By: Justin Ambago Ramba
October 16, 2014 (SSNA) — Every stakeholder must understand that South Sudan is at crossroads in its history. With free speech and freedom of expression none existing, and a government that is adamant to use all forms of violence in order to subdue real or perceived opposition, the chances that the country can regain its sanity is dwindling by the day.
More armed resistance is being imposed on the masses as was the case during the “Jallaba” era of misrule. But should those peace loving citizens be forced again into embracing militarism and not democracy as the only means to have their voices heard , then the incumbent government of President Salvatore Kiir Mayardit only has itself to blame. We thought he would be wise not to stroll in that path again. But it seems we are wrong. Once a murder, always a murder!
The civil war is beginning to engulf the world’s newest country, yet the world doesn’t seem to understand that a group of tribal supremacists who have installed themselves as neo oppressors in Juba are the true culprits. Who would have ever thought that only two years into its independence, the carrying of arms would again become a necessity for the citizens of in this country?
You don’t have to go far to find the explanation. It is all summed up in the attitude adopted by President Kiir and his loyalists from Bahr Ghazal who openly campaign for a tribal expansionism and hegemony as if the other 63 nationalities in South Sudan do not count.
Can anyone justify how the president went ahead and recruited a private army from his own tribesmen? Fine, there is the fundamental fact that there never existed a national army in South Sudan the way it is in other countries. All that were virtually tribal militia regardless of what some apologists may say. These were militias.
Even when seen by the kind of indoctrination each had/has, of which the so-called main stream SPLA is one – everything is tribal. From the time the second civil war broke out in August 1983 South Sudan’s civilian population have never received protection from any of the warring armies – there were dozens of them in the past as they are today and all abused and extorted!
Completely marginalized and downtrodden, the masses have the right and the duty to protect their lives, livelihoods and properties. Going back to war as a last resort, President Kiir’s government and its supporters must understand that there are huge implications that will impact on any future settlement should one be sought later on!
For a government which refuses to democratically engage the masses in the debate on what type of governance to be adopted in the country, such a government must go today before tomorrow.
The chances of having a health engagement with the proponents of this incumbent dictatorial regime does not even seem to exist. Not now and not even in the foreseeable future. For nobody is going to sacrifice their dear life for a cause that both the oppressed and the oppressors are likely to benefit"!
War is not new to our people, but it doesn’t mean that our people find it enjoyable in any way. Each time our people had to fight, the war has always been imposed on them by some lunatic oppressors. For too often the willingness to resolves all issues in an amicable fashion without being aggressive and quick to run out of reasoning and not resort too quickly to physically assaulting your rival is mistakenly considered as being cowardice.
But now that armed struggle, has become the only avenue left by the oppressor for our people, the masses must prepare to reap a reward that is tenfold higher than just “which system of governance", should South Sudan have! Genuine Federalism is what the people demand today, but tomorrow’s solution must guarantee that the oppressors have not only been given a humiliating defeat, they must be by all means made to denounce any supremacist ideologies the way world has taught the Nazis not to look down on others !
If left unchecked the enemy in Juba is ready to inflict damages of untold proportions on our civilian population. Only an utterly naive person can underestimate this government’s ill intensions. As corrupt and brutal as it is today, this government listens to no advice and wastes no time in doing the wrong things. How could it had gone all the way against the very basics of good governance and pass what essentially is a draconian security bill.
Mind you, with the exception of the dismantled Iraqi regime of late dictator Saddam Hussein’s and it’s replica the National Congress Party (NCP) of indicted Omer al Bashir of Sudan which we proudly broke away from, no such a security bill exist anywhere in the world ! No wonder at all for with this new security bill the stakes in the country have only gotten higher.
Whatever Kiir Mayardit – Wani Igga – Malong Awan are up to these days goes beyond the mere adoption of the so-called security bill. The government’s unspoken agenda has long time been drawn the “big ruling tribe” and its genocidaire militias. They are preparing themselves for yet another all-out genocide on the other ethnic groups that the regime and its loyalists perceive as none compliant! This is not rocket science.
President Kiir and his arch-butcher Paul Malong Awan never needed a flawed security bill in their infamous campaign to exterminate the Nuer nation in December 2013. Then what kind of a crime are the duo preparing the country for this time around, to prompt the hurry in which this largely flawed Security Bill was handled and passed?!!
You only need to see the urgency with which this bill was forced on the national parliament, and you will know that South Sudan is on a rendezvous with yet another premeditated calamity of untold magnitude! This oppressive bill will only make an already elusive peace even more elusive squandering yet another chance for the much talked about settlement.
Dr Justin Ambago Ramba is a physician, a columnist, a political blogger and a member of the Political Parties Delegation to the IGAD mediated Peace Talks for South Sudan.