not clear if Machar will ever be allowed to assume his position as the FVP.

In his new capacity as the FVP of South Sudan, Taban toured Kenya and Sudan and called for Machar to 'renounce violence' and return to South Sudan as an average South Sudanese and wait for elections in 2018.

Since the reports of Machar having been killed turned out to be untrue and Taban not likely to relinquish his position, it's not clear what will happen when Machar gets better.