In South Sudan, a clash of egos is leaving a trail of death, destruction

Juba’s warring chiefs met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia last month to sign a ceasefire deal that many hoped would give South Sudan a new lease of life.

After weeks of bloodletting, the international community was quickly running out of patience with President Salva Kiir and his nemesis and former Vice-President Riek Machar, and so when they put ink to paper in the Ethiopian capital, there was a feeling that things would calm down in Africa’s newest nation.

But it was not to be as, as soon as Kiir landed back in Juba, he told his supporters that he had appended his signature to the ceasefire agreement under duress, implying that he thought little of the negotiated deal to end the atrocities back home. Predictably, South Sudan tensed up again, its hopes of a peaceful co-existence dashed by its president’s claims.

And now, as the world grapples with how to save this nation that sits atop billions of litres of oil from sliding into anarchy and full-scale genocide, President Kiir has muddied the field even further by introducing into the bloody conflict with Dr Machar a dimension that has hitherto been confined to the rumour mills.

The president claims that some countries that helped South Sudan win its independence are unhappy that they have not been rewarded with a portion of the oil and mineral largesse buried inside the bosom of the nation, and that, in turn, they have upturned their noses against Juba and are fuelling the conflict there.

It is not clear whether Kiir is speaking in his personal capacity or as head of state — which would make his assertions the official government position regarding the source of the conflict — but what many agree with is that such claims offer the world an opportunity to explore Kiir’s psyche and debate the political and diplomatic future of Juba.

The accusations, however, were always coming as some major international players have shown little enthusiasm in buying Kiir’s claims that Machar tried to overthrow his government in December last year, and that pessimism has made Kiir even more angry at the same people who danced alongside him on the march to independence just a few months earlier.

Various discussions on the causes of the conflict in Juba have oscillated around the view that Western countries are not happy that they lost lucrative oil and mineral contracts to China. The minister for Information and Broadcasting, Michael Makuei, who is also the government spokesman and the deputy leader of the government negotiating team in Addis Ababa, has confirmed that Juba is being seen as pro-China and, in his words, “that is why there is a struggle to remove a government that has refused to listen and install one that can listen”.

Makuei explains that oil in South Sudan is being managed by Chinese businessmen because they inherited the contracts that had been signed by Khartoum before independence in 2011, and that his government did not want to interfere with the arrangements because it would have complicated the situation.

Still, it is generally acknowledged that without the pressure of the West — the United States, the United Kingdom, Norway and, later, Italy — South Sudan may not have achieved its independence in July 2011.

In the run-up to the referendum in January the same year, the US, the UK, Norway and Italy had put a lot of pressure on President Omar Bashir of Sudan to allow the southerners to vote peacefully for self-determination.

But Bashir held the view that an independent South could lead to inter-ethnic conflict that would affect the economy of the upper Sudan. He seems to have been vindicated.

On a visit to Juba recently, I talked to various people in and outside government, and the general thread I got from these conversations was that the conflict in South Sudan is a culmination of simmering issues that were ignored by the international community at the time of carving out the new nation.

Arms in wrong hands

They include an interim constitution that grants President Kiir immense powers, and a dominant Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) party that is yet to embrace democracy and respect party structures since it is mostly managed through military principles.

Others are: a highly militarised society that is yet to embrace democratic institutions of governance; lots of arms in the wrong hands and a tendency to use them at the slightest provocation to achieve political ends; and the indiscipline of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), which is a former guerrilla outfit that is yet to transform itself into a conventional army.

Also, there is an unwritten power-sharing arrangement that has since only favoured big ethnic groups.

According to Jervasio Okot, a political analyst, Juba finds itself in this messy situation because, despite consistent warnings from various quarters, including civic groups, that there were major socio-economic and security schisms here that had the potential of leading to chaos, the international community remained preoccupied with the perception that Khartoum — and not Juba itself — was the biggest enemy to the new nation.

It turns out the SPLM would be the catalyst that would hasten the implosion of the new state. Party agents have been agitating for a change of party structures that would create a level playing field for all ethnic groups, but this push for democratic space has now been overshadowed by the complaints by rebels that the party is losing the ideals for which the people of South Sudan fought.

Another issue is the interim constitution, which came into force after the election of President Salva Kiir in 2011, but which was to last for only four years before being replaced by a more representative law that would guide the country to elections in 2015.

The interim constitution that governed the South as a semi-autonomous entity makes the president of South Sudan one of the most powerful in Africa; he cannot be impeached by parliament and has the power to prorogue the legislative assemblies of any of the 10 states, sack governors and call for elections within three months.

Using these powers, President Kiir went ahead to sack governors of some states such as Lakes and Unity, and retire war veterans and over 30 generals from the army. These two issues also contributed to the build-up of tension before the conflict erupted in December last year.

Yet, as Bishop Gabriel Roric, a member of the Technical Constitutional Review Committee, argues, as a young nation, South Sudan needed a strong executive to oversee the maturation of the 10 states and bring about national cohesion.

Another major challenge after South Sudan’s independence in July 2011 was the need to reward and accommodate all shades of the South Sudanese society, which has resulted into a situation where people are appointed into positions even without experience and the educational capacity to handle the jobs.

In the absence of major investments, the government remains the biggest employer and everybody is scrambling for a piece of the pie that is the country’s civil service; or, as some have put it, agitating for the spoils of war.

President Kiir’s policy of offering amnesty to former armed militias that were not necessarily fighting alongside SPLA and incorporating them into the army has also turned into a double-edged sword. Most of the militia leaders, even after being accommodated, went back to the bush to attract more money from government and bigger positions in the military.

Marginalise non-Dinkas

While there has been some grumbling over Dinka hegemony, things came to a head in 2013 when President Kiir sacked over 30 generals who were war veterans, following it up with the sacking of the governors of Lakes and Unity states, and finally in July when he sacked the entire Cabinet, including his deputy, Dr Machar. These controversial decisions were interpreted as an official attempt to marginalise non-Dinkas.

As a result, three governors — from Central, Eastern and Western Equatorial states — have called for a quota system in which people are recruited into the army and security organs from all regions to “discourage future ethnic coups, mutinies or rebellions”, as well as denouncing the use of tribal loyalties to achieve or maintain political power.

An attempt to sanitise the SPLA, the armed group that fought for independence from the north, and which became the official national force later, has also been a source of conflict, with many opinion shapers feeling it should change its name to South Sudan National Armed Forces so as to include those who fought for freedom but were not necessarily SPLA members.

However, the outfit is yet to fully carry out the prerequisite DDR (Disarmament, Demobilisation and Rehabilitation) process due to lack of funds as monies have mainly been consumed by heavy investments in national security. This has led to a situation where leading politicians continue to maintain militia groups outside the formal armed forces as a means of political survival.

Most of the militias were integrated into the army but former fighters still remain loyal to their leaders and can be mobilised at short notice. As a result, politicians in the South have the tendency of taking military reactions while addressing their political differences.

With political solutions for the conflict still far off, chances of the country holding elections in May 2015 as scheduled appear very slim. Prior to the elections, the country was to hold a census for the delineation of constituencies and proper allocation of resources as well as review the transitional constitution.

These have now been overshadowed by the urgent need for a permanent ceasefire; an all-inclusive national dialogue and reconciliation process; and the reformation of the SPLM structure and management style.

As the conflict goes on, countries in the region such as Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia and Sudan continue to experience the negative impact of the war in the form of refugees, loss of business and employment opportunities for their citizens, as well as proliferation of small and light weapons.

South Sudan’s application to be a member of the East African Community — that could have further increased cross-border trade in the region — is now likely to take longer in the face of the conflict.

The EAC Treaty sets out conditions for membership, including adherence to universally acceptable principles of good governance, democracy, rule of law, observance of human rights and social justice. Yet a conflict-torn South Sudan is far from achieving these principles.