Does Pagan’s exit restore the Sudan’s wounded sovereignty?

Taban Abel Aguek

October 2, 2008 — The circumstances that led to the exit of the SPLM Secretary General from the Government of National Unity provoked some strange feelings across Sudan. One wonders who committed a heavier mistake between he who hand-cupped its people drove them across oceans of blood and he who pointed out that given such a situation, the state is failed. Unless we are forced to believe that the difference between the two is that one stands for a ‘god’ there is no way Pagan would been harshly sent packing for pointing at the reality that we come face to face every day.

Whether Pagan resigned on his own volition, sacked or made to resign makes no difference. The SPLM constitution adopted in the 2008 National Convention requires the secretary general for a full time job. However, the manner in which the Government in Khartoum reacted to Pagan’s statement made a number of people suspicious. For Pagan to say that Sudan is a failed state, if at all Sudan was not failed by many of us, would have simply been replied in words kinder and less harsh than those used by the leaders of NCP in the Government of National Unity. Beshir, as is usually the case, immediately forgot that he leads a shared government and went straight to forming a commission of inquiry with Pagan for dragging the name and image of a country that he leads in the mud. Yet this was a country that was long dumped in the mud by all administrations of Khartoum including the one he currently leads.

Power is always beautiful in the hands of those who misuse it. It is exactly what is happening in Sudan. If not, then there is no way on earth the Beshir led government would turn a blind eye to all the mistakes it commits everyday and focus on mere statements. If Pagan had stated that Sudan is a failed state just before the 1989 coup he would have received a pat on the shoulder even from those of Al Beshir. After obtaining power, Al Beshir goes wrong on all issues that he had claimed he was coming to correct, puts his vigorous mistakes underneath and cross over to slap others in the face for insulting the sovereignty of Sudan under the pretext of crime against the state. Worse still, it causes one life if they mention this or at least immunity for those lucky ones under a beautiful headline of protecting sovereignty.

Yet, it is sovereignty that was long harmed. Pagan’s statement about Sudan being a failed state is not louder than the suffering of people of Darfur. We live in a country whose leader and some members of his cabinet are to appear before an international criminal court.

Everything else is just obvious In Sudan, democracy is half-baked, media is strangled, freedom is not free and sovereignty is a victim of the war fought in its name. Human right records have always been poor. Race and religion have been used all along as means to distinguish a friend from an enemy and success from failure. Politics and economy is whirled around the necks some individuals – the same people who shed crocodile tears at a paradox of the dignity of a country which they already harmed. Mercy has to be silently guessed in the eyes of on lookers. Pagan should be excused for not using the style is taught to recite even in their dreams – calling a spade a spoon when we mean the other way round all for fear of insulting a sacred state whose leaders come to power through blood and whose palaces are built of human bones.

Sudan has never seen real peace since independence. Though rich with natural resources, it has stayed very much under developed. It has carried a burden of political instability and all sorts of international sanctions. There has been serious lack of democracy, human rights and justice. It has been in a state of oppression, slavery and racism. It denied not only freedom of expression, but also religious, cultural and social freedom. Then there is the war in Darfur. Into the fifth year, 200,000 people are dead and millions are in perishing in the camps in Chad. The efforts of the international community to bring peace and UN forces to the devastated region have been thwarted with terrible threats of war against the forces again because our sovereignty will be questioned. As if the genocide in Darfur was not enough the same Government together with its armed Janjaweed launches attack on Abyei, whose future still to date remain undetermined. Census was boycotted by several parts of Darfur. In other regions like the South, it was conducted but very poorly and very much under the influence of the central government. Results begin to flow but show very little reality. Into the fourth year, the CPA goes on wheel chair. There is one of the worst corruptions in the Khartoum led government mainly in the oil sector. Mined from the South, the oil gets its way to unworthy customers, China and Russia, in exchange of military equipment. This war equipment is responsible for the suffering of the Sudanese in Darfur and South Sudan. People live in utmost fear. They die everyday from curable diseases and hunger; let infrastructural services and social needs become too meager to mention.

With all these burning and indefensible issues, Sudan is not a ‘failed state’. And they are not worth mentioning for fear and respect of the sovereignty and dignity of the state. Under all these extreme circumstances, one man and his government are granted confession to strangle people with impunity and expect people to remain dumbfounded because sovereignty is more important than lives of the people it is intended for.

In Khartoum there is competition over who first react to an anti government statement so that people who do it appear like they love the country and the president more than anyone else, but the truth of it all is that they want to remain close to the heart of the head of state for a simple reason of protecting their cabinet positions. It is the reason why folks like Nafie Ali Nafie could not hesitate to call on Pagan to step down when he said Sudan is a faile state. Now that Pagan has quit the GoNU, people who had wished for it must be in ‘peace with themselves’and admit that our country does not stand on its feet; its image and reputation were long dented because it has been failed by them.

If Pagan exit means the restoration of Sudan’s sovereignty then that is what we all need. We shall be there to see or else we shall continue to ask for Al Beshir to stand before the ICC and defend himself against all charges of war crime and genocide in Darfur. I hope this does not also collide with sovereignty.

The author is based in Rumbek South Sudan. He can be reached at [email protected]