While President Salva Kiir is outside the country receiving
medical treatment, South Sudan should be asking itself a much bigger question: Why does the absence of one man immediately create a race
among others to position themselves for power?
Is leadership in South Sudan truly about serving the
Republic, or has it become a competition over who will inherit the seat of
power?
If every time the President leaves the country, individuals
begin calculating how they can take over, then we must ask ourselves whether we
have built a government based on institutions—or one based on personalities.
President Kiir has spent decades at the center of South
Sudan's political system. Whether one agrees with his leadership or not, the
reality is that he has often had to manage competing political, military, and
personal interests around him.
But there is a lesson for everyone around him: A leader who constantly fears betrayal will never fully
trust those who appear more interested in his position than in the survival of
the Republic.
And that is where today's leaders must look at themselves.
Instead of asking, “When can I take over?”, every
responsible leader should be asking: “What can I do today to make South Sudan stronger when the
current President is no longer in office?”
That is the difference between a politician and a statesman.
South Sudan does not need men who become courageous only
when the President is absent. It needs men and women who can think
independently, govern responsibly, and defend the constitutional order
regardless of who is sitting in J1 [Juba 1].
And this message should not be reduced to Warrap, to Jieeng
leadership, or to any particular community.
This is a national question.
No tribe should be blamed for the failures of individual
politicians. No community should be treated as the property of one political
faction. South Sudan belongs to all its citizens.
If the current generation truly wants to leave a legacy,
then it must stop thinking only about who will replace Kiir and start thinking
about what kind of country will exist after Kiir.
Power is temporary.
The Republic is permanent.
The chair in J1 is not the destiny of South Sudan. South
Sudan itself is the destiny.
So let every leader ask himself or herself honestly: If tomorrow I am given the highest office in the land, do I
have the vision to unite the country, the courage to protect its people, and
the humility to serve rather than rule?
If the answer is "no", then the ambition to take over should
end today.
South Sudan does not need another race for the chair. It
needs a generation of statesmen capable of carrying the nation beyond the
personalities of its current leaders.
___
*Comrade Bil Riar, Son of Warrap State.
Editorial Note: The views expressed in this article belong solely to the author and not TPR.
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.
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.
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.
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).
Except for those benefiting from
South Sudan as a rent state, the country is, unequivocally, a failed state. But
I'm not "a bad-wicher!" [as Mr. Ateny Wek would accuse folks like
me]. I'm just tired. Really tired!
I've been doing this for more than two decades. My fellow citizens who used to
call me names for criticizing you are now calling you vile names I dare not
repeat here.
I was only then a concerned, albeit a young, citizen who knew your
revolutionary record as a led-leader. You are good, even efficient, at
following orders, at being guided, being told what to do.
I didn't see you as a leader of your people! I thought you were a stabilizing
force from behind a leader.
In 2005, my fellow citizens thought I was a mindless, peace-disturbing kid who
didn't know what he was saying. Why was I seeing in you what they didn't see?
They see you now, Mr. President! Clearly! But too late I guess!
Yes, the humblest of men, the most successful president in the history of the
world, is only focused obsessively on his mindless decrees and those with whom
he shares the spoils from oil monies.
Bravo, Bilpam Akech, for an accurate commentary! "Kiir Must Stay!"
you say! He must stay on to make South Sudan a-slave-labor state!
South Sudanese, Mr. President is so kind that you remain quiet when you go for
more than a year without salaries. You love him so much that you sing praises
to him as you die of hunger, diseases, floods, ethnic violence, state
oppression, and mere stupidity of his ethnic and yäc-centered cheer-leading
minions. Their ceaseless panegyric has become nauseating.
Thank you, Mr. President, for turning a beautiful country into a place where
citizens tell their fellow citizens to "go back to their ancestral
lands." Thank you for making South Sudan a place where South Sudanese are
so secure that they move from their ancestral lands to go and inconvenience,
through no fault of their own, the lives of their fellow citizens in other
parts of the country. Kudos!
Thank you, Mr. President, for making me understand what you meant by "no
reverse gear" in 2005. I thought it meant a full-speed sprint to social
development and economic success.
A true Land of Milk and Honey!
I didn't know what you meant was an-SPLM-bullet-train to mediocrity, disorder,
anarchy, death, violence and slavery.
Thank you for making South Sudan the only country in the world were citizens
work for free. Scholars of slavery and historians tell us that slavery is about
ownership of the people, especially their labor.
We know what would happen if South Sudanese protest, even peacefully!
Bullets...as your nephew (Thiik) and your government spokesperson (Makuei) have
warned! And Bilpam Akech has spoken for you: South Sudanese should COMMIT
SUICIDE (hang themselves) if they don't like the amazing country the humblest
man in the world has built!
Thank you for making more than a century of a peoples' struggle mean your
transformation into an absolute king, a colonialist ruling over subject people
from Juba, a neocolonial metropole.
These are subject people about whom you don’t care! Or do you?
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)
Photo Courtesy: Office of the President of South Sudan
January 3, 2025
It is good to be optimistic. It helps you focused to confront adversities in life. There is nothing wrong with that attitude when you are self-motivating.
But when a president tells citizens to be optimistic without giving them reasonable political or economic plans to be hopeful, he risks trivializing their pain and desperation.
This is what President Kiir of South Sudan has done in his recent New Year's message.
South Sudanese have gone for months without salaries. Instead of apologizing to the people of South Sudan, or tell them how the nonpayment of salaries will be addressed in the new year, the president thanked South Sudanese for their patience, resilience, patriotism, and submission.
Asking South Sudanese to be optimistic when the president presented no tangible agenda for the resolution of what has become a chronic problem in the country is to insult the people of South Sudan.
Asking South Sudanese to work for free for more than a year, and expecting them to continue on waiting patiently, is risky. It borders on creating a slave labor nation, as someone has noticed.
Admitting economic problems as the president did in his new year's message on December 31, 2024 is reasonable.
But it is not followed by a plan. President Kiir only asks South Sudanese to embrace uncertainty in perpetuity. A diseased, hungry, flooded, unsafe, and despondent populace cannot build a country. And it can by no means turn into a state-building human resource.
South Sudanese are exhausted. They have been taken advantage of by South Sudanese leaders under President Kiir and the SPLM.
The people of South Sudan need more than pastoral inspirations. The youth of South Sudan need programs that would allow them to see and embrace a brighter future the president invokes without a plan.
The president only invokes a brighter future like a traditional seer or a false Christian prophet.
Reminding South Sudanese of the challenges they already live through is to be oblivious of the living conditions of the people. It is self-absolution.
President Kiir is a political leader. He is not a priest taking confessionals from his congregation.
He should deal in facts, figures and strategic plans.
Statements such as "the government will prioritize" or "I am...directing that the Ministry of Agriculture double its effort" are vacuous personal directives.
The president should speak forcefully in terms of government's plans not personal directives. He should own failures not deflect them or speak in terms of collective mistakes. He is the president.
When one reads the tone and the messaging in the president's speeches and addresses, he speaks like a middle-management executive who takes orders from the CEO.
That "We in government of today must do our best" or "We must ensure..." are not reassuring. They are abdications of responsibility to the people of South Sudan.
If there are economic challenges, and indeed there are, then what is the government's strategy to resolve the problem? Not mere personal directives. Tangible, documented strategies. This is missing.
Asking South Sudanese to continue to work for free is a risky affair. It borders on slave labor.
This must stop!
_________________
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.
