Mandela or Mobutu Moment in South Sudan?
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John Ashworth
Jul 11, 2016, 2:17:16 PM7/11/16
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Mandela or Mobutu Moment in South Sudan?
South Sudan, Africa’s newest country, is facing one of those
consequential moments that will impact millions of lives.
John Prendergast
Daily Beast 07.08.16 8:00 AM ET
Just a day after South Sudan marked its fifth anniversary as the
world's newest independent country, fierce fighting between rival
factions has resumed, putting the already tenuous August 2015 peace
deal in jeopardy. Hundreds are alleged to have been killed in the last
few days, and thousands displaced. Command and control on both sides
of the fighting appears to have broken down. Nothing seems safe as UN
buildings and personnel have been attacked and U.S. diplomatic
vehicles have come under fire. Helicopter gunships and tanks have been
deployed along with other heavy artillery. Regional leaders are
actively promoting a ceasefire, but as someone from that region once
told me, "The guns talk louder than the voice."
During the last half century, one African country after another has
faced momentous and extreme forks in the road in which leaders’
decisions had profound, legacy-altering consequences. In South Africa,
for example, President Nelson Mandela chose an inclusive, non-punitive
path out of the racist apartheid era and prevented a full-scale war
and economic breakdown. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly
Zaire), President Mobutu Sese Seko chose a divisive, violent path when
confronted with political opposition internally and instability on his
eastern borders, leading to a series of wars that have generated more
deaths than any conflict globally since World War II.
South Sudan, Africa’s newest country, is also facing one of those
consequential moments that will impact millions of lives. The onus of
responsibility for deciding which fork to take rests squarely on the
shoulders of South Sudan’s President Kiir, and First Vice President
Machar. These are two of South Sudan’s founding father, but after
leading the two primary rebel factions which fought each other in the
1990s, then unified to win the right to an independence referendum in
2011, they fell out again in 2013.
Their latest dispute led to a brutal new war that has driven two and a
half million people from their homes and left nearly five million of
their citizens “severely food insecure,” i.e. without enough to eat.
Their actions and choices in the coming couple of months will dictate
whether a three-headed dog from hell—famine, economic collapse, and
inter-ethnic war—will be unleashed.
These three threats are grave and immediate.
First: the threat of famine. I just returned from a visit to the
oilfield region of South Sudan, where food insecurity and malnutrition
have reached emergency levels in some areas, just one step below
famine. Malnutrition is the silent killer in so many African
conflicts, and is why South Sudan, Congo and Sudan have cumulative
death rates that are far higher than other higher profile Middle
Eastern conflicts. The massive humanitarian aid effort led by the
United Nations and numerous international and local organizations has
so far averted famine in most war-devastated areas, but new fighting
in the last week in Wau to the west of the oilfields displaced tens of
thousands of people overnight, presenting the aid providers new
resource challenges at a time when the global aid delivery system is
overwhelmed by 65 million refugees worldwide. If fighting continues
between forces aligned with President Kiir and Vice President Machar,
especially given the scorched-earth tactics both sides utilize,
including massive cattle raiding, aid agencies will simply not be able
to keep up with their pace of destruction. Combined with a collapsing
economy, failing markets and rapidly rising food prices, full-blown
famine in certain areas could result.
Second: the threat of economic implosion. The International Monetary
Fund (IMF) has warned that without corrective measures, South Sudan
faces “a risk of total economic collapse.” The South Sudan
government’s disastrous economic management and corrosive corruption
have produced a completely hollow economy. Huge spending over the last
two years on the war combined with accelerated theft of state
assets—with billions of dollars stolen—meant that the drop in global
oil prices was simply the last straw for an undiversified economy that
completely relies on petroleum exports for its foreign exchange. The
U.S. and other donors pledged to provide economic support if Kiir and
Machar created a government of national unity, as called for in their
August 2015 peace deal. Since its creation in April 2016, however, the
still factionalized unity government has not done the minimum
necessary to unlock this critically needed funding, and have relied on
borrowing from the equivalent of international loan sharks with no
transparency for where the money is going, making it very hard for the
U.S. and others to help. However, if we wait until the economy
actually collapses, the cost of a rescue later will be much greater
than preventing one now.
Third: the threat of inter-ethnic war. Conflict in South Sudan is
fueled by competing kleptocratic networks in a greed-fueled
winner-take-all pursuit of state control, but the easiest way
politicians and army officers from both factions mobilize forces is by
targeting competing ethnic groups. President Kiir’s recent attempt to
expand the number of states in the country from 10 to 28 has further
heightened ethnic tensions because of the way the borders are drawn
favoring certain groups over others, consolidating the control of oil
by the president’s allies. Vice President Machar’s faction has
continued to support militias in regions that previously were not
caught up in the war, exacerbating the risk of famine and creating
opportunistic military alliances with communities resentful over the
28 states proposal and abusive treatment by the government army. All
of this threatens to plunge the country back into the flames of
full-scale inter-ethnic war.
Inter-ethnic war may not actually be the worst-case scenario here, as
one analyst told me. “Spurred by economic deterioration, the nature of
insecurity may be moving away from clear ethnic divisions at the
national level towards a far more fragmented and localized range of
conflicts characterized by less predictable flare ups and fault lines
of an increasingly economic nature. This would follow more of a
‘Somalia-isation’ path of conflict dynamics than Rwanda in the darkest
days. I am not sure which is worse. Certainly the polarized and
ethnically fueled conflict in South Sudan over the last couple years
was frightening in its scale and hatred. But the unpredictability and
lack of command and control when the dynamics become more localized
and fragmented could signal a longer-term, sporadic descent into
anarchy and insecurity that may be even more intractable and harder to
address for the international community than full scale inter-ethnic
conflict.”
The good news is that there are proponents of peace in both camps.
Those benefiting from beating the drums of war shouldn’t be allowed to
hold the entire nation hostage. The key to the prevention of war,
famine, and economic implosion is the degree to which President Kiir
and Vice President Machar are willing to exercise leadership and
govern together. Their deputies held highly constructive joint rallies
with South Sudanese living in neighboring countries, but the most
important messages for peace must come from the top. The president and
vice president could hold public rallies or peace meetings in
different regions of the country, conduct joint meetings with leaders
from internally displaced camps, establish the promised committee to
decide upon the disputed state boundaries, create a joint plan for
cantonment of their respective forces and the eventual demobilization
of a significant number of them, propose a joint rapid response team
to any sign of inter-factional conflict, arrange a weekly meeting to
address core challenges of peace implementation, and/or do a joint
weekly radio or television program focusing on the issues of the day.
Most urgently, they need to actively begin addressing together the
most serious problems facing the nation, and be seen to be doing so by
their respective constituencies.
At this point, the costs of war and grand corruption for the leaders
of both factions are negligible. This must change. The billions of
dollars that have been stolen from the South Sudanese people should be
investigated, identified, and returned to the country. A fraction of
those funds could help finance the bailout the economy so desperately
needs. Certain leaders in both factions who have enriched themselves
personally at the expense of the country should be subject to legal
and regulatory action that results in the freezing and seizing of
their ill-gotten gains. These kinds of sanctions will certainly not
harm the country or the people, but will only target those war
profiteers who have robbed the country and plunged it back into
conflict. As one South Sudanese analyst told me, “Some powerful army
leaders who have their own ambitions are interested in stirring up a
violent crisis to take matters into their own hands. Those beating the
drums of war ought to be taken seriously. International pressures
should focus on the spoilers.”
The United States has a special relationship with South Sudan,
supporting its long-suffering people during continuous war, the peace
deals that have temporarily ended those wars, the referendum that led
to an independent country, and the institutions of the newly
independent state. The U.S. can again play a catalytic role in
preventing a worst-case scenario by continuing to lead the massive
life-saving humanitarian response, leading international pressures for
the full implementation of the peace deal, speaking out on behalf of
democratic processes and space for civil society, brokering along with
the IMF a highly conditioned bailout of the economy to avert collapse,
developing mechanisms to target the lost billions of stolen dollars
that can legally be recovered and returned to South Sudan’s people,
and robustly mediating factional differences to allow the emergence of
peaceful compromise.
For President Kiir and Vice President Machar to tame the three headed
dog from hell at South Sudan’s doorstep, they will have to follow in
the footsteps of Mandela and not Mobutu. The consequences otherwise
will be unthinkable. What their legacy will be is entirely in their
hands, and millions of lives will be impacted by the actions and
decisions they take in the coming weeks.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/08/mandela-or-mobutu-moment-in-south-sudan.html
END
______________________
John Ashworth
ashwor...@gmail.com
+254 725 926 297 (Kenya mobile)
+211 919 695 362 (South Sudan mobile)
+27 79 832 8834 (South Africa mobile)
+44 787 976 8030 (UK mobile)
+88 216 4334 0735 (Thuraya satphone)
PO Box 52002 - 00200, Nairobi, Kenya
This is a personal e-mail address and the contents do not necessarily
reflect the views of any organisation
South Sudan, Africa’s newest country, is facing one of those
consequential moments that will impact millions of lives.
John Prendergast
Daily Beast 07.08.16 8:00 AM ET
Just a day after South Sudan marked its fifth anniversary as the
world's newest independent country, fierce fighting between rival
factions has resumed, putting the already tenuous August 2015 peace
deal in jeopardy. Hundreds are alleged to have been killed in the last
few days, and thousands displaced. Command and control on both sides
of the fighting appears to have broken down. Nothing seems safe as UN
buildings and personnel have been attacked and U.S. diplomatic
vehicles have come under fire. Helicopter gunships and tanks have been
deployed along with other heavy artillery. Regional leaders are
actively promoting a ceasefire, but as someone from that region once
told me, "The guns talk louder than the voice."
During the last half century, one African country after another has
faced momentous and extreme forks in the road in which leaders’
decisions had profound, legacy-altering consequences. In South Africa,
for example, President Nelson Mandela chose an inclusive, non-punitive
path out of the racist apartheid era and prevented a full-scale war
and economic breakdown. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly
Zaire), President Mobutu Sese Seko chose a divisive, violent path when
confronted with political opposition internally and instability on his
eastern borders, leading to a series of wars that have generated more
deaths than any conflict globally since World War II.
South Sudan, Africa’s newest country, is also facing one of those
consequential moments that will impact millions of lives. The onus of
responsibility for deciding which fork to take rests squarely on the
shoulders of South Sudan’s President Kiir, and First Vice President
Machar. These are two of South Sudan’s founding father, but after
leading the two primary rebel factions which fought each other in the
1990s, then unified to win the right to an independence referendum in
2011, they fell out again in 2013.
Their latest dispute led to a brutal new war that has driven two and a
half million people from their homes and left nearly five million of
their citizens “severely food insecure,” i.e. without enough to eat.
Their actions and choices in the coming couple of months will dictate
whether a three-headed dog from hell—famine, economic collapse, and
inter-ethnic war—will be unleashed.
These three threats are grave and immediate.
First: the threat of famine. I just returned from a visit to the
oilfield region of South Sudan, where food insecurity and malnutrition
have reached emergency levels in some areas, just one step below
famine. Malnutrition is the silent killer in so many African
conflicts, and is why South Sudan, Congo and Sudan have cumulative
death rates that are far higher than other higher profile Middle
Eastern conflicts. The massive humanitarian aid effort led by the
United Nations and numerous international and local organizations has
so far averted famine in most war-devastated areas, but new fighting
in the last week in Wau to the west of the oilfields displaced tens of
thousands of people overnight, presenting the aid providers new
resource challenges at a time when the global aid delivery system is
overwhelmed by 65 million refugees worldwide. If fighting continues
between forces aligned with President Kiir and Vice President Machar,
especially given the scorched-earth tactics both sides utilize,
including massive cattle raiding, aid agencies will simply not be able
to keep up with their pace of destruction. Combined with a collapsing
economy, failing markets and rapidly rising food prices, full-blown
famine in certain areas could result.
Second: the threat of economic implosion. The International Monetary
Fund (IMF) has warned that without corrective measures, South Sudan
faces “a risk of total economic collapse.” The South Sudan
government’s disastrous economic management and corrosive corruption
have produced a completely hollow economy. Huge spending over the last
two years on the war combined with accelerated theft of state
assets—with billions of dollars stolen—meant that the drop in global
oil prices was simply the last straw for an undiversified economy that
completely relies on petroleum exports for its foreign exchange. The
U.S. and other donors pledged to provide economic support if Kiir and
Machar created a government of national unity, as called for in their
August 2015 peace deal. Since its creation in April 2016, however, the
still factionalized unity government has not done the minimum
necessary to unlock this critically needed funding, and have relied on
borrowing from the equivalent of international loan sharks with no
transparency for where the money is going, making it very hard for the
U.S. and others to help. However, if we wait until the economy
actually collapses, the cost of a rescue later will be much greater
than preventing one now.
Third: the threat of inter-ethnic war. Conflict in South Sudan is
fueled by competing kleptocratic networks in a greed-fueled
winner-take-all pursuit of state control, but the easiest way
politicians and army officers from both factions mobilize forces is by
targeting competing ethnic groups. President Kiir’s recent attempt to
expand the number of states in the country from 10 to 28 has further
heightened ethnic tensions because of the way the borders are drawn
favoring certain groups over others, consolidating the control of oil
by the president’s allies. Vice President Machar’s faction has
continued to support militias in regions that previously were not
caught up in the war, exacerbating the risk of famine and creating
opportunistic military alliances with communities resentful over the
28 states proposal and abusive treatment by the government army. All
of this threatens to plunge the country back into the flames of
full-scale inter-ethnic war.
Inter-ethnic war may not actually be the worst-case scenario here, as
one analyst told me. “Spurred by economic deterioration, the nature of
insecurity may be moving away from clear ethnic divisions at the
national level towards a far more fragmented and localized range of
conflicts characterized by less predictable flare ups and fault lines
of an increasingly economic nature. This would follow more of a
‘Somalia-isation’ path of conflict dynamics than Rwanda in the darkest
days. I am not sure which is worse. Certainly the polarized and
ethnically fueled conflict in South Sudan over the last couple years
was frightening in its scale and hatred. But the unpredictability and
lack of command and control when the dynamics become more localized
and fragmented could signal a longer-term, sporadic descent into
anarchy and insecurity that may be even more intractable and harder to
address for the international community than full scale inter-ethnic
conflict.”
The good news is that there are proponents of peace in both camps.
Those benefiting from beating the drums of war shouldn’t be allowed to
hold the entire nation hostage. The key to the prevention of war,
famine, and economic implosion is the degree to which President Kiir
and Vice President Machar are willing to exercise leadership and
govern together. Their deputies held highly constructive joint rallies
with South Sudanese living in neighboring countries, but the most
important messages for peace must come from the top. The president and
vice president could hold public rallies or peace meetings in
different regions of the country, conduct joint meetings with leaders
from internally displaced camps, establish the promised committee to
decide upon the disputed state boundaries, create a joint plan for
cantonment of their respective forces and the eventual demobilization
of a significant number of them, propose a joint rapid response team
to any sign of inter-factional conflict, arrange a weekly meeting to
address core challenges of peace implementation, and/or do a joint
weekly radio or television program focusing on the issues of the day.
Most urgently, they need to actively begin addressing together the
most serious problems facing the nation, and be seen to be doing so by
their respective constituencies.
At this point, the costs of war and grand corruption for the leaders
of both factions are negligible. This must change. The billions of
dollars that have been stolen from the South Sudanese people should be
investigated, identified, and returned to the country. A fraction of
those funds could help finance the bailout the economy so desperately
needs. Certain leaders in both factions who have enriched themselves
personally at the expense of the country should be subject to legal
and regulatory action that results in the freezing and seizing of
their ill-gotten gains. These kinds of sanctions will certainly not
harm the country or the people, but will only target those war
profiteers who have robbed the country and plunged it back into
conflict. As one South Sudanese analyst told me, “Some powerful army
leaders who have their own ambitions are interested in stirring up a
violent crisis to take matters into their own hands. Those beating the
drums of war ought to be taken seriously. International pressures
should focus on the spoilers.”
The United States has a special relationship with South Sudan,
supporting its long-suffering people during continuous war, the peace
deals that have temporarily ended those wars, the referendum that led
to an independent country, and the institutions of the newly
independent state. The U.S. can again play a catalytic role in
preventing a worst-case scenario by continuing to lead the massive
life-saving humanitarian response, leading international pressures for
the full implementation of the peace deal, speaking out on behalf of
democratic processes and space for civil society, brokering along with
the IMF a highly conditioned bailout of the economy to avert collapse,
developing mechanisms to target the lost billions of stolen dollars
that can legally be recovered and returned to South Sudan’s people,
and robustly mediating factional differences to allow the emergence of
peaceful compromise.
For President Kiir and Vice President Machar to tame the three headed
dog from hell at South Sudan’s doorstep, they will have to follow in
the footsteps of Mandela and not Mobutu. The consequences otherwise
will be unthinkable. What their legacy will be is entirely in their
hands, and millions of lives will be impacted by the actions and
decisions they take in the coming weeks.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/08/mandela-or-mobutu-moment-in-south-sudan.html
END
______________________
John Ashworth
ashwor...@gmail.com
+254 725 926 297 (Kenya mobile)
+211 919 695 362 (South Sudan mobile)
+27 79 832 8834 (South Africa mobile)
+44 787 976 8030 (UK mobile)
+88 216 4334 0735 (Thuraya satphone)
PO Box 52002 - 00200, Nairobi, Kenya
This is a personal e-mail address and the contents do not necessarily
reflect the views of any organisation
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