Has Kiir ever accomplished anything?
By Luk Kuth Dak
Watching the crooked South Sudan’s so-called legislators extend the life of General Salva Kiir Mayardit’s term in office for three more year, as they had a few weeks ago, is enough to make a man despair about the future of this young nation we all hold dear!
You look at the scale of the challenges that we face as a result of more than a decade long of willful destruction of our country, and then you weight that against lack of vision and the institutionalized tribalism displayed by this regime, you really have to wonder about what warranted the generous extension!
That brings us face-to-face with a simple question: what Salva Kiir has ever accomplished during his tenure in office since the birth of our nation, to deserve an award of such magnitude? The quick answer is, a zero. Indeed, for someone who has spent an entire decade and counting at the helm, Gen. Kiir has absolutely nothing to show for all those, except the cold-blooded massacre of the innocent Nuer civilians; the creation of a Jieeng state, and the legalization of second-class citizens’ status for non-Jieeng in South Sudan.
To change course in South Sudan would require a new approach, certainly not more of the same of the divide-and-rule policies mastered by this tyrant, Kiir. And more importantly, the regime change.
Evidently, millions of people around South Sudan who rested their hope on Dr. Riek Machar now find themselves in a lonely island of despair ever since he decided to engage in a nonproductive marathon of negotiations with the regime that made it abundantly clear that it has no intention to resolve the outstanding issues in a peaceful manner.
The trouble is that Dr. Machar, the Chairman and the Commander-in- Chief of the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement in Opposition, is taking General Kiir’s strengths for granted, which is a strategic failure. Instead of taking advantage of Kiir’s isolation by the Western nations, not to mention the UN, Machar has confined the movement at the hands of the so-called IGAD. That strategy didn’t work then, and it wouldn’t work now, because the IGAD is only interested in getting rich quickly from the revenues they collect from Kiir’s regime and the international community at large. Nothing more!
The question is, what could be worse than failure? The quick answer is, false success.
In essence, the logical thing to do when you fail at some endeavor, is to take steps to correct the situation. At the very least, you can learn from the experience and resolve to do better next time around. On the other hand, false success is entirely different in the sense that under its influence, you can think that you are winning when in fact you are losing. By the time you see the need to change, it may be too late.
But it’s no too late. There still are a few options and new avenues left to pursue, but from this point on, Machar must take some drastic, positive actions in the behalf of the millions of his followers, one of which is to stand up to Kiir, push him to wall, and more importantly, hit him where it hurts most; his pocket, if you know what I mean!
Luk Kuth Dak is a former anchorman at Juba radio. He writes for a wide range of newspapers. Hit me at [email protected]