Incompetence or Indifference: AU Mediated Peace Talks

It is a general knowledge in South Sudan that Inter-Governmental Agency on Development (IGAD) successfully mediated the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in Sudan between 2002 and 2005. The advent of relative peace in Sudan and the eventual succession of South Sudan from Sudan can be credited to IGAD. However, this point of view is being put to an awful test as IGAD’s negotiators seem lost and confused…or even grossly incompetent. The modalities IGAD is using are mediocre at best and uselessly circular at worse.

In January this year, South Sudan’s Assistant minister for foreign affairs, Peter Bashir Bandi, told one SSTV host that IGAD plays down any initiatives generated by South Sudanese themselves. Anytime South Sudanese made headway in negotiations, Bandi argues, IGAD would postpone the talks without any explanation. And when the talks are resumed, IGAD would give new discussion guidelines and all parties start from scratch. This raises many questions as to why IGAD doesn’t give South Sudanese a greater role in drafting negotiation policy positions.

If IGAD successfully mediated Sudan’s CPA then why is it so heard now for IGAD to do so when the conditions of belligerence between the two warring parties are different?  The conditions that led to the current civil war are by far less problematic than the conditions that caused South Sudanese to take up arms against the Sudanese government in Khartoum.

General Lazarus Sumbeiywo, who helped bring peace to South Sudan and is now part of the mediation team, knows this. The differences between SPLM-IO and SPLM-IG are ideological, personal and slightly tribal. They are not as grossly divergent as the racial and religious differences between the then South and North. What exacerbates the difficulty in the mediation process now in Ethiopia is the mechanics IGAD is applying. The modalities are meant to force peace, claim credit for the job well done and then blame the warring parties should this peace unravel. South Sudan doesn’t need a myopic process as an easy way out of this war. Any short term solution is going to be a long-term political and security nightmare in the country. Is IGAD planning to destroy South Sudan?

Why is it the IGAD that drafts the negotiation substance and blueprints? This is not peace mediation but peace enforcement. South Sudanese leaders are the ones who very well know the problems that led to this crisis; and they are the ones who will lead South Sudan should peace come. It is therefore prudent for IGAD to allow all policy positions and negotiation contents to be drafted by the warring parties. IGAD should only be there to actually do its job: mediate. This draft-and-reject, draft-and-accept process is a waste of both money and time; and it continues to endanger lives of South Sudanese. The only hope for South Sudan has been placed in the hands of IGAD for South Sudan credit IGAD with CPA. This hope is being betrayed by IGAD.

This article might appear like it’s excusing the originators of the problem. Far from it! South Sudanese leaders have shown little to no practical compassion for the suffering South Sudanese. Neither SPLM-IO chairman, Dr. Riek Machar nor President Kiir Mayardit, sees the need to call a press conference to address the grievances and needs of South Sudanese who were killed, bereft or displaced by forces under their commands. They hear humanitarian agencies constantly warning about famine but these leaders show little interest in the suffering of the people. Internally displaced civilians are living in squalor conditions in UNMISS camps yet none of the leaders shows interest. They only pay lip service about being the one fighting on behalf of South Sudanese.

So what will it take for IGAD to realize that South Sudanese leaders should be held more accountable for the current crisis? IGAD needs to put South Sudanese at the centre of the negotiation process. And if sanctions are to be imposed then practical measures need to be taken instead of constantly warning the warring parties without actually putting in place punitive measures. Both Cessation of Hostilities Agreement and the Cease Fire have been violated with no consequences. Monitoring and Verification Mechanism is a complete joke! So why would people who face no consequences be serious about peace talks they are not even meaningfully part of?

Eric Casebolt, Savagery and Emotionless population!

The only thing that makes a person a human being are the feelings toward others. Sometimes I feel like the way European-American police officers act towards African-American kids strips these police officers of their humanity. Their actions towards these kids put them in concert with the wild. If a kid tells an officer 'I'm sorry!' and the officer says 'I don't care!' then you know either European-American personhood is morally challenged or America hires wild beasts in the name of police officers...or the American system is as it was since the 1600s. America is slowly drifting back into the past.

The recent footage of a police offer pinning down a McKinney (Texas )14-year old  girl and talking to a bunch of kids as if they are adults requires America to reconsider the state of mind of their officers. If an adult looses himself because kids who pose no danger to anyone turned up at a suburban pool party then you gotta wonder how this state of affair is different from Jim Crow era! European-American home owners in the area told Zahid Arab of Fox4 that the officer was justified in this action. This is heartless!

A conscientious European-American kid at the scene portrayed an attitude that is admirable; something that I believe should be the future of America. “Everyone who was getting put on the ground was black, Mexican, Arabic...The cop “didn’t even look at me. It was kind of like I was invisible.”

The calm and mannerism these African-American kids showed made me proud. While some of the young African-American men that are routinely killed by European-American police officers have questionable characters, these kids were just celebrating the end of school year.

And what makes me even more horrified is the fact that an adult civilian (European-American) simply watched emotionlessly as a 14-year girl was being assulted by a police officer without this adult saying a single word. A human population that feels nothing toward another human population is a dangerous human population. We are human beings because of our feelings. And if the adults, who called the police, believe the police action was justified then something is terribly wrong in American moral conscientious. I know European-Americans have always been morally challenged hisotrically but I'd assume a level of evolution toward the positive. It's 2015 in the name of the son of a the Jewish Carpenter!

How come young European-Americans have more hearts and human emotions than their parents? Perhaps these younger generation of European-America is the future of America. They are more human than the parents with robotic hearts!

My main concern is the emotionlessness with which these people act. What makes them human, exactly?

And what is even more appalling is the fact that Eric Casebolt, the offending police officer, is a decorated officer. Seriously!  This man has a position of responsibility in the police Union and has won several medals as reported by Washington Post. You just have to wonder, if that's the kind of the officer who winds medal, then how bad are the rest?

Eric Casebolt was foul-mouthed, unprofessional, emotionally savage, yet he's the kind of officer who winds medals! "God Bless America!"