The Trouble with Juba

By Kuyok Abol Kuyok

April 12, 2009 — Juba has intermittently served as the capital of the Southern Sudan, since the 1972 Southern Region’s High Executive Council (HEC) government. In the post re-division (Kokara) period, it increasingly became an icon of unity of the region for many Southern Sudanese. Thus, the Interim HEC of General James Loro unsuccessfully attempted to move its administration from Khartoum to Juba in 1985. Subsequent administrations for the Southern Sudan formed in Khartoum suffered similar fate. The SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army) made two serious attempts to capture the city in the early 1990s. The Coordination Council reallocated in Juba, albeit with little control over the 10 States in the South Sudan. Following the conclusion of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in January 2005, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) led Government of the Southern Sudan (GOSS) took Juba as its seat. The status of Juba as the capital of South Sudan has never been challenged or debated. But is Juba really fit to be the capital of the Southern Sudan? I think it is time that South Sudanese debate this issue. Juba is distant from and poorly connected to many parts of the Southern Sudan it purports to administer. Juba’s status as the capital of Southern Sudan is also seriously undermined by other factors, other than geography. The cost of living in Juba is excessive and the people of Juba are less willing to accommodate the capital’s midst them and non-Equatorians, particularly the Dinkas.

Declare an interest!

I would like to make a declaration of interest before I outline my thoughts on this matter. My family has been associated with Juba since the 1940s. My maternal grandfather managed the Juba government’s dairy (Won-hok) at the time. The family remained in Juba until the late 1950s. Two of my uncles were born in Juba and one of them was named after the city. Consequently, Bari was the second language spoken in my mother’s family, especially among the children.

I first visited Juba in the mid-1970s. I like the city, particularly its football league and my favourite El Marikh FC. I was thrilled to be back as a student at the University of Juba in the 1980s. I also married an Equatorian and God has blessed us with lovely children. Although African traditions state that children identify themselves with their fraternal lineage, I raise them to be equally proud of their mother’s background and heritage.

Beside Juba and Rumbek, my hometown, I also had the opportunity to live in Malakal, Wau, and Bor and visited many other towns in the Southern Sudan. Families of civil servants in the Sudan in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s led lives akin to individuals in police witness protection scheme found in the West; nonetheless, in these towns I attended schools and made lasting friendships. This experience largely helped to shape my outlook and perceptions as a South Sudanese.

How did Juba become the capital of the Southern Sudan?

Joseph Garang was the first Southerner to establish and preside over the first administrative structure for the Southern Sudan when he was appointed the Minister for Southern Affairs in May 1969. This was a very senior ministerial position in the Gaafar Mohammed Numeri’s government. The Minister preferred Wau as the capital of the Southern Sudan. In office, he initiated the peace talks with the Anya Nya Movement that eventually led to the Addis Ababa Accord in 1972. Joseph Garang was implicated in the Sudanese Communist Party coup of 1971 and was executed.

Abel Alier, Joseph Garang’s colleague in President Numeri’s cabinet succeeded him as the Minister for Southern Affairs. Abel Alier successfully negotiated with the leaders of the Anya Nya’s rebels and reached the peace deal, the Addis Ababa Agreement in 1972. He was subsequently appointed by Numeri as the President of the HEC. He established his new administration in Juba. Neither the HEC nor the Regional Assembly had the opportunity to debate the HEC president’s decision. Some people suspected that Abel Alier favoured Juba over Wau and Malakal because he wanted Bor to benefit from any overflow of development from Juba. But since Bor had several development projects more than any other district in the South, except perhaps Aweil and Bentiu-after the discovery of oil, there is no evidence to substantiate this claim. It is appears that many Southern Sudanese never question the status of Juba as the capital of the Southern Sudan. However, it is also clear that this decision was made by one man and that if Joseph Garang had the chance to lead the South after1972, Wau, not Juba, might have been the capital of the Southern Sudan.

Juba vs. Wau and Malakal

Before 1972 the towns of Wau, Juba and Malakal had equal status as provincial capitals of the Southern Sudan’s provinces of Bahr el Ghazal, Equatoria and Upper Nile respectively. It is argued that Juba’s claim for the capital of the Southern Sudan is derived from the 1947 Juba Conference. Sir James Robertson, the then British Civil Secretary, convened the Conference between the North and the South in Juba. He later explained that his decision was primarily dictated by logistics other than anything else.

Wau and Malakal also were focus of Southern Sudanese political activities with identical political significance. For example, Malakal was the centre of the first political meetings of South Sudanese politicians and intellectuals in the 1940s. Also the Southern Front held its first convention in the city in 1965. It was in this convention where Uncle Clement Mboro and Uncle Gordon Muortat were elected President and Vice President of the Party respectively. Wau hosted the first conference of South Sudanese students in 1955. The town also witnessed some important meetings of South Sudanese politicians in the 1950s and the 1960s. The Anya Nya rebels, led by Cdr Bernardino Mou Mou, in an audacious attack, almost capture Wau in January 1964.

Cost of living

As Juba evolved into a big city in the late 1970s and the early1980s some challenges gradually emerged. Recurrently, the Juba population faced high cost of living (food and housing in particular). The prices of basic commodities in Juba were astronomical in comparison to the other towns in Southern Sudan with similar sizes. In Juba only the rich could strive. I am told, as Juba has increasingly gained the reputation of becoming the most expensive city in Sudan, the situation is far worse.

However, anybody who has lived in Juba will confirm that shortage and high prices for food and unavailability of housing in the town are not recent phenomena. The people who live around the city do not produce enough food to sustain a big city like Juba. Thus, Juba depends entirely on supplies from the surrounding towns, especially Yei, and Terkeka, Mongala and Bor or beyond (e.g. Western Equatoria or from the North via the River or air. In the 1980s, Wau and Malakal seldom experienced food shortages.

The cost of living in Juba might not be an issue for the government ministers or members of parliament or rich business people. But it has serious implications for civil servants who run the machinery of the government. It is not a place where a junior civil servant can decently raise a family on a government salary.

Housing (e.g. building or finding affordable homes for government officials) represents a chronic challenge for the government in Juba. First, building materials are in short supply in Juba, and thus very expensive. At the moment these are being imported from East Africa. In Wau and Malakal bricks can be made locally and cement bought cheaply from the North and cheaply transported by rail or road in the case of Wau or by river or road to Malakal.

Second, Juba, unlike Malakal and Wau, has limited space for expansion. Juba’s ability to enlarge has been hampered by its geographical position and apparent locals’ opposition to the government’s plans. Juba, placed on a highland, is squeezed in between a river, on one side and a mountain on the other. The rest is a low land that is susceptible to persistent floods (e.g. Lori River). With the high cost, it is possible to overcome this problem. Government can move some residential areas across the river, to the east bank: Gomba and Bilinying and Rajaf East areas. On the East bank the topography would pose similar difficulties to any development plans. But most importantly, this would require the consent of the local Bari tribe and that represents an overwhelming challenge.

Community cohesion and harmony
The unity of the people of the Southern Sudan is one of the significant achievements of the President Salva Kiir Mayardit’s leadership of the SPLM and GOSS. This is paramount and key to our survival as a people and an entity. However, Juba, as the capital of Southern Sudan, will perpetually remain a threat to the harmony and consequently the unity of the people of the Southern Sudan.

Professor Taban Lo-Liyong in a conference paper, The Role of Ordinary South Sudanese in Ensuring that the CPA is Kept, he delivered on the18 January 2008, at the Beijing Hotel, Juba, attempted to address the question of the unity of Southern Sudanese. In his presentation, Professor Lo Liyong drew on his wide knowledge of the Kenyan context and particularly the unfortunate tribal encounter that erupted in Kenya in the aftermath of the general and presidential elections of 2007. In his address, he asked ‘What lessons can we, South Sudanese, learn from that tragic incident. He advised his compatriots to ‘put into place mechanisms that would ensure that we do not travel the perilous path Kenyans are travelling now’.

The Kenyan example is an illustrative and indicates that many African countries are not immune from such schism. Although the ethnic divisions in the South Sudan are not sharp like the ones in Kenya, nonetheless, evidently there are cracks on the wall for everybody to see. The constant fights within various Dinka sections in Lakes and Warrap States and the recent fight between Murles and the Nuers in Jonglei and between the Shilluks and the Dinkas in Malakal are reminders of such divisions. Also in the 1980s Wau was split along tribal lines. At the same time in Juba, the Dinkas used to be rounded up by the authorities and on several occasions bussed to the stadium. Many Dinka people were lynched in the town. With the intervention of some brave prominent Dinka Juba citizens like the late Abdelfadil Aguot, ironically, in many occasions, the northern Sudanese army came to the rescue of the Dinka tribesmen!

The tribal divisions in the South Sudan intensified in the 1980s with the demise of the Idi Amin’s regime in Kampala in the late 1970s. Some intellectuals in Equatoria perceived non-Equatoria citizens of Southern Sudan, particularly the Dinkas, as invaders. This attitude eventually led to the 1983 Kokara. I am pleased to see some of the proponents of Kokara occupying key positions within the SPLM, South Sudanese unionist parties and GOSS. But it must be recognised that lately disquiet is developing again in Juba (e.g. stories about land grapping and government’s projects being frustrated by the locals), and the enemies of the Southern Sudan might use it to divide us.

Thus, Professor Lo Liyong advice is timely. It is essential that GOSS and the SPLM leadership learn from the mistakes committed in the post-Addis Ababa Agreement era. Finding an alternative capital for the government of South Sudan will be a step towards sustaining the unity of the people of the Southern Sudan.

On this count, Malakal would have been an ideal capital for the Southern Sudan. I lived in Malakal for about 3 years in the earlier 1970s. Malakal is not only cosmopolitan but it has accepted its diverse characteristic. In fact, notwithstanding the last skirmishes between the Dinkas and the Shilluks, the Malakal’s population comes from many ethnic groups in the Southern Sudan, Bahr el Ghazal and Equatoria.

Most significantly, the residents of Malakal, irrespective of their tribal backgrounds, spoke the three major languages of Upper Nile, Dinka, Nuer and Shilluk or invariably had Shilluk as a lingua franca or a second language. At the University of Juba I closely witnessed many colleagues from Upper Nile using the three languages fluently. I always envy and admired the linguistic skills of Upper Nile politicians and intellectuals. This is a sign of mutual acceptance as equal.

A Commission for the national capital

GOSS has a chance to make a break and involve the people of the Southern Sudan in the process of choosing their capital. Dr John Garang proposed Ramciel, in Bahr el Ghazal, as the capital for New Sudan. Perhaps this was the great leader’s response to potential difficulties Juba was going to pose on the GOSS. He assigned Dr Riek Machar to begin working on this site. That was an excellent idea that can be revived.

Alter natively, the GOSS can appoint a Commission for the Southern Sudan’s capital or attach the assignment to an exiting Commission or Ministry. Offer the stewardship of this body to one of our most experienced administrators, somebody like Cesar Arkanjo or Professor Ajang Bior. It may also include other administrators, some geographers, surveyors, town planners and traditional leaders representing all the 10 Southern States. The primary tasks of the Commission would be to identify a suitable site, village or town to serve as a national capital for the Southern Sudan.

Two African models to choose from

Southern Sudan can build its capital along the models of Nigeria, Tanzania or South Africa. The first model, epitomises by the Nigerian and Tanzanian national capitals, Abuja and Dodoma respectively. The indepnedent governmnets of these African countries abandoned the British colonial capitals and built federal/national capitals to suit their circumstances. South Africa on the otherhand, has two capitals, Pretoria, where the executive is located and the national parliament is found in Cape Town. In undertaking their work the Commission may conduct wide scale consultations:

Hold public meetings with members of the public in all the 10 capitals of the Southern States,
Conduct public meetings at universities; accept submissions, in writing or verbatim, from the members of the public, political groups, and civic organisations;
Visit some African countries that had similar experiences (e.g. South Africa, Tanzania and Nigeria).

The GOSS would then take the Commission’s conclusions and recommendations to the parliament, the Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly, for approval. This process would ensure thorough involvement of Southern Sudanese in the decision about their national capital. South Sudan has an area of 227,702 square miles. An extensive piece of this territory is claimed by some tribes or the other. But there might be some tribe(s), with adequate government consultations, and compensation package, that will feel privileged to accommodate the national capital city and all that it might attract within its land.

Moving the capital of the Southern Sudan to another site was done before in the South. The capital of Equatoria moved several times before the Turkish-Egyptian administration settled on Juba in the late 19th century. The capital of Bahr el Ghazal similarly moved until the French, with the assistance of King Tombura, built Wau in 1901. However, the experiences of Abuja and Dodoma suggest that the implementation of such a plan would not be easy. It would be a colossal project that will cost billions of Sudanese pounds. This money will be money well spent. Southern Sudan is richer now than at any time before. The revenues from the oil have offered GOSS the ability to fund such a project.

Abel Alier’s HEC in 1972 found some foreign aid to build the current ministries in Juba. Equally, the CPA has given the SPLM and GOSS political capital that can be translated effectively to the advantage of the Southern Sudan. A project for a new capital for Southern Sudan is a plan that may appeal to some foreign organisations, especially friendly Western governments concerned about achieving a lasting peace in the Sudan.

But most significantly, the plan would offer us a chance to build a city to fit our own circumstances. We might settle for the South Africa’s model, in which Juba remains the seat of the legislature and the executive and the civil services move to the new site. In any event, for our leader, Salva Kiir Mayardit, building a new capital for the Southern Sudan would represent an eternal legacy for his reign.

Kuyok Abol Kuyok is a Sudanese academic in the UK. He can be reached on ([email protected]).