By: Cde. Sirir Gabriel Yiei Rut
March 27, 2015 (SSNA) — South Sudan has been turned to a looting Juncture where everyone will decide to do anything and end up achieving it. The recent amendment to the constitution and the uplifting of President Salva Kiir’s office term shows nothing but dead/Zombie are the one leading the country.
Many among us would argue that the Transitional Constitution of 2011 played a major part in the problems we face today even though some of us lay that blame on human behavior. Today, we face a different barrage of questions from our fellow Neighbors [Africans]. What is happening to South Sudan? Is the country crippled of its future? Have the people there become agenda-less. What happened to national pride?
For once, I have desisted from responding to such questions for one simple reason — I am very disappointed in my country. For all the lives we hear were lost during the struggle for independence, for all its efforts to send its people to school in Cuba and other places to achieve a better life and military Knowledge, for all the ideological supremacy we have paraded on the world body, this is what we have come to be — a nation that cannot agree to move on for the sake of the future of its children.
I was shocked, hopeless and wire to my toes, went I heard the news of the President Salva Kiir Mayardit once again mandated to rule for three [3] more years while his days in office where to be counted to the finish line, that give me a pause and think the other way around. As I keep asking my very- self of who is bewitching my leaders? Or what have the south Sudanese do to God that deserved this severe punishment? Bad to be the victim.
One will be tempted to ask questions…. Like is it wise for the Law Makers to amend the Transitional constitution of 2011 and extend Salva Kiir’s Term in Office? Will the south Sudanese whose right have been hijacked by the desperate MPs continued to keep quiet and pretend like nothing had happened? Is it true that the Law Makers in South Sudan Parliament are not walking dead? All this and more other question congested my brain. Gordon Brown was right to call our leaders terrorist for they deserved this.
But my answers to all these questions was" My country is being rule by the dead" and I am right. South Sudan since the crisis has been jumping from frying fan to fire making mistake over mistakes and from bad to worse
A group of politicians who would rather compromise the future for the sake of being right even when they know there is something wrong with that rightness.
We have become a nation so portent in manufacturing and churning crisis after crisis, apportioning the blame on the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, African Union and IGAD. We are never wrong and yet we create the problems ourselves.
"The extension of Kiir’s office term by the Parliament was the worse decision and worth killing not only to the Nation’s image but to the Marginalized communities and the hopeless victims that are in their eagerness to grab changes and reforms".
Today, once again, our nation is emotionally bleeding as it is ripped apart by legalism and teleology. A Constitution that still at a teen age, already beckons on a precipice, dashing the hopes of hope.
Political egos have virulently infected our political minds. To vote or not to vote, the process is already fetid before it begins making it indelible to sanitize.
Credentials and reputation are at stake and yet no one seems to care as long as the legalists emphasize and exercise strict obedience to the law system. Respect for the rule of law has found a new political choir even when it does not address the higher questions like the purpose and the future of the country.
Like in the ancient days of Han Feizi, the Chinese philosopher, we are made to believe that the system of law, not the ruler, must run the State, as a gesture or statement of rule of law. During Han Feizi’s time, special tactics and secrets were deployed by the ruler to ensure that others don’t take over control of the State using the excuse of protecting the rule of law.
Subtle in this exercise of the law is that it is the position of the ruler, not the ruler himself or herself, that holds the power. Therefore, the blame and accountabilities must be demanded from the ruler not the person.
Legally, all this may be correct, but not appropriate to the context raising questions on whether law is meant for the people or vice versa.
Human life comes first before the law which takes me to the flip side of the divide which has been sermonized and premised on the basis of teleology.
All processes must be purpose driven even if it means breaking the laws and neglecting the Constitutional Court ruling for the sake of making a better South Sudan.
The processes include, as they have always been preached, media reforms, security sector realignment and alignment of laws to the Constitution and Electoral reform including others.
Even without guarantee of compliance and adherence to such, the general assumption is that with these in place the country can call for elections and pave a future for a better south Sudan.
My little knowledge of the law fails me, but I am aware of the difference between an argument and a ruling; one is a process and the other is an end. I am also aware of the limited powers of Troika to intervene where such an act leads to a breach of the law, which leaves us with one option — let’s talk among ourselves and find a solution.
South Sudan does not belong to political parties, but to South Sudanese.
In all this heckling, the national interest agenda is lost in the crevice of power and hacks of egos. Just where South Sudan is going at this rate of sophisticated political confusion?
There is a strong cause for worrying. We cannot think of future development strategies in the midst of political confusion.
We cannot even fathom that the current Constitution will lay the foundation for a better future unless political egos are pruned to allow national interests to prevail. South Sudanese are tired of this and they surely deserve better.
Cde. Sirir Gabriel Yiei Rut is a writer and He is the Chairman of SPLM Youth League Chapter in Egypt he can be simply reach through [email protected].