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kiwi
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« on: July 22, 2008, 08:20:55 AM » |
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July 20, 2008 — “…The SPLM/A will shoot its first bullet against the separatists from within…” (John Garang de Mabior, Radio, SPLM/A Speech, 1983). Succinctly, it’s shocking, mediocre spirit and pretty much disturbing indeed that a respectable leader of any people could be so foolish, diatribe and diabolical to divide his subjects on the basis of ethnicity or tribes. Historically, nations and kingdoms are built by tribes with different backgrounds for the common good of the communities within such nation-states and kingdoms. The people of south Sudan waged the longest years of armed struggle for social justice, equality, liberty, freedom and democracy though not the best system in the world but there is no other system to replace it. The late John Garang secret plan was designed to alienate and marginalize any groups that are not his supporters and it was atypically designed to exclude them. The primary target has been the Nuer people one of the largest, strongest and bravest nationality, including the recalcitrant ethnic groups in the management and the administration of the South. It was dubious and wrong decision and unprecedented. The late John Garang and his comrades stressed that they were not fighting for the south but a united, secular, democratic Sudan or the “New Sudan” that is a communist state. As a result of this controversial ideology, many southerners and mostly the intelligentsia and the innocent became the victims and the victimized of the SPLM/A. This is the root and the preconceived notion of the so-called “New Sudan”. The SPLM/A declared war on what it termed as the “separatists” within the movement. The armed struggle was declared that it was a struggle of dispossessed, disenfranchised and marginalized Africans against the so-called Arabs masters’ and that it was a war to free the destitute Africans from the alleged yoke and bastion of Arab domination and exploitation in the periphery. This was biggest flaw and contradiction of the century. However, this flaw and contradiction within the official ideology were so obvious that the SPLM/A has been a pro-unionist rather a pro-separatist movement. The SPLM/A all along its inception pretended to be a pro-unionist since the signing of the Naviavasha in 2005.Today the moron president of the semiautonomous Government of South Sudan (GOSS) applauds unity of Sudan. This is magnificent, splendid and fabulous because we are proponents of maintaining national unity, diversity and democracy in the African nation of Sudan. We believe that Sudan is neither Arab nor African but an admixture of Africans and Arabs or an Afro-Arab nation-state. As a result of this complexity, the people of Sudan should develop pan-Sudanesism that’s not neither Arab nor African but combination of both cultures. The diversity of Sudan is its strength rather than a weakness. It is the greatest national asset rather than a liability. Therefore, it should and ought to be maintained at all costs. Any dismemberment of Sudan would be problematic not only for Sudan the African continent as a whole.
The discovery of this plan through some of the former closer associates of the late Marxist-Leninist Garang is a victory for truthfulness and liberation of not only the Nuer nation but all nations of South Sudan, including the Dinka people. Now, that we have knowledge of this document, though not all of it, it is about time for each and everyone of southerner with a sense of national consciousness to make serious and critical reflection on this secret plan its implication for southern unity and to undertake serious responsibility and elf-reflection by asking whether the purpose of the right to bear arms was legit or our armed struggle was a design by submission or by omission to create another “internal colonialism” in the aftermath of clearing the former? It is our conscientious and modus of operandi that we relegated ourselves to follow this wicked design to charter the course of a would-be multicultural, multiethnic, multi-racial, diverse political culture, political socialization and pluralistic or multiparty democracy as well. The theme of Garang’s secret plan is to privileged and empowered every SPLM cadre with money and political power and what to do about the rapidly rising Nuer power, democratic ideals and its tenants. The preoccupation and thinking of every SPLM power elite is the how to make money and how to marginalize the Nuer nation and its people. They have surely earned some money through corrupt practices rather honest way. In short, it should be stated at the onset that it is too for the SPLM to conquer the Nuer in South Sudan. We urge and appeal to the readers of this piece to be gentile, vigilant and reasonable in digesting, chewing and swallowing the negative or naïveté ideas or concepts and expressions herein by the framers of this document. It should not divide us whatsoever but it should show us that in principle the evils that men do follow them. When leaders are at the helm of political lime lights and power they are corrupt and absolute power corrupts more. The only regrets that Sudanese and south Sudanese would mourn so much is that the absence of the author and the conceptualizer of the said secret plan in our midst to tell the Sudanese people as a whole his real vision and intentions. Perhaps, mother nature, predestined that such a revelation would be discovered posthumously or after his death. This is the difficulty to decipher the real intentions, politico-philosophical and politico-sociological analysis and exegesis. Moreover, history and his legacy would not absolve the SPLM leadership for what it preconceived as a “final solution” of one ethnicity or a nationality in South Sudan. Surely, the SPLM had committed genocide against the Nuer, other nationalities, including Dinka nationality from 1983-1991 and in the aftermath of the split thereafter. Thus, the Bor incident in the aftermath of the split was perpetuated by the SPLM Torit faction and was a response to previous actions of the SPLM in other non-Dinka-Bor areas. There was no military involved. It was undertaken by the civilian population. The Nasir faction military leaders were not involved in any way. Thus, the allegations that Dr. Riek Machar was the culprit are not true. The war was started by the late John Garang who had the wildest dream and wishful thinking of reuniting the South by means of an armed force and failed disastrously. We appeal for stronger Southern unity, no retributions, detribalization and no ethnic, racial and religious hatred. Let’s think above and beyond this work that was a step backward in our struggle and nation-building process. We could only dialogue for a solution otherwise we become part of the problem. We all could humbly make the best out of this worst scenario if we were to collectively unify our energies, resources and intellectual minds to re-energize our capabilities and resources, thinking and neo-thinking, epistemologically, ontologically, philosophically, scientifically and methodologically to construct and deconstruct our efforts to strife for the best that we can all be. We should have to bear in minds and souls that we all belong to Sudan and South in particular. We should regard ourselves as Sudanese of neither Arabs nor Africans in our frame of reference (Worldview). Any deployment of racial card by either Northerners or Southerners would resolve our problems but would create mortal enmity. It is the rational democratic transformation and rational ontological thinking we can overcome Sudan’s endemic problems.
THE ROOTS OF WAR
For more than five decades the people of South Sudan waged Africa’s longest armed struggle in the quest for social justice, equality, freedom, liberty and the right of self-determination to determine their political destiny, social, economic and cultural well-being as well as the right to development. We have achieved these objectives but we have been let down by the SPLM leadership in the South, unfortunately. While the objective was to liberate the South, it had taken another angle that no one could have anticipated. The Garang’s Secret Plan at Navivasha in 2005 had two prongs, namely, suppression and marginalization of the Nuer one of the strongest, potentially rich because of the oil, natural gas and agriculture as well as cattle. The Garang’s Secret Plan was (and still is) sponsored by foreign powers with specific agenda or interests to destabilize the peace and tranquility so as to deny the country its great prospectus to undertake socio-economic and human resources development. The objective of these foreign powers is to declare Sudan as a failed state similar to Somalia. It was further designed to takeover the reign of power from the ruling party led by President Field Marshal Hassan Omer Al-Bashir by any means necessary as the glorious fulfillment of the orchestrated American based policy of regime change in Sudan retrospect to 1996 followed by unnecessary and unworkable sanctions for more than a decade. These sanctions did not work for the last decade. Although the outgoing Bush’s administration is threatening to impose tougher sanctions on Sudan, they would be counterproductive. It would be in the best vital national security interest of the United States to undertake ‘constructive engagement’ with Sudanese government and leaders. For the time being, the USA does not have any leverage on Sudan. It could impose sanctions and embargoes, they would not work as time and space has proven in the last decade. The escalated Darfur crisis by the media and lobbyists is an internal matter that does not warrant any external intervention in the domestic affairs, sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Sudan. The alleged claims of genocide committed in Darfur could be not substantiated at all. Thus, the indictment of some Sudanese officials by the ICC is a mockery and lacks credibility. Foreign interference in Sudan’s domestic affairs would be a serious violation of sovereignty, territorial integrity and international law. It would be unfair if the United Nations (UN), the African Union (AU) and the League of Arab States (LAS) Charters should subscribe to the policy of external intervention in the domestic affairs of Sudan or any member states of the preceded organizations.
The Bush’s administration is apprehensive about the ruling party –the National Congress Party (NCP) -that the Bush’s administration has falsely alleged of having direct connections with the Islamic extremists and the hard core terrorists in the Middle East. The US foreign policy strategists who so much depended on the lobbyists’ reports could not substantiate such allegations in any court of law or international forum. The alleged Sudan’s terrorist connection by the US is controversial because there is no evidence yet to justify the allegation. The NCP is divided into two ideological camps, i.e., the NCP wings, which are the ruling party led by President Bahsir and the Popular Congress Party (PCP) led by Dr. Hassan El-Turabi that glossed over and retracted from its extremist political philosophy of establishing a theocratic state to creating a united, diverse and democratic Sudan. The NCP itself has its own internal cracks and fragmentations though invisible they are well known. There’s the X-camp within the NCP that seeks the regime change in which the X-factor and the SPLM based on the secret plan would be ready to grasp power from Al-Bashir’s by any means necessary. Perhaps, another problem now that faces the X-factor quests for grapping power are the concurrent internal changes within the SPLM that actually undermined and stripped off Kiir’s monolithic powers and delegated them to his deputy Dr. Machar and the Secretary-General Pagan Amoum. Most importantly, the southern masses are tied of being manipulated, deceived and maneuvered with so many lies and unfulfilled promises by the SPLM/A leadership for the past 23 years. Surely, the southern masses wanted democratic transformation within the SPLM, political stability, development, democracy, transparency and accountability and above all, significant South-South Dialogue for reconciliation, forgiveness and unity of purpose. In short, the SPLM leadership has failed to deliver the goods and services in the past three to four years of ruling in the South. The SPLM has delivered only tribalism, corruption, war, alienation, marginalization and land grapping in Equatoria. Most importantly, it had delivered only two things, vis-à-vis, alcoholism, exploitation of women for sex and Dr. Riek Machar the only workaholic in the GOSS.
The SPLM/A power elites are, of course, anti-South-South Dialogue because many of them would be weeded out of power because of war crimes, systematic human rights violations, murders, torture and crimes against humanity they have committed against the innocent people in the South during the war years. The International Criminal Court (ICC) should indict southerners who have been suspected of having committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in the South during the war years. They should not be protected. They should be indicted similar to those allegedly wanted in the Western Sudan’s Darfur region on war crimes and crimes against humanity by the ICC. For instance, Salva Kiir murdered more than 5,000 Murle people in Boma Plateau in southeastern Upper Nile with tanks, machine guns, mortars, rockets and hand grenades in 1988.When the SPLM/A captured Terakaker the centre of the Manderi tribesmen in 1985, the SPLA soldiers of Dinka Bor committed mass killings on the Manderi tribesmen because they have old and long enmity and historic feuds of cattle rustlings between the Dinka Bor and the Manderi people. This was how they resorted to form the Manderi’s militia led by Major-General Clement Wani, the Governor of Central Equatoria State, for their own protection from the SPLM/A raids. There are also deeply seated tribal tensions between the SPLM/A and the Shilluk, the Manderi, the Taposa, the Murle and the Nuer communities. SPLM/A kidnapped children from the bosoms of their moms by deceiving them their children would be educated in Ethiopia. Their ages were 5-8 and 8-12 years of age. They never sat down in any classrooms in Ethiopia, unfortunately. They were conscripted as child soldiers. Many were exported to Cuba under the leadership and guidance of Pagan Amoum to train as the Young Communist Youth League (YCYL) or the Red Army of the SPLM otherwise known as the Garang’s boys. These children are known today as the “Lost Boys of Sudan” in the United States of America that Kawaja falsely accused the GOS of being responsible for years. Moreover, the SPLM also abducted thousands of unaccompanied minors to be conscripted as child’s soldiers. They were held against their free will and consent and the SPLM/A had refused attempts of family reunifications. It is sad indeed to note that many of them were murdered in the aftermath of the split in Eastern Equatoria by the notorious Dinka-SPLM commanders that would eventually be charged of war crimes and crimes against humanity alive or posthumously.
In essence, these acts constituted systematic human rights violations and terrorism. The SPLM/A leadership could not deny that it had been guilty of wide scale acts of terrorism during its war with GOS. These included widespread murdered of South Sudanese men, women and children, including GOS prisoners of war (POWS) that is also a contravention of Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions that guaranteed POWs fair and humane treatment and the right of visitation by the International Red Cross (IRC). In fact, the SPLM/A shot down a civilian aircraft that was taking off from Malakal killing 60 people on 18 August 1983. The current SPLA Chief of Staff WiecYah Deng Ajak was responsible for committing this crime against humanity. A second civilian airliner was also shot down in May 1987, 13 people and crew were dead. In 1990, the SPLA conducted indiscriminate mortar and rocket attacks in Juba killing 40 civilians and wounding many others. In 1993 Amnesty International recorded SPLM/A forces lined up more than 32 innocent Nuer women from the village of Pagau 12 kilometers from Ayod and then each one of them was shot in the head. This crime against humanity and terrorism was committed by Cdr. Ping Deng Majok and Koul Manyang Juuk, the Governor of Jonglei State. In the same village another 18 men and children were shut in a hut and then set it on fire. When three or more of them attempted to escape they were shot to death and the rest burnt to death. In Pankor village northeast of Ayod, 36-40 women were burnt to death in a cattle byre (luak). These crimes and acts of terrorism were committed by the three notorious commanders Ping Deng Majok, Koul Mayang Juuk and George Ator who are also sons of the area minus Ping Deng Majok who hails from Abyei further north of South Sudan. These are facts documented and no propaganda tools of war. There are still more atrocities not mentioned in this piece of work. In short, the SPLM/A is a terrorist organization rather than a liberation movement. Authentic liberation movements do not kill those that they have professed to liberate from domination foreign or domestic. Therefore, the SPLM is not fit to govern the South because it is a sick movement led by sick people and sick movements and sick people could not possibly liberate healthy people. These thugs should realize that they can run but they cannot hide from the law. They would be indicted for the crimes they have committed in South Sudan sooner or later. The International Criminal Court (ICC) short also indicts these thugs, hooligans and hoodlums in South Sudan.
Most importantly, South-South Dialogue would call for the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to bring face to face the victims and their abusers to confess the wrong doings, which they have done and ought not to have done against the innocent people that they professed to liberate. The TRC should be organized to heal the wounds similar to post-apartheid South Africa in 1994. The UN should set up an International Tribunal in South Sudan to indict, try and sentence anyone found to have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war years. The Rwanda Genocide tribunal should set precedence. The US and Norway should not bloc this process because of their support of the SPLM/A for years. Sudan Peace Act (the Act) signed by President Bush of the United States into law in the White House in 2002 with emphasis on Article 11 of the said act should be reactivated. Without any reconciliation, unity of South Sudan would be impractical, if not impossible, to attain at present and in the foreseeable future. The political disarrayed lack of cohesion and disunity in the South has been created by the SPLM leadership from its inception up to the presence. Most of its leaders from the top to the bottom should be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes, crimes committed against humanity, torture, murders disappearances, atrocities and other heinous crime against humanity in South Sudan. It would be up to the peace sponsors (the US, the UK, Norway and Italy) to go one step backward rather than one step forward with the proposed South-South Dialogue or let’s all hell break loose. There is bitterness against the SPLM/A that is seen as “foreign proxy” and “surrogate” to destabilize Sudan and South Sudan in particular. It is the most hated organization in Sudan and South Sudan in particular because southerners have branded it as a terrorist organization rather than a liberation movement.
President Bashir as a moderate military politician knows what goes on within the NCP ruling party, its fragile and rocky partnership with the SPLM and the whole country but remains diligently vigilante. The cracks within the NCP became visible with the recent pre-emptive attacked on the City of Omdurman by the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) led by Khalil Ibrahim and the fifth column from within the government bureaucracy. The alleged X-factor within the NCP is collaborating with the SPLM with backing from Washington and is expected to affect the policy of regime change in Sudan. It works closely with SPLM as a partner in the Government of Nationality Unity (GONU) to achieve this end. Both the National Congress Party ( NCP) led by Field Marshal Hassan Omer Al-Bashir and the Popular Congress Party (PCP) led by Dr. Hassan Al-Turabi have a “New Deal” to maintain stability, the fragile CPA and unity of the country. They would do whatever it takes to preserve unity and not to allow Sudan to be declared as a “failed state” by external powers under the rubric or the umbrella of the US. The US through its lobbyists and operatives within Sudan have linked Darfur crisis with the South, the Ingseena (Southern Blue Nile) and the Eastern Sudan in order to create a “horse-shoe shape” that’s proposed to be an all black state or the so-called “New Sudan” for the marginalized “Africans” (Zurga) (blacks) to separate it from what is identified as “Arab” and “Muslim” north. This is a hogwash and pure racial card to divide and rule Sudanese folks for the benefit of the United States and its Western allies. The question that we would like to probe is what is the meaning of the “New Sudan”? The objective of the US administration is to oust the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) that it has alleged without any corroboration and substantiation had connections with the National Islamic Movement (NIM) created by its guru Dr. Hassan Al-Turabi. The objective of US foreign policy is to affect the established policy of regime change and to declare Sudan as a “failed state” similar to Somalia and Iraq that are now almost failed states. It is one of the three regimes left in the US foreign policy strategy to be changed, vis-à-vis, Syria, Iran and Sudan that the US has declared as “pariah states” and “rogue regimes” and targeted to be destroyed prior to the end of the Bush’s administration in early 2009.
Under the pretext of a “failed state,” the US and its allies could order the toothless UNAMID peacekeepers in Darfur to change its mission status from peacekeeping force of 7,000 to 26,000 men strong to Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter to become an occupation force rather than a peacekeeping force in Sudan. The US would further order more European Union (EU) Rapid Deployment Force (RDF), the newly created US African Command (US AFRI- COM) and NATO forces dominated by the US Army (USAR) to deploy more troops to Sudan at shortest notice. The success of any of these strategies would be a new beginning for re-colonization of Sudan and Sub-Saharan Africa. The occupation and re-colonization of Sudan would set a precedent for any countries in Afro-Asia such as Zimbabwe, Syria, Iran and Myanmar (Burma) would rank on the top list for invasion. Any success of this plan could have an adverse impact on the future of independent Afro-Asian nation-states. It is a well established fact that the recent Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) attacked on the City of Omdurman was a clear protracted strategy that the West is determined to support directly or indirectly to affect the policy of regime change with hooks and crooks in Sudan. Although the JEM action in the City of Omdurman was not a Western sponsored act, it success, of course, would have been welcomed and Khalil could have become a big hero in Washington, London and Paris.
Basically, it is presumed that Khalil Ibrahim’s action was sponsored by the extremist Islamists Wahabists within the NCP and PCP members in Sudan and in the Arab and Islamic countries in the Middle East. The African nation of Chad is being used as a conduit and could not possibly possess such sophisticated and lethal weaponry captured by Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), police and the security services. They must have been imported from some place in the world and such a place according to many resources, have been doing the figure pointing to Nicholas Sarkozy’s France that acts a the new errant boy on the bloc for the US to topple the regime of President Hassan Omer Al-Bashir. France and the previous French governments had been closed allies and friends of Sudan. However, recently President Sarkozy of France has changed the rules of the game to a new dimension. Given the JEM foiled surprised attacked on Omdurman City; it would be impractical, if not possible, for JEM to make another attempt in the foreseeable future. Although many rumors from many sources suggesting that JEM could return and do it again, it remains unlikely that it could because of heavy loses that it had encountered in the aborted clandestine and well organized military operation. Furthermore, growing uprising in Eastern Chad against President Debi, would surely, slow down another round of an attempted invasion of Sudan by the JEM.
The Government of Sudan has remobilized the demobilized forces to encounter any further attacks from JEM. In fact, Sudan could easily succeed if it were to support the Chadian rebels to oust President Debi. It does have the military muscles to do it as it did previously in Chad and elsewhere in the Horn of Africa. France has given asylum to Abdulwahad Al-Nur of Sudan’s Liberation Army (SLA) and Israel has allowed SLA to open offices in Tel Aviv. This is a new development in Israeli intervention in Africa and Sudan in particular. The Save Darfur lobbyists have done remarkably well their homework on “genocide” that it alleges did happen in Darfur since the outbreak of war in 2003. This is a serious allegation the Sudanese Government has categorically denied as devilish and witch hunt strategy propaganda against Khartoum. David C. Rubstein, director of the Save Darfur said recently that he was disappointed that the Bush’s administration did not immediately impose tougher sanctions against Sudan or set a specific dateline for doing so. He (Rubstein) added that the Bush’s administration has failed, as the record for years so well-described by the President in his speech makes unarguable,” Rubstein said, “Any further delay in the imposition of tougher, coercive measures to give diplomacy any hope of success, and the people of Darfur any hope of a future have no justification.
The Israeli interest in Sudan is oil and water. It is preparing itself for the year 2025 water’s crunch and scarcity in the Middle East. River Jordan could not sustain both the Arab and Jewish populations, therefore, there is a great deal of a dare need for alternative sources of water in the years ahead. The Great Lakes Region and South Sudan are good sources for obtaining water through pipe lines to the Middle East. Egypt had already connected the Nile River through pipe lines across the Suez Canal to Sinai Desert. It dreams is to use the water as a collective bargaining tool just as OPEC and AOPEC used oil to change international cooperation and the world’s political economy. The US threatens of new and tougher sanctions against Sudan would not work. They have been in imposed for more than a decade and they have not had any impact on Sudan’s economy at all. It has been business as usual. Because Sudan is self-sufficient in food production and does not import any luxury goods, any imposition of sanctions by the outgoing or the lame-duck Bush’s administration would have any impact or deterrent on Sudan. Furthermore, any military intervention would be deadly and futile. Therefore, the best alternative option that the US has left now is “constructive engagement” with the government of Sudan. As a Sudanese-American and an expert on African affairs, including Sudan, the way out of this debacle would be for Washington and Khartoum to tell the media and the lobbyists to give constructive engagement through diplomacy a chance. The US needs Sudan more than Sudan’s needs the USA. As a result, there is a need for improving the US-Sudanese relations and removing all sanctions and embargoes completely. We could help Washington for a way out of this debacle. Specifically, as an academic expert with firsthand knowledge and a child of these two countries- the US and Sudan- I am determined to build the bridge between and the United States and Sudan. Darfur is an internal Sudanese problem that does not need external intervention. Sudan as a member state of the UN, LAS and the AU, its domestic policy agenda and way of life could only be altered or changed via political persuasion and diplomacy. Hence, the advocates for US military intervention in Darfur crisis would be committing a grave mistake for the present and future generations of the Western world. Another military intervention in Sudan similar to Iraq and Afghanistan could not be tolerated by many Afro-Asian countries and the League of Arab States of which Sudan is a full member, including Arab Africa. It would appear that Washington is waging war against Islam instead of terrorism. This is the most critical point to be studied by America’s leaders and decision-makers. We should resolve the Darfur crisis via constructive engagement and the culture of peace rather than the culture of violence. Any military intervention by the UN, the US and the EU in Sudan would be off tangent of diplomacy.
THE NORTH- SOUTH DIVIDE
The North-South divide was perpetrated by lack or the absence thereof of democratization, good governance, and the rule of law, power and resources sharing that culminated to war, destruction and death. The root causes of the North-South divide was the acute lack of power sharing. Today for the first in the contemporary history of Sudan southerners control 40% power in the central government and over 95% of power is controlled by southerners themselves in the South without any interference from the centre. In fact, President Omer Hassan Al-Bashir leadership has narrowed the gap between the North and South. Despite the war throughout the critical years of the East-West ideological confrontation up to the popular overthrow of President Gaffer Mohammed El-Nimeiri in 1985 the US government remained Sudan’s staunchest political and military ally in the region. The alliance was rooted and pre-empted in part by a shared cold war animosity toward the governments of Libya and Ethiopia. As a result, Sudan was the third largest recipient of US foreign aid programs in the world after the governments of Israel and Egypt during much of this period. Most of the aid was procured in the form of advance military training, weaponry, and ammunition. Although the acquisition of such aid programs were intended as deterrent against Libya and Ethiopia, the bulk of these military supplies were subsequently rerouted and unleashed against the civilian populations in the South. Today, the Bush’s administration is at odds with a former old ally because of its alleged connections with the Islamic radical terrorists without any clear and coherent substantiation. It is, however, determined to oust President Bashir through its old and archaic policy of regime change orchestrated by Washington’s lobbyists and Sudan Study Group (SSG) retrospect to the President Clinton’s era in the White House.
From 1980-82, South Sudan was rocked by four significant events that acted as the catalysts of the war that was lulled by the fragile Navivasha bilateral peace agreement otherwise technically known as the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that was signed by the government of Sudan and the Sudan’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) on 9th January 2005. First, the Nimeiri regime sought to modify the inherited administrative political boundary between the north and south so as to extend northern control over mineral-rich regions of Western Upper Nile and Bhar-el-Ghazel Provinces in the South. Second, GOS security forces in Khartoum launched a campaign to arrest and evict thousands of South Sudanese labor migrants from the nation’s capital on the grounds that they have failed to obtain the identification cards and permits to work. Third, the Nimeiri regime decided unilaterally to change the construction site of a US Chevron-proposed oil refinery from the southern town of Bentiu that is the source of oil to Kosti a distance of more 600 miles northward from the source of the black gold. Fourth, and most controversial of all, the junta unilaterally proposed to re-divide the south into three autonomous regions. Lastly, but not least, it further abrogated the Addis-Ababa Accord of 1972 that lulled the 17-year old civil war (1955-1972).
In essence, all of these highly government provocative moves inflamed the long-outstanding political tensions between the North, identifying itself as “Arab” and Muslim and South, identifying itself as “black and African.” Although the North and South have numerous ethnically diverse and linguistic groups that crosscut these regional identifications and metamorphosis, the fact remains, that ever since independence from the UK in 1956, “southerners” as a group had been marginalized by military junta and partially elected democratic governments predominated by “Arab” and “Muslim” traditional sectarian political parties, i.e., the Umma and DUP parties who formed an opposition with other parties, including Sudan’s Communist Party (SCP) known as the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) including the Marxist-Leninist SPLM/A. The outcome of the Northern sectarian political parties policy of marginalization was the root causes of direct rebellion and resistance –most notably in the predominately Nuer region of the oil rich in the Grater Upper Nile region. In a nutshell, the inconspicuous decisions of the military junta and the abrogation of the Addis-Ababa Accord of 1972 could be summed up as the root causes of the renewal of the war in 1983. Realistically, the war was on for a decade before it was hijacked by the late John Garang from its founding fathers abated by the then Marxist-Leninist Ethiopia regime (1974-1991). In other words, John Garang got to the helm of power via a military coup d’etat, which he had admitted before the IGAD and the International Peace Sponsors and the GOS delegation in Kenya.
Southern marginalization by the north was expected to be resolved by the Khartoum Peace Agreement of 1997, which is the true carbon copy of the so-called Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005 that is not transparent, comprehensive and inclusive. It is a “blockage” created by the SPLM/NCP with emphasis on the ethos of Garang Secret Plan that no one knows fully except the late John Garang, his protégés, best friends, patrons and political lackeys whether by omission or submission. The late John Garang although known to have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity had been backed by the United States of America, the UK, Norway and Italy as a bulwark to oust President Bashir. In actual fact, the peace was assumed to be the easiest way to topple Bashir’s government. Despite his well documented human rights violations and radical Marxist-Leninist frame of reference (worldview) or view points, he’s much favored by the Washington more than President Bashir. Does the West really know who John Garang really was? Of course, the guy was talented, but very sophisticated fellow to deal with. Western experts, psychoanalysts, political scientists, sociologists, social anthropologists, historians and psychologists are needed to do their homework on the late John Garang de Mabior such that they could know and understand the delicate and complex animal that they dealt with in the first place. The CPA has so many bolts and nuts to crack because it has not brought peace, social equality and social justice for all Sudanese. For the South, it is a nightmare. It has become a breeding ground for rampant corruption, lack of institutionalization of democracy, good governance, and the rule of law, human rights protection, transparency and accountability. Furthermore, it has not significantly harmonized or improved the harmonious and disharmonious and/or loves and hates in the North-South relations, lack of confidence-building measures and trust in building the pillars of a united, diverse and democratic Sudan. The war still continues and peace is too far away to grasp by many Sudanese. Both the NCP/SPLM partners in governing of the country should do more to preserve and keep the peace by all means necessary.
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