South Sudan: United in corruption we fall

By Justin Ambago Ramba

November 22, 2008 — The unity amongst south Sudanese has been for long an issue for both active politicians as well as academics as the region after the five decades of civil war with the Arab Islamic North is expected to foster itself into a uniform political entity.

Many ways for achieving the much anticipated South Sudanese unity have been suggested and formulated by differed groups and individuals since the signing of the CPA in 2005. The first step taken was to initiate the South – South dialogue which for some inter – tribal politics and narrow party interests , didn’t happen right away as expected.

Even before the South – South dialogue H.E Kiir has kept calling for unity amongst southerners, “united we stand, divided we fall “he always says.

H.E the First Vice President of the Sudan, President of South Sudan, Chairman of SPLM ( the dominant party in the south) and the Commander – in – Chief of the SPLA when repeatedly calls for unity amongst the South Sudanese, he is for sure aware of the deep disunity which unfortunately exists between the people he has been entrusted to lead.

However, H.E Kiir should ask himself this simply question as to when he last saw the people of south Sudan united, and why are they not united now? There must have been reasons why the people were one time united and there are also reasons which dealt the fatal blow to this unity.

Post war reconciliation never happened, though we are all aware that many South – South atrocities were committed during the two decades of the second liberation struggle. These South – South atrocities are still haunting us and will continue to do so until such a time that we face it and openly revisit it with the ultimate aim of reconciling ourselves, otherwise our talks of unity will remain just commodities for platforms consumption.

Currently though southerners apparently can be seen as united under the SPLM led GoSS, yet progress in all fields is very slow if any. This sluggish pace in the realization of the peace dividends is simply because the South Sudanese masses unfortunately have been marooned by the policy makers and law enforcement agents into a unity over ridden by corruption.

Corruption is indeed an issue which any body with conscience shouldn’t back down on. How can you unite with a corrupted person or one who condones such behaviour? As long as our leadership is not effectively fighting corruption , then it is there to stay and any unity amongst us under such a situation will only be based on personal or group interests, far away from any national aspirations, leave alone the time long expectations of our poor masses.

We are now indeed passing through hard times as we have to face both internal and external enemies at the same time. But though the unity of South Sudanese is so much needed, yet this shouldn’t be at the expense of fighting the rampant corruption in our system.

The so called Leadership Forum proposed by the South – South dialogue is yet another paper tiger. As it appeared in the communiqué, the anticipated forum is meant to follow up the implementation of the resolutions adopted at the south – south dialogue under the same SPLM chairperson who has failed to deliver for the last three years since the conception of the CPA.

The proposed leadership forum if anything, is meant to appease those south Sudanese political parties who are desperately hunting for posts and wealth on one hand and the providence of immunity and impunity to SPLM led GoSS on the other hand. This devilish program is to blind fold all the parties which are now collectively members of the unholy Association of South Sudan Political Parties ( ASSPP), and thus prevent them from pointing out the short comings in the government’s performance especially given its record breaking registry on corruption ( tribalism, nepotism, embezzlement of public funds, weak judiciary and law enforcement systems ………and many others.

The truth is that what can’t be followed up by the parliament which is there to evaluate the government’s performance can’t even the more be made to materialize through some quasi- multi party non constitutional political organs which are completely outside the main stream of the well known political tradition.

The splmisation of the Sudanese politics is yet another unusual political practise. The SPLM which is a national Sudanese political party is still struggling to rise to the level of challenges which it has brought on its self by adopting the vague ideology of creating a New Sudan. Per the CPA, SPLM is a ruling partner to the Islamic National Congress Party of Omer al Bashir. But following the parties tracks, you can easily see that SPLM is both in the Government of National Unity (GoNU) as well as maintaining its strong position in the opposition. It is the first time that a political party exists in such an amorphous and ambiguous position. And now by establishing the so called leadership forum to be chaired by SPLM with the membership of the other south Sudanese political parties who have tactfully converged under the newly formed ASSPP is in fact nothing, but the replication of the very ambiguous position of SPLM which it is known for in the GoNU. If things are left to go in this direction, once more the supposedly to be opposition parties of the south will eventually begin to swing between government and opposition as well. Is this not really another clear indication of an imminent political manipulation meant to promote impunity in South Sudan?

The SPLM’s political positions in the country as one of the senior partners in the CPA is undisputable, even so much so in the semi – autonomous South Sudan, but not to the extend of giving it any extra platform in the form of the dubious leadership forum or any of its kind allowing it to chair over the agendas and policies of the other political parties. And if there are any political groups out there who would want to be chaired by SPLM, then they should better directly join the SPLM as some have already done rather than pretend to be independent parties while at the same time their leaderships are actually directly reporting to the SPLM boss.

History should have taught us as to what usually brings governments down. If any it is corruption and especially when it becomes an institutionalized practice. When we turn blind eyes to our uncles, nephews, wives, husbands, in-laws, sons, daughters, friends, neighbours, acquaintances, and tribesmen who loot the public funds, then we are nothing but the enemy within.

Until we have a proper and reliable rule of law in the whole of south Sudan, the unity we are always talking about and which have always been mentioned in our Commander – in Chief’s speeches will all be nothing but empty words.

Now as the 2009 national budget is expected to include all the revenues generated by the departments of customs, immigrations and nationality and others, these are expected to be estimated and directly deducted from GoSS budget. But the problem here is, does this money collected ever enter the GoSS chess, or does a big portion of it find its way right into the pockets of the officials? The answer, we all know.

While we look forward to built an internal joint front to face the North and its allies in other parts of the world, it is equally important that we install in place a responsible patriotic media to expose any evils in our society and governing system so that the earlier they are identified and tackled the more we will progress and develop, thus realizing a healthy unity amongst our people.

But as long as the broad day light tribal bulling in places like Nimule, Mugali and Yei continues un abated, as long as inter – clan clashes initiated by cattle rustlers and made worse still by finding its way into the local politics exists in vast areas of the south without being promptly and radically tackled and in many cases justice is not done, as long as the so called big tribes continue to behave as if they are the only ethnicities in the whole of south Sudan without the least consideration for their other fellow southerners, as long as the government gives only lip service in combating corruption of all sorts, as long as there exists no clear political demarcations between the government and the opposition and many others, the unity that south Sudan badly needs will remain just an illusion to be pursued but will never be attained.

The author of this article is a South Sudanese doctor living in the United Kingdom and can be reached at: justinramba @doctors.org.uk