Atrocities for sale in South Sudan
By Duop Chak Wuol
The December 2013 killing of ethnic Nuer civilians by South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, recent targeted killings in the Equatoria region, Wau, as well as other areas, have become a marketable brand being traded publicly for money. South Sudan civil war is now a lucrative business for some greedy foreign governments.
Who are the investors in South Sudan atrocities?
The number one committed investor in South Sudan’s atrocities is the Ugandan government. Other known silence investors in Kiir’s bloody regime are the Kenyan, Egyptian, Moroccan, and Eritrean governments. These governments invest in these atrocious crimes in total disregard of innocent victims, some of whom were brutally burned alive by Juba’s regime. It is unconscionable for any thinking being to invest in war crimes and crimes against humanity. Nonetheless, these countries have no problem with investing in South Sudan’s war crimes. As you can see, Kiir’s atrocities for sale strategy has no shortness of investors — he is laughing at anyone who questions the tyranny of his illegitimate government. In fact, he is happy and believes the country can be peaceful if he keeps getting financial and weapons help from his regime investors. I can assure you that the list of Juba’s crimes investors I included is incomplete. There are a few other nations that I intentionally left out, but their names will appear in upcoming writings.
How can a reasonable person still trust a murderous tyrant, who deliberately planned the infamous December 2013 self-managed coup in an attempt to destroy his political adversaries so that he could run the country like a mafia boss?
It is rather stunning when I hear a world leader call on Kiir to respect human rights and implement the now-defunct August 2015 peace agreement when in fact Kiir and tribal hooligans of the so-called Jieng Council of Elders keep pursuing a destructive policy for the sole purpose of maintaining a seemingly ethnic ideology.
There is no such a thing as peace in South Sudan because of the current First Vice President Taban Deng Gai, who claims to be the leader of a Juba-based SPLM/A-IO, is merely a toothless leader. FVP Gai is probably the first opposition leader in the history of modern Africa who never opposed a single agenda of Kiir’s government since he became the First Vice President. In a realistic sense, Kiir and Gai are chairmen of two different political parties with supposedly different political ideologies. If this is the case, then, it can also be logically concluded that Gai has simply been serving as an extension of Kiir’s tyrannical rule, and any hope of achieving peace under the two men is a pure fantasy.
Why does the world seem to only be interested in humanitarian assistance rather than in ending the civil war? Did Kiir bribe East African leaders to look the other way? Is Kiir’s policy of deceit helping him? Is there a global complicity towards South Sudan’s armed opposition? Why do Russia and China always claim that any sanction against South Sudan would not solve anything? Do Moscow and Beijing have a secret deal with Juba? Are the alleged claims that South Sudan, South Africa, the United Nations, and the United States conspired against South Sudanese rebel leader Dr Riek Machar true? Who is giving the South African government a monthly payment to keep Machar in South Africa?
Some of these questions I present are for you to draw your own conclusions. However, there are those who fallaciously argue that Riek Machar is the cause of the ongoing civil war and that his presence in South Sudan would magically escalate the violence. Well, I want to make it clear that only a ruthless tyrant with a cowboy hat would believe this naked argument. People should know that South Sudanese rebels are not fighting for Riek Machar. Even if Machar decided to retire from politics today, the war would still rage tomorrow. Any sound-minded person should not solve a problem by trying to punish the victim and reward the instigator — this is like embracing a person who just returned from a killing spree. Those who glorify Kiir’s crimes should consult their consciences. Machar is a victim of Kiir’s political madness. This Macharphobia must stop.
It is now clear that Kiir’s atrocities for sale scheme are a continuation of business as usual. If the African Union and the international community have no real plan to help stop the war or at least shame Kiir’s war crimes and crimes against humanity investors, then the future of South Sudan is doomed.
Duop Chak Wuol is the Editor-in-Chief of the South Sudan News Agency. He can be reached at [email protected]. The views expressed in this article are his and should not be attributed to the South Sudan News Agency.