R-ARCISS is an obstacle to peace and stability not a solution

 

"R-ARCISS has become a problem that needs a solution. South Sudanese have wasted a lot of time finding solutions to solutions instead of finding solutions to national problems."

Since South Sudanese warring parties signed the agreement for the resolution of conflict in South Sudan (ARCISS) in the August of 2015 and then “revitalized” it in 2018 (R-ARCISS), nothing has worked in the way agreements are supposed to work. Instead of acting as the blueprint for peace and stability in the country, the agreement has turned out to be the problem itself.

How can a problem be a solution to another problem?

However, the main signatories to the agreement, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Government (SPLM-IG) and the Sudan people’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO), still believe the implementation of R-ARCISS is the magical solution to the South Sudanese political crisis. They know their attitudes toward themselves and the political impasse they have experienced since the agreement was first signed in 2015. But they wish these attitudes away.

Unfortunately, the parties still believe that this attitude will magically disappear, and the agreement will be implemented in “letter and spirit” as Dr. Riek Machar likes to say.

When Riek Machar decided to withdraw the participation of SPLM-IO from the security mechanisms meeting on March 24, 2022, President Kiir deployed security forces around Riek Machar’s place of residence. When Riek protested the deployment of the forces because he was not consulted about the supposed protection, President Kiir justified his action as his attempt to protect Riek Machar.

This begs the question: Protecting from who? Are there rogue forces under President Kiir he cannot control? This dynamic raises more troubling questions than answers.

But this, undoubtedly, shows the extent to which President Kiir and Dr. Riek Machar do not trust one another. Kiir expects Riek to flee Juba at the slightest provocation and Riek knows Kiir’s recalcitrance.

Obviously, President Kiir was conscious of what happened in December of 2013 when some senior SPLM members refused to attend the second day of the National Liberation Council on December 15, the night on which the crisis began. Riek fled Juba that night.

Riek also fled Juba in July of 2016 when the implementation of the August 2015 agreement reached a deadlock, eventually leading to a bloody armed confrontation.

What one may conclude from the nature of the relationship between Vice President Riek Machar and President Salva Kiir is their inability to find a solution without external support.

It is now clear that R-ARCISS is no longer the path to peace and stability in South Sudan. It’s an obstacle.

Accordingly, Kiir and Riek need to think beyond R-ARCISS and find a home-grown solution to the problem.

The implementation of agreements is difficult, so I have no illusion for any simplistic solutions. Nonetheless, thinking in a formulaic way in a country with a complex history, politics and ethnic relations is a dangerous state of mind. But the complexity in implementing R-ARCISS is not an inherent complexity; it is its elite-centredness and the egoistic nature of agreement leaders that has created this costly impasse.

What South Sudan and South Sudanese need is a path to peace and stability. There is no divine pronouncement that the only path to peace and stability is R-ARCISS.

Being a leader requires being creative for the sake of the country and her peoples. What is happening in South Sudan now between SPLM-IO and SPLM-IG is this obsession with the elite-centered R-ARCISS as the only way to peace and stability.

This vacuous idea that all clauses of the agreement must be implemented before peace partners embark on national development is the reason why South Sudanese will continue to suffer as R-ARCISS stands in the way of peace and stability.

It's scary that President Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar are not able to think beyond R-ARCISS. How long will regional leaders and international partners be consulted to help solve issues of leadership and governance in South Sudan?

It’s time for President Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar to realize that they can forget their egos in the interest of South Sudanese. As long as external mediators are needed to reconcile South Sudanese and move the agreement implementation forward, South Sudan will continue to remain unstable.

It's nearly seven years since the agreement was first signed. That’s three years short of a decade. Politically, that should tell South Sudanese everything they need to know about Kiir’s and Riek’s intention regarding civilians and the country. A formal agreement will never bring peace and stability to South Sudan.

It’s time to prioritize what civilians want. It’s time for Dr. Riek and President Kiir to realize that two decades have been wasted through a petty yet a costly rivalry.

There is hunger and flood everywhere in South Sudan. There are ethnic conflicts in Eastern Equatoria, in Western Equatoria, in Lakes State, in Warrap State, in Jonglei State, in Unity State….

It’s time to rethink South Sudanese political future and the path to peace and stability. South Sudanese civilian have been in a state of destitution for over fifty years and Kiir and Riek have added another fifty years of suffering and destitution.

It’s time to move past R-ARCISS and think as South Sudanese who must solve their internal problems as brothers and sisters. If Riek and Kiir cannot work together, or they are unable to find solutions beyond R-ARCISS, then it’s time for them to acknowledge that they are liberation and historical leaders, and that time is now ripe for development leaders.

R-ARCISS has become a problem that needs a solution. South Sudanese have wasted a lot of time finding solutions to solutions instead of finding solutions to national problems.

*Kuir ë Garang is the editor of The Philosophical Refugee.'

Western philanthropists and Russian oligarchs or are they all OLIGARCHS?

By Kuir ë Garang*

Oligarchy: a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes;  a group exercising such control. ~ Merriam-Webster

 

 

Photo: GeekWire

African American historian, Nell Painter, argues in her book, The History of White People , that what we believe depends on what our cultures and society has educated us to look for in anything we do. This is a social reality we tend to overlook; or we attend to it only when it becomes relevant. 

The problem with contemporary social justice discourse in the west, especially in North America, is that advocates expect the target of their campaigns to know everything about anything; and they also expect them to believe things in their culture in the same way they believe social issues in other cultures. This is not only impractical, it is also a natural impossibility. 

Discourse, as a social use of language, affects or changes how we perceives things. But that depends very much on the culture and the epistemological forces behind the use of language in this context. Take for example, how Americans and the western media describe wealthy and influential Russian billionaires and how they describe American billionaires. Russians billions are 'oligarchs' and western billionaires are, well, just billionaires.  But morally, according to the western intelligentsia, western billionaires are philanthropists not oligarchs. 

While western billionaires affect politics, cultures and social values globally, they are still not considered oligarchs. How many of us would refer to Bill Gates or Elon Musk as oligarchs? Maybe only a few. But this is not because they are not oligarchs but because our linguistic resources come from a defined western discourse that shape our thinking. 

Here is another example about African history. In 1960, the father of African Studies in the United States, Melville Herskovits, describe Africa as a 'geographical fiction.' While this statement is true, I have always wondered why this statement is restricted to Africa when every country in the world, and I mean every country, is a geographical fiction. All borders in the world were arbitrarily created. 

(I address this issue in "Birth of a State).

But many African historians and analysts have taken this Herskovitsian view that Africa is a geographical fiction without being critical of it. The reason? The discourses and epistemologies that influence our thinking about Africa and about ourselves are informed about what western scholars have written about Africa. 

Our understanding of Africa and African issues is proscribed; it is determined by the linguistic resources, the historical and modern discourses coming the west or the legacies of slavery and colonialism. This is why postcolonial scholars attempt to rethink African history as UNESCO has attempted to do with the General History of Africa. It is also the very reason why The Empire Writes Back. 

However the average man and woman in Africa has little luxury to rethink history so they rely on a group of people that French existential philosopher, Merleau-Ponty has described as 'the community of thinkers.' They believe a world that has already been structured for them. 

This is the case with the oligarch epithet. 

Even when it is factually accurate to describe Bill Gates as an oligarch, one would find oneself at the receiving end of the western media disparagement because the western culture has trained us to think of Bill Gates as a 'philanthropists'.  He cannot possibly be an oligarchs. 

We ignore these seemingly simple issues; but this is how the human mind is shaped internationally. 

So, anytime you commit to a certain social issue, especially a social justice issue, always remember that people don't believe something because it is simply the right thing to do. They believe it because they have been convinced about its usefulness to them; or that social, political and legal conditions are such that they cannot do otherwise without being penalized. 

We only doubt things because we have reason to doubt not because others expect us to doubt because they doubt it themselves. 

So, is there any special fact why western billionaires are 'philanthropists' and Russian billionaires are 'oligarchs'? There is none; it's all about the discourses we have been raised or taught to believe.

*Kuir ë Garang is the editor of The Philosophical Refugee.'