The awaited devils in details of IGAD’s mediated proposed truce

[Elisabeth Janaina]

The awaited devils in details of IGAD’s mediated proposed truce

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By James Okuk

“Men will cease to commit atrocities only when they cease to believe
in absurdities” – Voltaire.

Since the start of peace mediation by IGAD for the second time in the
history of South Sudan, a lot of political absurdities have been
floated as a solution to the SPLM’s triggered crisis in the country
since the close of year 2013. The most absurd of these proposals is
the power sharing formulae that rewards all the SPLM’s factions for
having thrown South Sudan into the current unforgivable abyss of spree
of insecurity, economic turmoil, ethnic head-knockings, hunger,
diseases, displacements and death.

The latest of these funny floats for truce is that, comes July 2015 at
the level of the executive positions in National Government, the
current government in Juba shall get 53%, the SPLM-IO in Pagak 33%,
and the leftover 14% is to be thrown to the remaining stakeholders
(i.e., SPLM-FDs and Other Political Parties).

On top of that the current GRSS will run away with top VIP positions
of the President and Vice President of the Republic. The SPLM-IO will
get the lucky award of 1st Vice President with strong powers of
consent, similar to that of the 2005 CPA’s model.

The Other Political Parties and SPLM-FDs will get nothing at tops. The
presidency is not designed for their bad luck in the coming proposed
33 months of the transitional period of Addis Ababa II, because they
failed to take up arms to fight for the positions.

At the level of National Legislature, the current SPLM’s overwhelmed
parliament shall be expanded from 332 to 400 with 50 representatives
nominated by SPLM-IO, 17 by Other Political Parties and 1 by SPLM-FDs.
All the SPLM’s MPs who were dismissed shall be reinstated within the
total 400 transitional period legislators. Indeed, a very crowded Big
Ten parliament of rent-seeking accommodation for buying peace!

At the level of states, the current government status quo shall
continue in the so-called ‘Greater Bahr El Ghazal’ and ‘Greater
Equatoria’ except for the three ruined states – Jonglei, Upper Nile
and Unity – of the so-called ‘Greater Upper Nile.’ There the changes
shall be made so that the government gets 33%, the SPLM-IO gets 53%,
the SPLM-FDs get 7% and the left over 7% of the executive and
legislative posts is thrown to Other Political Parties.

That means, the non-violence opposition SPLM-DC shall lose almost all
the 17% of its MPs currently serving in Upper Nile State Legislative
Assembly. The Independent MPs in the all the targeted states shall
also be zero losers in this IGAD-Plus peace game.

Nothing has been said specific about governors of the ruined ‘Greater
Upper Nile’ states.

What is new then? The same faces in the same parliaments and Council
of Ministers of SPLM Oyee’s clappers! It seems the other political
parties are unwanted for a meaningful existence within a multi-party
political context in South Sudan. What an insensible IGAD-Plus
proposed truce that is perched to eliminate the Non-SPLM MPs from the
political scene! Is this the real start of the making of one-party
state for the IGAD’s rescued Republic of South Sudan?

Surely, the IGAD has been over trapped into the fallacious thinking
that South Sudan is the SPLM and the SPLM is South Sudan. Thus, comes
the undermining of the inclusively value for the IGAD-Plus and resort
to upholding the SPLM Reunification Agreement with all its inherent
weaknesses of implementation. The Scientist Einstein must be turning
with heat in his grave as the same experiments are repeated with
insanity of expecting new results at the end of the futile attempts.

Given its proven history of down-lettings, the SPLM shall remain too
deformed to be reformed for the necessary if not the sufficient needed
reforms in the country vis-a-vis the”Key Provisions for the Agreement
on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan”:

1.Transitional Governance Arrangements;
2. Permanent Ceasefire and Transitional Security Arrangement;
3. Humanitarian Assistance;
4. Reconstruction;
5. Resource, Economic and Financial Management;
6. Transitional Justice and Accountability;
7. Reconciliation and Healing, and
8. Parameters of the Permanent Constitution Making Process.

The reinvigorated IGAD-Plus and its funding partners seem determined
to re-impose a SPLM’s dominated country where promotion of crises
management style of leadership rather than good governance continue to
prevail permanently to no avail.

But will the ever failing SPLM’s leadership be capable this time to
implement the devils in details of the IGAD-Plus proposed truce?

At least the 1972 Addis Ababa Peace Agreement will be better (though
dishonored) than the proposed IGAD’s Addis Ababa II Truce. The
Anya-nya veterans didn’t negotiate themselves into shameless power
formulae. They negotiated peace and development.

The move by IGAD-Plus to renegotiate all the SPLM factions back to
power by way of Addis Ababa II is not only dangerous but also
detrimental to any successful germination of democratic multiparty
governance system in South Sudan.

But before the IGAD-Plus could finalize its strange and alienating
truce, it needs to clarify honestly the following critical queries:

1. If the SPLM is still the SPLM, then why should its factions
(SPLM-IG, SPLM-IO and SPLM-FDs) share different formulae of power
rewards for igniting the current senseless war in the country?

2. Does the Government of the Republic of South Sudan comprise other
non-opposition parties it is now sharing the portfolios with?

3. Does the SPLM/A (In Opposition) represents a political party or a
guerrilla rebel movement comprising disgruntled and discontented
different parties and entities united by nothing much apart from the
common enemy in power?

The IGAD-Plus should not lose the track of the hard fact that all the
SPLM’s factions admitted in Arusha their collective responsibility of
failure to govern South Sudan. They went as far as promising a public
apology to the people of South Sudan. Where then are the IGAD-Plus and
its friends and partners getting the audacity to propose an
overwhelming power reward to the SPLM’s factions? Is this a conspiracy
to keep South Sudan a perpetually failing state or what is it exactly?

The SPLM, hitherto, doesn’t deserve any future credit of legitimacy
and dignity. This outdated dinosaur party and its military wing must
be laid to rest of historical archives. The good future of South Sudan
should transcend beyond the evils of the SPLM/A. It is by then, and
only from then, will the Republic of South Sudan see in reality the
800 years Magna Carta values called peace, harmony, liberty, justice,
prosperity and happiness.

The Addis Ababa peace talks should not come back with the SPLM’s lost
glory because South Sudan shall for a longer time be held hostage for
no apparent noble reason apart from power greed and malice of unwanted
continuity. Instead, the peace talks should bring home the dignity of
the people of South Sudan where they will choose the leaders who have
no blood of innocent people tainted in their hands.

“Know thyself”is the Socrates’ philosophic command that the people of
South Sudan need to notice keenly from the current crisis and after it
is over. The SPLM has already been known and tested for over ten years
of misgoverning South Sudan since 2005.

After all, since the independence era from 2011, the SPLM has been a
malignant entity that doesn’t deserve to continue in mismatch with the
new reality of the Republic of South Sudan. If the IGAD-Plus is still
so much in love with the SPLM, let it take this stranger dangerous
dinosaur to the Sudan where it was born.

The best way forward for the reinvigorated IGAD-Plus mediation is to
invite all the stakeholders, and not only the favorite few
self-proclaimed shareholders of South Sudan, to negotiate the fate of
the Republic and determine jointly a consensual outcome of the “Key
Provisions for the Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the
Republic of South Sudan”.

Otherwise, any undermining exclusive IGAD-Plus imposed peace agreement
that favors the SPLM’s factions only will never be owned by the people
of South Sudan in their different beautiful diversities. We want a
situation where we shall be proudly saying together “there is a
country” rather than regret of “there was a country.

If it has been said ‘Economic, Stupid’, let it be acclaimed ‘Politics,
Clever!’ The IGAD-Plus should beat a retreat immediately!

Dr. James Okuk is a concerned South Sudanese analyst and a lecturer in
the area of politics. He is reachable at okuk...@hotmail.com