The call for a Federal Constitution remains to be honoured
* Article
* Comments (1)
email Email
print Print
pdfSave
separation
increase
decrease
separation
separation
*
*
*
*
By Justin Ambago Ramba
May 1, 2011 — The Transitional Constitution for the Republic of South
Sudan which is now between our hands represents one of the most
controversial documents ever produced by South Sudanese and supposedly
for South Sudanese. It reflects at best the struggle between
ethnically motivated politics intended to dominate power and at its
worse it is a document that will undermine any hopes to establish
peace and stability for a people whose recent history has only seen
bloodshed. In short it is a document that is meant to put other people
permanently out of the decision making process while equally promoting
the grip on power of a group which considers itself the only legal
heir to political, economic and social power in country for yet
another unforeseeable period of time following the formal independence
of South Sudan.
Political tribalism and regional dominance of power had been and
remains to date the order in the old Sudan which the South supposedly
is lucky to have broken out from. The Arabised and Islamised Nubians
of the riparian North ruled the Sudan from day one of its formal
independence on January 1st 1956 till today using a core policy in
which the tribes of the Jaaleen, Danagla, Shaigiya and other
affiliated tribal groups went on to blindfold the rest of the Sudanese
in what they wanted to be seen as the unified Sudanese identity.
However that identity was none but that which originated from the
towns inhabited by these Arabised Muslim Nubian people who continue to
relocate and occupy the fertile lands along the Nile and the major
commercial centres in the East, West and South of the country.
Motivated to concentrate power, wealth and social status the Jellaba
descendants adamantly refused to pay any attention to the justified
demands by the people of South Sudan for the adoption of a federal
system of government in the wake of Sudan’s independence from Britain.
The Jellaba Effendi, Military , Police officers, Prison wardens,
judges and merchants were to be seen in every corner of the 1 millions
square kilometres. It was this centralised system that guaranteed for
the Jellaba to dominate the socio-political as well as the economic
life in the old Sudan on one-hand and the marginalisation of the
periphery on the other as they comfortably moved to the comforts of
the villas and hotels in the capital city only to visit they
constituents on elections eve.
This is our history and it is what we fought against be that through
the bullets in our several decades of struggle or our ballots in the
independence referendum earlier this year. Unfortunately when we are
hardly out the woods, already a new group is up to manipulate the
constitution with the intent of greed just as the Arab Jellaba did in
1956. To drop the call for a federal republic of south Sudan from the
provisional constitution is in every sense the first step towards
another political domination by groups armed with the divisive
ethnicity card to politically mobilise a command to power which can
only be realised in a centralised system as the ill devised
unjustified argument of an ethnic majority which under totalitarian ,
one party rule in post liberation Africa often replaces genuine
democracy– however without the least consideration for the others (
minority ethnicities) who for no mistake of theirs become by design
the ones to be marginalised in the new state . This plot is doomed to
fail the state.
One important piece of advice comes from a long time friend of South
Sudan who wrote and said, “We call for principled, servant-leadership
at all levels of civil society and all echelons of governments; we
call on everyone to renounce greed...greed for power and greed for
wealth. Greed for power is reflected even in the way that the drafting
of the Transitional Constitution was conducted, the content of the
Transitional Constitution, and even in the plans laid out for drafting
and approval of the permanent constitution. Correcting those issues
will enhance peace prospects within Southern Sudan. Correcting those
issues will greatly improve the potential for the success of the
future Republic of Southern Sudan. Correcting those issues is within
the power of the SSLA and SPLM”. I couldn’t agree more.
We are s further concerned for the fact that President Salva Kiir did
not preside well over the political leadership forum last week and he
will need to adjust to some basics of democratic principles and the
art of dialogue if he is to remain relevant for this time in our
history. One wonders whether the SPLM political party leadership is
conscious of the huge challenges about to shake the very roots of
their political organisation which they have although taken for
granted. There’s no way that President Kiir can chose to go it the
Mugabe or Museveni way – nor should he even think of doing it the
Afwerki style and still not risk falling off with the international
community. We are now in a completely new era and south Sudan should
be the last places on earth for the international community to abandon
to the rule of tyrants leave alone some kind of a totalitarianism
which continuously evades accountability for abuses of public funds
and human rights.
If the SPLM doesn’t open up and allow for a genuine and contractive
criticism of their draft provisional constitution, it can be concluded
that it intends to exercise a one party authority will offering a lip
service to multiparty democracy hoping that by doing so they can
succeed to mislead the leading world democracies . Call it naivety and
you are absolutely right. This if coupled with the so-called
decentralisation to which they also pay no more than another lip
service, the total sum repercussions on the streets as promises are
one by one broken would be beyond any ones expectations.
South Sudanese aren’t new to politics and decentralisation which they
seen, lived under and practised for decades is not what they are
asking for stage of its development. This not to ignore the fact of
the matter which is SPLM’s lack of confidence to venture in that
direction, however the constitution should serve the people first not
the ruling party. if federalism is again to receive the same fate as
it did in the eve of January 1st 1956, then history has no place in
the lives of our politicians.
Mindful of the fact that the call for federalism has historically come
from those seeking justices, better participation and inclusiveness in
the running of affairs at the different levels of governments in their
country. The call becomes both a motive and a power for change, as
those who call for it are the ones now in the cold and they will do
everything possible to ratify the status quo. And without it the long
awaited independence will for the second time represent another
exclusion and marginalisation.
Everything else in the draft provisional constitution suggests a
disaster in the waiting. The design to allow the president to serve
without limiting the times he can run for office is one sinister move
from SPLM. The other one equally lethal is how SPLM leadership
beforehand plans to control the writing and rectification into law of
the permanent constitution. If i can paraphrase Dr. Hakim Loki’s
argument(Gurtong): in a democratic setting the permanent constitution
can only be written by an elected constituent assembly and not the
controversial SSLA whose mandate should have finished with the
semi-autonomous status of the government of South Sudan (GoSS) to
which it was voted to operate. He rightly argued that a Constituent
Assembly while working on the Permanent Constitution for the Republic
of South Sudan, can hire individuals with the technical expertise in
the field to help with the technical part of the draft.
The brilliant argument presented Dr. Loki in his article : Not Another
“Constitutional Review Commission” (Gurtong.net) leaves no room for
the President to meddle into the process of providing for the
permanent constitution as he/ she will not have to form any committee
saving us the current blunder. Furthermore it takes the responsibility
of ratifying the constitution off the Constituent Assembly and gives
it to the public in a popular referendum. Well I don’t know which
political party Dr. Loki represents, but I just agree with his
argument and disagree with what we have in the SPLM prepared draft.
It is also worth mentioning here that while it is a good thing that we
are involved in the critical analysis and criticism of the Provisional
Constitution Draft and all the processes so far involved, it should
count as mature politics, however it would go further in that
direction if the SPLM leadership opens up to all the different views
of the oppositions and supporters alike. We are also aware that not
all are necessarily representatives of any political constituencies on
the ground. This is true of me, but it is also true of John Luk Jok or
Lawrence Korbandy who though are both lawyers by profession as well as
SPLM top politicians, they are yet to represent a political
constituency. But it is their pro SPLM political affiliations that led
them to produce the current (politically) anomalous Draft of the
Provisional Constitution. And I don’t see that what I am saying here
can ever amount to confusion.
Before I wind up, I would like to call upon the Federalists to come
out openly and in their true numbers and colours to ascertain that a
peaceful, stable and inclusive South Sudan can only be realised under
a Federal System. If we kept quite over the issue in the last six
years, it is understood why? But to keep quite now knowing that there
is a conspiracy at the highest levels to block federalism and expose
people again to yet another ordeal of marginalisation by the emergence
of another domineering philosophy based on ethnic dominance is to miss
what the long struggle (1820-2011) was all about.
The post independence South Sudan should be seen to represent the
realities and aspirations of its poorest and weakest. And a
constitution that is designed with intent to produce yet a manipulated
and anomalous Anti-Federal Permanent Constitution deserves an
unequivocal political stance. So wake up for your historical roles and
in doing so you don’t need permission for your vote for an Independent
South Sudan has set your free! Wherever you are, (South Sudanese)
please read the draft Transitional Constitution, decide for yourselves
what the issues are, and peacefully prevail upon the political and
military leadership to address those issues. It is our destiny
together that we are about to decide.
The author, Dr. Justin Ambago Ramba, Secretary General – United South
Sudan Party (USSP). He can be reached at : [email protected] or
[email protected]
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "JFD
info" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected].
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/jfdinfo?hl=en.
