THE PROVOCATEUR Volume 1 NO 2 March—May 2019

Prologue

I n the absence of fixed political or ideological conviction that bonded them together in the course of their struggle against the common enemy, war and for that matter the war of

national liberation, which the SPLM/A spearhead-ed did not create the necessary unity among the people of South Sudan. It, instead, incubated the contradictions inherent in their social and cultural diversity and later played out in extreme political contradictions and fatalities. The nascent state, the Republic of South Sudan, is emerging from five years of destructive civil war fought on personal, ethnic and regional contour lines. The experience of southern Sudan as a subnational entity was searing. It confirmed the complete lack of shared values both at the national as well as at the region-al level. The comprehensive peace agreement (CPA), and the end of the war of national liberation did not spell peace and social harmony in many parts of southern Sudan as was expected. The death of Dr. John Garang de Mabior and the power struggle that ensued at the highest echelon of the SPLM compounded the internal political paralysis and exposed the vacuity of its liberation sloganeering. It is worth mentioning that the SPLM/A formation was not consequent to the acute socioeconomic and political crisis of the May regime. It was an external idea grafted on to the ethnic contradic-tions in different parts of the Southern Region that emerged reflecting the May regime’s acute socio-economic and political crisis generated by the IM-F/WB Structural Adjustment Programme. Many of the combatants who swelled the ranks and file of the SPLM/A were mainly peasants and pastoralist. It would be dishonest to as-sumed they come in response to the call for revo-lution. In fact many of them were in search for arms to resolve the local feuds and contra-dictions. The Dinka people hailing from northern Bahr el Ghazal wanted weapons to resist the ma-rauding murahalieen [Rezeighat and Misseriya]; the Bor wanted weapons to resolve their conflict with the Murle; the Padang Dinka wanted weap-ons to settle their score over land with the Shilluk, and so on. These groups melted into the SPLA without the requisite political education and ideo-logical orientation to counter those negative incli-nations. Hence, most of them did not possess the correct scientific understanding of the fundamental internal and external contradictions underpinning the war.

A Brief Historical Synopsis

A s recently as December 2018, Peter O Tingwa in brief historical notes reminded the South Suda-nese of the 18 August 1955 and 6

December 1964 events. For the generations of South Sudanese born in the immediate post-independence period, these dates and the messages they carry remain engrained in our memory. If we were to correlate or con-flate the events marked by those dates and their actors would we definitely encounter a contradiction, which expresses itself in the following queries: What shapes (d) South Sudanese political thought? Was it some-thing extrinsic as often attributed to colonial interest in partitioning the Sudan to continue colonial rule in the southern provinces of Bahr el Ghazal, Equatoria and Upper Nile? Was it something intrinsic consequent to shallow culture of political organization and activity in Southern Sudan? And does this speak to the nexus between this skewed political thinking and the failure of state for-mation and nation building in South Sudan? The dominant political elite in South Sudan practice what I call socio-political duplicity; when in position of power and authority, the formerly oppressed individual or class plays the exact oppressive role against his kindred. The game of political exclusion, selective economic empowerment of people at the expense of others; social discrimina-tion based on ethnicity taking place these days in the Republic of South Sudan particu-larly in the appointment to senior public ser-

vice positions refract from our Sudanese experience and speaks to the internalization of oppression. I think it is absolutely necessary to problem-atize this South Sudan context in order to understand the strait we are in and why South Sudan may never become a state or a nation state. The people of South Sudan are more fragmented along ethnic and regional contours than any other time in their com-mon history. Paradoxically, this fragmenta-tion became more pronounced after South Sudanese won independence. The same class that led the struggle for national liberation took over the state and its resources, and forgot about the fundamental contradictions that underpinned the war of national libera-tion. South Sudan is inhabited by more than sixty-seven nationalities and sub-nationalities at different levels of socioeco-nomic and cultural development. This ethnic and cultural multiplicity alone cannot ex-plain socio-political instability South Sudan is experiencing. Something fundamental is amiss. There were two incidences of ethnic- and regional-based political divisions within the southern Sudan political movement since 1960s. I attribute these incidences to the lack of a unifying political ideology among the southern political leadership, which translat-ed to a corresponding strength of ethnic power sensibilities.

1

SKEWED POLITICAL THOUGHT AND THE FAILURE

OF STATE FORMATION AND NATION BUILDING IN

DR PETER ADWOK NYABA

A brief historical synopsis Continued from page 1

The split in 1964 of Sudan African National Union (SANU) marked the intrusion of divi-sive ethnicity into Southern Sudanese body politics both inside and outside the Sudan. The formation of SANU inside the Sudan to counter its external variant bifurcated the southern nationalist movement. In 1979, although organized under the aegis of the Sudan Socialist Union (SSU) the political leadership of the autonomous Southern Re-gion operated clandestine political outfits: SANU and Southern Front (SF). As if it were a matter of ‘life or death’, their power struggle triggered ‘kokora’ and the eventual dismantling of the Southern Region. These two incidences remained the harbingers of South Sudan self-destruction. They now play out as mutual mistrust and animosity be-tween the different ethnic groups and how political power and political influence dis-tributed in the subnational entity. It is more pronounced between the Dinka and Nuer, and between them and the Equatorians. The formation in 1983 of the SPLM/A in the heat of these sharp political divisions amongst the Southern Sudan political elite added another layer of obfuscation. Although it managed to bring the different political forces under its umbrella of national libera-tion, nevertheless its political prevarication [vacillating between New Sudan and South Sudan], and lack of clear ideological philos-ophy underpinning the war of national liber-ation failed to mould a national agenda. Eth-nic hubris rather than a national agenda was the drivers of the war of national liber-ation. The upsurge of ethnic nationalism, particularly among the two dominant nation-alities namely the Dinka and Nuer at the

early stage of the war [2] may be attributed to these factors. This distorted the evolution of the SPLM/A as a genuine revolutionary national liberation movement pursuing a national agenda. The SPLM/SPLA evolved as military ma-chine depending solely on military routine and command. It shunted political and demo-cratic methods of struggle. Thus, instead of stimulating the masses, it rendered them pas-sive and dependent on international humani-tarian assistance. The SPLM/SPLA admin-istration of the liberated areas turned worse than the government garrison towns. This forced many people to go either to the refu-gee camps in the neighbouring countries or to northern Sudan where they lived in the displaced people camps. Social stratification started to appear in the SPLM/SPLA admin-istered areas where the international humani-tarian and relief assistance lubricated the wheels of a war economy. The SPLM/SPLA commanders and political elites evolved into a class completely alienated from the mass-es. The virus of corruption and lack of re-spect for public property that afflict South Sudan to date has its roots of the SPLM/A misadministration of the so-called liberated areas in Southern Sudan, Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains. The war of national liberation stagnated forc-ing the SPLM/SPLA leadership to negotiate peace with Khartoum. The comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) was a political com-promise underwritten by the Bush admin-istration to enable power and wealth sharing between the NCP/GOS and the SPLM/SPLA. The SPLM took over the government of the subnational entity - Southern Sudan. Immediately, the SPLM/SPLA political mili-tary elite colluded with the southern ele-ments of the NCP/SAF, the commercial and business elite in the liberated areas and in the garrison towns to form the parasitic capitalist class that now govern South Su-dan. It is parasitic on account of its relations to the state as ministers, legislators, senior civil servants, judges, generals in the army and in the security forces, and business car-tels. This class exploited the economy to enrich itself through ditching out overpriced government contracts, outright corruption and theft of public funds. This parasitic capi-talist class colluded with the regional and international comprador capitalist in the con-text of extraction and plunder of South Su-dan’s vast natural resources. The plundering and extraction of natural resources without due care for the environ-ment, demanded by the wasteful consump-tion of this parasitic elite destroyed the pro-spect for socioeconomic development of

South Sudan and therefore constitutes the other face of pauperization of its people. This parasitic capitalist class constructed a fragile political system based on irrational variables of ethnicity, personal rule and au-tocracy. No wonder that it erupted violently into a civil war in December 2013. The social and political crisis leading to De-cember obtained because the parasitic class jettison the SPLM as the political vehicle that catapulted it to power. It started to or-ganize politics and exercise power along ethnic and regional lines. The Jieng Council of Elders (JCE) stood out as the most domi-nant due to the strong ethnic connection be-tween its leaders and the Presidential Palace. As a result of this relationship, the SPLM power and public authority shifted from its General Secretariat to the JCE through the Office of the President. All major decisions were first discussed and taken in the JCE, whose Chairman, Justice Ambrose Riiny Thiik, would often remind the President of the Republic, Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit, that “you are exercising power on our behalf”. The President became a hostage of the JCE pursuing a policy of ethnic hegemony in the public and private domains. The JCE commissioned a very provocative document entitled “Jieng Master Plan - Din-ka rule of South Sudan for the next hundred years”. This document echoed the hate speeches during the debate for kokora in the 1980s. They seem to mean it this time. The civil war has created conditions for the JCE to see to it that head of nearly all public service whether military, police, security forces or civil services were Dinka whether or not they qualified. These include the South Sudan embassies and points of entry into South Sudan, immigration, passports and customs are manned by Dinka. Every economic or revenue generating government institution are manned by the Dinka. The JCE are explicitly telling the other South Sudanese that the Dinka are their new rulers. There is nowhere to challenge this hegemony and domination. The situation reminisces the immediate post-independence period in the Sudan when any northern Sudanese depicted as the new rulers in the southern provinces.

2

Prologue

Continued from page 1

It is no wonder that some of these ethnic feuds rekindled immediately after the consummation of the CPA. The failure of the SPLM-led govern-ment of Southern Sudan to translate the CPA – essentially a compromise at the political level – to peace and social harmony among the communi-ties affected by the war triggered lo-cal conflicts exacerbated and rendered precarious the political situation in Southern Sudan. Ethnic and sectional feuds ravaged Upper Nile, Jonglei, Warrap, Lakes and Central Equatoria in widespread insecurity and tradi-tional cattle rustling. The resulted political paralysis consequent to lack of organization and institutionaliza-tion of the SPLM power and public authority engendered corruption in government and society. The slide to fragility, failure and collapse started in earnest. The civil war intervened only to give the semblance of state under extreme pressure prompting regional intervention. The republic of South Sudan is a caricature of its ide-alized form, which inspired the six decades sacrifices its people made. The sad state of affairs in South Su-dan inspired the writing of this paper. After five years in political wilder-ness I returned to South Sudan just in time to witness the destruction that occurred before they effaced it when implementing the revitalized peace agreement. I had disengaged myself from the SPLM/A-In Opposition led by Dr. Riek Machar Teny-Dhurgon. I was able to observe first hand the attitudes and behaviours of the people both in or near power echelons and the ordinary folk. It was immediately obvious to me that the SPLM/A was indeed the tragedy of the farce un-folding but haunting the people of South Sudan.

The Parasitic Capitalist Class captured the state and plays

havoc with the people

T he goings-on in South Sudan is a logical consequence of the SPLM’s ideological bankruptcy and skewed political thinking of its leadership. It

portrays a falsehood; a falsehood of a spectre of ethnic nationalism or even something worst. It is true there is apparent ethnic rival-ry in South Sudan over power, economic re-sources and political dominance in the public domain. In some government ministries, cer-tain ethnicities dominate the work force re-flecting an expression of hegemony. What appears as ethnic rivalry often de-scribed as ‘tribalism’ is principally an ideo-logical expression of petty bourgeois class. In competition among themselves, this class adopts transclass ideological solidarities in order to strengthen their socioeconomic and political interests. It would appear to the sim-ple mind that President Salva Kiir Mayardit or Taban Deng Gai, James Wani Igga are there to represent Dinka, Nuer or Bari so-cial, economic and political interests respec-tively. This couldn’t be further from the truth. In essence, they are there to represent the interest of their class but will try their best to show the people that they are there for their respective tribes. In doing that the parasitic capitalist class thwarts the development of class consciousness among the deprived clas-ses made up of a wide variety of ethnicities. That explains why it was easy for this class to trigger the war in the guise of Dinka-Nuer war with the Dinka forming ‘dotku beny’ (let’s protect the president) and ‘mathiang anyoor’ militia while the Nuer established the ‘jiech boor’ or white army. This class engaged the poor people in sense-less fraternal strife while they stole and stashed abroad the country’s financial and economic resources. Social stratification in South Sudan has start-ed in earnest, and would be foolhardy to deny that the oppressive and exploiting class in South Sudan is made up of elements from its different ethnicities. It would be wrong to identify only the Dinka ethnicity because their class social, economic and political in-terests of this parasitic capitalist class unite them across ethnic lines to perpetuate a sys-tem of political repression that enables the plundering and extraction without providing social services and economic development. To prove this, let’s take Juba, the seat of this class political and economic power. Juba may be considered as an extended medieval vil-lage rather than a modern city. Juba’s lack of piped water and centralized power supply epitomizes the development priorities of the parasitic capitalist class involved in primitive

accumulation of wealth. It also reflects how primitive is this parasitic capitalist class, which plays havoc with the lives of the peo-ple. Six decades since the independence of the Sudan and fourteen years since the CPA, the parasitic capitalist class in a preposterous way is now engaging the people in efforts to de-fine their ethnic boundaries; agree in a refer-endum to the current thirty-two or to create more tribally based states as provided for by the revitalized agreement on the resolution of conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCISS). It demonstrates the unity of this petty bourgeois class political thinking whether in govern-ment or in opposition. How can we speak of ethnic boundaries after nearly two hundred years of struggle against the common enemy in the form of the Turco-Egyptian, Anglo-Egyptian and the internal colonialism under the northern Sudan? In fact, they are prepar-ing the people for another fratricidal war. This is an actual measure of the difficulty inherent in state engineering undertaken by the parasitic capitalist class at this stage of primitive accumulation of capital. As Amilcar Cabral correctly said, for the petty revolution-ary petty bourgeoisie to fully assume its role in the struggle for national liberation, it must commit suicide as a class and rise from the dead in the guise of revolutionary worker totally identified with the deepest aspirations of the people it is part of [3]. It only under-lines the ideological shift the SPLM/SPLA leadership made in the 1990s and explains why the SPLM/A dedicate itself only to the armed struggle. It did not have faith in the peasants or the working-class movement “This class engaged the poor people in senseless fraternal strife while they stole and stashed abroad the country’s finan-cial and economic resources.”

3

Federalism is not a panacea for South Sudan myriad problems

A section of the petty bourgeoisie, some of them in government but most of them are in the political and armed opposition, is agitating

for federal system of government in South Sudan. Armed with correct understanding of the socioeconomic and political contradic-tions, one cannot fail to see through this as another attempt to fragment the people and to prevent them uniting their struggle against the oppressive and plundering regime. It has been typical of the oppressed people that once overwhelmed and unable to compre-hend or change the difficulties confronting them, they resort to fatalities instead of unit-ing their efforts. This reminds me of a situa-tion in Juba in 1981 during the debate for the re-division of the Southern Region. The ‘unionist’ and ‘divisionists’ were engaged in what often is called ‘dialogue of the deaf’ - a discussion in which each party is unrespon-sive to what the others say. “If your house is infested with bed bugs, don’t just take them and spray with insecticides”? Asked the un-ionist side. “No, we burn the house”, replied the divisionists side, and no sooner, did it develop into a brawl. Southern Sudanese had a weak culture of political organization and activism compared to their northern Sudanese compatriots. This enforced their inferiority vis a vis their northern Sudanese political class when it came to arguing their political relationship. Southerners also opted for quick and easy solution. Thus, instead of being in the same organization to argue their case on equal terms with northerners, southerners pre-ferred to form separate organizations. It is no wonder that separatist tendency domi-nated southern Sudanese political thinking from the very beginning of political in Southern Sudan. This is not to say that sep-aration was southerners’ main demand dur-ing the Juba Conference 1947 [4]; it came as a reaction to their inability to cope with northern Sudanese attitudes and political machinations after independence in 1956. In the same vein, federalism is now being projected as the popular [5] demand by the people of South Sudan. Not only that, but it is also being projected as a panacea for re-solving the myriad problems facing the polit-ical elite in terms of distribution of political as well as economic power in the country. Classically, federations were formed by in-dependent and sovereign entities. The Swiss and American federations are typical of that formation. Post-colonial states, of which

South Sudan are, have traditionally been centrally administered in which administra-tive, not political powers, devolved, decen-tralized or deconcentrated to the lower levels of the state. This did not come by accident; the central government was in most one-party authoritarian, military dictatorial or ideologically totalitarian, which monopo-lized absolute power. The political system in South Sudan may be described as totalitari-an. It is the source of all the socioeconomic and political problems in the country. Fed-erating the country at this time is tanta-mount to packaging into small units and distribution this totalitarian system in dif-ferent parts of South Sudan. It multiplies the problems of the people of South Sudan than resolving them. It is better to unite the efforts of the people in order to transform the regime. Those who believe that establishing a federal system of government is a better option for South Sudan should think again and again. It is not going to be easy for somebody who enjoys or exercises absolute power to give it up easily. President Salva Kiir took the country to war in order to retain his power as president of South Sudan. I don’t think he will relent without serious struggle. I am also convinced that Riek Machar or any other power-hungry individual in the opposition to President Salva Kiir would, once in power, decree the formation of thirty-two or more federal states in South Sudan. If they did it, that would only be a farce. They are also interested in exercising absolute power in the manner they are managing their political outfits now in opposition [6]. This is not an impossibility as long state power in South Sudan is personified than institutionalized. I can vouch that none of the five prospective vice presidents would allow the democratiza-tion of the state once they are in power. The issue of federal system of government in South Sudan, like the struggle for redi-vision of the Southern Region in the early 1980s is a political diversion. It indeed is intended to shift away the attention and focus of the people’s struggle from the op-pressive system. It is intended to divide and weaken the opposition to the oppressive re-gime allowing it to buy time in power. In the early 1980s, Sudan was in acute social, eco-nomic and political crisis consequent to Nimeri’s acceptance of the World Bank/ International Monetary Fund conditionali-ties. The introduction of dreaded Structural Adjustment Program destabilized the Suda-nese socioeconomic and political systems. The Southern Region [7] was the regime’s weakest point along which its crisis explod-ed. The Southern Sudan political class lack of scientific understanding of the socioeco-nomic and political processes in the May

system started shifting blame for lack of socioeconomic development of the Southern Region, which Numeri exploited easily to create conditions [8] for dismantling the Southern Region, Abrogating the Addis Ab-aba Agreement and impose the Islamic Sha-ria Laws. The Southern Sudan political leaders’ divi-sion amongst themselves, while servicing the oppressor’s interests rather than people, is their Achilles heel; this, more often than not, depicts them as anti-their people. In 1983 following Numeri’s abrogation of the Addis Ababa Agreement and the formation of three weak subregions in place of the Southern Region, Abel Alier, Joseph Lago and many other leaders at the centre of redivision poli-tics relocated and congregated in Khartoum in search of Numeri’s political appointments, while their poor people went to the bush to experience the war and its exigencies. In the same vein, instead of uniting their efforts to struggle to transform the oppressive regime, the politicians are speaking of packaging the system and distributing it to every corner of South Sudan in the form of bogus federal state. The Interim Constitution of Southern Sudan contained sufficient federal elements yet those clamouring for federal system were the very ones who destroyed it by allowing President Salva Kiir to rule dictatorially. The solutions to the current problems of South Sudan lie not in establishing a federal sys-tem of government but in establishing dem-ocratic governance. Democracy is the key to peace and social harmony, which in turn provides for accountable and responsible leaders. This predicates on a complete para-digm shift in the political thinking in South Sudan. A paradigm shift that will permit a scientific understanding of the issues of soci-oeconomic and technological development to place South Sudan in the twenty-first cen-tury. However, this will not obtain by or of itself without the emergence of the progres-sive and democratic social forces to capture the centre stage of political engineering of the state and its socioeconomic development. The catapulting of these forces constitutes the social revolution missed during the war of national liberation or during the civil war.

“The political system in South Sudan may be described as totalitarian. It is the source of all the socioeconomic and po-litical problems in the country. Federat-ing the country at this time is tantamount to packaging into small units and distri-bution this totalitarian system in differ-ent parts of South Sudan. It multiplies the problems of the people of South Su-

dan than resolving them.“

4

The fundamental

contradiction in South Sudan

T he fundamental contradiction underpin-ning all contradictions in South Sudan defines as the centuries old condition of socioeconomic and cultural underdevel-

opment of its people. This is the categorization that permits problematization of every aspect of this contradiction in order to find correct means to resolve it in terms of designing programmes and setting strategies. South Sudan is imbued with enormous natural resources potentials. It has huge arable land for agricultural production both in crop and livestock, forestry, fisheries, miner-als, water resources and hydrocarbons. Neverthe-less, the people of South Sudan are counted among the poorest people of the world. Its socio-economic development indices are in the nega-tive. The bulk of the people of South Sudan are rural based where they engage in seasonal subsistence agriculture or rear their animals. The lack of road networks to connect the agricultural potential areas and the markets is at the root of stasis and poverty in the rural areas. The pastoral communi-ties, own large herds of cattle, sheep, goats and camels. However, they keep them in a traditional manner as cultural wealth used in marriages and settlement of blood feuds. Therefore, the poverty of the people in South Sudan whether subsistent sedentary agricultural or pastoral communities is located in their inabil-ity to transform and generate economic wealth from the potentialities inherent in the natural resources. This is what we mean by socioeco-nomic and cultural underdevelopment, which plays out as abject poverty, ignorance, illiteracy and superstition. It means, they cannot of them-selves turn their potential wealth into monetary terms to provide social service in education, health or to increase their agricultural production and productivity. This then calls in the role of the dominant political class. South Sudan is emerging from a five-year devas-tating civil war. It is even not clear that the revi-talized peace agreement will endure given the continued violation of the cessation of hostilities agreement (CoHs) signed in 2017 and a Perma-nent Ceasefire Agreement signed in 2018. Some elements of the armed opposition have opted to stay out of the R-ARCISS. The election at the end of the 30 months transition casts a shadow of uncertainty. Power and whoever wield it remains the harbinger of self-destruction and elections is likely to catalyse eruption of violence in 2021.

5

South Sudan needs a Radical Leap out of

Transitions!

I t is not an exaggeration that South Sudan has been in perpetual transi-tion since 1956; first as part of the Republic of the Sudan, which ended

in 2011. It then entered into a transition, which was completely superfluous and unnecessary. The Transitional Constitu-tion of the Republic of South Sudan (TCSS) 2011 on which the country be-came independence could have been avoided had the political elite and the SPLM-led Government of Southern Su-dan the political will to build a peaceful country. Of course, the political process leading to the mid-term elections 2010 had poisoned the political atmosphere that violent eruptions occurred in Upper Nile and Jonglei states against the elec-tions results. The interim Constitution of Southern Sudan had an inbuilt provision to become the constitution of the nascent republic by expunging in the text any-thing to do with the Sudan. However, the drafting lawyers, as if to demonstrate their frustration with some leaders in their constituencies, hipped on the president all the powers that would make him a virtual totalitarian dictator. The president was accorded constitutional powers to dismiss even elected national and state officers. It is no wonder that eight years into independ-ence and the civil war, the SPLM leaders and the nascent Republic have become the farcical replica of the NCP tragedy in the Sudan. The president emasculated all the institutions that South Sudan has be-come a state in perpetual transition. The agreement on the resolution of con-flict in South Sudan (ARCISS) of August 2015 provided the second transition. Be-fore it could be completed, and barely three months into its implementation vio-lence erupted in the presidential palace in Juba on 8 July 2016. This eruption re-turned the country to war; albeit this time, the war engulfed the erstwhile peaceful areas in Bahr el Ghazal and Equatoria and led to emergence and proliferation of political and armed opposition groups. In 2017, the IGAD initiated the high-level revitalization forum (HLRF) to bring back to the negotiating table the parties to the conflict. This eventually led to the consummation on 12 September 2018 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Con-flict in South Sudan (R-ARCISS) [9] triggering a third transition. This transi-tion is preceded by an 8-months pre-

transitional period intended to give the parties to the conflict time to prepare the transition. We are at the beginning of March 2019 a little bit passed the middle of the pre-transitional period. The parties to the conflict have squandered this time with-out any meaningful activities. It was expected that the President of the Repub-lic would take the initiative to invite the political leaders to workshop a political programme they would implement come the time to establish the Revitalized Tran-sitional Government of National Unity (R-TGoNU). By the look of things, the leaders are not acting strategically to lift the country out of the current social, eco-nomic and political crises; they, on the contrary, are acting tactically in order to maintain their power vantage. This is an attitude that is likely to continue through-out the transitional period as each party will be preparing for the elections just before the end of the transition as provid-ed by R-ARCISS and places the country at a precarious crossroads between peace and war. The current political leadership of South Sudan, whether in government or in opposition, is such that no leader could squint at war as a means to power. They are likely to return the country to war to achieve their power ambitions rather than deflate their individual or collective ego for the sake of the country and its people suggesting that there is obvious patriot-ism deficit. The kind of destruction going in parts of southern Bari and Yei River state is a pointer to what is likely to occur once the clutch of the transitional period slips as a result of some adventurous ac-tion by some leaders. It may spell the death of South Sudan as a state. The question that imposes itself therefore at this point in time is how to prevent this apocalypse. The extensive violence and the existence of ‘unknown gunmen’ in the last five years have driven many peo-ple into passivity that it is impossible to contemplate a popular uprising like the ones that toppled Abboud (1964) or Nu-meri (1985) to occur. This is not to men-tion the general low level of social aware-ness and political consciousness in South Sudan, without which people cannot be stirred into action.

6

Towards a Genuine National Democratic Revolution

L eaders of war are seldom good leaders of peace, freedom and de-velopment; the South Sudan expe-rience is a tragic case in point’ [10]

speaks to unsavvy reality of the SPLA’s war of national liberation. These were indeed leaders of war; not of national liberation otherwise the results would have been differ-ent. I want to dedicate the following lines to what I mean by national democratic revolu-tion. I raised in different discussion fora, but was usually met with stiff resistance, some of them ignorance inspired and reactionary. In its simplest definition, revolution is a pro-cess of change and the context of social change differ from one society to another. In our context in South Sudan, I would say that revolution is a process by which the present condition of socio-economic and cultural backwardness of the masses of our people can be transformed through the development and modernization of their productive forc-es. There should not be any qualms about this modernization although many people particularly the right wing and the liberal/traditionalists get frightened when they hear the word revolution. They perceive and in-deed read violence into revolution. This begs the simple question, what kind of violence? The people of Southern Sudan have experi-enced violence in their long history. The most violent was slavery and slave trade in which the Arab and European slavers force-fully hurled away from their habitat many able-bodied southern Sudan people. The colonial pacification of the country was also violent as they resisted to maintain their freedom and independence. The people of southern Sudan also witnessed the violence of the two previous wars and now they are in the midst of the worst conflict fighting among themselves. Therefore, of what vio-lence are they shy? There is need to contextualise violence; it causes and drivers. As is the case every-where in the world, violence boils down to two forms: the violence perpetuated by the oppressor against the people in the context of economic exploitation, social discrimina-tion and political exclusion. This violence is oppressive, reactionary and therefore it is right to oppose it. There is then the violence, which accompanies people’s resistance, or

they mete out to their oppressors. In either cases violence is inevitable. The people do not have to fear or shy away from the vio-lence they mete out in the context of recov-ering their humanity, dignity and self-worth. Therefore, rejecting revolution simp-ly because it begets violence is fallacious and a lame excuse. It is tacit support for the status quo; it is intended to dampen people’s awareness The other word is ‘ideology’; it makes some extreme right wing and liberal elements, particularly those with Christian education backgrounds apprehensive and giddy. They say that ideology is bad because it associates with communism or socialism. This again is wrong perception attributable to ignorance and prejudice or what in progressive litera-ture categorize as ‘mental blockage. While it is a truism that revolution as a process is ideological in context, nevertheless ‘ideology’ is not peculiar to a particular phil-osophical school of thought; semantically, it connotes ideas packaged and expressed in a systematized and rationalized format. There-fore, revolution as a process must have an ideology that defines it. In the contemporary and recent past the world witnessed the American Revolution, the French Revolu-tion, the Bolshevik Revolution and the Chi-nese Revolution with their corresponding idiosyncrasies. What is clear as the sun is that revolution is inevitable when a system fails to reproduce itself; the new system that grows within its womb must spout. In theory and practice, revolution means that for change; for mean-ingful change to occur or in order to under-take change in the lives of the people re-quires a set of ideas commensurate with the socio-economic and political transformation the people desire in their lives. The sum total of these ideas packaged in a systematic and logical manner constitute the ideology of the revolution. They encapsulate the revolu-tion’s vision, objectives, strategies and the desired outcome. Nothing in those two words should frighten the right wing and the liberals in any way. Perhaps, they echo the ideological position of the exploiting classes and their linkage to the regional and interna-tional comprador capitalism who oppose revolution because of their vested interest in the extraction and plunder of South Sudan

resources. I am aware, this was not an exhaustive ex-planation but have laid bare the baseless fears of the right wing and liberals about revolution to change the lives of the people of South Sudan, I come to the kind of revo-lution the people of South Sudan stand in need of, or should undertake and why they should. First, let us take a critical look at the context of South Sudan and the majority of its peo-ple. A cursory view of South Sudan reveals the following characteristic features: The bulk of the people are live in traditional life-styles in rural villages or solitary settle-ments. However, Some traditional settle-ments (Shilluk, Otuho and Toposa) are large almost to the level of small town. However, the Dinka, Nuer, and communities in Equa-toria construct individual homes but for the Dinka and Nuer have cattle camps, which bring together many clans. They have lived like this since time immemorial. They live on tilling land to produce food and other necessities of life or rear livestock on sub-sistence level. There are few towns, which initially were colonial outposts, district headquarters or trading centres. Few un-paved roads connect these towns suggesting that the country is not easily accessible. In the towns, the socio-economic situation is by no means better. There are few schools and medical facilities except in cities or towns. There are no industries, which means that the national productive forces are still under-developed. In this kind of situation in which the social and economic indices are in the negative, our people categorize as one of poorest people in the world. This sad situa-tion, which should prick the conscience of every South Sudanese leader, is the funda-mental problem, which manifests itself in secondary contradictions like the current civil war triggered by power struggle among the political elite, or the ethnic conflicts trig-gered by their competition over water, pas-tures and cattle rustling.

Photo credit: amandla-wethu.com

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Continued from page 6 Nevertheless, in spite of this generalized poverty characterization, agro-pastoralist communities: Toposa, Didinga, Otuho, Mundari, Dinka, Murle, Nuer and Shilluk have livestock. In fact, some count their herds in terms of hundreds or thousands of cattle, sheep, goats, camels; why is it that in spite of all this wealth our people are categorized as poor or pose like hopeless people necessitating international humani-tarian intervention. Yes, they have those resources and yet they are categorised as poor people because they have not trans-formed these animal resources into eco-nomic wealth or values expressed in mon-etary quantities simply due to the fact that they have not developed their productive forces. The manner in which they own these resources cannot make them rich because they keep them as cultural as-sets; just to show social status and im-portance, and at best as bride price in marriage or blood price in conflicts. As long as these resources remain as cultural assets, they will not give our people mon-ey to exchange with or purchase other necessities of life like clothes, cars, decent housing, etc. This explains why village folks will ask as a matter of right their kin working in government or private sector to give them money. They will never sell any of their livestock; indeed, some communi-ties consider it shameful to sell livestock even at the height of hunger and famine. It is possible to count as poor a person owning one hundred heads of cattle. In fact, the traditional methodology of keep-ing the cattle renders him poor. In trying to transform this reality, we come to realise that South Sudan also im-bues with other enormous natural re-sources potentials. Important mineral re-sources like gold, chromite, asbestos, dia-mond, etc., people have economically worked or recorded them present in parts of South Sudan. The petroleum deposits in South Sudan is the only natural resource from which they extracted value in form of oil revenues that flow into Govern-ment’s coffers. The land mass of South Sudan is predominantly savannah and tropical with natural forests and exotic flora and plantations in parts of Equatoria and Western Bahr el Ghazal. The develop-

ment of the forests provides timber, acacia gum including wildlife and its aesthetic values for tourism. The River Nile and its tributaries like Sobat, Bahr el Ghazal and Yei have huge fish and other aquatic life potential. This is over and above the fact that large swaths of fertile land suitable for mechanized agricultural production exists in South Sudan. These, remain potential until they have transformed to extract the economic value embedded in them. The development of these resources in order to extract value or to transform them into economic assets falls within the re-sponsibility of the Government of the Re-public of South Sudan in terms of policies, legislation and development. The develop-ment of these resources is political in na-ture requiring scientific understanding, which links to the struggle for independ-ence and the war of national liberation. The essence of independence and sover-eignty lies in the power and authority to control or rather manage the social, eco-nomic and political life of the people. In-dependence and sovereignty mean our national government, as our sovereign representative, has the power and authori-ty over everything within the territory of South Sudan. It exercises this authority through legislations, laws, regulations, guidelines, etc. The SPLM constituted the government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) in 2005. That marked the zenith of its struggle for na-tional liberation. It had the constitutional, political and moral authority over the peo-ple of Southern Sudan. During the interim period GOSS received four to five billion US dollars in oil revenues on account of that sovereign mandate. It should have employed this money to undertake social and economic development of southern Sudan; to build schools, hospitals, roads, electricity, decent housing, provide social services and economic development. The SPLM and the cohorts from the NCP and other political parties in GOSS failed to provide social and economic development for the people of South Sudan. They in-stead provided for themselves in corrup-tion and stealing from the state coffers. This obtained because of their dependence

on dictates from the Breton Institutions [World Banks and the IMF] for economic and fiscal policy, which has now left South Sudan and its people impoverished. What does this tell us? In a nutshell, the SPLM leaders have deviated from the liberation ideology, the concept and vi-sion of the New Sudan. This deviation aligned its leaders to forces interested in extraction and plunder of South Sudan but not in the social and economic devel-opment of its people. This explains why there is nothing in terms of development projects or physical infrastructure devel-opment to show for the more than fifty billion US dollars South Sudan received from the sale of its oil in ten years (2005 -2015). This means that social and econom-ic development that places the masses in the centre of public policy is a function of ideological orientation of the government and therefore touches on what we alluded to above that South Sudan is ripe for revo-lution. Before embarking on explaining the rela-tion between government and social and economic development of South Sudan, I want to make a digression. The People’s Republic of China emerged from colonial occupation and feudalism only in 1949 with the triumph of the communists led by Mao Zedong over the nationalist govern-ment. Hitherto, the bulk of the Chinese people were peasants just like our people in South Sudan and indeed were catego-rized as poor. There were remnants of feudal mode of production like private ownership of land and the feudal relations of production, which the communist gov-ernment liberated through agrarian revolu-tion. China did not have big manufactur-ing enterprises; industrial revolution had not come to China. However, under the leadership of the Communist Party, the Chinese embarked on social and economic transformation of their reality starting with revolution in agriculture and industry to address food security and other needs of the local market. Then in 1966, the Chi-nese launched the Cultural Revolution to enable the Chinese people benefit from advances in knowledge, science and tech-nology and to produce the Chinese person. Today, China is the second largest econo-my in the world without having to pass through the capitalist mode of production.

Towards a Genuine National Democratic Revolution

8

Towards a Genuine National Democratic Revolution

Continued from page 7 On independence, the post-colonial state in Africa had a choice of either continuing the relation of exploitation with the capitalist colonial masters or non-capitalist path of socio-economic development trajectory. It could not have been a choice in the real sense of the word. The essence of the strug-gle to be free and independent presupposes a determination to cut relation with colonial domination and exploitation; meaning the nationalist government first duty is to con-solidate sovereign right to public policy, control the national productive forces, and to enhance social justice and fraternity among the masses of the people. However, colonial-ism produced a national pseudo-bourgeoisie, which tied the post-colonial state to metro-politan country in an asymmetrical relation-ship – neo-colonialism, which perpetuated the exploitation, extraction and plunder of the resources. The neo-colonial state is an antithesis of a national democratic state con-structed at the height of the national demo-cratic revolution. The United Republic of Tanzania pursued the Ujamaa socialism based on African soci-etal values. Made of one hundred twenty-four ethnicities, Tanzania is the only country in Africa where politician by law cannot refer to ethnicity as ladder to power or for political mobilization. The founding father of the Republic, Mwalimu Julius K Nyerere, used the magic of unified culture in the form of an indigenous lingua franca – Swahili, to build the Tanzanian nation. The socio-economic development in Tanzania contrast with that in neighbouring Republic of Kenya in terms of social awareness and national culture and cohesion. This is because Kenya for much of its independent history had been a one-party political dispensation. When the country returned to organised multi-party liberal democracy politics, power was exer-cised based on ethnicity. As a multi-party liberal democracy according to the 2010 constitution, Kenya, nevertheless, suffers society polarization on ethnic political exclu-sion, economic marginalization and social discrimination. Coming back to the situation in South Su-dan, on independence it resembled most post-independence sub Saharan African coun-tries especially those that had to engage in protracted negotiations with the colonial powers. The SPLM leaders did not behave

as they and the people of South Sudan had conducted a revolutionary armed struggle. This was not surprising because these lead-ers, as we have mentioned elsewhere, had switched into an elitist class completely iso-lated from the masses of the people, and were concerned with how they could accu-mulate wealth and get rich quickly. This attitude on the part of the leaders to get rich as quickly as possible is not compatible with belabouring to address the socio-economic and cultural backwardness of the people. This explains why instead of providing so-cial and economic development the leaders engaged in self-aggrandisement, the corrup-tion and looting of the state coffers. The SPLM leaders and their cohorts from the NCP and other political parties had no idea of how to meet the aspirations of the people for freedom, justice, prosperity and fraternity. For the SPLM leaders this omis-sion attributed to the paradigm shift from revolution during the war of national libera-tion. As soon as they assumed power in the government of Southern Sudan, the SPLM leaders began to pursue right wing and liber-al policies with free market economic ideo-logies. This linked South Sudan wretched subsistence economy to the world capitalist system, which presupposed the existence of a capitalist class capable to lead social and economic development of the country. The political military elite transformed it-self into a parasitic capitalist class in con-trol of the state. This class did not possess capital of its own because it did not control any means of production. It derived its power from its control of the state and its resources. Because of this linkage to the

state and to the regional and international comprador capitalism in the context of ex-traction and plunder of South Sudan natural resources this class remains parasitic in char-acter. It can only survive by sucking the state resources and funnelling these resources outside the country. It is therefore incapable of leading the social and economic develop-ment of South Sudan. We have witnessed in the last ten years (2005 – 2015) the steady reduction in the South Sudan’s socio-economic indices to the point that they are now all in the negative. It is true the war leading to the fall of oil production and in-crease in government expenditure were fac-tors in this decline, nevertheless, the main cause remains the bad economic policies the SPLM-led government of South Sudan pur-sued since 2005, which ignored the develop-ment of agriculture and livestock sectors of the economy. The failure to provide social and economic development reflected at the political level in the form of power struggle. The control of state power and its financial and economic resources tie a dangerous knot with ethnicity and ethnic politics. It is no wonder that South Sudan witnessed immediately after the independence the upsurge of Dinka and Nu-er ethnic nationalism and the urge by the two to build South Sudan in their respective im-ages. The emergence of the Jieng Council of Elders as a power broker around Salva Kiir’s presidency of South Sudan came in the context of Dinka control of the state. No wonder this erupted into violence in Decem-ber 2013 and the ensuing civil war that plunged South Sudan into acute social, eco-nomic and political crises. Continues to page 9

Photo credit : IGAD

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It will not be easy for South Sudan to come out of these crises as long as the political forces in the government and in the opposi-tion play the political game along the con-tours of power sharing and superficial re-forms in the political system set up since 2005. The system ignores the masses of the people and therefore generate conflicts in different forms and at different levels. We must admit that a revolutionary situation obtains in South Sudan. It is represented by the apparent failure of the regime to pro-vide development. That the civil war has engulfed the whole country and people have taken to arms is indicative of rejection of the regime. This is true even in the Dinka areas of Lakes and Warrap in Bahr el Ghazal. The perennial wars between the Agwok and Apuk in Gogrial, or between the Rek and Luany Jiang in Tonj or among the Agars in which hundreds have perished, indicates that there is something wrong with the system that has failed to meet people’s aspiration for socio-economic development. However, because of ignorance and inability to per-ceive the reality in the correct perspective, the people have no way of expressing their discontent with the regime except by inter-nalizing and fighting it out among them-selves. The communities pick up the gun only to defend their existence as free people thanks to the secondary contradictions Salva Kiir regime is throwing up everywhere in South Sudan. This forces another rhetorical question. On another level of this reality, there exists a strong separatist tendency among Equato-ria’s political elite, which is an expression of ethnic nationalism in a provincial per-spective. It defines as one entity the nation-alities in Equatoria notwithstanding their

different social and economic formations. The National Salvation Front (NAS) and the so-called Concerned South Sudanese (Eastern Equatoria, Central Equatoria, Western Equatoria and Western Bahr el Ghazal States) [11] smacks of this separatist tendency driven partly by hostility to SPLM/SPLA (IO) presence as a force in Equatoria reflecting their subjective attitude towards the Dinka and Nuer in general. This sepa-ratist tendency stems from leaders wanting short political cuts to power avoiding the intricacy and difficulties of mainstream po-litical struggles. They intend to acquire pow-er through such narrow avenues of ethnicity and provincialism. The strategy to fragment the people along ethnic and provincial lines will not resolve the fundamental contradic-tion underscoring the civil war in South Su-dan. There are no fundamental contradictions between the people of South Sudan orga-nized socio-culturally as social formations. They have been existing and cohabitating since times immemorial and therefore do not constitute a problem. Indeed, in the words of the British historian, John Lonsdale “African people lived side by side as ‘negotiating ethnicities’ before colonial rule turned them into ‘competing tribes’”. There is no apparent contradiction between the Nuers and the Dinkas, or between the Dinkas and the Nuers on the one hand and the Equatorians on the other hand. They are all subsistence producers in crops and livestock. The fundamental contradiction is between, the masses of the people of South Sudan, now organized in their social and political-military formations, and the totali-tarian dictatorship the parasitic capitalist class erected under the leadership of Presi-

dent Salva Kiir Mayardit. Therefore, such formations as above which tends to isolate or separate the people of Equatoria and Western Bahr el Ghazal on some fictitious considera-tions from their compatriots from the other parts of South Sudan is driven by complete lack of scientific knowledge of the objective reality on the one hand, and the intention to exploit the ignorance people on the other hand. Therefore, to address the current situ-ation of war in order to prevent state col-lapse, economic meltdown and humanitarian crisis requires concerted efforts by all the South Sudanese across ethnic and provincial contours. Any attempts to partition the peo-ple’s struggle in the manner the so-called ‘Concerned South Sudanese’ or ethnic coun-cils of elders, etc., are trying to do is harmful and unpatriotic, which should be treated with scorn it deserves. The national democratic revolution is the social, economic and political engineering processes, which the political and social forces undertake in order to enhance and strengthen national independence and frater-nity; to strengthen national symbols, enhance freedom of the masses and promote social justice. They develop and free the national productive forces from any kind of foreign control and domination. The task of the na-tional democratic revolution is to address the fundamental contradiction reflected in the poverty, ignorance, illiteracy and superstition that submerge the consciousness of the mass-es. Besides these, it also addresses the sec-ondary contradictions inherent in the social, ethnic, linguistic, religious and cultural mul-tiplicities of South Sudan. As things stand, only the revolutionary and democratic political and social forces can undertake and lead the national democratic revolution. This is by virtue of their ideology and revolutionary consciousness, knowledge of the laws of socio-economic development of society and their high level of discipline and commitment to the people. The weak-ness reflected in lack of organization and ideological unity of these revolutionary and democratic political and social forces ex-plains why the national democratic revolu-tion has not kicked off although the objective conditions for its eruption have existed in Southern Sudan since the formation of the SPLM/A in 1983. The dominance of right wing and neo-liberal forces in the national liberation movement was the biggest draw-back soaking the movement in reactionary and ethnic ideologies.

Towards a Genuine National Democratic Revolution

CONSOLIDATION OF SOUTH SUDANESE’ INDEPENDENCE AND

SOVREIGNITY!

“there is urgent need to raise political awareness and unite the ranks of all the patriotic and democratic forces opposed to any system of political exclusion, economic neglect or marginalization and social discrimination based on ethnicity, gender, faith or any other peculiarity. This is only way the people could consolidate their independence and sover-eignty and be in control of the countries resources.”

I have tried to discuss and link the political thinking of South Sudanese dominant political to

the failure of South Sudanese people to build a state or nation-state in South Sudan although

they have been at this struggle for nearly sixty years. It is disheartening to discover that

strong ethnic hubris particularly among the Dinka and to a lesser extent the Nuer, is at the

core of this failure. The experience of the last fourteen years has demonstrated that ethnic nation-

alism and its ideology of hegemony and domination triggers conflict and death. It produced a re-

gime that is moribund and disproved the falsehood that some ethnicity was destined to govern

over all other nationalities.

I have witnessed in many social media outlets and discussion fora that many South Sudanese in-

tellectuals who at the beginning of the civil war were staunch supporters of the regime, have now

changed and express a national approach to issues. The targeting of innocent people on account of

their ethnicity has also reduced and people are now speaking to each other. This is good and wel-

come development. However, we must learn from this experience never to repeat it again. There

is no other means of creating awareness and social consciousness except through the process of

the national democratic revolution. This is the quickest means by which South Sudanese can de-

velop their productive forces and transform the fundamental contradiction that submerge the con-

sciousness of our people, and prevents a correct perception of them reality.

In conclusion, there is urgent need to raise political awareness and unite the ranks of all the patri-

otic and democratic forces opposed to any system of political exclusion, economic neglect or mar-

ginalization and social discrimination based on ethnicity, gender, faith or any other peculiarity.

This is only way the people could consolidate their independence and sovereignty and be in con-

trol of the countries resources.

10

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