The call for a Federal Constitution remains to be honoured

By Justin Ambago Ramba

May 1, 2011 — The Transitional Constitution for the Republic of South Sudan which is now between our hands represents one of the most controversial documents ever produced by South Sudanese and supposedly for South Sudanese. It reflects at best the struggle between ethnically motivated politics intended to dominate power and at its worse it is a document that will undermine any hopes to establish peace and stability for a people whose recent history has only seen bloodshed. In short it is a document that is meant to put other people permanently out of the decision making process while equally promoting the grip on power of a group which considers itself the only legal heir to political, economic and social power in country for yet another unforeseeable period of time following the formal independence of South Sudan.

Political tribalism and regional dominance of power had been and remains to date the order in the old Sudan which the South supposedly is lucky to have broken out from. The Arabised and Islamised Nubians of the riparian North ruled the Sudan from day one of its formal independence on January 1st 1956 till today using a core policy in which the tribes of the Jaaleen, Danagla, Shaigiya and other affiliated tribal groups went on to blindfold the rest of the Sudanese in what they wanted to be seen as the unified Sudanese identity. However that identity was none but that which originated from the towns inhabited by these Arabised Muslim Nubian people who continue to relocate and occupy the fertile lands along the Nile and the major commercial centres in the East, West and South of the country.

Motivated to concentrate power, wealth and social status the Jellaba descendants adamantly refused to pay any attention to the justified demands by the people of South Sudan for the adoption of a federal system of government in the wake of Sudan’s independence from Britain. The Jellaba Effendi, Military , Police officers, Prison wardens, judges and merchants were to be seen in every corner of the 1 millions square kilometres. It was this centralised system that guaranteed for the Jellaba to dominate the socio-political as well as the economic life in the old Sudan on one-hand and the marginalisation of the periphery on the other as they comfortably moved to the comforts of the villas and hotels in the capital city only to visit they constituents on elections eve.

This is our history and it is what we fought against be that through the bullets in our several decades of struggle or our ballots in the independence referendum earlier this year. Unfortunately when we are hardly out the woods, already a new group is up to manipulate the constitution with the intent of greed just as the Arab Jellaba did in 1956. To drop the call for a federal republic of south Sudan from the provisional constitution is in every sense the first step towards another political domination by groups armed with the divisive ethnicity card to politically mobilise a command to power which can only be realised in a centralised system as the ill devised unjustified argument of an ethnic majority which under totalitarian , one party rule in post liberation Africa often replaces genuine democracy– however without the least consideration for the others ( minority ethnicities) who for no mistake of theirs become by design the ones to be marginalised in the new state . This plot is doomed to fail the state.

One important piece of advice comes from a long time friend of South Sudan who wrote and said, “We call for principled, servant-leadership at all levels of civil society and all echelons of governments; we call on everyone to renounce greed…greed for power and greed for wealth. Greed for power is reflected even in the way that the drafting of the Transitional Constitution was conducted, the content of the Transitional Constitution, and even in the plans laid out for drafting and approval of the permanent constitution. Correcting those issues will enhance peace prospects within Southern Sudan. Correcting those issues will greatly improve the potential for the success of the future Republic of Southern Sudan. Correcting those issues is within the power of the SSLA and SPLM”. I couldn’t agree more.

We are s further concerned for the fact that President Salva Kiir did not preside well over the political leadership forum last week and he will need to adjust to some basics of democratic principles and the art of dialogue if he is to remain relevant for this time in our history. One wonders whether the SPLM political party leadership is conscious of the huge challenges about to shake the very roots of their political organisation which they have although taken for granted. There’s no way that President Kiir can chose to go it the Mugabe or Museveni way – nor should he even think of doing it the Afwerki style and still not risk falling off with the international community. We are now in a completely new era and south Sudan should be the last places on earth for the international community to abandon to the rule of tyrants leave alone some kind of a totalitarianism which continuously evades accountability for abuses of public funds and human rights.

If the SPLM doesn’t open up and allow for a genuine and contractive criticism of their draft provisional constitution, it can be concluded that it intends to exercise a one party authority will offering a lip service to multiparty democracy hoping that by doing so they can succeed to mislead the leading world democracies . Call it naivety and you are absolutely right. This if coupled with the so-called decentralisation to which they also pay no more than another lip service, the total sum repercussions on the streets as promises are one by one broken would be beyond any ones expectations.

South Sudanese aren’t new to politics and decentralisation which they seen, lived under and practised for decades is not what they are asking for stage of its development. This not to ignore the fact of the matter which is SPLM’s lack of confidence to venture in that direction, however the constitution should serve the people first not the ruling party. if federalism is again to receive the same fate as it did in the eve of January 1st 1956, then history has no place in the lives of our politicians.

Mindful of the fact that the call for federalism has historically come from those seeking justices, better participation and inclusiveness in the running of affairs at the different levels of governments in their country. The call becomes both a motive and a power for change, as those who call for it are the ones now in the cold and they will do everything possible to ratify the status quo. And without it the long awaited independence will for the second time represent another exclusion and marginalisation.

Everything else in the draft provisional constitution suggests a disaster in the waiting. The design to allow the president to serve without limiting the times he can run for office is one sinister move from SPLM. The other one equally lethal is how SPLM leadership beforehand plans to control the writing and rectification into law of the permanent constitution. If i can paraphrase Dr. Hakim Loki’s argument(Gurtong): in a democratic setting the permanent constitution can only be written by an elected constituent assembly and not the controversial SSLA whose mandate should have finished with the semi-autonomous status of the government of South Sudan (GoSS) to which it was voted to operate. He rightly argued that a Constituent Assembly while working on the Permanent Constitution for the Republic of South Sudan, can hire individuals with the technical expertise in the field to help with the technical part of the draft.

The brilliant argument presented Dr. Loki in his article : Not Another “Constitutional Review Commission” (Gurtong.net) leaves no room for the President to meddle into the process of providing for the permanent constitution as he/ she will not have to form any committee saving us the current blunder. Furthermore it takes the responsibility of ratifying the constitution off the Constituent Assembly and gives it to the public in a popular referendum. Well I don’t know which political party Dr. Loki represents, but I just agree with his argument and disagree with what we have in the SPLM prepared draft.

It is also worth mentioning here that while it is a good thing that we are involved in the critical analysis and criticism of the Provisional Constitution Draft and all the processes so far involved, it should count as mature politics, however it would go further in that direction if the SPLM leadership opens up to all the different views of the oppositions and supporters alike. We are also aware that not all are necessarily representatives of any political constituencies on the ground. This is true of me, but it is also true of John Luk Jok or Lawrence Korbandy who though are both lawyers by profession as well as SPLM top politicians, they are yet to represent a political constituency. But it is their pro SPLM political affiliations that led them to produce the current (politically) anomalous Draft of the Provisional Constitution. And I don’t see that what I am saying here can ever amount to confusion.

Before I wind up, I would like to call upon the Federalists to come out openly and in their true numbers and colours to ascertain that a peaceful, stable and inclusive South Sudan can only be realised under a Federal System. If we kept quite over the issue in the last six years, it is understood why? But to keep quite now knowing that there is a conspiracy at the highest levels to block federalism and expose people again to yet another ordeal of marginalisation by the emergence of another domineering philosophy based on ethnic dominance is to miss what the long struggle (1820-2011) was all about.

The post independence South Sudan should be seen to represent the realities and aspirations of its poorest and weakest. And a constitution that is designed with intent to produce yet a manipulated and anomalous Anti-Federal Permanent Constitution deserves an unequivocal political stance. So wake up for your historical roles and in doing so you don’t need permission for your vote for an Independent South Sudan has set your free! Wherever you are, (South Sudanese) please read the draft Transitional Constitution, decide for yourselves what the issues are, and peacefully prevail upon the political and military leadership to address those issues. It is our destiny together that we are about to decide.

The author, Dr. Justin Ambago Ramba, Secretary General – United South Sudan Party (USSP). He can be reached at : [email protected] or [email protected]