Opinion: Anti-peace agents of South Sudan

Opinion, By Stephen Dhieu

South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir Mayardit and Opposition leader, Dr. Riek Machar Teny shaking hands during the opening session of the 3rd round of face-to-face meetings held in Uganda’s Entebbe on November 7th, 2019 (Photo credit: PPU)

December 22nd, 2019 (SSNN)-This article was written right before the Uganda extension of the South Sudan’s Revitalized Peace Agreement’s Pre-Transitional Period by a hundred days. I have chosen to publicly publish it today because it was prophetic as are many of my articles that remain unpublished but for this I’m ready to face the enemies of peace.

It is obvious that there are individuals and groups or organizations in and without South Sudan that do not want peace to prevail in the Republic of South Sudan because they are directly profiting from the pillaging and or the blood spilling and the suffering of our people. The list of candidates is long but I will narrow it down to the main culprits not necessarily in any order.

Our President, Salva Kiir is the primary person in South Sudan who is against permanent peace. The only question is whether he knows it or not. If he knows it then he has no legitimacy to rule this country and if does not know it then he does not deserve to continue rule our country.
I have to hold Salva Kiir most responsible for the lack of real peace implementation because he has all and perhaps absolute autocratic powers in South Sudan to have the peace agreement he signed fully implemented yet he only pays lip service at every occasion he attends while his actions and inaction tells a different story totally.

Let’s get it straight here without beating around the bush. We have a complete physically liberal dictatorship in South Sudan. The President gets whatever he wants done be it simply taking national revenue into his own residence sidelining the central bank or approval of the killings of his own perceived political enemies whom he can not buy back into his cartel with money or positions of power.

So why is the President incapable or otherwise refusing to fully finance the implementation of the Revitalized Peace Agreement if he is not against peace in this country? The NPTC requested less than three hundred million US dollars to fully fund the implementation mechanisms to fully implement the peace agreement but the president have been unwilling to even release the one hundred million dollars that he repeatedly promised to pay.

Our country regularly receives 5 million dollars per day from our current oil revenues which amounts to over $150,000,000 dollars per month every month not to mention non oil revenues and countless loans and grants from the international community in our name, the people of South Sudan. Where is our money going exactly? Someone will account for these money one day. Omar Bashir and his family are my witnesses!

Imagine a corrupt private company that has pillaged the country like ABMC easily got a 100,000,000 US dollars this year to build roads that will never be built in Juba while the peace mechanisms are left to beg everyday for a lesser amount. How can we beg General Thomas to end his protest if we can not show any good faith in the agreements we have already signed? The president is not being honest with the people of South Sudan. Mr. Salva Kiir, let us take the bitter pill now than later by letting us know that this peace agreement is not of any interest to you and your cronies.

Clearly if Salva Kiir was not content of being the king of Juba at the expense of the people of South Sudan he would have implemented the peace agreement fully along time ago. But the president’s current priorities seem like continuing to pillage the country and ensuring that his fake political friends are happy while the public suffers and he is okay with it because he gets the same reassurances that Omer Bashir used to get from his corrupt cabinet. Stop The Taking of South Sudan and listen to the people of South Sudan Mr. Kiir Mayar!

We need this peace agreement to be fully implemented by all means!

The second most responsible for the continuous failure of the full implementation of the peace agreement is our parliament. Our parliament is just as inept and perhaps more so than our judiciary arm of our government which are supposed to hold the presidency to account. Our MPs have been reduced to a crowd of beggars who crawl and shake before the executives wanting to please the king of Juba. Our country would be better off if the parliament was dissolved completely since they have allowed our country to be ruled by presidential decrees. In fact there would be a huge celebration on the streets of Juba comparable to that of the first independence day if the parliament was dissolved even if it is to be done through an illegal presidential decree.

Image this disoriented parliament wasted the whole year doing nothing but passing useless laws that nobody cares about and when the budget was tabled they completely failed to prioritize the peace agreement and instead they wanted to buy Kiir Mayar a so-called presidential jet. Where is this jet going to be flying if there is no peace in the country? There is no doubt that a lot of these people are going to lose their positions if the peace agreement is fully implemented and that is why they are against it. We have no nationalists in the parliament and indeed the government. I don’t know what happened to our beloved liberation struggle heroes that they have turned themselves into self-centered cowards that they stand for nothing anymore and fall for everything the dictatorship wants.

Thirdly, IGAD is very much against peace in South Sudan. It is suppose to be a powerful forum but it has consistently failed to assure that the peace agreement is implemented as agreed upon. This dog call IGAD does not bark at all and only shows its crooked teeth in the obstruction of the implementation of the peace accord by restricting the movement of Dr. Riek Machar the chairman and comander in chief of the SPLM-IO, SPLA-IO. How can you continue to keep in detention a peace maker if you are not profiting from the continuation of the suffering of the people of South Sudan.

Dr. Riek Machar is indeed a peace maker by virtue of him having compromised and agreed to silence his weapons. He has managed to lead a bunch of renegade commanders that no other commander alive today in South Sudan can manage to do. He is the reason we are enjoying the little peace that there is in the country today. Dr. Lam Akol who was the equal of Dr. Riek Machar is now relegated to the footnotes of history because of General Johnson Uliny. Can you image how ruthless a commander would have to be to replace Dr. Riek? So why is IGAD denying Dr. Riek Machar his freedom of movement if they are not against peace in South Sudan? Who will disseminate the peace agreement and who among his followers will believe that peace has truly arrived in South Sudan if he continues to be absent from the country and among them.Would there be South Sudan today if IGAD had imposed these draconian restrictions on our late hero Dr. John Garang during the implementation of the CPA? Why is Museveni as a main actor in IGAD continuously blocking the lifting of Dr. Riek’s travel restrictions? And my are the other members going along with Museveni? I know the president of Uganda is personally benefiting from the conflict in South Sudan because he has managed to secretly use the defense forces of the Ugandan people as his personal soldiers for hire whom Mr. Salva Kiir pays for handsomely because he can not galvanized the people of South Sudan to fight for him to stay in power. Museveni must be sidelined for IGAD’s role to be okay but never good in the implementation of the peace agreement in South Sudan. IGAD needs to free comrade Riek Machar immediately so that he can effectively implement the peace agreement.

We the people need peace in South Sudan. The other group of people directly against the peace agreement in South Sudan are government officials; ministers, generals, commissioners (not county commissioners) and presidential advisors. This group is so large but I will mention a few names. At the top of the list is the so-called Tut-Kieu (Tut Gatluak) who has managed to fully control the president’s philosophy of winning politicians over through bribery. Mr. Tut, a student of Omer Bashir only knowns the politics of buying politicians and warlords and he has managed to convince the president and Mr. Taban Deng that the First Vice President have become a loyal follower of this Bashir’s son.

Such that now all of our money is being used to buy the money thirsty IO members who were hotel rebels anyway. Taban knows that he will not have a position in any government that has unity in its title unless it is intended to keep corruption going so he is actively campaigning negatively to frustrate the opposition so that he can maintain his little corruption position by returning the people of South Sudan to war.
The other serious anti peace agent in South Sudan is Mr. Akol Koor the chief of the so-called national security or rather of the national insecurity. Akol is busy training another battalion of the presidential tribal militia known as Tiger and their “Tiger” equipment have already been delivered to Godrial. If you are for peace Mr. Akol then why are you allowing the recruitment and training of more child soldiers for evil deeds? By the way Mr. Kuol Manyang who is not actually a Salva Kiir loyalist is also going along with Akol to keep his position of corruption because he has profited greatly from the civil war even more so than Salva Kiir.
In addition, Mr. Makuie Alueth, the spokesman of Mr. Kiir’s government is very anti peace and as such he can never be in the next government unless the next government will not be of unity. The man is an absolute layer and professor of corruption. He as be removed from the government or exiled out of the country and placed under arrest with Omer Bashir for peace to prevail in South Sudan.

Lastly, I think some elements in the opposition groups are also against peace but they have no choice but to follow the majority who want peace in this country. Many of them are being bought by the government anyway but the revitalized government of the national unity and they are the ones not willing to comprise on the number of states least they withdraw their complete support of their chairman.

The Revitalized Government of National Unity must be formed at the end of this extended hundred days provided that the security arrangements are fully implemented. The number of states and their boundaries can be done by the new government. I’m cognizant that the additional twenty two states were haphazardly created to buy the support of some communities with their politicians and to marginalize others and that need to be corrected.

In fact, there are many states that are not viable of the 32. I call them UN states because they depend on the NGOs totally. In fact the people of South Sudan outside of Juba depend largely on the NGOs for services. But would it be right to deny Buma state its rightful right to exist? No; the people of Buma were totally marginalized by the people of Bor so they deserve their state even though it was given to them out of political expediency. Jonglei state will still fragment into at least three more States and I’m in favor of getting my own state out of Jonglei because we receive no services from the government based Bor Town since independence.

Common sense tells us that reducing the number of states abruptly will cause new rebellion because there will be no possible enough government positions to absorb the newly created state governors, ministers, legislatures etc of the would be absolved states if we return to the former ten states for example.

As a self declared prophet I can assure everyone who has any interest in South Sudan that the current extension of the pre transitional period is the absolute last because our people are very restless and they might choose to find alternative means of bringing about peace to South Sudan and the blame for the failure of this peace agreement will fall squarely on the individuals personally responsible for it.

The author is an expert on politico-social economics in South Sudan and can be reached via: stephendhieu2020@gmail.com

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