A déjà vue of many agreements dishonoured

By Mou A. Thiik*

Feb 1, 2006 — Now that the fanfare is over after the signature of the well received Coprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), and that the weapons have been silenced in the South, the Government of South Sudan (GoSS) is confronted with new but anticipated challenges. Foremost the implementation of the six protocolls especially those of power and wealth sharing which have so far proved difficult to achieve even a year after signing the CPA.

South Sudan is in a riddled situation that calls into mind what has been expressed time and again vis a vis, the lack of good will and the skepticism which dominates in the North (th political north). Voracity and fear are the most deep rooted mental state that governs the political as well as the economic scene in the Sudan. One can best describe the politics of the North as a reaction to the following two sentiments: the fear to loose political ground or the fear to change on the one hand and on the other an obsessive greediness that denies real partnership in the pluralistic political orientation . These feelings have been the driving motif to this unresolved tie. Unfortunately, this psyche has remained unwavering without exception for the successive regimes in power in the North.

After this long suffering, Southerners hope against hope and one can not help, but to admire the virtue of patience in our simple folks. There are no people that have endured so much and here is the South once more reaching out for Northern brother to be bitten again.

South Sudan has never been lacking in wise leaders, however they were/are up to fight against many odds. First vice president of the Sudan Salva Kiir Mayardit and president of the South Sudan has shown unprecedented qualities of patience and leadership.

Albeit the negative and disparaging press coverage of the islamists, Mayardit has managed with calm personality and meagre resourse to thwart this futile attempt.

He has for example applied his virtues to maximise the fortunes and to mininmise the misfortunes of South sudanese. He has succeded in the formation of the organs and governmental institutions in the South and has laboured hard to reconcile and harness the politically disoriented, financially famished and perfidious Southern politicians and militiamen. He has made the unity of the South a priority by putting the Southern house in order. We can congratulate him on this job. Surely, after the tragic loss of the visionary, thinker and hero Dr. John Garang de Mabiour, the South needed a focused leadership with mental strength so badly. Despite the overwhelming despair and almost lost of political orientation, Mayardit took up the challenge to the surprise of many. It is worth mentioning that President Salva Kiir Mayardit is a military man by profession, so the more admiring is his character as a capable political figure.

Winter has been very harsh this year. Temperatures sank as low as minus 50 degrees and in the political events for the South Sudanese at home and abroad it reached it’s lowest as well. It started with the massacre in Al mohandiseen in Cairo marked with an excessive use of brutalility by the Egyptian police in evacuating a civil and peaceful protest in front of the UN premises of many people of the marginalised Sudanese. The public waited anxiously for President Omar Al Bashir to give a gesture of humanity, but it was too much hoped for. It was Ali Al Kerti – state minister in the Foreign Affairs – who blamed it all on the helpless Refugees and instead of consoling the bereaved, he added insult into injury. It was obvious that those involved in the protest for housing and feeding allowances did not represent his constituency and therefore not worth a human gesture; so bad for the political Sudan. Those humiliating pictures which were seen around the globe have disqualified Egypt to assume any leadership role among African nations in the future and has shattered world’s faith in any successful democratic system to evolve from The Nile Vally with respect to human rights and protection of the weak.

It was a bad sense of political immaturity that Egypt featured twice on the news concerning South Sudan. On another ocassion Egyptian officials have shown keen interest in investing in South Sudan, yet many Southern Sudanese ask themselves where was Egypt with this newly founded “Mother Thresa” attitude when Southerners were starving in thousends to death. Did Egypt send any food and blankets for the needy?! No, Egypt was indifferent and so the more intriguing is Egypt’s wolf in sheep clothes approach towards Southern Sudaese in their capital city. This goes for the whole Arab world. The question will have to be raised and made heard by Southern Sudanese to such oppotunistic nations. The real and genuine franteral concern of the South, East and West African nations reveals so the more the hypocritical approach of the Arab nations to the Sudanese conflict. South Sudan branded as animist, christain and African by the ruling class in Khartoum has had enough of it’s ill lack in aid and development share, yet in the muslim but non Arab region of Darfur the contemptuous attitude of the Arabs against Africans in the Sudan is most revealing.

This mishap goes well with the National congress Party (NCP) strategic and chilling paper presented during the party’s congress in September last year by Finance Minister, Mr. Ibrahim Hamdi. After Mr. Hamdi had planned and schemed, he requested from his ruling party (52 %) to concentrate in devloping the traingular Dongula, Sinar and Kurdofan, thus manifesting to the rest of the country the vexing political bearings of the NCP ideological bigotry. As I mentioned above, it is obvious that gluttony and fear are at work in this scheme. When Garang de Mabior was received by millions of expectant SPLM sympathisers, the Islamist fear must have been beyond heaven and hell. It is hence little wonder that many of those who welcome the hero at the Green Square could not just accept that fate cheated them, but kept on believing that the Islamist enmity for Garang was so enormous that they can not be exonorated from Garang’s demise.

At the hight of power sharing implemtation and the ensuing conflict thereupon as to whom will hold the strings in Ministry of Petrolium, the NCP again proved it’s ill intention beyond any doubt that it was bound to carry on it’s old gimmecks. Amusing as well as nerve jangling information was dished out by the discontented parties. Some memoriable anecdotes have been very popular in the streets of Khartoum. One example serves our thought of greed and avarice suitably. Pagan Amum the rising SPLM political star once describe the attitude of NCP to some one who is so greedy that he throws away the spoon and uses the two hands to help himself.

The NCP has kept the production capacity of the oil produced in South of Sudan a top secret, known only to Awad Al Jaz, Ibrahim Hamdi and a few number of colleagues thus confirming the initial worst fears expressed by SPLM party members in particular and the Southern Sudanese in general. Statements by a junior staff at the Ministry of Finance concerning the issues of production capacity is an added concerted confusion since Awad Al jaz alone is the only responsible who can provide the physical number of the oil produced. Moreover it is not in the jurisidiction of these junior personell to release such statements when it is clearliy stated in the CPA that these issues are handled by independent commissions, organs which the NCP so far completely ignored.

Before he left for Juba last Weekend, Mayardit made his long overdue press statement, where he let the cat out of the bag. His frustration about the very slow implementation – a mild diplomatic wording – of the CPA on the questions of oil sharing, Abyei, North-South boarder and the fishy dishonest political alliance between NCP and SPLM has involuntarily forced him to go public. Omar Al Bashir, Ali Osman and their party want to reduce Southerners to beggars and let them starve middest of their rich oil region. The greed of this folk is unnatural, even after having had the share of 50 % (and 100 % for seven years 1998 – 2004) of oil produced in the South of Sudan they are reluctant to give the other half. While the south is financially starved, the West and East are kept in war, the triangular region is booming with multibillion investment projects. How wicked, dishonest and devlish can people be!

Kiir Mayardit’s press statement strongly implies that president Omar Al Bashir and Ali Osman Taha will stand responsible if the CPA collapses. His unequivocal words are an early warning signal so as to come to sense and implement the CPA in good faith. The NCP should not push things to the edge as it is now apparent in it’s dealings with the Darfur conflict. It would be a grave miscalculation that could bring the nation to another level of confrontation, the ealier the peaceful solution the better for all. Addiss Abeba Agreement (1972), Khartoum Agreement (1997) and now the CPA (2005) will never have the same outcome, though we have the same actors with the one playing the same old role of dishonesty. It is the short memory of a people that reduces them to be mere insignificant footnote in the history of nations. Will South Sudan then have a long memory to preseve itself and survive the turbulant times ahead?! This necessitates an increase in the collective survival instinct of our folks and a conscientious consciousness of historical facts. This needs further a sentisized political leadership with highly developed skills in reading political and social events correctly.

Kiir Mayardit has aired not his own opinion, but as a concerned leader he simply refelcted the feeling of an overwhelming majority of Southern Sudanese, who continue to suffer under the indifference of El Bashir’s regime. What then, can the SPLM leadership collectively do to ease the jeremaid of the South Sudanese citizens beyond mere consoling words and jeering partner?!

Immanuel Kant eulogised the rationality in man by writing the theory Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason) und later Arthur Schopenhauer in The power of will and Imagination, both German thinkers and philosopher stood against archaic forces of order and tradition who were against change and this was as early as the eighteenth centuray. More than two hundert years later Paul Huntington’s The Clash of Civilization, and Francis Madig Deng’s War of Visions are about the same subject with little variation. Both books describe the continuous battle between the liberal thinking man versus the traditionalist and specifically the Islamic, Christian and Jewish fundamentalists.

The ideological differences mixed with economic interests are dominently the source of our contemporary world conflicts of which Sudan is a prime example.

At the bottom of this lengthy essay is the troubling fact that was unleashed and triggered by Kiir Mayardit’s statement. At this juncture of political incongruity a collective action by memebers of SPLM and opposition is called for to answer this rowdy behaviour of the NCP. Sudan will and can not afford another outright civil war. Therefore, NCP must be given a clear and distinct message to cease obstructing the CPA. Following steps should be helpful to keep the noose tied:

· SPLM legislative and executive members and officials in the North should cease going to work and declare a three days strike every month till the due oil share payments are met. This should also apply for other contentious issues.

· The UN and international partners especially the trioka (USA, Norway and Britain) plus Italy must be officially informed about the latest development

· IGAD countries should be officially informed through a written document

· All NDA and opposition parties should join in this political strife in solidarity for a just and democratic peaceful Sudan.

* Mou A. Thiik is a Sudanese Philologist and Economist based in Kiel, Germany.