Uganda holds the key to South Sudan question: Prof. Miamingi explains problems the country faces
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Elisabeth Janaina
Jan 29, 2017, 12:28:00 AM1/29/17
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Uganda holds the key to South Sudan question: Prof. Miamingi explains
problems the country faces
Jan. 28 Politics, Uncategorized no comments
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JAN/29/2017, SSN;
Before the signing of the Peace Agreement, we were talking about
crimes, after the signing of the Peace Agreement, we are now talking
about genocide unfolding in S.S.
The chaos goes on seemingly unabated in South Sudan. Uganda’s New
Vision website Public affairs Editor Paul Busharizi sat down with
human rights and governance expert, S.S Professor Dr Remember
Miamingi, to understand the mess in the new country.
Question QN: What is the state of Affairs right now in South Sudan?
ANSWER: The state of Affairs right now in South Sudan at the moment is
tragic and to put it in perspective before the Peace Agreement was
signed in August 2015, S. Sudan had less than 200,000 internally
displaced persons, less than 100, 000 refugees that we had outside the
country.
After the signing of the Peace Agreement, today South Sudan has close
to 2 million South Sudanese outside as refugees, over 500,000
internally displaced South Sudanese.
In 2013, we had around 2m people that were said to be facing famine.
Today, 6 million South Sudanese are facing starvation in the country.
Before the signing of the Peace Agreement, we were talking about
crimes, after the signing of the Peace Agreement, we are now talking
about genocide unfolding in S.S.
So after the signing of the Agreement, the situation has deteriorated
significantly that the UN, AU and international Agencies are now
saying genocide is unfolding in S.S in a rate that is extremely
disturbing.
QN: Who is perpetrating the genocide?
It is both ways; it is the armed practice to the conflict. But what
has happened is that we had a political conflict which degenerated
into an ethnic conflict and this ethnic conflict has been excavated by
a rhetoric of dehumanising other people on the base of their ethnicity
and that which started in 2013, you had a conflict which picked the
Dinka ethnic groups and Nuer ethnic group.
But right now we are having ethnic groups within Equatoria region have
taken arms predominantly in response to abuse they have received but
also the government’s targeting other ethnic groups on response of
their ethnicity.
So you have a gov’t that is embarked on a policy of ethnic cleansing
on the base of ethnicity but you also have armed groups that have gone
back to return the same policy and targeting communities, wiping out
entire communities on the basis of ethnicity.
And when you have a country where ethnicity, ethnic hatred is as deep
as we have in S.S where dehumanisation of others is a state policy
while conflict has provided a symbol of context for it, and the
economy has completely collapsed and there’s a war for survival,
genocide in that context is devastating.
And so what we are seeing in S.S if not arrested will be than worse
than what we witnessed in Rwanda.
QN: How many ethnic groups do you have in S.S?We have 63 ethnic groups
in S.S. Sixty three a big number to have a genocide. Who would be
killing who? Probably it’s not a genocide
What you have is that even though there are 63 ethnic groups in South
Sudan, you have a gov’t that is predominantly one ethnic group and
that is the Dinka. You have the rebellion that is predominantly one
ethnic group and that is Nuer.
And so when the gov’t attacks the Nuer community through militias and
armed groups, they wipe out the entire community not because they are
rebels but because they are Nuers.
And when you target one ethnic group primarily and mainly on the basis
of that ethnicity with the intention of wiping it out completely, that
is the classical definition of genocide and you also have a return,
that when this rebel group attack either predominantly Dinkas, they
carry out the same policy.
So it is even though they are different ethnic groups, you have
primarily two main actors that are engaging on a very devastating act
of threatening to wipe out the ethnicity of the other in the context
of war that is unfolding.
And so when we are talking about the genocide, we are not undermining
the fact that there is massive killing, we are not undermining the
fact that there is rape; the rate of sexual violence we have in
S.Sudan, we have not witnessed it since we started fighting the Arabs
for close to 30 years. The scale of brutality that we as S.Sudanese
are meting on each other today, not even the Arabs figured it that
way.
QN:So how did it come to this?
That is the 1 billion dollar question because S.S was born a Golden
nation to so much virginity and potential with Good will in the region
and international.
My answer to that question is that first, S.S suffers from leadership
deficit; when we had independence everything was prepared and dreamt
around Dr. John Garang de Mabior who was the vision of the movement
and the man who articulated and provided direction to where the
country was going and demised in 2005, providing a leadership vacuum
and the comrades stepped into, who had no vision, had no national
interest, they were completely committed to quality of their bellies,
it was corruption, it was anything other than the nation building and
therefore this leadership deficit led us to where we are today.
Secondly, in my opinion it was the capacity deficit, what we could
have done as a country was to say we have a country, we have not
governed before, we do not have experience in this, we could have gone
to Uganda and say Uganda, we have one of the best civil services in
the region. Can you second some men and women to come and help us? We
could have gone to Kenya, Ethiopia and Tanzania and amass capacity to
help us do institutions.
So in the absence of institution, in the absence of systems, we had a
complete collapse between party, government, the state and the army.
In fact our parliament became like a cantonment area where generals
would go if you did not find work somewhere else, you ended up in
Parliament. So we had the entire system that was conflicted together
because of capacity issues.
But thirdly, in my opinion, is that when we fought North Sudan, we had
our own differences and problems and some atrocities that were
committed by S.Sudanese against others. They were not addressed at all
because we said let us first and foremost deal with the North.
Once we are finished with that, we will come and deal with our own
nation and when we finished with the North, we had no opportunity to
deal with those issues not that we didn’t have an opportunity, we did
not prioritise solving our own post injustices, solving our own
grievances and the same people we have in the North that we fought
could easily capitalise; took advantage of those differences we had
and from there could help in generating the kind of situation that we
are having today.
We also got here in my opinion because of the role that our neighbours
had played in Sudan in South Sudan during the war. Uganda sacrificed
so much during the war and when for example Uganda was expected to
play a role when the country was going forward and so was Ethiopia and
Kenya.
And so that, different players playing with the different actors in
S.S in trying to push one national interest against the other national
interest and the conflict that arose also helped feed into the
conflict that we are having today. SO it’s a number of issues from
leadership through down to regional geo-political dynamics.
QN: What role did South Sudan’s neighbours have in the chaos we see now?
I want to agree that yes, the conflict we have in S.S today, apart
from we can’t take responsibility away from National actors, but that
our brothers and sisters in the region have also contributed in
complicating a search for solution for the problem and I will also
give a good example: Uganda played a significant role in fact if you
are to rank countries together, the kind of support we receive from
Uganda in liberating is monumental.
But when the conflict broke out in 2013, the government of Uganda took
one side in the conflict; this was a fight between brothers. The
government went in through Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) and
then supported one side to that conflict and that was to the
government.
Now of course government to government support is reasonable except
that in the context of South Sudan, we had a government that was
predominately bigger that have just been accused of committing crimes
against humanity -war crimes and possibility genocide against another
main ethnic group the Nuer.
And now when you dare come and help one side, you are actually
strengthening one ethnic group against the other. And there
strengthening the divide between the two ethnic groups.
Uganda has probably one of the most important opportunities to bring
the conflict in South Sudan to an end. It is able, it is capable but I
do not know if it is willing to do it.
Let’s go to Ethiopia, Ethiopia seeing Uganda on one side inevitably
because of the different dynamics in the region, but also because of
the sacrifices Ethiopia made in Sudan then. We had Ethiopia supporting
the armed groups and so when you add this to Sudan who basically had
interest in ensuring that S.Sudan was as destabilised as it can be, so
that at least its armed industry can thrive and so that its own
security might be strengthened by a weak South Sudan.
Now you have Egypt coming into this picture through Uganda and with
support from Uganda to support Salva Kiir. The moment Egypt is in S.S,
Ethiopia is with the rebels, the moment Egypt is in S.S, Sudan is with
the rebels. So already all this put together, you have Kenya that has
its own interest that has played significant interest in bringing
together the Peace Agreement also having its own competition and its
national interest.
So these national interests as valid and genuine as they are, not
managed well, contributed significantly to the intractability conflict
that we have today.
But there is no solution in S.S that is not a solution that is
accepted by the region and that is why it is extremely important and
we are already asking whether we need mediators to mediate the
regional mediation because the differences between the different
countries in the region have almost paralysed Intergovernmental
Authority on Development (IGAD) the ability to provide mutual,
impartial mediation to the conflict to the extent that IGAD as an
institution has been compromised.
And so without the new incredible mediation and without a united
regional front that the AU and UN will depend on to address the
conflict in S.S. we are in a situation that as the conflict is
deteriorating, solution is going further and the ordinary people in
S.S are looking for leadership.
My coming to Uganda was basically to talk to Uganda leadership and so
you have the golden opportunity, you can use your experience, you can
use your expertise you can use your capacity and have a big nation as
a big brother to rise above narrow personal relationships, narrow
personal economic and political interests and provide leadership in
those regions and if not for any other reason, the outgoing Chief of
staff in Uganda in an interview just about a few days ago said the
greatest security risk to Uganda remains S.Sudan.
So even if it’s not out of solidarity for S.Sudanese, from a security
interest of Uganda, you have over 2m people crammed between the border
of Uganda. These people are coming from some of the most traumatised
experience, they are interacting with Uganda across that border. You
have the flow of arms either to S.S or from there for survival along
that border.
You have the social consequence that comes with a small country that
was may be 5 or 20 or 30, 000 people right now hosting over 400,000
people in their communities. You have the socio-economic burden that
brings in.
So it’s not just not a security threat in that sense but it is also an
economic threat because the international community is not putting its
money into United Nations system sufficient enough to provide for
this.
It is the community that will subsidize them. It is the community that
will carry the burden and those people are Ugandans.
It is also a social threat because nobody is providing social and
psychological support to these people. Traumatised as they are, the
cultural violence, the culture of treating things from the way they
came from will begin to interact with local culture there and that is
an issue Uganda will have to deal with tomorrow.
And so from that perspective we are saying, you can and you should
because the Americans are not bearing this, Ethiopia is bearing this
but not every other country in the region is carrying the burden. And
we are just talking about those apart from so many 100s of 1000s of
persons scattered across Uganda here in Kampala and everywhere who
basically depend on this.
Students across the schools here can’t pay their fees because S.S has
collapsed. Business men that had invested so heavily in S.S have gone
bankrupt; they are having social issues to deal with here. So it is in
the interest of Uganda as it is in the interest of S.Sudanese that as
brothers, that we fix this.
QN: Where do you derive your confidence that Uganda holds the key to
the resolving the situation?
When the war of liberation in S.S was almost failing, failing because
of the same compromises in the region, Uganda stood its ground. Uganda
did not only provide material support, Uganda in certain circumstances
put boots on the ground in S.S in support of the liberation war.
It did it despite the divisions, it did it despite that some people
were compromised like Moi, like other people in the region by the
government of Sudan.
So historically, Uganda has stood on the right side of history. But in
addition to that, I personally do not see President Museveni, just as
a president. He is an elder and a statesman who has been in this
region long enough, to understand this region long enough, whose
actions have impacted heavily negatively or positively on this region
to build networks and respected beyond his region.
The utterances that President Museveni makes here become policies in
Washington DC, the utterances that he makes here become AU policies
sometimes. So there is a cloud. the only unfortunate thing is that
that socio capita has been underutilised, that social capital has been
limited because of what i perceive as complete distrust from the
leadership in Uganda of the leadership of the rebel movement in S.S
and because of that distrust, Uganda cannot come to see itself
bringing these two people together; some body that you do not trust at
all, you do not respect at all; that is causing havoc in the country.
I think as a leader and as an eldest states-person, it is incumbent
that you, Museveni, bring these people together. Let there be peace
and let South Sudanese be given opportunity to choose who their
leaders are. All that they want is peace.
Today, if Uganda closed down the bank accounts of all the generals who
are fighting in South Sudan, their monies are kept here, their houses
are here and their children are here. Uganda has leverage. If it
speaks today, Juba listens because if Uganda closes its door today,
the government in Juba will collapse within days, it has the power.
And so I’m convinced from the historical perspective, we are connected
as people, culturally we are connected, our burdens become your
burdens. But also from the capacity of this country the experience of
dealing with conflicts in the region, Uganda has the expertise to deal
with us and to deal with our problems each and when it wants.
QN: The distrust between Uganda and the rebel side in S.Sudan. What is
the genesis of the distrust?
My understanding and perception is that one of the greatest setback to
the entire liberation project in South Sudan was when the rebel
movement broke into two in 1991 and that break was instigated by Dr
Riak Machar and in Lamako and that pushed the movement back 10 years.
So the effort that Uganda had put into and other countries was almost
brought to a total failure but act of a man from a perspective of a
Ugandan Government, That was selfish. There was ambition, and on top
of that he went back to Khartoum where their image was, there so there
was the issue of destruction.
But in addition to that there was history around the conversation to
deal with the LRA, the negotiations that had to do with LRA, the
understanding and I have no evidence is written down and I have spoken
about, I have not verified myself, is that during that 1991 break, one
of the conduits that Sudan was providing support to the LRA was
through the breakaway movement of Riak.
And so even then when Riak came to Juba and was managing the peace
conversation between the governments here, the trust on the side of
the government wasn’t there. So the government here sees Riak… that is
my perception from far, as not being a reliable leader and not being a
true Nationalist and therefore not being a kind of core liberator that
will go with a tradition of NRM and ZANU–PF and all those.
So when in 2013 the same Dr Riak Marhar again was alleged to have been
involved in an attempted coup, which could have thwarted the project
of the nation building, my thinking was that some people in this
country had enough. And so it acted and allowed that personal hatred
to then inform a national strategic approach.
QN: There was an issue too that the SPLA is not a coherent force and
therefore the chaos?
The SPLA before 2005 was one of the most disciplined, professional
forces in the region in terms of even though were rebels. Then came in
2005 and the finding of the disagreement under the death of Dr John
Garang de Mabior now when Salva Kiir came to power one of the greatest
threat to Salva Kiir control over the army was the so called Garang
boys.
The Garang boys were the Generals, professional and the training core
OF SPLA who probably didn’t have so much respect for General Salva
Kiir and what President Salva Kiir then did was one by one,
systematically eliminate these people.
These also owned the regional dynamic that Garang was from Bor and you
had Salva Kiir come from Bahr el Ghazal and that before Salva came in,
that all the people who were probably Dinkas from the Bor. So they
then went ahead to balance that. So that was one major diluting
factor.
Now the second diluting factor, was as we approach the referendum,
Khartoum was busy providing arms to different rebel groups across
South Sudan and to avoid these spoilers, spoil the chance of this
country to vote in a referendum.
Salva Kiir invented these eviction policies where all those militias
were incorporated into the SPLA, they came in with their ranks. That
today, it is important to note that we have 745 generals in the army
and these people came in with their culture, traditions, they had no
training, they came in with the structure, they maintained their
ranks; that second diluting factor then completely took away whatever
professional advantage that the SPLA had.
The Third diluting factor is corruption when we got independence,
S.Sudan suddenly had at that its disposal, it was dealing in billions
of dollars from the proceeds of oil and when this money used to come
in first, and we had no banking system. The money would come in
cartons, millions of dollars in cartons that was kept at the SPLA
secretariat.
The SPLA secretariat was the Minister of Finance. Suddenly people had
to deal with money and with no accountability at all.
And so every other consideration gave way to corruption and patronage
and so the professional disciplined solders that we had completely
disappeared that today, it is even worse because when the conflict
broke out in 2013, by that time because of these big tribes, most of
the malice were from Nuer tribe. So when the conflict broke out, 70%
of the army broke and went with the rebels.
So even within the diluted, 70% had gone. So what we have today, when
people talk about SPLA today, it doesn’t exist, when people talk about
the army, it doesn’t exist because what we have in S.S is a Coalition
of miltias whose commanders and control are not to Salva Kiir as the
commander-in-chief but it is to the different militias Commanders that
brought them together, responsible for feeding them and their salaries
and all that they get. So that is another complicating factor.
And that is why if Uganda had not intervened in 2013, ehh… (sighs) the
war would have been over from the sense of the rebels because Juba
would have fallen because there was no army to provide.
So his right one has not only destroyed the army in the country but
has created the greatest security threat as a country. If Sudan
attacked us today, we would have no army to fight with because we have
finished our army, fighting ourselves.
QN: So how will this be resolved?
Yes, but we are hoping. The resilience of the S.Sudanese people. We
started fighting on August 25, 1955. The resilience that saw the
S.Sudanese all through those years is the only blink of hope. And that
is why we are asking our brothers with the government, the people of
Uganda, add your voice to these people, give them the moral support
that you can because that’s all they need, the one that will bring
about change. And we hope for support as we continue to talk to our
conscience as Africans.
QN: You talked of lack of capacity in S.Sudan, the only figures I see
is that S.S is two and a half times the size of Uganda, it has about
only about 100 km the tarmac road, but what about the people,
teachers, professionals and graduates?
Now as they maybe not in the same measure, with many rebel movements
across the continent. When SPLA fought during those wars, so many
S.Sudanese went into refugee camps and as a result of being in refugee
camps, benefited from Education in Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya and other
neighbouring countries and many of them got resettled in countries in
the West and also went there to have education. So there is a
reasonable size of S.Sudanese in all who have gone outside, who are
well-educated and who are willing to return home to contribute.
But what happened Is that immediately we got independence, those who
fought, felt that while they were busy here struggling and sleeping in
the trenches, you went outside eating bread and butter and going to
school and now suddenly you now want to come back, and say you’re
Doctors, you’re this. NO. This is our time. In fact it is our time to
eat. And that first closed the opportunity so that even the diaspora
that returns, returns on personal or relational basis to contribute in
whatever capacity that they did.
Even if we had the opportunity of bringing all our diaspora back, but
still it will not be enough because the art of the governance is not
in class. It comes through experience and those who were outside. Not
all of there were in governance, they would do different things.
So we still need to depend on our brothers and sisters who in this
region stood by us. But again pride. We fought the Arabs. We are
capable just doing about anything. So that arrogance and that approach
as if we had it all, closed the door. I do not know how many times the
presidents of the region…. Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, UN all of them
will come back to Sudan and say we can provide, we will pay for the
capacity and bring people to support you.
I do not how much the president will say YES YES and nothing will be
done. Because we use gov’t institutions and positions as a reward
system that will then oil our patronage networks and keep up loyalty.
So bringing people (expertise) from outside we have no control over
them, who have a name to protect, institutions where they were
seconded from weakens that control and the entire network and
therefore corruption will thrive and as a result, we sacrificed the
future of our country for our personal and immediate benefits.
QN: Looking forward, what do you think happens given the current
context you have described?
I sincerely believe that the war in S.Sudan right now has almost
reached the point that is mutually hurting for all the parties. The
government that is broke, it does not have enough money to buy
loyalties like it should, for all its patronage networks, it is
dealing with rebellions.
Right now, in 2013 we had about 14 rebel groups fighting across
S.Sudan. Today we just published report, we have 40 across. Conflict
was only in two areas in 2013 and now we have conflict across S.Sudan.
So the scale of the challenge is enormous for any government even as
callous as you can, you just cannot go to bed and sleep. Because you
see the country collapsing.
Today we have inflation above 1000%, somebody that was earning 7,000
dollars in 2013 today is not more than 170 dollars’ worth. And so
government no matter how proud it wants to be, no matter how strong it
wants to appear, it is completely in a very vulnerable position.
So often the rebel movement controls the structure and command by
virtue of these being scattered. The economic pressure you cannot
sustain and control all these rebels outside, how do you feed them.
They cannot continue fighting the war long enough and so this is an
opportunity for the region to take leadership.
They have fought themselves to a stalemate.
It is a stalemate. A mutually hating stalemate and it is an
opportunity for the region to come in right now and say you know what,
we are tired of trying to accommodate you but have not succeeded.
We are going to act on behalf of those boys and girls, women and men
who have no issues with what you’re fighting for; who are primary
victims. This is for us a Road Map.
Let’s have a credible inclusive National dialogue. Uganda will host
it. Kenya will host it. Let’s bring all those people together but also
those men and women from the village. Let’s bring them here. Let’s
have the Church – the African Council of Churches- the Council of
Churches of S.Sudan. Let’s us have the traditional rulers. Let them
facilitate this conversation, they have a history of doing it, a
degree in comprehensive disagreements, they did it for people with
disagreements, they can do it again.
Bring these people together. Let us talk. Whatever we agree on the
round table, we are going to enforce. And we are going to put a threat
that is crude but credible on the table. But anyone who then do not
honour their commitment of S.Sudanese people will be isolated and will
be dealt with.
I think there is that capacity in the region to be able to bring
everybody together not only the political actors, but every S.Sudanese
who has suffered to have a National Plan and Dialogue, agree on that
National Plan of Action and solve that plan of action as we have seen
the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) doing in
Gambia; that is where we want to go. We cannot continue seeing few
people spoiling the name of the continent.
– See more at: http://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1444981/uganda-holds-key-south-sudan-question#sthash.b5PDq5lq.dpuf
problems the country faces
Jan. 28 Politics, Uncategorized no comments
Tweet
JAN/29/2017, SSN;
Before the signing of the Peace Agreement, we were talking about
crimes, after the signing of the Peace Agreement, we are now talking
about genocide unfolding in S.S.
The chaos goes on seemingly unabated in South Sudan. Uganda’s New
Vision website Public affairs Editor Paul Busharizi sat down with
human rights and governance expert, S.S Professor Dr Remember
Miamingi, to understand the mess in the new country.
Question QN: What is the state of Affairs right now in South Sudan?
ANSWER: The state of Affairs right now in South Sudan at the moment is
tragic and to put it in perspective before the Peace Agreement was
signed in August 2015, S. Sudan had less than 200,000 internally
displaced persons, less than 100, 000 refugees that we had outside the
country.
After the signing of the Peace Agreement, today South Sudan has close
to 2 million South Sudanese outside as refugees, over 500,000
internally displaced South Sudanese.
In 2013, we had around 2m people that were said to be facing famine.
Today, 6 million South Sudanese are facing starvation in the country.
Before the signing of the Peace Agreement, we were talking about
crimes, after the signing of the Peace Agreement, we are now talking
about genocide unfolding in S.S.
So after the signing of the Agreement, the situation has deteriorated
significantly that the UN, AU and international Agencies are now
saying genocide is unfolding in S.S in a rate that is extremely
disturbing.
QN: Who is perpetrating the genocide?
It is both ways; it is the armed practice to the conflict. But what
has happened is that we had a political conflict which degenerated
into an ethnic conflict and this ethnic conflict has been excavated by
a rhetoric of dehumanising other people on the base of their ethnicity
and that which started in 2013, you had a conflict which picked the
Dinka ethnic groups and Nuer ethnic group.
But right now we are having ethnic groups within Equatoria region have
taken arms predominantly in response to abuse they have received but
also the government’s targeting other ethnic groups on response of
their ethnicity.
So you have a gov’t that is embarked on a policy of ethnic cleansing
on the base of ethnicity but you also have armed groups that have gone
back to return the same policy and targeting communities, wiping out
entire communities on the basis of ethnicity.
And when you have a country where ethnicity, ethnic hatred is as deep
as we have in S.S where dehumanisation of others is a state policy
while conflict has provided a symbol of context for it, and the
economy has completely collapsed and there’s a war for survival,
genocide in that context is devastating.
And so what we are seeing in S.S if not arrested will be than worse
than what we witnessed in Rwanda.
QN: How many ethnic groups do you have in S.S?We have 63 ethnic groups
in S.S. Sixty three a big number to have a genocide. Who would be
killing who? Probably it’s not a genocide
What you have is that even though there are 63 ethnic groups in South
Sudan, you have a gov’t that is predominantly one ethnic group and
that is the Dinka. You have the rebellion that is predominantly one
ethnic group and that is Nuer.
And so when the gov’t attacks the Nuer community through militias and
armed groups, they wipe out the entire community not because they are
rebels but because they are Nuers.
And when you target one ethnic group primarily and mainly on the basis
of that ethnicity with the intention of wiping it out completely, that
is the classical definition of genocide and you also have a return,
that when this rebel group attack either predominantly Dinkas, they
carry out the same policy.
So it is even though they are different ethnic groups, you have
primarily two main actors that are engaging on a very devastating act
of threatening to wipe out the ethnicity of the other in the context
of war that is unfolding.
And so when we are talking about the genocide, we are not undermining
the fact that there is massive killing, we are not undermining the
fact that there is rape; the rate of sexual violence we have in
S.Sudan, we have not witnessed it since we started fighting the Arabs
for close to 30 years. The scale of brutality that we as S.Sudanese
are meting on each other today, not even the Arabs figured it that
way.
QN:So how did it come to this?
That is the 1 billion dollar question because S.S was born a Golden
nation to so much virginity and potential with Good will in the region
and international.
My answer to that question is that first, S.S suffers from leadership
deficit; when we had independence everything was prepared and dreamt
around Dr. John Garang de Mabior who was the vision of the movement
and the man who articulated and provided direction to where the
country was going and demised in 2005, providing a leadership vacuum
and the comrades stepped into, who had no vision, had no national
interest, they were completely committed to quality of their bellies,
it was corruption, it was anything other than the nation building and
therefore this leadership deficit led us to where we are today.
Secondly, in my opinion it was the capacity deficit, what we could
have done as a country was to say we have a country, we have not
governed before, we do not have experience in this, we could have gone
to Uganda and say Uganda, we have one of the best civil services in
the region. Can you second some men and women to come and help us? We
could have gone to Kenya, Ethiopia and Tanzania and amass capacity to
help us do institutions.
So in the absence of institution, in the absence of systems, we had a
complete collapse between party, government, the state and the army.
In fact our parliament became like a cantonment area where generals
would go if you did not find work somewhere else, you ended up in
Parliament. So we had the entire system that was conflicted together
because of capacity issues.
But thirdly, in my opinion, is that when we fought North Sudan, we had
our own differences and problems and some atrocities that were
committed by S.Sudanese against others. They were not addressed at all
because we said let us first and foremost deal with the North.
Once we are finished with that, we will come and deal with our own
nation and when we finished with the North, we had no opportunity to
deal with those issues not that we didn’t have an opportunity, we did
not prioritise solving our own post injustices, solving our own
grievances and the same people we have in the North that we fought
could easily capitalise; took advantage of those differences we had
and from there could help in generating the kind of situation that we
are having today.
We also got here in my opinion because of the role that our neighbours
had played in Sudan in South Sudan during the war. Uganda sacrificed
so much during the war and when for example Uganda was expected to
play a role when the country was going forward and so was Ethiopia and
Kenya.
And so that, different players playing with the different actors in
S.S in trying to push one national interest against the other national
interest and the conflict that arose also helped feed into the
conflict that we are having today. SO it’s a number of issues from
leadership through down to regional geo-political dynamics.
QN: What role did South Sudan’s neighbours have in the chaos we see now?
I want to agree that yes, the conflict we have in S.S today, apart
from we can’t take responsibility away from National actors, but that
our brothers and sisters in the region have also contributed in
complicating a search for solution for the problem and I will also
give a good example: Uganda played a significant role in fact if you
are to rank countries together, the kind of support we receive from
Uganda in liberating is monumental.
But when the conflict broke out in 2013, the government of Uganda took
one side in the conflict; this was a fight between brothers. The
government went in through Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) and
then supported one side to that conflict and that was to the
government.
Now of course government to government support is reasonable except
that in the context of South Sudan, we had a government that was
predominately bigger that have just been accused of committing crimes
against humanity -war crimes and possibility genocide against another
main ethnic group the Nuer.
And now when you dare come and help one side, you are actually
strengthening one ethnic group against the other. And there
strengthening the divide between the two ethnic groups.
Uganda has probably one of the most important opportunities to bring
the conflict in South Sudan to an end. It is able, it is capable but I
do not know if it is willing to do it.
Let’s go to Ethiopia, Ethiopia seeing Uganda on one side inevitably
because of the different dynamics in the region, but also because of
the sacrifices Ethiopia made in Sudan then. We had Ethiopia supporting
the armed groups and so when you add this to Sudan who basically had
interest in ensuring that S.Sudan was as destabilised as it can be, so
that at least its armed industry can thrive and so that its own
security might be strengthened by a weak South Sudan.
Now you have Egypt coming into this picture through Uganda and with
support from Uganda to support Salva Kiir. The moment Egypt is in S.S,
Ethiopia is with the rebels, the moment Egypt is in S.S, Sudan is with
the rebels. So already all this put together, you have Kenya that has
its own interest that has played significant interest in bringing
together the Peace Agreement also having its own competition and its
national interest.
So these national interests as valid and genuine as they are, not
managed well, contributed significantly to the intractability conflict
that we have today.
But there is no solution in S.S that is not a solution that is
accepted by the region and that is why it is extremely important and
we are already asking whether we need mediators to mediate the
regional mediation because the differences between the different
countries in the region have almost paralysed Intergovernmental
Authority on Development (IGAD) the ability to provide mutual,
impartial mediation to the conflict to the extent that IGAD as an
institution has been compromised.
And so without the new incredible mediation and without a united
regional front that the AU and UN will depend on to address the
conflict in S.S. we are in a situation that as the conflict is
deteriorating, solution is going further and the ordinary people in
S.S are looking for leadership.
My coming to Uganda was basically to talk to Uganda leadership and so
you have the golden opportunity, you can use your experience, you can
use your expertise you can use your capacity and have a big nation as
a big brother to rise above narrow personal relationships, narrow
personal economic and political interests and provide leadership in
those regions and if not for any other reason, the outgoing Chief of
staff in Uganda in an interview just about a few days ago said the
greatest security risk to Uganda remains S.Sudan.
So even if it’s not out of solidarity for S.Sudanese, from a security
interest of Uganda, you have over 2m people crammed between the border
of Uganda. These people are coming from some of the most traumatised
experience, they are interacting with Uganda across that border. You
have the flow of arms either to S.S or from there for survival along
that border.
You have the social consequence that comes with a small country that
was may be 5 or 20 or 30, 000 people right now hosting over 400,000
people in their communities. You have the socio-economic burden that
brings in.
So it’s not just not a security threat in that sense but it is also an
economic threat because the international community is not putting its
money into United Nations system sufficient enough to provide for
this.
It is the community that will subsidize them. It is the community that
will carry the burden and those people are Ugandans.
It is also a social threat because nobody is providing social and
psychological support to these people. Traumatised as they are, the
cultural violence, the culture of treating things from the way they
came from will begin to interact with local culture there and that is
an issue Uganda will have to deal with tomorrow.
And so from that perspective we are saying, you can and you should
because the Americans are not bearing this, Ethiopia is bearing this
but not every other country in the region is carrying the burden. And
we are just talking about those apart from so many 100s of 1000s of
persons scattered across Uganda here in Kampala and everywhere who
basically depend on this.
Students across the schools here can’t pay their fees because S.S has
collapsed. Business men that had invested so heavily in S.S have gone
bankrupt; they are having social issues to deal with here. So it is in
the interest of Uganda as it is in the interest of S.Sudanese that as
brothers, that we fix this.
QN: Where do you derive your confidence that Uganda holds the key to
the resolving the situation?
When the war of liberation in S.S was almost failing, failing because
of the same compromises in the region, Uganda stood its ground. Uganda
did not only provide material support, Uganda in certain circumstances
put boots on the ground in S.S in support of the liberation war.
It did it despite the divisions, it did it despite that some people
were compromised like Moi, like other people in the region by the
government of Sudan.
So historically, Uganda has stood on the right side of history. But in
addition to that, I personally do not see President Museveni, just as
a president. He is an elder and a statesman who has been in this
region long enough, to understand this region long enough, whose
actions have impacted heavily negatively or positively on this region
to build networks and respected beyond his region.
The utterances that President Museveni makes here become policies in
Washington DC, the utterances that he makes here become AU policies
sometimes. So there is a cloud. the only unfortunate thing is that
that socio capita has been underutilised, that social capital has been
limited because of what i perceive as complete distrust from the
leadership in Uganda of the leadership of the rebel movement in S.S
and because of that distrust, Uganda cannot come to see itself
bringing these two people together; some body that you do not trust at
all, you do not respect at all; that is causing havoc in the country.
I think as a leader and as an eldest states-person, it is incumbent
that you, Museveni, bring these people together. Let there be peace
and let South Sudanese be given opportunity to choose who their
leaders are. All that they want is peace.
Today, if Uganda closed down the bank accounts of all the generals who
are fighting in South Sudan, their monies are kept here, their houses
are here and their children are here. Uganda has leverage. If it
speaks today, Juba listens because if Uganda closes its door today,
the government in Juba will collapse within days, it has the power.
And so I’m convinced from the historical perspective, we are connected
as people, culturally we are connected, our burdens become your
burdens. But also from the capacity of this country the experience of
dealing with conflicts in the region, Uganda has the expertise to deal
with us and to deal with our problems each and when it wants.
QN: The distrust between Uganda and the rebel side in S.Sudan. What is
the genesis of the distrust?
My understanding and perception is that one of the greatest setback to
the entire liberation project in South Sudan was when the rebel
movement broke into two in 1991 and that break was instigated by Dr
Riak Machar and in Lamako and that pushed the movement back 10 years.
So the effort that Uganda had put into and other countries was almost
brought to a total failure but act of a man from a perspective of a
Ugandan Government, That was selfish. There was ambition, and on top
of that he went back to Khartoum where their image was, there so there
was the issue of destruction.
But in addition to that there was history around the conversation to
deal with the LRA, the negotiations that had to do with LRA, the
understanding and I have no evidence is written down and I have spoken
about, I have not verified myself, is that during that 1991 break, one
of the conduits that Sudan was providing support to the LRA was
through the breakaway movement of Riak.
And so even then when Riak came to Juba and was managing the peace
conversation between the governments here, the trust on the side of
the government wasn’t there. So the government here sees Riak… that is
my perception from far, as not being a reliable leader and not being a
true Nationalist and therefore not being a kind of core liberator that
will go with a tradition of NRM and ZANU–PF and all those.
So when in 2013 the same Dr Riak Marhar again was alleged to have been
involved in an attempted coup, which could have thwarted the project
of the nation building, my thinking was that some people in this
country had enough. And so it acted and allowed that personal hatred
to then inform a national strategic approach.
QN: There was an issue too that the SPLA is not a coherent force and
therefore the chaos?
The SPLA before 2005 was one of the most disciplined, professional
forces in the region in terms of even though were rebels. Then came in
2005 and the finding of the disagreement under the death of Dr John
Garang de Mabior now when Salva Kiir came to power one of the greatest
threat to Salva Kiir control over the army was the so called Garang
boys.
The Garang boys were the Generals, professional and the training core
OF SPLA who probably didn’t have so much respect for General Salva
Kiir and what President Salva Kiir then did was one by one,
systematically eliminate these people.
These also owned the regional dynamic that Garang was from Bor and you
had Salva Kiir come from Bahr el Ghazal and that before Salva came in,
that all the people who were probably Dinkas from the Bor. So they
then went ahead to balance that. So that was one major diluting
factor.
Now the second diluting factor, was as we approach the referendum,
Khartoum was busy providing arms to different rebel groups across
South Sudan and to avoid these spoilers, spoil the chance of this
country to vote in a referendum.
Salva Kiir invented these eviction policies where all those militias
were incorporated into the SPLA, they came in with their ranks. That
today, it is important to note that we have 745 generals in the army
and these people came in with their culture, traditions, they had no
training, they came in with the structure, they maintained their
ranks; that second diluting factor then completely took away whatever
professional advantage that the SPLA had.
The Third diluting factor is corruption when we got independence,
S.Sudan suddenly had at that its disposal, it was dealing in billions
of dollars from the proceeds of oil and when this money used to come
in first, and we had no banking system. The money would come in
cartons, millions of dollars in cartons that was kept at the SPLA
secretariat.
The SPLA secretariat was the Minister of Finance. Suddenly people had
to deal with money and with no accountability at all.
And so every other consideration gave way to corruption and patronage
and so the professional disciplined solders that we had completely
disappeared that today, it is even worse because when the conflict
broke out in 2013, by that time because of these big tribes, most of
the malice were from Nuer tribe. So when the conflict broke out, 70%
of the army broke and went with the rebels.
So even within the diluted, 70% had gone. So what we have today, when
people talk about SPLA today, it doesn’t exist, when people talk about
the army, it doesn’t exist because what we have in S.S is a Coalition
of miltias whose commanders and control are not to Salva Kiir as the
commander-in-chief but it is to the different militias Commanders that
brought them together, responsible for feeding them and their salaries
and all that they get. So that is another complicating factor.
And that is why if Uganda had not intervened in 2013, ehh… (sighs) the
war would have been over from the sense of the rebels because Juba
would have fallen because there was no army to provide.
So his right one has not only destroyed the army in the country but
has created the greatest security threat as a country. If Sudan
attacked us today, we would have no army to fight with because we have
finished our army, fighting ourselves.
QN: So how will this be resolved?
Yes, but we are hoping. The resilience of the S.Sudanese people. We
started fighting on August 25, 1955. The resilience that saw the
S.Sudanese all through those years is the only blink of hope. And that
is why we are asking our brothers with the government, the people of
Uganda, add your voice to these people, give them the moral support
that you can because that’s all they need, the one that will bring
about change. And we hope for support as we continue to talk to our
conscience as Africans.
QN: You talked of lack of capacity in S.Sudan, the only figures I see
is that S.S is two and a half times the size of Uganda, it has about
only about 100 km the tarmac road, but what about the people,
teachers, professionals and graduates?
Now as they maybe not in the same measure, with many rebel movements
across the continent. When SPLA fought during those wars, so many
S.Sudanese went into refugee camps and as a result of being in refugee
camps, benefited from Education in Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya and other
neighbouring countries and many of them got resettled in countries in
the West and also went there to have education. So there is a
reasonable size of S.Sudanese in all who have gone outside, who are
well-educated and who are willing to return home to contribute.
But what happened Is that immediately we got independence, those who
fought, felt that while they were busy here struggling and sleeping in
the trenches, you went outside eating bread and butter and going to
school and now suddenly you now want to come back, and say you’re
Doctors, you’re this. NO. This is our time. In fact it is our time to
eat. And that first closed the opportunity so that even the diaspora
that returns, returns on personal or relational basis to contribute in
whatever capacity that they did.
Even if we had the opportunity of bringing all our diaspora back, but
still it will not be enough because the art of the governance is not
in class. It comes through experience and those who were outside. Not
all of there were in governance, they would do different things.
So we still need to depend on our brothers and sisters who in this
region stood by us. But again pride. We fought the Arabs. We are
capable just doing about anything. So that arrogance and that approach
as if we had it all, closed the door. I do not know how many times the
presidents of the region…. Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, UN all of them
will come back to Sudan and say we can provide, we will pay for the
capacity and bring people to support you.
I do not how much the president will say YES YES and nothing will be
done. Because we use gov’t institutions and positions as a reward
system that will then oil our patronage networks and keep up loyalty.
So bringing people (expertise) from outside we have no control over
them, who have a name to protect, institutions where they were
seconded from weakens that control and the entire network and
therefore corruption will thrive and as a result, we sacrificed the
future of our country for our personal and immediate benefits.
QN: Looking forward, what do you think happens given the current
context you have described?
I sincerely believe that the war in S.Sudan right now has almost
reached the point that is mutually hurting for all the parties. The
government that is broke, it does not have enough money to buy
loyalties like it should, for all its patronage networks, it is
dealing with rebellions.
Right now, in 2013 we had about 14 rebel groups fighting across
S.Sudan. Today we just published report, we have 40 across. Conflict
was only in two areas in 2013 and now we have conflict across S.Sudan.
So the scale of the challenge is enormous for any government even as
callous as you can, you just cannot go to bed and sleep. Because you
see the country collapsing.
Today we have inflation above 1000%, somebody that was earning 7,000
dollars in 2013 today is not more than 170 dollars’ worth. And so
government no matter how proud it wants to be, no matter how strong it
wants to appear, it is completely in a very vulnerable position.
So often the rebel movement controls the structure and command by
virtue of these being scattered. The economic pressure you cannot
sustain and control all these rebels outside, how do you feed them.
They cannot continue fighting the war long enough and so this is an
opportunity for the region to take leadership.
They have fought themselves to a stalemate.
It is a stalemate. A mutually hating stalemate and it is an
opportunity for the region to come in right now and say you know what,
we are tired of trying to accommodate you but have not succeeded.
We are going to act on behalf of those boys and girls, women and men
who have no issues with what you’re fighting for; who are primary
victims. This is for us a Road Map.
Let’s have a credible inclusive National dialogue. Uganda will host
it. Kenya will host it. Let’s bring all those people together but also
those men and women from the village. Let’s bring them here. Let’s
have the Church – the African Council of Churches- the Council of
Churches of S.Sudan. Let’s us have the traditional rulers. Let them
facilitate this conversation, they have a history of doing it, a
degree in comprehensive disagreements, they did it for people with
disagreements, they can do it again.
Bring these people together. Let us talk. Whatever we agree on the
round table, we are going to enforce. And we are going to put a threat
that is crude but credible on the table. But anyone who then do not
honour their commitment of S.Sudanese people will be isolated and will
be dealt with.
I think there is that capacity in the region to be able to bring
everybody together not only the political actors, but every S.Sudanese
who has suffered to have a National Plan and Dialogue, agree on that
National Plan of Action and solve that plan of action as we have seen
the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) doing in
Gambia; that is where we want to go. We cannot continue seeing few
people spoiling the name of the continent.
– See more at: http://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1444981/uganda-holds-key-south-sudan-question#sthash.b5PDq5lq.dpuf
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