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.
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.
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.
The following quotes are from my conversation with Dr. William Abur and Dr. Santino A. Deng.
"You know, there's no any child that can be
born as a bad child, for example. No, a child can be a difficult child...based on where the child is raised, based on the
environment, based on the family situation, based on the school, based on the
community, what the children do. So now with this current climate of the
technology, some of the parents don't even know what the kids are doing as Dr.
Santino mentioned it before. They can be in a room and the parents are happy. saying, well, my children are inside, they are not out. But
they don't know what they are doing, who are the people that they are engaged
with. And that is a bigger issue within a number of families. The conversations also don't break through. You know, the relationship between the young person
and the parent, when that relationship is broken, it is hard for the parent to
be able to play their role.
The other burden that the parent are facing, most of the
parent are struggling with work and the life generally. So they don't have
enough time where they can be able to engage with their kid and especially with
a teenager to be able to find out how they are going, you know, what is
happening. Because it is important, we human being, need check-in. We need
check-in to be...
For example, children, those teenagers or younger children,
they need check-in, you know, someone to come and have a conversation with them
and say, hey, how did you go at school? How was the day? How did you go at
work? How was your day? Those kind of check-in are very important.
Psychologically, they are very useful. And this is where you find out that,
okay, the person may be open up to talk about, you know, there was incident
that happened at school.
Or there was this that happened that made me upset. That is
lacking that conversation. The basic check in. I would say the parent need to
step up to be able to do just a simple check in a simple evaluation to check in
your kit. Even though they are inside, you need to be able to knock knock at
the door and come in and say hey, how is your day? How are you going?" ~ Dr. William Abur.
~ Dr. William Abur.
"I think when we talk of parents, there are a lot that they
can do and I am mindful and I understand that some parents might be struggling
with other things, language barriers among others and the web, juggling web and
so on. And sometimes being maybe some single mothers is really struggling with,
you know, with theprimary parenting support and trying to put the put on the
table as well. But there are a lot that they can do. I have done some work a
few years ago, maybe about seven years ago here in one of the school. And I was
asked to do some work with a kind of the children that go to school, young
people themselves and teachers in school so that I can get their perspective.
It was one of the schools that was getting overwhelmed and
have never been exposed into diversity before. And what came out of that report
that I did was a lot of young people were saying, some of the things that I was
mentioning earlier, saying that most of the time when they have issues at a
school, they report to the teachers, most of the time they're getting ignored,
even sometimes.
they get blamed for being the victim. so what happens
sometimes they may end up fighting, taking law into their own hand because
nobody is actually responding to their complaint and they become more victim
and get expelled. Sometimes they get discouraged and told, you can't do this
subject. Actually, William know very well that they work in some school here,
maybe told that, this is too hard for you, you can't do it.
Some parents proved some of their teachers wrong and said, I
have to do it or go into another school and actually succeed. Some young
people, may give in, but support become very crucial. I came across some
example where young people were supported by their parents and some relatives
and they actually succeed in so many ways. So what they told me was young
people in particular."~ Dr. Santino A. Deng
~ Dr. Santino A. Deng
Most immigrant communities face a host of challenges when they settle in a new countries. This is a historical problem. Meaning South Sudanese in Australia are not the only immigrant and refugee group to be in such a situation. South Sudanese in Canada have faced, and continue to experience, similar problems among the youth.
These problems, which Dr. William and Dr. Santino have addressed, include the following:
Being neglected by teachers and school administrators
Being faulted when they are not at fault
Stereotypes and prejudgments
Racist treatment by the police
Overrepresentation in the criminal justice system
Cultural disconnect between home culture and host culture
Lack of appropriate, community role models
Lack of parental attention due to pressure from work and life
Misconstrual of what it means to be an Australia, Canadian or American
Incentivization from gangs and criminal to run criminal errands
Youth workers and scholars who study youth issues are familiar with these issues. They are characterized by overt and subtle issues of social marginalization and institutional neglect.
On Sunday, I had a conversation with two South Sudanese Australian researchers as the beginning of what I think will be a protracted conversation.
I wanted to unpack these problems from the perspective of researchers and from the Australian context. These researchers are Dr. William Abur, a lecturer at the University of Melbourne and Dr. Santino A. Deng, a researcher working for the government of Victoria, Australia.
I asked them to lay out the issues within the Australian context, and to propose possible expert solutions.
The following is our conversation.
________________
Kuir ë Garang (PhD) is the editor of TPR. Follow me on X: @kuirthiy Instagram: @Kuirthiy
Destruction in Gaza, Palestine. Photo: Euromedmonitor.org
"For Sowell, therefore, you must take cues from history. If you cannot find a historical precedent, then stop looking for that kind of a world."
The west's fervent and uncritical support of Israel
even when Israel commits a genocide makes me think about human equality.
Is equality a mirage?
Given the persecution of the Jewish people in
Europe in the last 2000 years, I feel saddened by the fact that those who know
what means to be hated and persecuted by simply being who they are, now premise
peace and co-existence on bombs.
I teach young people. I do research on young people.
In these activities, my aim is to work toward a better world, a world in which
everyone would feel respected, a world in which what fails you is your
inability.
That is the world I want to leave behind for my
children and the youth I teach. This world is yet to be realized.
But there are conservative thinkers like Thomas
Sowell (see: Social Justice Fallacies, Intellectuals and Society,
Intellectuals and Race), John McWhorter (Woke Racism) and Coleman
Hughes (End of Race Politics) who think differently.
They either say such a world is already here, or
they believe it is an impossible world. A utopia of Saint Thomas More variety. Meaning a
search for a just and equal world is fantastical, a childish wish. They want us
to live according to what the world throws at us. In other words, we must live
in the real world and accept things as they are.
Violence. Military brutality. Military invasion.
Genocides. Murders of civilians. Wars. Economic equality.
Photo: Palestinian Return Centre
Within this framework, Israel is said to be adapting
to a world it cannot change. Israeli genocidal destruction of Gaza is, by this
account, a response to a real world Israel did not create.
This is a world in which equality is a pipe dream.
For instance, equality is a natural impossibility
for Thomas Sowell. We shouldn't dream of a world that is not and has
never been. Pssst: Sowell uses history to make his point. He makes this
point in Black Rednecks and White Liberals and Conquest and Culture.
For Sowell, therefore, you must take cues from
history. If you cannot find a historical precedent, then stop looking for that
kind of a world.
As such, for the Sowells, the Hughes, and the
McWhorters of the world, racism is, largely, a passé.
To be realistic, they are right or wrong
based on one's ideological camp. You will find their supporters and haters in
boat loads. Sowell puts this well in Intellectuals and Society:
“The
coincidence of real world challenge and intellectual challenge, which [H. G] Wells
and others have tended to treat as almost axiomatic, depends on the initial
assumptions of one’s social vision.”
To
Sowell, the left forces their vision (as the anointed – McWhorter would call
them “The Elect” and Hughes would call them “Neo-racist”) on the rest of us. Conservative
intellectuals, according to Sowells, remain faithful to the facts of the real
world.
But here is where they seem naive. They think their
assessments are simply objective. That they write about facts, common
sense, and the real world.
Mark Carney is a protest candidate. He was not elected for his policies, necessarily. He was elected for likeability as a contrast to Trudeau (who he advised informally). He was also elected for demeanor as a contrast to Pierre Poilievre, the 'Canadian Trump', who has, for the good of Canada, lost his seat. Good riddance!
Poilievre talked of change but he's been holding the same parliamentary seat since 2004. The people of Ottawa-Carleton and Bruce Fanjoy said, 'yes, change indeed!' And change they engendered!
Carney, for better or for worse, symbolizes calm, order and the status quo Trudeau had apparently compromised. Trudeau had made Canada 'unfamiliar.' On principle, status quo scares the hell out of me. But given Trump's menace, I'll give Carney the benefit of the doubt! After all, he talks like that smooth-talking uncle whose words make issues less painful!
But I'm not celebrating...yet. I'm not dismissing him either.
For those of us living at the margin and studying those who live at the margin, Carney's victory is something to approach cautiously. He is a man who has never done groceries. He has no clue how the average Canadian lives. He is now elected to learn what it means to be Canadian. The man had three passports. A true globalist.
He was recently called out about lying about his first call with Trump. He had said Trump 'respects Canada's sovereignty'. That was a lie. He failed to tell Canadians that Trump repeated the call for Canada to become the 51st state in their first phone call. Why lie to Canadians about such a fundamental issues?
Recently, he first stood by liberal candidate, Paul Chiang, who had called for a conservative candidate to be abducted and taken to the Chinese consulate for a bounty. Really? Chang would later resign as a candidate even after Carney stood by him!
I'm glad Carney won. No doubt. But I'm not enthused by his taking over in Ottawa...yet. He is too close to the centre that he risks becoming centre right. Poilievre even complained that Carney has copied his platform. Carney wants to be different from Trudeau so bad that he will risk pandering to the conservative, old guards within the liberal party. Yet, he was Trudeau's informal advisor. There are conservatives who find it 'respectable' to be called 'liberal.' Carney was once asked by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a conservative that molded Poilievre, to be finance minister.
Celebrate. But celebrate with caution. Carney is a neoliberal, a neocon of Obama variety! I'll wait to be impressed! I work with children and youth and my daughter plans to attend university in Canada. I'm yet to see a policy on Carney's platform that would give them something about which to smile.
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.
Since
I posted the video
commentary about the Rwandan incident, several things have become clear. Both the
Rwandan police and the South Sudanese Student leadership in Rwanda have noted
that the violent incident that was wrongly attributed to South Sudanese
students has, if anything, to do with South Sudanese.
As
the president of South Sudanese Students Association in Rwanda, Saleh
Mohammed Adam, has said in his
interview with Juba-based Eye Radio, “the incident happened on the 27th
of December, so we actually have seen the footage, and I told them clearly when
we tried to view the footage …and in the actual truth we found out these people
who fought Rwandans…are not South Sudanese.”
He
added, “I have called one of the police who was in the investigation process of
the incident [and] he told me I was right. They said the issue has been already
solved so it was just misinformation and misidentification.”
This
is why it is crucial that we wait to hear all the facts surrounding the incident
before we respond as to who is at fault. Both Rwandans and South Sudanese
automatically assumed that South Sudanese are to blame. They attributed
violence, a natural fact of every society, to be a natural propensity of South
Sudanese as people.
While
the South Sudanese leadership did
not respond to the incident, the Rwandan
authorities did.The Rwandan police and
the ministry of foreign affairs did not buy into the narrative that South
Sudanese are naturally violent. Rwandan authorities have shown a sense of
leadership South Sudan’s foreign ministry has not.
Boniface
Rutikanga, the spokesperson for the Rwandan
national police, cautioned the public against using social media as the source
of facts and truth.
“People should not be worried about what is
going on over the social media but should learn to understand that the fact not
always comes from the social media” [sic].
Advising
against targeting South Sudanese, Mr. Rutikanga said that the incident is a normal
event that can happen between any communities living in Rwanda or among Rwandan
themselves.
“What
happened”
he added, “was just a case that could
happened to any another community. It is normal. It could happen between
Rwandans among themselves or could have happened between one community and
another” [sic].
Mr.
Rutikanga assured the public that neither South Sudanese nor other foreign
nationals living in Rwanda have violently targeted Rwandans.
“…there is nothing special that would be
called that South Sudanese were targeting Rwandans or certain foreign group
targeting Rwandans. There were no premeditation of doing that, so let me just
assure people that there is nothing problematic.”
Responding
to the hateful vitriol directed at South Sudanese by Rwandans on the social
media, The
New Times warned on January 1,
2025, against current and historical dangers of othering. that “Young [Rwandan]
people should be taught about the dangers of otherness, especially prejudicial
and stereotypical. It starts off as just that, but the cost is too high. Crimes
committed should be reported to the right institutions and dealt with legally.”
The
New Times added that “Inciting hate against a
specific people has no place in Rwanda today or tomorrow. Our hospitality
should reflect the remarkably diverse society we have built over the years.”
The
New Times was echoing what the Rwandan Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Olivier Nduhungihere, posted
on X on December 30, 2024, about Rwandan
values of unity, rule of law and respect for diversity of the people living in
Rwanda.
These
remarks underscore what I said in the video; that, at the time, we did not know
what happened. I said that we should wait for the police to do the
investigation to find out what really happened.
I
also, as a cautionary reminder, showed a video of South Sudanese being maligned
in the Australian media. Some of the videos shown in Australia as South
Sudanese youth engaging in acts of violence turned out to be non-South
Sudanese.
As it turns out, the Australian case is
similar to the Rwandan incident as facts start to come out. It is pent-up
hatred meant to tarnish South Sudanese.
It
is therefore vital that we wait for facts before we share our opinions in spaces
that do not have editorial oversights. X, formerly known as Twitter, is a
sociopolitical wild west.
While
it is prudent that we respond to reports when they arise, it is also crucial
that we show restraint and avoid self-denigrations.
I
am not, of course, saying that South Sudanese do not engage in acts of violence
in Australia or in East Africa. I only suggest that we blame South Sudanese
when they make mistakes. As South Sudanese, we should not join self-blame and
denigration before we get all the facts.
We
have started to see ourselves through the prisms of those who have no respect
for us.
___
Kuir
ë Garang (PhD), is the editor of the Philosophical Refugee (TPR)
'Garang also reiterated the importance of education to the red army as future leaders in his speech to Sudanese refugees in Itang Refugee Camp (also in Western Ethiopia) in 1988. Garang told civilians that Southern and Western Sudanese were excluded from power in Khartoum because they are said to be uneducated. “Why are they not educated?” he asked. He added that “this is why we have built schools for the red army because they are the future generation. No one will say in the future that they are not educated.”'
As we yet again commemorate another May 16th, I think about the future of South Sudan through these three generational groups: The SPLA generation, the red army generation, and the youth (as conventionally defined by the United Nations and the African Union).
When
I read in Frantz Fanon’s TheWretched of the Earth that “Each
generation must out of relative obscurity discover its mission, fulfil it, or
betray it”, I wonder about the youth in South Sudan and my generation (the red
army generation). With the current political and economic situation in South
Sudan, the red army generation seems to have betrayed its generational
mission.
But
is this generation to blame? First, what is this generation and why it is
important?
The
red army generation, called the lost boys of Sudan
in the United States where some of them resettled as refugees in early 2000s,
were born in the late 1970s and the early 1980s. To the Southern rebels
(1983-2005)—the Sudan’s People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the Sudan
People’s Liberation Army (SPLA)—the red army generation was to furnish Sudan
with disciplined, educated post-liberation leaders.
Of
course, SPLA recruited
some of these boys as combat infantry in the 1990s. These older boys, called
Jesh el-assuot (black army) informally because they were of fighting age
according to the SPLA, were hardly adults as conventionally
defined. It is however important to note
that the SPLA leadership believed in the education of this generation. With all
their short-comings, which
are very well documented, SPLA leaders did not blindly use them all as child
soldiers. The future was a haunting presence.
While
the use of child soldiers must be condemned, and rightly so, it is important to
understand the cultural and the survivalist context in which SPLA recruited and
inducted them as child soldiers. This cultural dimension, while not necessarily
acceptable per se, must be factored into any analysis of South Sudanese
liberation history and all its complex dimensions. It cannot be ignored, or oversimplified,
if the present status of the youth and the red army generation in South Sudan
is to be properly contextualized.
The SPLA
senior leadership also understood that a revolutionary agenda without any
strategic plan for the young generation is foolhardy. Speaking in 1988 to Jesh el-amer
(the red army) in Pinyudo Refugee Camp
in Western Ethiopia, John Garang de Mabior, the co-founder of SPLM/SPLA and its
ideological
architect, said that the duty of the red army generation is “to
re-build the country.”Garang added that
“my responsibility and the responsibility of my generation will be to dismantle
Old Sudan…we will raze it to the ground.”
Garang
also reiterated the importance of education to the red army as future leaders
in his speech to Sudanese refugees in Itang Refugee Camp
(also in Western Ethiopia) in 1988. Garang told the civilians that Southern and
Western Sudanese were excluded from power in Khartoum because they are said to
be uneducated. “Why are they not educated?” he asked. He added that “this is
why we have built schools for the red army because they are the future
generation. No one will say in the future that they are not educated.”
The
importance of education for the red army is also underscored by the decision by
the SPLA to send about 600 young men and women to Cuba
in the mid-1980s for education. Another important educational program
encouraged by the SPLA leadership to educate the red army generation produced
scholars of Face
Foundation of Polotaka, Eastern Equatoria.
Additionally,
in refugee camps (Itang,
Pinyudo,
Dima,
Kakuma,
etc) where the red army settled, SPLA appointed leaders to supervise them. They
emphasized the importance of education to aid agencies providing relief
services in these camps. On a personal note, I completed elementary and high
school in Kakuma Refugee Camp due to SPLM’s emphasis on education. It is with
this emphasis on education that a prominent SPLA commander, after talking to my
mother in 1995 in Mangalatore
Displace Camp, accepted to take me to
Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. Schools in Mangalatore were poor. Because of the itinerant
nature of internally displaced persons, I found it difficult to benefit from
constantly interrupted schooling.
DR. JOHN GARANG DE MABIOR ON LEADERSHIP, SERVICE PROVISION, AND ACCOUNTABILITY
With
this emphasis on education and the red army as future leaders, why then are the
youth and the red army generation marginalized in South Sudan?
The
obvious answer is what SPLM leaders have become. Instead of building an
inclusive economy and democracy, or allowing the red army generation to play
that role, SPLM has built a self-enrichment kleptocracy
where a coterie of powerful political and military elites siphon state
resources to foreign banks. Within this system, the youth is seduced
into it or marginalized.
This predatory “gun
class”, as South Sudanese scholar an
former minister Majak D’Agoot calls them, has become callously parasitic on
state resources.So the conditions in
which the youth and the red army generation could fulfil their generational
mission, in
state-building for instance, are
non-existent.
As
D’Agoot has noted, “SPLA has morphed into a degenerative gun-toting aristocracy
that straddles the sociocultural, political, and economic spheres like a
colossus.” This has enabled a predatory elitism, an elite-centred economic
system of reciprocity. They have made it the political
and economic culture in the country. The youth and the red army generation joins
them because it pays. Others join this predatory elite on ethno-centric basis. The
generational mission has become an inconvenience or a threat
to personal safety.
To
stop the gun class from money-laundering, the United States sent Sigal
Mandelker, the Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial
Intelligence, to Kenya and Uganda, which have become money-laundering hubs for South
Sudanese gun class. After Mandelker’s visit, money laundering continues. State-building
and service provision have been abandoned.
Instead
of being allowed to fulfil their generational mission, the youth and the red
army generation face
arbitrary arrests, tortures at national security secret locations, and the unexplained
disappearances. Frustrations has also
caused self-destructive decisions for this generation. The rebellion and
subsequent assassination by the South Sudanese army of businessman and
philanthropist, Kerubino Wol, and the arrest by the FBI of Dr. Peter Biar Ajak,
resulted from these generational frustrations. It is the attempt by the youth
and the red army generation to fulfil their generational missions that puts
them in trouble with the South Sudanese national security.
Those
in positions of power are appointed through nepotistic arrangements or through
political cronyisms. They are mere tokens without real power. For instance, the
deputy governor of Jonglei State, Atong Kuol Manyang, is the daughter of a
powerful former SPLA commander, Kuol Manyang Juuk. Kuol is also a senior
advisor to President Kiir. The deputy Mayor of the city of Juba, Thiik Thiik
Mayardit, is the nephew of President Salva Kiir.
The
governor of Jonglei State, Mr. Denay Jock Chagor, the national minister of
health, Ms. Yolanda Awel Deng Juach, and the national minister of petroleum,
Mr. Kang Chol, are among the red army generation who were appointed through the
revitalized agreement for the resolution of the conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCISS)
signed by SPLM-In-Government and SPLM-In-Opposition in 2018. SPLM leaders find
it nearly impossible to appoint the youth and the red army generation into positions
of power on merit.
Co-opted
South Sudanese youth and the red army generation must therefore reject SPLM’s predatory
elitism however solvent. Otherwise, corrupt, and self-centred leaders in their
60s, 70s, and 80s will continue to be the past, the present, and the future of
the country.
