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

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

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

This is important. 

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

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

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

That's the general understanding and approach to neutrality. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

___

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

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.

The dangers of uncritical ethnic allegiance

 

Photo: Mercy Corps

By the Editor

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

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

But it all begins with the political elite.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo: Courtesy of Mabior Garang's Facebook account

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

______

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

No!

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

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

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

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

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

How about Uncle Dr. Aldo?

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

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

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

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

We will see…

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

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

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

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

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

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


____________

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

Thank you, Mr. President!

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!

Thank you for socio-politically Khartoumizing South Sudan! Thank you for Ibrahim-Abbouding, Jaafer-Nimeiring, and Omer-Beshiring yourself! Thank you for turning SPLM into a totalitarian machine!

Today, in every part of the country, there is either ethnic feud or massacres, a full-blown civil war, or senseless deaths through cattle wrestling.

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.

South Sudan has become your fiefdom, à la King Leopold II. That you don't pay them is testimonial of your control over their free 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? 

_____

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

South Sudanese students' violence in Rwanda: An update

 

Photo courtesy: The New Times

January 4, 2025 

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 27^th 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)

 

 

Is the South Sudanese state turning South Sudan into a slave labor camp?

 

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!

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

SPLM's predatory elitism and the red army’s betrayed generational mission in South Sudan

 Published on Friday, May 17, 2024. 

Photos: WHAS11; City Reviews

'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 The Wretched 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.  

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Dr. Kuir ë Garang is the editor of TPR.