Give Sudan’s Kiir a chance to flourish

By Abraham Awolich de Nyuat

Oct 8, 2005 — When Dr. Garang died, our people were in a state of confusion and weariness. The events following the death of Dr. John Garang are critical to many Southerners in particular the formation of the Government of National Unity. When the death occurred many questions that came to Southerners’ minds were questions like: what will happen to the peace (CPA)? Are we going back to war? Did the Jalaba (northern) killed him? Will Jalaba abrogates the peace deal? Will people’s movement stay together and follow its principles? All these questions were necessary and still are necessary today. Southerners have been seriously following all the developments following the death of Dr. John Garang and every move is observed carefully. Having had experiences with the successive governments in Khartoum, there is no doubt in any body’s mind that all Southerners are watching very carefully the implementation of the CPA (Comprehensive Peace Agreement) and the work of the Government of National Unity.

Despite the fact that many events are taking place in Sudan, one of the most critical events that Southerners are observing is the implementation of the CPA. The first test on how genuine the government in Khartoum is about the peace was the formation of the Government of National Unity. The issue of energy ministry was very contentious and many Southerners regarded it as the first test on the side of the SPLM and particularly the new leader President Salva Kiir Mayardit. Many including myself thought that SPLM by giving up the oil ministry failed one of the most critical sections on the series of tests that will follow. The government of Bashir also failed one of the most political tests in their life time and that was failure to win the trust of Southerners. The behavior shown by Bashir’s party made things worse because Southerners now cannot trust Bashir any more. Although the events following the inauguration of Dr. Garang were promising and people were moving toward reconciliation, this momentum was simply put to trash by Bashir’s desire to control all the powerful ministries. These developments caused an outcry from the South to an extent that some people called for the resignation of Salva Kiir. Some people called the president of South Sudan a coward, and others called him weak and inexperienced. These were appropriate criticisms because we had expected so much from the CPA and expected persistence from our leadership. I believe that our outcry had taught our leadership what they need to know about our expectations. We have also taught the leadership that we are watching very carefully every move at all the levels of the Government of National Unity and the Government of the Southern Sudan.

However, I am concerned right now about the continuing criticism against our President who just took office in less than two months ago. If we want to do a favor to the South Sudan, we must refocus our criticisms to constructive opinions because overdoing criticism may result to some unintended consequences. I am for the idea that we put all our support behind our leadership and give the leadership a chance to employ their experiences as they learn on the job. When Salva Kiir was nominated to succeed Dr. Garang, no one had expected him to become John Garang; he was just replacing Garang and therefore, we must expect if nothing completely different, at least we must expect different style of leadership and personality. So it is unfair for people to try to measure Salva’s performance in Garang’s shoes. If we want to know more about Salva, we must measure him in his own shoes and whether he is abiding to the principles for which SPLM was founded and the principles of the CPA. We must not wrongfully judge Gen. Salva Kiir by the occurrence of one event such as the issue of oil ministry, we must also see that he is getting other things right. In order to reach a conclusion that he is not fit to be a leader, we must compare his achievements to his failures. All I am saying is, give our leader a chance to flourish and then in the end, we will have a basis to judge him based on his record. I am not trying to silence anybody in fact criticism is good for any healthy government, all I am saying is, too much have been said about oil ministry and therefore, let’s refocus our attention on other developments. The government of the South Sudan is too young, and have no resources but I hope, it is our best investment so far and let’s hope that our people will once again unite to rebuild their country as proud and dignified people.

The best thing for us to do right now, instead of spending time criticizing president Salva, we should be busy finding ways we can help his leadership to become strong and to uphold the obligations placed on his shoulders by the people of the South Sudan. Salva has a lot of credits and I would say he is one of the strongest cadres of our movement and one of the pillars that have helped upheld the people’s movement till this day. So I urge my fellow Southerners not to dwell so much on things that are gone but refocus on new developments and ways in which we can make the government of South Sudan strong and vigilant. We must not forget the fact that it was the greed of Bashir’s party that had caused the discrepancy and has been the reason why we had the war. So our biggest problem has always been our few brothers in the North trying to own the country in our expense. Therefore, I appeal both to the leadership and the people to work hard to avoid such concessions in the future so that we do not concede our God given Rights to oppressors. I also appeal to the people to be careful that when such things happen, we must not only point fingers at ourselves, but also to the source that created the discrepancy in the first place which is the North.

Now we have a government in the South which we never had and our parliament was recently opened. This is exciting and we should spend more time speaking about these things because they bring excitement and happiness in the end. The Government of the South Sudan is making progress and we must do everything in our power to make it legitimate, strong, and govern by law and the will of the people. We are starting to be masters of our own in own destiny and that is very exciting. Nevertheless, we must not forget that our enemies are working day and night to try to disrupt this process and that is what we should watch carefully. SPLM must focus on teaching the public the principal ideology of the movement because without which, the people will be disconnected with the movement and I think we should not let that happen under any circumstances. Ideology is the fundamental chain and bond that hold people together and it refreshes people’s strength and hope.

I am for the idea that the South Sudan should start teaching in any schools the principal ideology of the SPLM and particularly what we stand for. The fact that we are people in the South and that we are oppressed by people in the North is not enough. So we must let the people know the movement so they can own it and cherish it. We should not take our eyes off the ball which is the freedom of our people from any form of oppression and we must not only liberate ourselves from oppressive regime but from oppressive culture which is about to consume our own culture.

Our people should not be taken to prison for brewing beer and for drinking alcohol. Who defines what we eat, what we drink, what we wear, how we get married, and what initiation we go through.? All these are important and are part of what freedom means. We must put to use the interim national constitution and all the details it entails. It looks like still the 1991 or 1998 codes of conduct are still being used. What is the purpose of the interim national constitution? I mean the basis for every law now should be the national interim constitution which gives our people the right to be free from any Islamic laws. Liberation is not complete because we must initiate cultural liberation campaign and that is what we are here for to liberate our people from any form of oppression. All Southerners must be free after all our leader John Garang died as a free man who can speak his mind in his own country and that is what we have inherited and it should be the principal objective in our next stage of struggle.

Finally, I urge my fellow Southerners to refrain from destructive criticisms and refocus our attention to the real issues of development and watch the unfolding events following the formation of the Government of South Sudan and the Government of National Unity with vigilance. We must carefully watch whether the government troops are being withdrawn and whether all aspects of CPA are being implemented. We must totally support our government and its leadership in the South for we have no alternative we better invest in what is at hand than what still is in the other person’s pocket. We must avoid all those conflict inciting articles and statements and preach peace among ourselves and among our people. We need to be united more than ever before because our vulnerability lies in our divisions. We are call to this duty to work as good citizens of the South Sudan. One question that ought to be asked is who will develop the South Sudan? And the answer is; You and I brother and sister. May God bless our leadership and bless our people.

* Abraham Awolich de Nyuatis a student at the University of Vrmont – USA.