TABAN DENG GAI SHOULD UNITE THE NUER FIRST

While Taban ascendancy to the post of FVP was a sinister scheme, his good working relationship with President Kiir is proving to be a dilemma for IGAD. He speaks of peace and renunciation of violence. While we know those are empty rhetorics, his words are politically efficient when it comes to their effect on regional countries and the international community. The international community only cares about PEACE in South Sudan regardless of who brings that peace.
This is going to be an uphill battle for Riek Machar as the odds are stacked against making him irrelevant politically. Taban has abandoned ARCISS. There's no, in principle, IO in Juba but SPLM. However, Taban's amplification of his call for PEACE and RENUNCIATION of violence is playing into the ears of peace partners. What he doesn't know is that his task is HARDER AND BIGGER than he realizes. The needless death that occurred between Lou Nuer and Jikany in the early 1990s because of Riek inefficiency shouldn't be allowed to happen again. Taban has a better chance of assuaging feelings in the country between Jieeng and Nuer if he succeeds in uniting the Nuer.

The major problem with Taban and his SPLM backers is to avoid dividing the Nuer and pitting them against one another. A divided Nuer, no matter how good Taban's working relationship is with President Kiir is, poses a real obstacle to peace and security in South Sudan. The unity of Nuer and South Sudanese can't be simply wished to happen by making Riek irrelevant. It needs a strategy that can bring reconciliation and healing.This is where Riek Machar and his supporters are very important. To dismiss Riek Machar as irrelevant or to ask him to quit politics and return to Juba as a 'normal' citizen without the cooperation of both Riek and his supporters is foolhardy. It's to brood another future conflict while calling for temporary peace.
Taban assumed Riek's position as a place-holder only to find the temptation of power too SWEET to leave. But if Taban appeases the angry Nuer by doing grassroots mobilizations without using money to buy support or use intimidation as he's currently doing in Juba, then his chances of bringing peace to South Sudan would be great. ARCISS was forced by IGAD and that's what brought its collapse. obviously, IGAD didn't create a good working relationship between Riek and Kiir.
Taban should, therefore, understand that bottled-up feelings are a crisis postponed. It's therefore important for Taban to start uniting the Nuer before uniting South Sudanese. Taban-engendered unity of Nuer is a precursor to the unity of South Sudanese and the advent of peace in South Sudan. Otherwise, Taban is only making things worse.

UN Trusteeship & Joint Administration: A Response to Nhial Titmamer

"UNTAG was established in accordance with resolution 632 (1989) of 16 February 1989, to assist the Special Representative of the Secretary-General to ensure the early independence of Namibia through free and fair elections under the supervision and control of the United Nations. UNTAG was also to help the Special Representative to ensure that: all hostile acts were ended; troops were confined to base, and, in the case of the South Africans, ultimately withdrawn from Namibia; all discriminatory laws were repealed, political prisoners were released, Namibian refugees were permitted to return, intimidation of any kind was prevented, law and order were impartially." Source UN.ORG

Calgary, Alberta 

The examples of Trusteeship I cited in my first response were Namibia and East Timor. And none of those cases failed. I didn’t give 'Congo' as a ‘success’ example so to cite it in response to my article is misleading. Both the Namibian and East Timorese examples I gave are neither impractical nor are they ineffective. Nations all over the world work with best practices. Your only concern was article 78 caveat; which I’ve addressed.

Besides, what you said about Namibia is historically inaccurate. By that time the South African government, which ruled Namibia, was fighting SWAPO’s armed wing, PLAN. So the trusteeship was a combination of three parties working together: UNTAG, South African government, and SWAPO-PLAN. The government you are talking about wasn’t technically an African government. It was the very government SWAPO was fighting. PLAN was fighting the South African government and the institutions were controlled by South Africans.

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Recently the government of South Sudan amended the constitution to allow the president to create additional 18 states. Given that there was no provision in the constitution that allows the president to create states, the amendment made the president’s decision legal. So to say that my argument that article 78 could be amended to deal with the would-be legal hurdle is either a misunderstanding of legal processes or an ad hoc rebuttal. There’d be nothing ‘illegal’ if all the members vote to amend the article. Neither my call nor the process of amendment of any legal document (be it national or international) is illegal. You might say it’s unnecessary if you don’t like its causal factors, but by no means would anyone say it’s unnecessary either.

We are all making a legal point so to say a call for an amendment is to stretch the debate is rather bizarre. “It’s not to shift the goal posts’ but to say that your concern is addressed; and that, my friend, is the point of debate. Besides, any concerns in policy recommendations need to be addressed. That’s what I did. I didn’t shift any post!

We are staying put on the same article, on the same legal ground. Just because the call for an amendment deals with the concern doesn’t stretch the debate. It’s to address your concern within that legal context. There are indeed procedures to be followed as you put it; and amendment is one such legal procedure should the need arise. And whether or not it would pass, that’s not for us to decided.

“Things do not happen because we think they are right,” you wrote. Nothing actually 'happens', Nhial. We make things happen. And what prompts us to do things is that we believe ‘they are right.’ That we think ‘they are right’ is the reason that prompts us into supporting given processes that lead to them ‘happening.’ You’re rejecting the very basis of human moral action.

By the way, I didn’t say ‘article 78 is ‘no longer relevant.’ I said it cannot be applied in the same way it was applied when it was instituted, at face value. My point being that new conditions can necessitate changes in the article.

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And to argue that I should have been ‘convinced’ with your explanation of article 78 is to lose sight of why we are discussing the topic in the first place. It’s not about convincing ourselves but about making our case for a governance framework that’d make South Sudan what we want. It’s not advisable to say “there, I convinced you so stop responding!”

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What I don’t understand, however, is the inclusion of Dr. Majak, of all the South Sudanese who’ve made their cases for external assistance to the governance problems in South Sudan. Should I be convinced because Majak holds a given view? Or is Majak the paragon of acceptable arguments? Majak is usually cited by my critics to silence me because he’s something of a relative. Should I accept something because of Majak?

I’ve read enough Chomsky, Said and Cesaire to understand west’s imperial tendencies and love of skewed nature of international sociocultural and sociopolitical systems. I know enough international geopolitical favoritism to understand why 12 people die in Paris and all western leaders attend a solidarity rally while thousands are killed by Boko Haram and nothing of the sort happens. I know it’s contradictory for nations that hold freedom and equality dear to their democracies only to have five (5) members of the United Nations to bully everyone in the dictatorial ‘veto.’ 

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You’ve also talked of ‘alternatives’; that you’ve offered alternatives to trusteeship and joint administration. You also said that I failed to give both merits and demerits of your ‘alternatives.’ First of all, what you called ‘alternatives’ are the normal functions of government. What you listed are things governments are supposed to do so calling them alternatives is to believe they are things other than what governments do.

Besides, if we were to accept them as alternatives, the question would still be: “Who’ll implement them?” Do we believe the same leaders will implement them or do we have some other leaders in mind? You seem to still have faith either in the current leaders or in the current system; both of which are no way to go. We need to remember that what is missing in South Sudan aren’t ideas as you seem to imply. Your ‘alternatives’ presupposes that these ideas or things like them have not being suggested. I would like to tell you that South Sudanese leaders have access to comprehensive development plans that outline not only the problems but HOW to solve them.