Salva Kiir is gaining leadership quality
By Steve Paterno
The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him (Nicolo Machiavelli).
Jan 27, 2007 — “I hold it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter of one-half of our actions, but that she still leaves us to direct the other half, or perhaps a little less,” said Nicolo Machiavelli, an icon of political realism. In the politically treacherous Italian Renaissance, Nicolo Machiavelli, advised the ruling prince to be impetuous rather than cautious so as to conform to the changing political realities of the time, which is controlled by Fortune. According to Machiavelli, a wise prince must prepare at all times to raise to the challenges in such a way that a raging river can be contained from overflowing by constructing dams and putting up levees before the storm occurs. However, in the case of President Salva Kiir, though in a position of a prince he lacks the qualities of a prince and worse he lacks princely advice in a world that is defined by rapid changes or Fortune as Machiavelli will put it.
Salva Kiir leadership qualities are as much determined by his career as well as by his personality. His qualities are even being diminished by Fortune. Salva Kiir career path started by a brief enrollment in a formal school but before he could get anywhere with the schooling the country was at a war and Salva Kiir was off the school. He went on to join the Anya-Anya rebellion movement so as to fight the war. That time marked Kiir’s career of being a soldier. After a career in Anya-Anya movement, Kiir was absorbed into the Sudanese Armed Forces after the Addis Ababa Peace Agreement of 1972. Salva Kiir was able to rise in rank as far as being a junior officer in the branch of military security service within the Sudanese Armed Forces.
In 1983, unsatisfied with the way the country was ruled, Salva Kiir with some of his Southern Sudanese colleagues in the Sudanese Armed Forces rebelled to form the Sudan People Liberation Army (SPLA). In forming the SPLA leadership structure, Salva Kiir assumed the leadership of SPLA security service as well as retaining the lowest position among the founding members of SPLA. He seemed to be contented with his position as he proved loyalty to the chairman of SPLA and the movement for years until late 2004 when he fell of the favor. As for the other founding members of SPLA, they somewhat proved disloyalty to the chairman of SPLA, Dr. John Garang. Some of them proved disloyalty as early as five years in the movement. One by one and in a series of years, all the founding members of SPLA including Dr. John Garang but Salva Kiir passed away. Some of the death of these founding members is obvious, others have their death implicated to Dr. John Garang and Salva Kiir, and yet others died mysteriously.
While all these are taking place, Salva Kiir is unexpectedly finding himself bumped up the hierarchy of SPLA leadership. More shocking to Salva Kiir than anyone else was when Dr. John Garang passed away that Salva Kiir had to assume the top leadership position of the movement. Only few months before Salva Kiir could take over the top position of SPLA/M, Kiir found himself challenging the leadership of Dr. John Garang. Perhaps that was something that Salva Kiir did not want to do but was forced by others to do it because Salva Kiir challenging of Garang’s leadership was very poor that it proves that Kiir was unprepared to rule. In his challenge, Kiir bragged on how the people of Behr el-Ghazel suffered under famine and Arab militia attacks. And his vision was to rescue the people of Behr el-Ghazel by calling on the international community to help. This was in a contrast to Dr. John Garang who bragged on how the people of Sudan suffer under the Khartoum regime and with his vision of New Sudan; he will ease the suffering of the people of the Sudan. As a result, Salva Kiir with his narrow focus and concerns to the region and people of Bhar el-Ghazel, he ended up scoring a zero point. Meanwhile, Dr. John Garang with his broad focus and concerns to the Sudan and people of Sudan ended up scoring huge, a hundred points. Therefore, Salva Kiir emerged as a demoralized loser from this challenge, which was obviously orchestrated by others from Behr el-Ghazel region. Kiir never learned the secret that the moment one reduced one’s concern into regionalism or tribalism, Dr. John Garang will walk over you easily. And that was what happened, Dr. John Garang walked over Salva Kiir without any obstacle.
Therefore, taking leadership become a challenging affairs for Salva Kiir and it is even complicated more by his personality. From day one of taking the leadership of SPLA/M, Kiir is confronted by people’s expectation on whether he will measure up to the qualities of Dr. John Garang which include things like intellectual, visionary, politician, etc. To meet people’s expectations and legitimized his leadership, Kiir said after all he was unanimously elected to be the leader even though there is little truth to whether he was really unanimously elected. He also admitted that Garang was built over a long period of time to be what he is and that the people should build him too so he can reach the level of Garang’s experience.
As such, Kiir started of poorly. In a first negotiation with the National Congress Party (NCP), Kiir lost big time by giving up key ministerial posts that suppose to go to SPLM in accordance with the power sharing protocol of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). In response to his failure, Kiir simply said we cannot go to war over this stuff. Machiavelli response would have been, “yeah, we can go to war if the other side is willing to go to war and if that is one of the reasons the war started in the first place.” Anyway, that was not the last time Kiir failed in dealing with the NCP. There are a host of issues where Kiir failed to challenge NCP such as the militia issue, the Abyei border issue, the South-North border issue, oil revenue issue, the Darfur issue, etc. With respect to corruption, Kiir was complacent about it. He said corruption is bad and if any one sees corruption taking place, it must be reported and he will deal with it. Well, corruption becomes rampant and almost every high ranking official in the government is in one way or another is implicated in a corruption of some degree. With the issue of Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) of Uganda, Kiir said they should not only negotiate peace but be officially stationed in the South Sudan. Well, the LRA official invitation to be stationed in South Sudan greatly contributes to the security destabilization of South Sudan. The LRA are even emboldened by this official invitation. Vincent Otti, the second in command of LRA said, “they called us to Sudan, so why chase us? We are ready for them in whatever way.” Otti probably murmured that after all, Sudan is home for the Lou people.
Well, perhaps Vincent Otti and his LRA are ready but we will not know that because the person who is more ready now than ever is Salva Kiir. In all the areas that Kiir has failed, he has somewhat improved. Kiir went on the record in not only challenging Omer el-Beshir of the NCP but confronting him in public. In responding to corruption, several high level officials from government of South Sudan are dismissed from their positions and will hopefully be prosecuted for corruption. There are more promises on the way on investigation of corruptions along the same line. The Anti-Corruption Commission seems to finally report to work months after the commission was established. Perhaps Kiir forced them to report for duty. More promising, the commission is probing on wide range of alleged corruption from across the board. With the issue of the LRA, Kiir promises to mobilize the “Equatorial Defense Forces, other armed forces and everybody with a gun and the civilian population should to join hands with the SPLA and hunt them (LRA) down.” His message is clear, the LRA is already panicking. They are speculating in running for Kenya , the world capital of refugees for safe haven.
Perhaps Kiir does not need a Machiavellian advisor but he surely need wise advisors to fulfill his goal of being built as a leader and responding efficiently in emerging crisis. Hopefully with the trend that Kiir is developing, which is happening just within one month, there is hope for South Sudan. As Machiavelli would say, “fortune being changeful and mankind steadfast in their ways, so long as the two are in agreement men are successful, but unsuccessful when they fall out.” Therefore, let Kiir loosen up a little bit and become more adventurous. He must build the dams and put up the levees to stop the surging water. “So it happens with fortune, who shows her power where valor has not prepared to resist her, and thither she turns her forces where she knows that barriers and defenses have not been raised to constrain her”, Machiavelli will advise.
* Steve Paterno is a Sudanese residing in the U.S.A., and he can be reached at [email protected]