Who will bring to an end tribal fighting, Government of South Sudan or International intervention?
By Dhiim Manyuon, Perth, Western Australia JAN. 18/2012, SSN; Since the protracted Sudanese civil war ended in 2005, South Sudanese communities have turned on each other with viciousness! Both inter and intra-tribal fights have risen. Attack by one community is met with counterattack by the other, and the cycle continues over and over. These sorts of reprisal attacks are predominately common in three states in South Sudan - Lakes, Jonglei, and Warrap State. The result is an enormous loss of innocent lives and a country on the verge of tribal factions. So what is contributing to this situation? There are many factors which are contributing but in my opinion, the following two are exacerbating the situation - Vigilantism and Lack of strong deterrence in illegal and criminal activities. Firstly, Vigilantism: people take the law into their own hands – the reasoning behind this is the belief that ‘The institution which is responsible for justice is bankrupt’, therefore, they are better-off doing it themselves. So, is this belief justified? From their own perspective, there is no better solution because the Government has consistently come short when it comes to bringing this to an end. People are believed to be law-abiding provided that it is fair and accessible to all. But in the absence of this, it’s anarchy in the making! Second reason – Lack of deterrence: the inability of the institution to punish those who engage in illegal and dangerous activities is a huge factor. People respond to incentives. The fact that no one gets punished for criminal activities such as; theft, robbery, assault, cattle rustling, and so on, creates positive incentives for people to participate. If you can get away with something; wouldn’t you be tempted to try? Common sense says yes! However, negative incentives can change all that. Therefore, this brings us to our first question – who will bring to an end the tribal fighting, Government of South Sudan or International intervention? This is the penultimate question to this problem. Every time tribal fighting happens, the Government always intervenes in two sequential ways: Containment strategy and Call for International help. In its containment strategy, a combined force of SPLA personnel and local police is dispatched to the affected area and then followed by the called for International help. Our Government had never devised a comprehensive strategy to combat tribal hostilities. This begs the question – is our Government relying on International guidance on this problem? The answer may not be categorically yes/no. But if answer is yes, we would be in for a long haul! In my opinion, this inter-tribal fight cannot be solved by someone sitting thousands or millions of miles away, who has no cultural, social, economics, or political connection. There are other areas in which we could seek International help. Our people must stop expecting or relying for divine intervention for their own problems. If you truly believed the International call for help can solve indigenous problems, Somalia would have been a better place years ago! This is our problem. We created it and sit by and watch it grow. I don’t care how much it cost to bring it to an end. Hard decisions must be made to save the country and its people otherwise we are heading for a kamikaze mission. To wrap up, the government of South Sudan needs to address these two issues mentioned above: discourage people not to take the law into their own hands, by providing avenues for victims of crime to seek justices and compensation. Place strong deterrence to illegal and criminal activities. Those who choose to participate in these activities should have to think twice of the severe consequences involved. All this cannot be achieved by just words or vague community conferences which lack institutional backing, as we have seen in previous attempts. We must deviate from false notion of outside intervention. There are many things that we should learn from. Among them is the foreign aid. I strongly believe without any equivocation that the government of South Sudan can provide maximum security to its citizens. Hiding under the pretext of being a young nation is simply flimsy. We are the only ones who can understand the cultural dimensions of the problem. Anything less, makes one exceedingly nervous. Dhiim Manyuon; Can be reached at: [email protected] COMMENTS, PLEASE CLICK HERE Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author(s) and do not represent those of the website. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" 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/SouthSudanKob?hl=en.
