Bravo Salva Kiir for rejecting the US proposal

By James Okuk Solomon

November 11, 2007 — Last week in response to an invitation by the US Secretary of State Department, Condoleezza Rice, H.E. the First Vice President of the Sudan, the President of the GoSS, the Chairman of SPLM and the Commander-in-Chief of SPLA Mr. Salva Kiir Mayardit travelled to the United States of America to explain in person his reservations on the CPA implementation to the Bush administration. In a press statement before he left, he told the public that his visit has nothing to do with the current crisis of SPLM with NCP over the selective implementation of the CPA.

However, when he met the US government authorities, he was surprised with a proposal of renegotiating the CPA as an attempt from the so-called US experts and envoys on the Sudan to resolve the current difficulty of implementing some protocols of the CPA, which they themselves. (The same experts and envoys think that the Sudanese have not discovered that they were the invisible architect of the current crisis between Khartoum and Juba). Immediately and wisely enough H.E. Salva rejected the proposal and rightly defended his position that it will open a Pandora Box and jeopardize the already implemented ninety percent (90%) of the CPA protocols and articles, and complicate the referendum for self-determination by the people of Southern Sudan in 2011. Not only that, but H.E. Salva realized that the US proposal will ‘unconfirm’ his leadership as the Joshua who is suppose to take Southerners to the Promised Land they have been struggling for in the last fifty decades.

By that rejection, Mr. Salva has kept his promise to the people of Southern Sudan because he told them in Juba on Dr. Garang’s grave that he will make sure that he leads Southerners to their promised land without betrayal whatsoever the case. Though he accused Mr. President Al-Bashir and his NCP team for sabotaging the implementation of some of the protocols and articles of the CPA, he did not accept to sell them out cheaply in favour of US selfish interests. He still believes that the Arab Northerners and the African Southerners of the Sudan are still one family in spite of the quarrels and difficulties they have been in for decades. With all the given bitter memories of the past and uneasy experiences of the present time, Salva Kiir has understood that Northerners could let go the South if their fear is catered for, more than the Americans who humiliate Southerners and treat their leaders as dull people to be used with a remote control against the Arab Northerners for Americans interests.

Mr. Salva Kiir wisely thought it well (like our hero of peace, Dr. John Garang de Mabior in Naivasha) that the lesser evil of the stalemate over the oil-rich Abyei Area should not burnt down the greater good of the oil-richest Southern Sudan (Unity State, Junglei State, Upper Nile State, Warrab State, etc.). After all a small area can be sacrificed for the sake of bigger areas as one man was sacrificed in the Bible for saving so many of the mankind from the suffering of hell and its woes. If we also talk on unselfish note, it will be a good gesture from the leaders of Southern Sudan to leave the Abyie Area to the Northerners so that they can have a hope of surviving on its oil after Southerners separate from the North to form an independent state of South Sudan with good and cooperative Northern Sudan neighbourhood. Of course the Ngok Dinka of Abyei Area will not like this but if they really love Southern Sudan they should accept to sacrifice their small land for bigger benefit of the South. It is known that their courageous gentlemen have helped a lot in the SPLM/A struggle for justice, development, democracy and peace in the marginalized areas of the Sudan, and particularly Southern Sudan. It will be even a greater good if the same gentlemen help the South not to go back to war with the North for that contested area. Up to now the Southerners have allowed the Abyei’s gentlemen to hold strategic positions in the South and it will really be helpful if they use those top positions for blowing trumpets of peace and development rather than beating the drums of war and destruction. It will be even a greater good if the same gentlemen help the South not to go back to war with the North for that contested area. Ethnically, the Ngok Dinka are Southerners and can lead the South in future if they work for its good rather than intrigues.

So far many of the prominent Northern Elites have got used to enjoying the sweetness of ‘oil dollars’ from the South and they will rather prefer to die than let go all the richest oil areas from their custody and control. After all the Southerners have agreed in Naivasha to give the Northerners fifty percent (50%) of Southern oil for six years in order to tame them and prepare them to leave it all after the result of the referendum. With that fifty percent (50%) gift, they have done a lot of big developmental projects in the North (e.g. Merowe Dam, International Airports, big agricultural and irrigation schemes, big bridges, tarmac highways and asphalted internal roads, modern villages, storey buildings, and the beautiful planned sky creepers in the Mogran area on the confluence of the White Nile and the Blue Nile in Khartoum, and so many visible and invisible modernizations projects). It is a common knowledge that it is very difficult for somebody who has got used to enjoying and eating a lot to stay hungry or think of staying hungry and dry. He/she will always do anything to make sure that he/she gets something to hold on even if it is not much. This is exactly what is happening with the Abyei Area case. Americans need to understand this well if they are really serious for helping the Sudanese to be peaceful and decent in this largest, beautiful and potentially richest country of Africa.

H.E. Mr. Salva have indicated to the American foreign policy makers the need for them to understand well the real ground situation of the Sudan rather than rush to unstudied proposals which complicate the available avenues of solutions for the Sudanese problems. He showed them that they should come down from their pride, bow to the Sudanese and tell them that they are not more experts on the Sudanese crisis than the Sudanese themselves. The Sudanese have learnt on what the American experts did with the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) in Abuja in 2006 and the mess up they brought on the Naivasha’s CPA partners with their Abyei Borders Commission (ABC) inexpert report.

Congratulations to Southerners leader Mr. Salva Kiir for his rejection of the unwise American Envoys’ and experts’ wrong proposal for re-adjusting the CPA implementation. Let him keep up this courage and wisdom, and let him do more of such decisions so that he can confirm his popularity as the Joshua of the forthcoming state of Southern Sudan. Now it is becoming clarified that the American Government and their Sudanese political stooges are only interested in realizing American interests in the Sudan and not at all the Sudanese interests. They is they work day and night to humiliate and remove Mr. Al-Bashir as the president of the Sudan by capitalizing on his previous connection with Al-Quida leader (Osama Bin laden) and his past human rights records more than his present efforts of realizing peace in the Sudan. If we focus on the leaders past only, American and other western leaders are even worst than the president Al-Bashir. With all his weaknesses, Mr. Al-Bashir deserves to be honoured and respected as the president of the Sudan until his term is over in accordance with the provisions of the interim national constitution. His differences with Mr. First Vice President should not be utilized by Bush’s Administration for tarnishing the image of the Sudan (in Khartoum on human rights abuse and in Juba on corruption) because leaders can differ, not only in the Sudan, but even in America and other parts of the world. If George W. Bush’s administration wants to treat Sudan in this manner; by patronizing the SPLM and the GoSS because of its poverty and administrative difficulties, it is better that Southerners go to look for other helpers elsewhere on the globe who really have the will for sincere peace and development in the South.

* The author is a PhD student in the University of Nairobi in the field of political philosophy. He can be reached at: [email protected]