Five years to go to referendum
By John G. Nyuot Yoh*
Dec 22, 2005 — Seasons greetings! This time last year I promised
myself and the family members to visit Southern Sudan
for the first time in 19 years. I also wished that
finally a peace agreement would be reached in the
Southern part of the country between the Sudan
People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and the
Government of Sudan (GOS). Today, I have every reason
to thank God. The peace that millions in Sudan and
world wide have been praying for was achieved in the
southern part of the country after seventeen years of
bitter and difficult negotiations between the SPLM and
the National Congress Party (NCP) between October 1989
and January 2005.
Indeed, despite the tragic death of late Dr. John
Garang in July 2005 and the slowness of the
implementation of the CPA that followed, some progress
has been made in putting in place the institutional
frameworks that are needed to implement the agreement.
Since July 2005, the following frameworks,
institutions and commissions were instituted: the
Interim National Assembly (the two houses), the
Interim Assembly of Southern Sudan, National Interim
Constitution, the Interim Constitution of Southern
Sudan, the Interim Government of National Unity, the
Interim Government of Southern Sudan, Governments of
ten Southern States and, except for Abyei
Administration, the States’ Assemblies in the ten
Southern states, eight out of ten commissions as
stipulated in the CPA, were also established.
Irrespective of the modalities and the criteria used
in forming these frameworks, governments, assemblies
and commissions, the progress so far has been
impressive.
Fly in the Oil!
However, the question of how much is the 50% of the
oil net revenue which the South should get, and
whether the money comes from Dr. Awad Al-Jaz ministry
or from the ministry of finance is one of the
mysteries that only the NCP can answer. So far they
seem to be hesitant to say whether the oil money
records are kept in the national treasury or in the
party treasury. Till that mystery is resolved, the
GOSS will have to use the hand outs that it
occasionally gets from the central bank governor, who
every now and then feeds the press and media with
contradictory figures of the GOSS share of oil money.
Many Challenges
Despite these positive developments however, there are
many challenges, that are facing and will definitely
face the implementation of the Sudan peace agreement,
and the leaders of the SPLM and the NCP will need all
the good will required in such critical situations. In
the same way there are some important actions that the
SPLM and the leaders of GOSS should take to fulfil the
promises they have made to the people of Southern
Sudan and the marginalized areas during the struggle:
Darfur
Firstly, the peace agreement which was signed in
Nairobi on 9 January 2005, will enter its first
anniversary on 9 January 2006, at the time when the
war in Darfur is continuing and many more hundreds of
people are loosing their lives. The reality on the
ground in Darfur seems to suggest that the peace in
the country will not be comprehensive nor complete
until the wars in Darfur and in the eastern Sudan are
stopped. As a mass and national movement that is
championing change in the whole country and a key
partner in the Government of National Unity (GNU), the
SPLM should have a written and well thought out policy
on problems of Darfur and Eastern Sudan. Scenarios for
solutions to these problems should be made known to
the public. The SPLM position on the status of the
Janjawid and the continued armament of tribes in
Kordufan and Darfur by the NCP structures in these
regions should be made clear. The SPLM relationship
with the Darfurian liberation Movements, should take a
systematic and a policy oriented approach, where
sensitivities expressed by some Darfurian liberation
movements about the SPLM current policy towards them
or reservations expressed by the Darfurian movements
about some individuals who are mandated by the SPLM to
liaise with these movements, should be reviewed and
actions taken to rectify any misunderstandings.
Power Shift in GoNU
Secondly, the main architect and leading founder of
the SPLM/A, Dr. John Garang, died in a mysterious
plane crash in July 2005. His death has somewhat
slowed down the implementation process of the CPA and
shifted the balance of power within the NCP, which
resulted in sidelining of Taha faction’s active
participation in the implementation of the CPA and the
strengthening of El-Beshir-Nafie faction’s grip in
power within the ruling party and the government.
Danger of Factions in SPLM/A
Although there is no doubt that the smooth transition
of power within the SPLM structures was a vital boost
for the new leadership, the SPLM leadership and the
leaders of GOSS, will have to sit down and think about
their proper priorities. As things are, there seems to
be developing within the GOSS factional politics, with
some suggesting that late Garang’s widow is leading a
faction, while the incumbent SPLM/A leader is leading
the other. Such a situation if it is true or made to
develop into reality will definitely reduce the status
of the SPLM, which is supposed to be the ruling party
in the South into a job seeking agency, each faction
using positions to recruit supporters to its fold. One
hopes that this is not the case, because it is simply
against all the principles for which the people of the
South and the New Sudan fought for during the
struggle. In any event the war is not yet over, until
the interim period comes to successful conclusion.
Thirdly, the number one SPLM/A priority is to
implement the CPA and provide within its limited
financial resources the infrastructure require to
resettle those who have been uprooted from their
homes, provide them with essential needs and to
mobilise them politically and socially to participate
in the three most important phases of the CPA: census,
general elections and referendum.
For the GOSS to carry out such important activities,
it has to build strong institutions. Ministers and
governors must have blue prints of programs for
development. A minister or a governor, who has no clue
as to what the people of his region or the population
of the South want, should be forced to resign, because
as we speak, six months have lapsed from the six year
interim period. The President and Vice President of
Government of Southern should therefore start
seriously to scrutinise the capabilities of their
ministers and governors. This is because the GOSS is
an interim period government that will be judged
according to its achievements when the elections come.
It is not a normal government. Moreover, some of the
ministers and governors were appointed to ministerial
positions or governorship as a means of accommodating
other Southern political groups and communities. For
example, while I do not question the national
credentials of those who have been appointed from
other Southern political parties into the GOSS, one
wonders why service delivery ministries such as
industry and mining, education, science and
technology, agriculture and forestry, water resources
and trade and supplies, be offered to other political
parties by the ruling party. These are key service
delivery positions, which the SPLM could have kept and
trade them with other key, but not service delivery
ministries. The SPLM as a main signatory to the CPA is
obliged to implement the peace agreement, and
certainly, when it comes to services delivery, it will
be the SPLM to blame and not the ministers from the
other Southern Sudanese parties that will take the
blame should anything go wrong or services promised to
the people of the South during the twenty two years of
struggle are not delivered.
Fourthly, it seems that the SPLM leadership is
dragging its feet to restructure the SPLM and
transform it into a political party, especially now
that all the governance institutions throughout the
South have been established. One of the critical
accusations which were levelled against late Dr. John
Garang was that he made it a point throughout the
struggle that the SPLM is dormant and weak so that he
could control the movement. So far, it seems that the
current SPLM leadership is following late Garang’s
foot step on the status of the SPLM.
Responsibilities of the SPLM:
The grave mistake that any SPLM member could make is
to believe that the GOSS can substitute the SPLM.
There is no where in the world where a government can
become both a policy maker and an implementer.
Governments (ministers and governors etc.) are
bureaucrats who implement policies of political
parties and national parliaments. The SPLM cannot be
replaced by GOSS. Ministers in Government of Southern
Sudan or in states can not formulate policies. It is
the SPLM, as the party responsible for the
implementation of the agreement, in consultation with
other Southern political parties that is responsible
for formulating policies, present them to GOSS, which
in turn will table them to the Southern Sudan interim
Assembly for deliberations and ratification. The SPLM
Chairman and his Deputy and the entire leadership of
the movement should start preparing for the national
convention, while at the same time identifying
committed cadres at payam, county, state and national
levels to train them on issues relating to organising
and transforming a liberation movement into political
a party. The SPLM leadership should find money to
prepare the movement for its transformation into a
political party. The longer the current status quo
continuous, the more likely that the SPLM will not be
ready, when time comes to handle the organisation of
census, the general elections and the crucial
referendum. The SPLM cannot and should not make the
mistake of taking for granted the people of Southern
Sudan. The National Congress Party is stronger and has
been in power for the past 16 years, despite its
split, because it has a vision, and despite internal
differences within its leadership, organisationally,
it is cohesive. One does not need to emphasise that it
will be in the NCP interest to see the SPLM, its main
partner in the GNU, dormant and ineffective. It will
also be a political suicide for the SPLM Chairman and
his deputy to think that the people of South will vote
for them, simply because the SPLM brought peace.
Fifthly, relating to the above point is harmonisation
of the SPLM policies on national issues and on issues
relating to the implementation of the peace agreement.
For example, there are currently two designate SPLM
executives, one heading the SPLM Southern sector while
the other heading the Northern sector. These senior
officials are supposed to act, in consultation with
the Chairman of the movement, as the official voices
of the Movement rather than each minister or senior
SPLM member expresses his/her view without
coordination. In fact, the nature of the agreement
warrants that there should be designated official
spokespersons specifically for the SPLM, GOSS and for
the SPLM caucus in the National and Southern
parliaments. This is because the implementation of the
agreement requires that there should be clear SPLM
positions and policies on Darfur, clear channels of
communication between the SPLM and northern
oppositions, designated officials to coordinate
relations with other Southern political parties and
armed groups. The SPLM through its structures should
have policies on every national issue, especially on
national media, particularly on TV and Radio.
Abyei’s Time Bomb
Sixthly, the question of Abyei is a potential time
bomb that might force the SPLA to go back to war. An
indication of the CPA architects’ wisdom was their
insistence that the first commission to be formed was
the Abyei Border Commission (ABC). In fact, the Abyei
commission report was the first item on the agenda of
the first meeting of the Presidency on 10 July 2005,
which was then composed of El-Beshir-Garang-Taha
alliance. The dynamics of mechanical majority within
the Presidency (2+1) led to the Abyei Commission
Report to be frozen. Senior NCP officials and senior
Northern opposition leaders have already expressed
their reservations about the ruling of the report.
Missiriyya technocrats and politicians were given free
access to the public media to condemn the
international experts’ report on Abyei, while any move
from the part of Ngok Dinka citizens to urge the
Presidency to approve the report, which according to
the CPA is non negotiable, is deemed by the NCP
ideologues a breach of institutional framework.
This was the case when in early December 2005 Ali
Ismail Atabani, one of the owners of Rai Al-Aam daily
in Khartoum wrote an opinion page attacking Cdr. Deng
Alor Kuol, Minister of Cabinet Affairs in GNU, for
pointing out that the failure of the Presidency to
approve the Abyei border commission report may force
the SPLM to seek IGAD and IGAD partners’ intervention.
In the same article Ali Ismail Attabani attacked Dr.
Francis Deng for raising the Abyei issue in USA, and
indeed suggested that both Deng Alor and Francis Deng
were undermining the leadership of Salva Kiir Mayardit
and Bona Malwal in Southern Sudan, two of whom
happened to be in the Republican Palace and hailed
from the vicinity of Abyei, Gogrial County.
Of course Attabani’s attack on Francis Deng in
particular was absurd because he suggested that Dr.
Francis Deng might have been unhappy that he did not
take over the leadership of the SPLM after the death
of Dr. Garang. Such alterations from prominent NCP
ideologues such Ismail Attabani, are symptoms of a
wider policy, not only to use the old tactic of divide
and rule among Southerners, but to give an impression
that there are serious differences between the Dinka
of Gogrial, from where both Mayardit and Malwal hail,
and the Ngok Dinka of Abyei. The mishandling of Abyei
border report by NCP is a recipe to a serious setback
for the implementation of the CPA.
Needless to say, there will be no use for the border
commission between the north and South which El-Beshir
has established, as long as the Abyei border
commission report is not approved by the Presidency.
The two commissions were established by the provisions
of the same agreement, and unless the NCP and other
northern Sudanese political groups act and respect the
CPA stipulations, the whole agreement may collapse
before the elections of 2009. It was the same Abyei
problem that almost led to the collapse of the
Naivasha peace process. Southern Sudanese are not
ready to leave the Abyei border unresolved; they are
not ready for another Kashmir.
National Capital
Seventhly, the issue of the national capital is one of
those issues which, if not handled with care, may in
the long run prove to be a real nightmare for the
National Congress. For El-Beshir and associates, the
question of establishing a joint government for
national capital is a matter of offering positions to
the SPLM members as they did in the GNU; whereas to
the SPLM the power sharing in the Capital falls within
the strategic policy of creating a new image of Sudan.
What a capital means to NCP is not the same to the
SPLM or the Darfurians for that matter. The rest of
Sudanese are interested in a capital that represents
them and reflect their aspirations. No one would be
interested in a capital that discriminates against its
citizens, applying discriminatory laws and imposing
cultural practices that divide people rather than
unite them. Sudanese are not interested in a capital
where a minority is living expensive life, while the
majority lives in a dreadful poverty. What a capital
where the ruling elites pride themselves of ruling the
richest country in East Africa, thanks to oil boom,
while within the centre of the capital thousands of
street children and beggars share the main roads with
the luxuries cars that the NCP petrodollar
millionaires are using!
Connectivity and Management of Expectations
Eighthly, the SPLM leaders should start to travel to
the villages and towns of Southern Sudan to
familiarise themselves with realities on the grounds.
After completing the institutionalisation of the CPA,
the SPLM leaders, should start to visit villages,
towns, refugee camps, the displaced camps, the
Southern Sudanese in the Diaspora, the communities in
their areas, so as to explain to them the SPLM
priorities as well as to listen to the needs and
priorities of the people after the liberation. In
fact, one expects starting from mid January 2006 the
new SPLM leadership to visit the SPLA garrisons in the
Nuba Mountains, Abyei, Southern Blue Nile, Upper Nile,
Equatoria and in Bahr El Ghazal, to share with the
SPLA officers and soldiers the new leadership’s plans
for the future. Interacting with local leaders,
traditional and religious leaders will definitely help
the new SPLM leadership to acquaint itself with the
expectations of the people. Managing people’s
expectations during post war era is the most difficult
task that a leadership of liberation movement should
take keen interest in. This is because the states and
counties are very crucial in the implementation of the
peace agreement. In fact, the role of governors and
the counties’ commissioners during the interim period
is more crucial than the role of ministers at GNU and
GOSS levels. While the SPLM and parliaments
conceptualise and formulate the development policies,
with the help of the GNU and GOSS, the states and
counties’ authorities are the implementers of the
policies. It is therefore crucial that the SPLM, GOSS
ministers, governors and especially the President and
Vice President of GOSS, should travel intensively
throughout the New Sudan territories, interacting with
local population and learn from them.
Importance of Neighbours and Friends
Ninthly, interacting with local population, especially
those near to the regional and international borders,
require better understanding of what is happening in
the neighbouring countries and beyond. The South
cannot survive, as a land lock territory without
interacting and benefiting from what the neighbouring
countries can offer. The visits by the President of
GOSS to Egypt, USA, Ethiopia, and Eritrea were very
crucial courtesy calls. Similar visits should take
place as soon as time permits to other neighbouring
and friendly countries, so that a systematic approach
to regional cooperation is established between the
South and these countries. The GOSS should continue to
encourage friendly countries and organisations to open
consulates and trade missions in Juba, Malakal and
Wau. The importance of East African Community (EAC) to
the economic prosperity of Sudan, and South in
particular is a very important aspect to observe
closely. The GOSS should therefore establish units
within its ministry of regional cooperation to monitor
the activities of EAC, IGAD, AU, COMESA and other
inter-governmental international agencies such as the
UN, the League of Arab States and EU. The importance
of such units lies in that for the CPA to be
implemented, regional and international organisations,
and key states which witnessed the signing of the CPA
must be kept informed, and that is why, it is
important for the ministry of regional cooperation in
Juba to seriously begin to institutionalise its
activities. The crucial role played by the US in
pressurising NCP to implement the CPA during November
2005, led to the El-Beshir to speed up the formation
of the commissions and other important bodies
stipulated in the agreement. The GOSS’ ministry of
regional cooperation should therefore keep the
friendly countries and the UN system informed about
the progress of the implementation of the CPA.
Managing Investment Sector with Utmost Care!
Finally, the economic boom which the South is said to
be undergoing may end up as a curse rather than a
blessing if it is not supervised through appropriate
institutions and with vigilant parliamentary
overseeing. First of all, most of the ?investors’ who
are daily travelling to the South are ?brokers’ or ?go
between’ and are not the owners of the companies they
are speaking on behalf. The implication of this is
that the GOSS of Southern Sudan will find itself
dealing with very junior officials who have no final
say in the terms of the deals or contracts they are
negotiating. The result is that many ministers of GOSS
of Southern Sudan will find themselves negotiating
more than once with different agents of the same
company, wasting valuable time that they should spend
providing the people of South with the badly needed
services. Secondly, several investors are travelling
to Southern Sudan with the perception that they should
meet with the highest authorities of the GOSS, paying
little respect to any senior official who is
designated to deal with such issues. The President,
the Vice President and ministers of Government of
Southern Sudan have found themselves spending many
hours daily meeting with various delegations of
?investors’, most of who are only interested in
striking deals and signing contracts without proper
negotiations, as if the South is another Banana
republic to exploit.
Instead of wasting valuable time of the President, his
Vice and ministers in endless meetings, one would
suggest that the Council of Ministers of GOSS appoints
in each ministry two senior officials (male and a
female) to negotiate and scrutinise the offers of
investors, and refer to the relevant minister or to
the Council of Ministers the cases of those investors
who have been deemed to have fulfilled the
requirements to be awarded contracts, including
successful bidding process. The President, his Deputy
and ministers can only meet with those investors who
are coming in to invest in multi-million sectors that
fall directly under the jurisdiction of the Council of
Ministers or well known personalities in the business
world. The way things are currently, it seems that
each minister is left to negotiate with investors,
without help from professional teams, who should
scrutinise the profiles and the financial capabilities
of those companies fluxing to the South, before
awarding them contracts. The principle that each
company should partner with local company will be the
only safeguard for the future of the South. It is
important to point out that whatever route that the
GOSS will take regarding investment policies in
Southern Sudan from 2006 onward, will definitely shape
the future of the wealth sharing among southern
Sudanese in the post-Naivasha Southern Sudan. Unless
the investment sector is handled with care and
integrity, the South may end up another Nigeria or
Iraq.
* John Yoh is a lecturer at the Department of
Political Science, University of South Africa in
Pretoria and Member of Advisory Board of the Gurtong
Trust.