Unity of marginalised Sudanese a key factor in CPA

By H Wani Rondyang *

Tribute to the Man of Unity

Aug 21, 2006 — On 5th of August the SPLM Chapter in UK and Ireland organised memorial prayer to mark the 1st anniversary of the death of our great leader and hero of war and peace Dr John Garang de Mabior. When I was invited to comment on unity of the Southern Sudanese people, nothing came to mind other than the potential problems that might be caused by disunity of our people at this new post-civil war era when are trying to govern themselves in the most dismal socio-economic and physical/structural conditions, perhaps not found any where else in the world. But I thought this should be a challenge, and an opportunity for us to reflect on Dr John’s life as a uniting factor and the leader the Sudanese people in their entirety needed but were denied to have.

We all know how much the Sudanese people have missed the leader who carried with him for 21 years the yoke with plenty of hope for a brighter future for the oppressed and marginalised people in the OLD Sudan. We also are aware that when the time for peace was at hand, Dr John became worthy of his people and in good faith fulfilled that hope by delivering it in the form of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) on the 9th of January 2005 in Nairobi; and ratifying on time it in the form of the Interim National Constitution (INC) on 9th July in Khartoum. On these few counts, and based on Sudan’s 50 years post-independence political history, the leader with the calibre of Dr John as a uniting force the marginalised and the ordinary Sudanese people in their entirety now know they may never ever have again. No wonder the Sudanese people received with shocking disbelief news of his untimely death in a helicopter crash on 30th July last year; and it was not surprising that the reaction to that news was the deadly riots and unstoppable rage all over Sudan. It was also natural that for a significant period of time last year many peace-loving Sudanese people felt paralysed and perhaps many more felt the hope they hanged on Dr John’s arrival in Khartoum to deliver justice denied them for many years was now dashed. In their trying moments, the people hanged their hopes on Dr John’s vision which incorporates unity of the Sudanese people as a tool for their liberation from the hegemony and domination of the OLD Sudan ruling groups in Khartoum.

Having made the foregoing comments, I would like to acknowledge the bare fact that unity of the marginalised Sudanese people as the theme of my comments in this memorial gathering this evening is desirable as it is a vital ingredient for healthy society. As a politicised notion, however, unity is ever elusive and relative. Even so, and contrary to the views and comments of SPLM critics, the movement had an open-door policy and approach to unity of Southern Sudanese and the entire Sudanese people.

SPLM Founded on Unity Principles

Dr John was a man of unity at different levels and for different reasons, according to the conditions on the ground in Sudan during the liberation struggle. And as peace was approaching, the movement even opened its unity door wider than ever before for obvious reasons. That was maybe why the ordinary Sudanese people apparently paid in kind when they came united in their millions to receive him at the Green Square in Khartoum on 9th July. The people were also united in their reaction to the news of his death on the 30th of the same month. For those of you who used to listen to Radio SPLA, Dr John preached unity of the Sudanese people against their oppressors. There is no doubt that he and his colleagues practised it or otherwise the movement would have not survived nor overcome its internal problems, notably the split in 1991.

You will need to take note of the fact that after being regarded by his detractors from both the North and the South as a divisive leader, a tribal leader, during the liberation campaign, none of which were the founding principles of the SPLM/A, Dr John emerged as a man of unity and peace beyond the belief of his rivals at home, and enemies beyond Southern Sudan. Needless to say, any good observer who followed the speeches of the SPLM leadership in the old days of Radio SPLA in 1980s will recall that Dr John and his colleagues did consistently preach unity, after all it was and has been one of the movement’s objectives throughout the liberation struggle. To cut the long story short, one of the most remarkable and tangible results of the long campaign for unity by Dr John and his colleagues in the SPLM leadership is the united front the movement achieved as it marched towards the signing of the CPA. We can only guess the painful details relating to the internal processes that it took to reunite the movement after the split in 1991. But as it was worth it, the SPLM leadership chose unity and welcomed their comrades in the struggle to back where they naturally belong.

I will also remind you about the successful conclusion of the South-South Dialogue which many SPLM detractors, who had turned it into a ‘project’ of a sort, would swear Dr John would not attend because they believed he personally was against the unity of the Southern Sudanese people. As the Biblical scriptures have it, there is time for everything. When the right time for genuine South-South dialogue came, the critics were proved wrong when Dr John himself led the SPLM delegation to the conference in Nairobi and signed the South-South Dialogue agreement and resolutions on behalf of SPLM.

The famous Rumbek meeting towards the end of 2004 in which SPLM leadership and rank and file met to resolve internal differences just before the signing of the CPA was another hard evidence that showed how much unity was vital principle for the SPLM and its leadership, though it will remains for ever an elusive concept pin down or fully achieve. From the examples I have cited above, and as far as SPLM in concerned, the principle and policy of UNITY as a factor for achieving the objectives of liberation has culminated in the peace agreement. In these new conditions, we need even plenty of unity, and for that matter unity of purpose, among the marginalised Sudanese peoples, and good faith and good will among all the Sudanese leaders in order to promote the implementation of the CPA.

Divided we fall United we Stand

Unity as one Dr John’s legacies is apparently gaining strength in the post-CPA period following the successful agreement which has resulted in the merger of SPLA and SSDF forces which used to be commanded by Lt Gen Paulino Matip. By signing of the remarkable and surprising Juba Declaration with the SSDF leader Lt Gen. Paulino Matip, President Salva Kiir Mayar Dit has broken a barrier and opened the way for more unity between SPLA and the ‘Other Armed Forces’ in Southern Sudan and the SPLA. The merger of SPLA and SSDF forces early this year, even under the unity of purpose principle, will no doubt have lasting impact for the benefit of the CPA implementation. The campaign for the unity of all the Southern forces is as desirable as it is strategic for the successful implementation of the CPA. All peace-loving Sudanese people, I am sure, need it. If so they should be united in bringing the pressure to bear on the enemies of peace who continue to arm and finance groups, and in so doing are intent on keeping our people divided.

The need to promote unity at the level of individual persons, communities of the ordinary people, and above all institutions of government is a challenge. This is why it is important to think about unity as a practical undertaking. Unless we practise it as individuals, as groups and as formal institutions, unity is an elusive animal and we may not realise it to a level enough to allow for the successful governance and delivery of services to the people, as part and parcel of implementing the CPA. In this regard, the marginalised Sudanese peoples as a whole and specifically Southern Sudanese people need to unite their ranks urgently if we want to see the CPA implemented in spirit and to the letter. To reiterate, unity is a difficult task, but it is a responsibility, a duty for all the groups and individuals mentioned above. Each of us should therefore strive and contribute towards achieving it in order to achieve the goal for which we require unity, that is to say, full implementation of the CPA.

How Can we Achieve Unity in a Divided Society

The question is how do we achieve unity among a divided or disunited people? I want to be realistic here for the following reasons. A few years ago in 1986 I had a verbal quarrel with a British friend who called Southern Sudanese a disunited people, citing examples of problems in the SSLM/Anya-nya and why we settled for the 1972 agreement. Some of those problems were a subject of academic study, so one’s objectivity was called upon. I could not see it that way, however. From my perspective (not experience) then, Southerners were united. Now, I mature enough to boldly accept that we are still a divided people and that we need much unity than ever before. I say we are divided in the sense that our people have had little experience of co-existence as communities and as members of state institutions and sharing space and meagre resources. Even worse than this, the bulk of our society is poor and ignorant, but many among the few educated people who are also leaders in the modern state instead of working hard to rid society of these problems assume elitist attitudes and roles. They become power hungry, arrogant, selfish, corrupt, and practise tribalism and nepotism, all divisive and anti-unity elements. Admittedly it is not difficult to relate the behaviour of the so-called educated Southerners who practise these societal ills and the individual problems posed by poverty for example. But these examples of corrupt practices show that the hurdles on the way to unity are too high. They will always defy our often cited emotional awareness about our unity which I once entertained blinded by our common history, culture and political destiny which no doubt have held us together. In the reality of the situation, however, the educated Southerners who are also often the leaders of their people eschew or disregard these objective facts on which they should have delivered on behalf of their rural folks and the often marginalised town duellers. The two groups form the absolute majority in Sudan in general and Southern Sudan in particular. Disunity of Southern Sudanese and that of the other marginalised peoples in the country, brought about as a result of the selfishness of the educated leaders, could jeopardise what Dr John one time called Southern Sudanese last chance to win their freedom. This statement applies to all the marginalised peoples of Sudan.

We need not be reminded that the expected and forth-coming referendum on self-determination which the Southern Sudanese people have fought hard to win and longed for since 1947 requires solid unity of purpose at least, and the ordinary Southern Sudanese people expect the educated groups who have assumed leadership of the people to take and live up to the challenge. We either do that and uphold the CPA, maintain the conditions that would allow our people to exercise their right to self-determination, vindicate the heroic stand of our freedom fighters in the bushes of Southern Sudan since 1955, at negotiating tables in Juba in 1947, in Khartoum in 1965, in Addis Ababa in 1972 and finally in Naivasha in 2005, or be damned to second class citizenship for ever.

Integration and Good-Governance Policies are Some of the Answers

To conclude, I would like to stress the point that UNITY of a people does not just happen. It has to be worked for and brought about. The embodiment of Sudanese unity, Dr John Garang de Mabior had invariably shown us by words and action what it takes to achieve unity at different levels of society and for different purposes. I want to venture and suggest the following in the context of Southern Sudan, because I believe that in the new post-war and post-CPA era we are called upon by our society to make a new beginning. At the group and communities level, the educated people have to show leadership and live by example so that ordinary people, especially the youth emulate them. There must be a kind of societal watch against politically divisive issues. I want to take you back to recent history to illustrate some of the instances of disunity in our society. The school fights in the 1980s were a shaming feature of the regional leaders and the educated Southerners in general. Imagine school civil wars raging in big towns and respected centres of learning like Rumbek, Loka, Tonj, Juba and Bussere, while the government in Juba then could do nothing to stop them; except by military intervention which were followed by school closer. Any observer could interpret the government’s lack of solution as failure, albeit inadvertent one because they had lost the confidence to command even school children. I mean disunity had set in and spared nobody emotionally to the level of many leaders, including some teachers and head teachers who got mixed up in the troubles. There were allegations that political leaders themselves were using schools as grounds to field politically contentious issues then, especially those relating to the eventual division of Southern Sudan into three mini regions. As a close observer then, and as a teacher in Juba, I felt trapped but also stripped of professional principles. Not only many teachers could do nothing about the school fights, they could not stop the whole educational system from collapsing. It was a disaster in all counts, and no sound-minded Southerner should walk that dark allay again.

I thought earlier efforts to promote integration as a government policy towards its citizens instead of emphasising tribal, ethnic or regional groupings would have saved the situation in the early 1980s in Southern Sudan. Integration, often at individual level, and at the level of communities should be encouraged as a matter priority and of national policy, but it should not be artificially forced. Social integration as a policy and socially integrated communities as the outcomes of such policy usually display practical benefits in the form of co-existence with and respect of others be they school colleagues, teachers, or next door neighbour. Confidence in government and its law enforcement by agencies such as the police in times of public strives is another invaluable benefit. Given these examples, unity, in the context of GOSS should translate into good governance, transparency and accountability especially after many years of division, destruction, displacement and even death. The ordinary communities and citizens need a lot of time to develop confidence in the government. The government is under obligation to show good will to win the confidence of the people. SPLM members, and members of other Southern parties, especially the educated people have a responsibility and duty to identify and combat the forces of disunity in the GOSS and the State Governments amongst their own colleagues and comrades. For that matter the GONU which includes the war-time enemies now partners in the CPA and the federal institutions, should not spared the vigilance and denunciation if they continue to cause disunity among our people. The press should be used as an instrument to fight the elements of disunity among our people. Or in the end of the day SPLM and all the Southern political forces will be held complicit if disunity wins and the conditions for the implementation of the CPA fall through or collapse.

The road to the unity of our people had been charted by our departed great leader. If under his leadership we could achieve and maintain unity of the movement and with it that of the Sudanese people during the difficult times of war for 21 years, how can we not do it in less strenuous times of peace so that we achieve the implementation of the CPA upon which our political destiny as a people hangs? This is a rhetorical question to all Southern Sudanese and our comrades in the struggle in Northern Sudan.

The author of these comments is a Southern Sudanese resident in London, UK. He can be reached via this e-mail address: [email protected]