IGAD, war, power sharing, and peace in South Sudan
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By B. Yongo Bure
The latest IGAD peace proposal cannot bring long lasting peace to
South Sudan. But we should not blame IGAD but ourselves. Where is our
own “good” South Sudanese peace proposal?
Power sharing should not be based on political parties or between the
government and the rebels. At present, these bodies are not
representative of all the people of South Sudan. After all, it was the
concentration of power between two ethnic groups that led to
polarization and clash. Had the Presidential Guard Unit (or Tiger
Battalion) not being entirely or predominantly Dinka and Nuer,
polarization would have been avoided. Any tensions that developed
might have been defused by members of the unit from the other ethnic
groups. Historically, a bi-polar system has been unstable and
explosive (anywhere in the world, except during the era when major
powers possess nuclear weapons).
South Sudan does not really have political parties with national
membership. Hence, no political party, including the SPLM, is
nationally representative. The SPLM appealed to most South Sudanese
before independence because it was seen as the only credible party
(with an army) that could liberate South Sudan from Khartoum, either
through the transformation of the Old Sudan or by the separation of
the South from the North. Once, South Sudan was freed from Khartoum,
the SPLM became irrelevant to most South Sudanese. It is just being
sustained/revived for power purposes. But this is not going to hold.
It might plunge South Sudan into another tragedy. A political party
should be formed by people with fairly common vision for the country,
but not for the convenience of clinging or sneaking to power.
If the various factions of the SPLM were honest to South Sudan, they
should have formed different political parties based on their
ideologies and visions for the country- but not by just adding a
hyphen to the SPLM. The SPLM had served its purpose of liberation.
People worked under the SPLM, even if they had different ideologies,
because of the goal of liberating South Sudan from Khartoum – people
sacrificed their personal ideologies for the sake of liberating South
Sudan from Khartoum.
Even the very name SPLM (Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement) is no
longer relevant to South Sudan. We are no longer Sudanese, but South
Sudanese. The people clinging to the name SPLM are now a government.
They are no longer a movement.
IGAD and other international mediators are just trying to appease the
warring parties because this is the only way they believe they can
bring the fighting to stop. As much as they sympathize with the South
Sudanese population, there is no way they can help the South Sudanese
population without the fighting ending. They are not prepared to
sacrifice the lives of their own soldiers to bring the war to an end
if the South Sudanese “leaders” are not willing to care about their
own people. Why must they (IGAD and other non-South Sudanese)
sacrifice their soldiers? They have already sacrificed more than
enough time and other resources to help us resolve our problems, but
we continue to be arrogant, instead of being grateful; and yet we are
the losers. We pretend to care for those we have already killed, but
we go on killing more.
I do not understand why the government is unwilling to accept
federalism, yet the recent conference of “ALL TRIBES” in Juba
concurred on federalism. I believe that given our current divergent
outlooks, each cultural group needs to be given some breathing space
from the others for some years. Then through interactions in towns,
economic projects, boarding schools, colleges, and universities, we
will come to know and appreciate each other’s cultures. Overtime,
ethnocentrism will decline. Our ordinary people are good, but a
minority of our elites, from all ethnicities and regions, want to use
their numbers to dominate others. They play on ethnic and regional
sentiments. They are able to fool their gullible followers.
Power Sharing
Power-sharing should be based on administrative units. Given that the
populations of Bahr el Ghazal, Equatoria, and Upper Nile are roughly
equal, positions in the national government should be allocated on the
basis of one third for each region. Say we have twenty-one ministers,
each region should have seven. Likewise for the distribution of deputy
ministers.
States could be used as the basis for power and resource sharing. But
Bahr el Ghazal has four states now while Equatoria and Upper Nile have
three states each. Should we create two more states: one in Equatoria
and another in Upper Nile? Should the former district of Akobo be
added to the Greater Pibor Administrative Area to create a fourth
state in Upper Nile; while the Equatorians should agree on the
creation of a fourth state in Equatoria? Should this be done during
the peace talks or should it be done during the Pre-Interim Period?
Of course, we can create more states; but not twenty one as proposed
by the rebels. The creation of twenty one states as advocated by the
rebels does not take into account the changes that have occurred since
the colonial period. For example, the Aweil and Bentiu Districts of
the colonial periods are now states. Under the twenty one states
proposal, these two states will continue to be individual states,
while the other eight states would have to be divided. Furthermore,
the twenty one states would be inequitable among the three regions;
Bahr el Ghazal would have seven states, Equatoria six, and Upper Nile
eight.
We will probably have to share power on the basis of the three regions
while thrashing out the number of states in the first year of the
Interim Period. After the existence of ten states, we can no longer
return to the three regions as the basis of administration. Many areas
of the three regions are very far from their capitals. We can only
create more states. But the number of states in each region must be
equal. This creation (equal number of states) will disadvantage no
one. If you are a large ethnic group, you will have more states. If
you are a small group you will be in a state of minorities that does
not fear any domination from an extraordinarily larger group.
At the national level, employment in the offices of the president,
vice president, and national ministers must reflect the national
characters of these offices. Most of the appointments must be
distributed by counties if they are more than the number of states.
However, the president, vice president, or minister should be allowed
to appoint not more than five employees of his choice depending on the
total number of employees in the particular office.
Likewise, at the state level, the state executive should be appointed
proportionately on county basis. The counties that are not well
represented at the state level should be the ones from where the
central government ministers and deputy ministers should be appointed.
Every county has plenty of educated people that can fill their
positions in the state and national cabinets. The employees in the
offices of the governor, deputy governor, and state ministers should
reflect the populations of the counties, payams, or bomas.
More counties should be created in Western Bahr El Ghazal State and in
the former Juba District. When counties were created during the war,
the former districts of Juba, Pibor, and Western Bahr El Ghazal were
not fairly treated. The Pibor situation has been rectified by the
creation of counties in the Greater Pibor Administrative Area, but the
situations in Juba and Western Bahr El Ghazal have not been addressed.
Of course, there may be other areas such as
those of Kapoeta East (too big to be one county), Lopa (Lafon and
Lopit), Magwi and Nimule, Tore and Yei, etc.
The issue of a National Capital Territory should also be tackled in
the first year of the Interim Period. Should it be addressed with Juba
and Ramciel; or with the new future national capital so that it is
planned accordingly? Being in the center of the country, where the
three regions meet, each of the three regions should cede equal area
to constitute the National Capital Territory? But what should be the
size of the National Capital Territory?
Revenue Sharing
Fiscal decentralization or fiscal federalism is a must. Regardless of
whether a system is
labelled decentralized or federal, each level of government must have
a reliable source of revenue for effectively carrying out its
expenditure assignments. Since the central government controls the
most lucrative sources of revenues in the country, what it collects is
national revenue, belonging to all citizens. Hence, an appropriate
formula for sharing it between the three levels of government is a
must. Budget allocations of national revenue may begin with a 50:30:20
percentage formula for central, state, and county governments
respectively. Likewise, state governments should share the state
revenue with the county governments. The county council should
allocate county government spending equitably by boma. As the
technical capacities of payams and bomas are developed, the county
revenue will eventually be subjected to formal sharing with payams and
bomas. The formulae should be reviewed every five years and adjusted
according to past experiences and changes in expenditure
reassignments.
Each level of government must publish its revenues and expenditures
and their allocations to various units and levels. Public sector
investment programs and their implementation should be closely
monitored and progress reports regularly made available to the public
and their representatives at every level of government.
Basic salary scale should be the same for the same qualifications and
experience regardless of whether one is employed by the central,
state, or county government. This will encourage many capable people
to work at the lower levels of government where service delivery is
mostly undertaken. Each county in South Sudan has a reasonable number
of educated people who can be trained to become capable civil servants
at any level of government. Those who prefer prestigious or glamorous
positions in central government will have themselves to blame for lack
of capable civil servants at their local government level. However,
technical personnel should be free and willing to work in any part of
the country instead of being confined to their states or counties.
Political positions and super scale salaries must be greatly reduced.
More money should be allocated for investment rather than on
politicians and highly placed civil servants. The number of members of
parliament, and their remunerations must be drastically reduced.
Fiscal pruning is necessary, with increasing allocation to provide for
socioeconomic development and the needs of the poor and vulnerable
groups. So far spending has favored the powerful. Now is the time for
the appropriate adjustment of the allocation of resources. Salaries
must be paid on time.
Federalism can be signed into the agreement but the details must be
worked out during the first year of the transitional period. But it
must be accepted as the basis of rule so that there will be no
reneging after the peace agreement. The problem is that as long as
power is concentrated in few hands, it can be used effectively to
frustrate any system whether it is called federalism or decentralized.
So mechanisms must be put in place to ensure that power sharing
(between the center, state, and county) is sustained and is
periodically reviewed (every five to ten years).
The top civil servants and diplomats must be distributed roughly
proportionate by states or counties. Most importantly, the army must
be proportionate by county and boma. No one ethnic group must any
longer constitute a larger percentage of the army beyond the
proportion of its bomas. The sizes of counties, payams, and bomas must
be based on agreed national formulae.
The police and other security forces should be in the hands of the
state and county governments. The central government can have a police
body dealing with the investigation of crimes committed at national
level or internationally.
Regular Elections
Power should change hands through regular elections after every five
years. Nobody must be allowed to shoot himself to power no matter how
large or powerful his/her ethnic group is. Such an imposition must be
resisted. Nobody must hold an executive power for more than two
consecutive five-year terms (de jure) or for more than ten years (de
facto).
Working an agreement along these lines can promise South Sudan a
hopeful future, which is for the good of all its people, including the
selfish ones, who want everything for themselves only. Fairness and
justice serve all members of society positively. Any war negatively
affects us all; directly and/or indirectly. There is no winner. Only
that some lose more than others. But we are all losers.
Dr. Yongo teaches economics and social sciences in Kettering
University, Michigan, USA. He can be reached at [email protected]
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