Dr. Machar should take a preemptive strike against his IO enemies
By Gordon Buay
Politics is not only a dirty game as the saying goes. It is also a game where allowing your opponents to cock their guns to should you consider a fetal mistake. A smart politician is someone who hangs his opponents before they hang him.
Dr. Riek Machar should learn from late Meles Zenawi who foiled a political coup against him in 2000 by 16 members of the TPLF party. Right now, the jobbists who did not get the ministries of milk and honey are using a new tactic Riek Machar should not ignore.
There are two dangerous characters of the SPLM-IO who have started bribing and mobilizing the educated class of the IO against Dr. Riek Machar. If Dr. Riek Machar ignores these political mosquitoes and allows them to infect his Movement with the Malaria parasites, the symptoms will be fetal.
The 1st VP should borrow from Meles Zenawi and dismiss the jobbists from their positions before they hang him. The politics of positions in South Sudan always ends up in violence. The SPLM-IO jobbists who openly came out to oppose Dr. Riek Machar should be purged by the 1st VP if he wants his rule to be stable.
There is a Nuer adage that dealing with a man who has money is a very complicated thing. The jobbists who are now against Dr. Riek Machar have money that they can use to buy loyalty of political and military members of the SPLM-IO. If the 1st VP allows them to gain momentum, he would face a lot of problems. The best way for him to deal with them is to hang the jobbists before they hang him.
There is an abundant research which proves that most elites of the liberation movements in Africa who come to towns after the conclusion of the peace end up fighting over positions and sugar. That is now what is happening within the IO.
Those corrupt lords of the IO who think that they have entitlement to the ministries of milk and honey will fight Dr. Riek Machar for denying them the ministries where they could grab public resources to recover their loses incurred during the war.
What Dr. Riek Machar should do now is to launch a preemptive strike against those corruption lords who are now agitating to topple him. The biggest mistake a politician can make is to allow his enemy to sharpen a knife that will be used to cut his throat.
The best strategy is to stop your opponent before sharpening the knife. No one can return a bullet to the shell once it is fired. Scientifically, it is not possible. If Dr. Riek allows his opponents within the IO to mobilize the supporters of the IO against him, he will not be able to control them once they start to slaughter him.
I am really shocked to learn that one of the IO corrupt lords took millions of dollars from the international businessmen with the hope that once he got the ministry of milk and honey, he would give those businessmen contracts. Now that the hope of getting such a ministry is zero, the corrupt lords would ensure to cut the throat of the 1st VP.
In that case, Dr. Riek should hang his enemies before they hang him. That is what I believe he should do to save his rule from being undermined by the political entrepreneurs.
The author is an Ambassador at the South Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.