By Kuach Tutkuay
January 15, 2015 (SSNA) — The United State has been known as a country championing the fight for democracy, justice and human right. This owe to its story of responding to any threat to human life anywhere as soon as it occurred. One of these responses to save human life was by USA’s president JFK, who took on the Vietnamese dictator, President Diem, when a Buddhist religious leader self-immolated in protest for the right of Buddhist leaders. This intervention was quite expensive but with mission to save lives at heart, the US selflessly undertook it despite the cost. Decades later, the USA under the leadership of President Bush responded swiftly to save million lives in Iraq, one of the terrorists-infested states no one will ever dare tread….the rest is a story. These actions does not come from any political interest but purely from moral obligation to save lives—that is, if people are being killed and you remain silent, you are actually consenting to the act by virtue of moral obligation.
Thinking about South Sudan, a country which America, as a midwife, has done everything possible to make sure they have an independent state. Spending a lot of resources to help them develop the fastest they could. A country they helped selflessly through institutionalization, democratization and harmonization. To see that effort being consumed today by corruption, dictatorship, civil war, mass murders and many other inhumane acts any neo-Nazis can do—and yet America remains silent—is quite unthinkable. One would wonder whither did those courageous Americans vanished and whence did they came. I wish the intelligence of Obama and his esteemed administration could comprehend that their silence about South Sudan is dubbed as giving a green light to the perpetrators who are just giving themselves a pat on the back that they got away with the massacre of innocent women and children.
While I am alert that America is committed to the peace process in Addis Ababa, I am also alarmed that this effort, too, will vanish into thin air. The regime in Juba is quite ignorant about peace and the more ignorant one is, the bigger lies one will swallow. That is to say the peace will not be negotiated in good faith. Everyone in South Sudan wants peace the most, but not necessarily that “obnoxious peace” that will only cost us more lives. I want the Obama administration to understand that the peace they are pursuing, that retains Kiir as the president, will only pave way to the lifeboat analogy: room for everyone means death for all. Although some people might yearn for Kiir’s leadership, he has actually proved to South Sudanese that he is no longer a symbol of peace but of conflict, not of unity but of tribalism, with him blood will never cease. It is true to say that even mass murders have their admirers but how does it help an average South Sudanese to rewards president Kiir who has killed tens of thousands civilians in cold blood. The presence of Ugandan and JEM interlopers will only prolong the suffering of civilians.
In a recent news development as quoted by Sudan Tribune, President Kiir demanded election in 2015 as a democratic process to restore his legitimacy. Not providing for any probability to either win or lose, you can now imagine the drama Mr. President wants during the election. In the president’s own jargon, when did election become a “process for restoring legitimacy”? The world must understand that the regime in Juba have no legitimate government as they sings loudly every day in front of cameras, no supreme moral orders, there are no fixed, immutable principles; consequently almost anything, yes, anything—force, violence, murder, lying to public, bribing—is justifiable means to the millennial end. That is why Kiir started by silencing the media and then his critics, the metamorphosis of a dictator. And when all those avenues did not pass muster, he resorted to silencing his political rivals through the barrel of the gun, landing the country into the abyss of destruction and human lynching—hence, a real field of mass murder.
In a situation where human beings are reduced to the status of things, that they could be destroyed at will and be owned like properties, what would the USA, who fought hard for democracy and human right, say about this treacherous act? The difference of pacifism and ignorance, I think, is just a slippery slope in the sense that a pacifist will try to maintain peace through nonviolence. But what the pacifists did not know is that to separate two fighting bulls, one need a stick. Like in situation where a murderer pointed his gun on school children and you are the only person in possession of a gun to intervene and save lives of those innocent kids, what would you do? To kill the murderer and save the children or to keep silent and let the children perish? Either way, you participated in a killing but which killing is more moral than the other? This is what differentiates killing from murder. The fifth Decalogue proscribed murder, not killing per se; although loosely translated from Hebrew to English Bible as “thou shall not kill”, it is lo tirtzach in Hebrew referring to “thou shall not murder.” If it is “thou shall not kill” as in the English version, it would be lo taharog. Even God Himself would ask you, “What do you think I put you there for as the only person with a gun?”
Obama has been very passive about issues threatening justice, democracy and human right around the globe. In fact he has actually reinvented a new wheel of foreign policy that seemingly inclines toward dictatorship regimes. South Sudan crisis is just one of the many controversies the US has decided to play cool when things are actually getting out of hand. The “Kerry Diplomacy” is just another drama by the Obama administration that proved futile. The question is, “what is next for the Obama’s?” after condemnations, sanctions, demands for peace, calls for CoH implementation, calls for foreign troops withdrawal; all of which fall into deaf ears of president Kiir—thank to Almighty, the political detainees were released as the US demanded but that is too little a progress as their release did not help the peace process in any way. If, for sure, the America’s fight for democracy and justice is not an absurd utopia, then, they better know that much is expected of them as helpless civilians lies in wait for the dry season where their fate will be decided by the two rivals factions.
The author could be reach on [email protected] or follow him on twitter @kuach444.