Opinion: The R-ARCSS is Collapsing But SPLM-IO is winning!
By Mak Banguot Gok (Makjohnson),
South Sudan’s First Vice President and SPLM-IO leader Dr. Riek Machar Teny attends the 32nd Extraordinary Summit of the IGAD heads of states in Addis Ababa on June 21, 2018. (Photo credit: YONAS TADESSE/AFP via Getty Images)
June 1, 2021 (SSNN) — The ideal implementation of R-ARCSS is what almost all South Sudanese are understanding to be an implementation by the warring parties in Juba. Faithful commitment to the agreement by those well-known schemers of ethnocentrisms hardly exists, even when citizens are hearing the mere pronouncements, and the half-done installation of R-TGoNU from Juba down to the county’s levels. It is equally the urgency of the people’s needs and the level of human sufferings in the country that requires more than a politically maneuvered response action by whomever claims to be heading the government in Juba. South Sudanese are expected to act accordingly, there are genuine desires for an actual peace implementation: “Positive Peace versus Negative Peace Dilemma” is what drives South Sudanese today.
Without referring to the violations of peace agreement in detail, we generally wrap up that the R-ARCSS in its relative position is not plateful to South Sudanese. Different parties involved in the agreements are acting on politics. Further, the Jiang-led genocidal regime is detrimentally making almost everything emotionless and impossible. We have plenty of convincing justifications that the so-called peace agreement is not going on well. And, therefore, there still is a need for power to be applied in the persuasion of the accustomed oppressors in Juba into the recommitment and implementation of the Revitalize Peace Agreement.
The secret agenda of the Jiang-led regime in Juba is not allowing any orderly and structural form of political scheming to go on. If there were to be a patriotic political will as shown by the Jiang-led regime in Juba, nearly three years would have been wasted in vain. South Sudan would have reached its recuperation stages as a result of a well established political system and communications according to the essential articles in the drafted agreement.
Before anything, a Security Arrangement phase would have been the first to ensure it is properly arranged at the inception of a pre-transitional period. A necessary unified force and amalgamation process of the warring forces into a single national defence were expected to be the first. The second most important phase of an agreed draft is the Constitutional Review process that guarantees the impartiality of the R-TGoNU during its formation. The third step is the re-institutionalization of the National Legislature. None of the above phases have been made yet..
Instead, the parties in Juba are wasting time and resources on personal accommodation and politics. Thus the citizens only hear about the appointments and removals of government posts holders. The core of these concerns is coupled with, and evidence for, the unimplemented security arrangements. The prevailing wave of fragmentation by the political parties and groups, the sharp and deeper tribalized politicization of the South Sudan defence force, and the continuous corruption and maladministration by unreformed public services, the absence of rule of law but of a man, the dependency of the South Sudan’s judicial system on one man’s decision and suppression of the freedom of press and mass media. The most frightening intimidation caused the lack of popular participation in a decision making process. And South Sudan’s relying on an illegal constitution makes the nation’s socio economic infrastructures throughout the country nonexistent and creates a widespread security dilemma and uncertainties. This is how South Sudan is regarded today. And, on the topic of South Sudan, with the current peace implementation process, citizens are caught in mediocrity. Hence, We don’t really understand what is in and out of the box in regard to the resolution of the conflicts in South Sudan. Is the country still at war or how do the citizens believe it is halting?
With the current socio political situation, South Sudanese are to reasonably rule out that our country is a failing state. This is because, the totality of the elements onto which a nation-state maintains its sovereignty is not even considered. The vital phases of the agreement, which has an essential relationship with people’s feelings, are a realistic change for their sufferings, but it isn’t the one being implemented in Juba. With the current peace process, South Sudan is still in the midst of a crisis with problems like state building, territorial integration, and problems concerning nation-building without citizens’ understanding the meaning of national integration. There are more prolems, such as political participation with large numbers of political parties and others organized groups demanding participation in decision-making that are not allows, or problems of distribution of national wealth and opportunities that should be given to all people on the ten states without any discrimination on some grounds. Therefore, due to the current status of the peace agreement, South Sudan is in a midst of an identity crisis where people don’t identify with their territorially delimited country, but identify with their tribes and regional.The country is facing crisis because even though the R-ARCSS exists, there is proper responsibility and accountability of the government to the people. Even in the pretext of the R-TGoNU being formed, the crisis still exists when there is no government reaching down to the lowest levels and to touch on the daily lives of the people outside Juba. Meanwhile, the absence of the law of land also creates a crisis because the existing status coup is not giving all parties the freedom to participate in decision-making for a genuine democratic purpose. Therefore, South Sudan is still in a severe integration crisis where there is no governmental system of interacting relationships amongst the officers and with the articulating citizens. And, more importantly, the country is caught up in a distribution crisis because the corrupt governmental powers in Juba don’t distribute resources and other opportunities equally to the people of South Sudan.
For a nation-state to fully prevail in the face of a liberal Democratic political world, which is also recognised during the negotiations of the South Sudanese peace agreement by the negotiating and drafting parties, there is a need for immediate establishment of a functional government here in South Sudan. We need a government which recognizes the urgent need for adaptability where there are long and regular and disciplined chains of leadership ready to welcome new changes and to adapt in the political and economic institutions accordingly. A government which observes the complexity of the network of institutions with each government agency in Juba can carry over its responsibility in a more or less free manner without interfering with the domain of others or without facing any interference from other sides. A government which recognizes the autonomy of its governmental institutions with all the differing government institutions here in Juba and has a clearly defined sphere of activity.
Thus, an institution or person such as the presidential security advisory board and/or Presidential Security Advisor-Tut, for example, may not be a hindrance or a source of interference to others. And more importantly, a government with coherence and a degree of consensus among different governmental associations and institutions influence the unity that prevails in its system. Therefore, with all the above-mentioned uncertainties, we have good reasons to generally term the current peace implementation as somewhat stuck in the midst of impassibility due to the irresponsibility and unfaithfulness of the enemy in Juba. And, if the main obstacles, such as the source of rigidity, simplicity, subordinations, incoherence or disunity, are identified to be a group in Juba, the only answer one should give is as follows: the SPLM/A-IO, which started the revolution, is on its expedition to the radical change that will ultimately succeed when R-ARCSS comes to its final relapse. Even if the main subjects of reestablishing a nation of reasons to live on remain untouched, we still understand that revolution is going on even if it shall be in a variety of techniques.
Some individuals from within the SPLM-IO movement’s inner part, and enthusiasts of the revolution have entirely, and without properly sorting out the consequences of their feeble actions, started threatening in order to give up in some ways or altogether their revolutionary participations. Why? The answer is simple. The tactical delaying of the peace implementation process in Juba caused an outraced massive frustration. Those with lousy moral characters of inconsistencies, of uncommon political consciousness, and who have once joined unsuspectingly the SPLM/A-IO-led liberation struggle, are starting to lower their senses of patriotism and enthusiasm on the SPLM/A-IO. And, the majority resorted to unjustly blaming the SPLM-IO leadership for not performing miracles to end the revolution.
Some of them who are overplaying the enemy’s card and end up allegedly accusing the SPLM-IO Chairman of turning the SPLM-IO movement’s prime objective into somewhat privately benefiting his own families and accommodating his own relatives and well-wishers in the framework of the current peace implementation. Of also leaving behind the SPLM-IO movement’s politico-military strengths in bewilderments and consorting with unworthy kinds of political opportunists. But more importantly, they are wagging baseless accusations upon Dr. Riek Machar of submitting the SPLM-IO movement’s political objective to the very enemy in Juba. Some of the SPLM-IO foes are going wild to the point that they are miserably opting and insisting on an unnecessary reformation agenda that incites few of the SPLM-IO followers toward developing hatred and disloyalty against the SPLM-IO Chairman, Dr. Riek Machar. None of the above is a conventional rationale to accept as true.
If someone sees that the peace implementation process is taking too long and that the long and painful waiting may surpass someone’s endurance capacity, then the best choice for that person would be to quit the SPLM-IO movement and switch political allegiance to any of the party or political movement that suits their own immediate expectations. And, when someone is in the process of leaving the SPLM-IO movement for their own reasons, they better not do it on the pretext that the SPLM-IO movement and the revolutionary movement’s Chairman-Dr. Riek Machar is losing political weight in the face of today’s South Sudan political spectrum. This claim is irrelevant and doesn’t make sense given the reality of the political situation on the ground. The SPLM-IO movement is winning the battles and there is no doubt that the position held by the movement’s leader has been clear and firm with the objective of altering the status of the coup in Juba. This prime objective is what Dr Machar is toiling against all the way to the current state of affairs.
And, without doubts, the SPLM-IO Chairman is more than anyone of his kind, committing to the architecture of the most expected change in South Sudan anytime. In the course of time, this objective is surely realistic no matter how long and thorny the roads are to a complete change of South Sudanese politics. However, given the level of difficulties in Juba today, I don’t think anyone with a reason to judge politics in the context of our society can hold Dr. Riek Machar or the entire leadership of the SPLM-IO responsible for the lack of success. Those who are blaming or disparaging the SPLM-IO movement for the delays in the current peace implementation process are showing a significant deficiency of objective reasoning. They are ones who end up believing in legends about the SPLM-IO movement ill-projected by its enemies. And, with accuracy, those of you who reprimand the SPLM-IO Chairman are best described as doing so in reflection of the fact that none of you may take the lead and encounter the same boring job as Dr. Riek Machar is doing today.
The real problem Dr. Machar is combating today is a well entrenched tribalism political demagoguery that has its roots in the political history of South Sudan for decades now. And, there is no shortcut for a solution today or anytime for a tribalist political entrenchment similar to the Jiang-led status coup in Juba. It’s not an easy job, and therefore, one shouldn’t think he or she can do it better than Dr. Riek Machar Teny Dhuorgon. If one knew the complexity of the problem in Juba, one would have at least forged a few understanding of the same impenetrability which is detrimentally leggings behind Dr. Riek Machar from gratifying the SPLM-IO cohorts with tangible oaths today that can also be faced if one had happened to be in the same position of Dr. Riek Machar.
Mak Johnson is a political analyst and a concerned South Sudanese living in South Sudan. He can be reached at johnsonmak61@gmail.com
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