SSUDA press release on Kiir visit to USA

July 19, 2006 — This week, Mr. Slava Kiir Mayardit the First Vice President of Sudan and the head of the de facto autonomous government of South Sudan and his entourage are meeting with the US State Department, the USAID in Washington, DC. There is likelihood that Mr. Kiir may visit Omaha. How can he visit without properly informing the thriving South Sudanese-American community about his visit? Does he think we have no influence in Omaha, the State of Nebraska, or the USA? He may not be warmly welcomed by many Sudanese because of his dirty past in the SPLM/A. Although many would attend, any event held in his honor of his visit, it would not be because they like him, but because it would be a forum for them to put their opinions, since Mr. Kiir is unpopular and unsophisticated in politics and relations.

Many Americans do not know where South Sudan is located. It is not an independent and sovereign state. It is part of the largest war-ravaged African nation of Sudan. The South makes up a third of Sudan’s landmass (1 million square miles). A prolonged war for political independence has been waged in the South for more than forty years. The first of the war began six months before Sudan’s independence from the United Kingdom on 1.1.1956 and lasted for 17 years.

The first war was lulled by the Addis-Ababa Accord of 1972, which granted the South the internal self-determination or local autonomy within a united socialist Sudan. The 1972 agreement lulled the guns and provided a fragile peace for a decade. By 1974, the Nuiemeri Regime signed a peace deal with the South, introducing Shari’ a law as the law of Sudan, including the non-Arab-Muslim South. The 1972 agreement was dissolved by the superimposition of the September laws (Islamic laws) in the country.

In 1983, a full-scale war was renewed and lasted for the next 22 years between the North and the South. In 1991, there was a split in the movement which was then followed by other counter splits based on ethnic and ideological differences.

The causes of the split were lack of a virtual objective, lack of democratization and systematic human rights abuses. Most importantly, the leadership was (and still is) dictatorial, tyrannical, autocratic and authoritarian. The late Garang and his cronies in the SPLM/A leadership managed the movement like their personal plantation.

In 1997, the South Sudan independence movements, along with six other movements signed the Khartoum Peace Agreement (KPA) that assured the people of South Sudan the right of self-determination through an internationally supervised referendum to determine their political destiny, socio-economic and cultural well-being as well as the right to development.

The Khartoum Peace Agreement was rejected by the SPLM/A leadership and was determined to be as a sell out, a betrayal of the cause of the South. The KPA was signed on the recognition by the Arab-Muslim north for the first time of the exercise of the right of self-determination by the people of South Sudan as stipulated in Article 1 paragraph 2 and Article 55 of the UN Charter. The agreement stipulated that the internationally supervised referendum should be on two outstanding issues, regarding the unity of the country or secession or partition of the country into two independent and sovereign states (one in the predominantly Arab-Muslim north to be governed by Shari’a laws and developed on an Islamic path. The other should be a secular and democratic state in the non-Arab-Muslim south). This was the most vibrant and viable method of ending Africa’s longest and forgotten conflict. The SPLM/A rejected the above-mentioned agreement negotiated within the framework of the Intergovernmental Authority and Development Declaration of Principles (IGAD/DOP).

The KPA was supported by the European Union as a first step forward and in the right direction. The SPLM/A and the Arab-Muslim north, or the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) rejected the agreement because of acute political and ideological differences between Washington and the pro-Islamic government in Khartoum. The UN Security Council resolution passed sanctions on Sudan and called for insulation, denial of international access, and arms embargoes to be imposed on the African country.

The KPA collapsed in 2000. The SPLM/A, with help from lobbyists in Washington, DC, initiated another peace agreement with Khartoum sponsored by the US, Norway, the UK, and Italy. The SPLM-Khartoum Peace Agreement was signed on 9 January 2005. The SPLM joined the Government of National Unity (GONU). The late dictator Garang was appointed as the First Vice President of Sudan. Within one month on the job, he died in a helicopter crash along the Sudan-Uganda border.

He was replaced by his former Deputy, Chief of Security and the Minister of Death in the SPLM/A, Mr. Slava Kiir. The bilateral agreement granted the South a right to a de facto quasi-autonomous regional government. The SPLM/A is a pro-unionist movement. The current agreement is an extension of the Khartoum Peace Agreement of 1997. There is nothing new offered either the both GOS or the SPLM/A Khartoum Agreement. The GOS did not rescind the 1997 agreement’s articles and provisions.

The agreement signed more than 18 months ago has produced no significant change in the South. Everything remains at a virtual standstill. It is not transparent, comprehensive, or inclusive because it has excluded many military factions, political forces and the civil society. It has failed to form a democratic system, good governance, the rule of law, respect for human rights, transparency, accountability and the development of infrastructure. More than $1.5b was received for the 50% of the oil wealth for the past 18 months; the money has disappeared and was probably pocketed by the bureaucrats.

The USAID also spent more American taxpayer money in South Sudan which remains unaccounted for. This has proven to be a waste, and demonstrates and lack or the absence thereof of fiscal responsibility. The SPLM/A -led (de facto) tribal government is one of the most corrupt systems in the world, comparable only to Kenya and Nigeria. Furthermore, it has failed to unite the South.

On the issue of human rights violations, the SPLM/A continues to inflict suffering throughout the South against the civil population in the name of Disarmament without providing any security protection to the locals who are being disarmed. Many innocent people have been affected in the last few months. Before leaving for the USA via Kenya, Mr. Slava Kiir declared war on the people throughout South Sudan. He has ordered the arrests of Sudanese-Americans and many of them have been beaten and physically assaulted because they have uttered the words “democracy” “development”, or “human rights”, which are the cardinal principles of the Western creeds. These individuals have returned with much needed skills from the US. They had the ambition to return to transfer knowledge and technology to help in the socio-economic development of the country. Unfortunately, they have been discouraged by what they have witnessed.

Development in the area is impractical, if not impossible, to takeoff because there is no support system in the South for this. Juba, the capital of the South remains in shambles because there is no infrastructure. There is extreme lack of adequate housing, no roads built, no schools, and no medicine or other basic needs. Because of rampant corruption, Juba is now a tent city where benefits are reaped only by the power elite.
The south Sudan United Democratic (SSUDA) a democratic mass party calls for the following:

– Dissolution of the corrupt system in Juba and replacement by a credible democratic system.
Equitable power and wealth sharing between the SPLM and SSUDA in the South.
– Establishment of a multiparty system based on democratic values and equal representation of all groups, including women.
– Establishment of a war crimes tribunal and a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in the South similar to the post-apartheid South Africa, Rwanda’s genocide tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, and Serbian leaders in The Hague, The Netherlands.
– The SPLM/A warlords and commanders who have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and ethnic cleansing should be indicted.
– Mr. Slava Kiir who was the Chief Security and Deputy to the late John Garang should be indicted on war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the South. If the US government and the American people believe that war crimes are tantamount to crimes against humanity. Mr. Kiir should not be permitted to enter the United States of America. The UN International Criminal Court (ICC) should indict Mr. Kiir and some of his entourage known to have committed war crimes and crimes against in South Sudan during the war years.
– We urge the US to invoke Article 11 of the Sudan Peace Act [the Act) passed by the US Congress and signed into law by President Bush in the White House in 2002.
– We warn American investors to wait because there is no democratic or accountable democratic system in the South. The so-called Government of South Sudan (GOSS) that exists in Juba is a flaw and predominantly controlled tribal government. It is dysfunctional, ineffective and out of control because of corruption and the lack or the absence thereof of democratic institutions.
– Mr. Kiir should be indicted for the ongoing crimes against humanity in the South.

In conclusion, the SSUDA party as an opposition urges and appeals to its representatives in the Diaspora to expose the SPLM war crimes and crimes against humanity to the world.

Signed:

Peter Chuol Gatluak,
South Sudan United Democratic Alliance (SSUDA)
Information and Cuture Secretary
[email protected]