Defensiveness is not healthy sometimes
By Zechariah Manyok Biar
May 31, 2012 — The difference between South Sudan and the Sudan, as I have observed, is how each presents the truth. Sudan is known for distorting the truth for pure propaganda reasons, but South Sudan is known to do better job than that of the Sudan.
But the recent South Sudanese public criticism of the Government for its handling of the Panthou (Heglig) situation is leading it to the direction we might not enjoy. We will not enjoy this direction because our Government is now taking the direction of the Government of Sudan whereby criticism is never tolerated. It is met with outright dismissal even when the source behind the criticism is not naïve on the issues at hand.
We must know that defensiveness sometimes backfires if one is proven wrong. Wise people always take time to overturn every stone before dismissing criticisms. We must be wise if we are to be respected internationally.
The way our Government reacted to the US reports on human rights violation in South Sudan recently might be regretted later on if we are not prepared to present creditable reasons for dismissing it. Dismissing criticisms for mere protection of image may prove to be the soiling of the same image.
Dr. Marial Benjamin has been doing a lot of things that make us proud as a country, but I think there are some areas where we should give him time to think before he reacts. This is the only way he can protect our image.
The reaction against US report may not go further than just an intention for protection of our image as seen in the following quote. Dr. Marial was reported by Sudan Tribune on May 30, 2012 as saying: “We have seen many of these reports claiming that people have been raped, killed and abducted. Others have blamed the police, army and the security organs of human right abuse. But I want to tell you [that] our government is truly committed towards protecting the lives of its citizens.”
It is true that the Government of South Sudan is committed towards the protection of its citizens, but there is a difference between the intended ideal and the reality of the situation. The best way the Government would have disputed the US report was to form a committee that would investigate the authenticity of the findings and then dismiss the report with enough evidence. Anything less than that may fall short of strong argument against the report.
Nobody would deny that the Government at the higher level in South Sudan is really committed to protecting the lives of its citizens, but such a commitment is questionable when it comes down to lower levels. If the Undersecretary could be beaten up like it was done to Dr. Jok Madut, then what would be the level of such incidences to people whose their voices would not reach the higher authority, or are the higher authorities ready to take the responsibility of the abuses that they are not aware of?
There are also some obvious incidences that the authors of the report could use as support for their claims and we will not deny them. The Government will not deny, for example, that it had once formed a committee that would investigate rape and other alleged abuses in the police training center. Such a committee was reported by the media here in South Sudan in 2011. How would such a thing be regarded non-existence if the authors of the US report might have used it as one example in support of their claims, even if not put in the report text?
Was it not wise for the Government to admit that since the Country is very young and is faced with many challenges, there are still no monitoring mechanisms that help the authorities deal with these issues as they should? Would anybody blame the Government for having no capacity for effective control at this very time? Would it not be good for us to even ask for help to get tools and expertise for dealing with these challenges? Does dismissal of the report make us any better than what the report is saying?
I am not in any way affirming the claims of the report and I am not dismissing them too. What I am trying to say here is that our Government should not let itself to be forced by public opinions to be defensive in everything. The public that criticizes the Government is well informed. We know the defense that makes sense and the one that does not. We appreciate the defense that is based on unquestionable facts. The propaganda is good too, but it does not work when you dispute facts of the study like the one of the US report.
We need to be careful in how we react to seemingly well-grounded criticisms. We should learn from them instead. Otherwise, we can lose our creditability internationally and be equated with the Sudan in many things.
Zechariah Manyok Biar lives in Juba, Republic of South Sudan. He can be reached at [email protected]