South Sudan: Another US foreign policy fiasco in Africa
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By Stephen Par Kuol
Skilled diplomats and students of international relations would
contend that there is no single country on earth whose foreign policy
has more successes than failures, and that certainly includes the
United States, which by nature of its role in the world takes on the
most daunting diplomatic challenges. Success or failure in Foreign
Service often depends on the resources capacity (human and material)
of the nation in question. The stark irony in the case of the United
States is that it has a huge leverage over others in term of material
and human resource capacity but its diplomatic performance leaves a
lot to be desired. The diplomatic history of United States is littered
with costly foreign policy failures with far reaching and dire
consequences. The United States Foreign Policy after World War II
often failed to accomplish its objective and produced
counter-productive results. From Vietnam to Angola, Korea, and
Afghanistan, the Americans either prescribed wrong solution or failed
to study the grime nature of the problem at hand. During the cold war,
the United States foreign policy was guided by cold war against
communism. As that receded, the United States confronted global
terrorism. This war does not recede; it grows and as it grows, the
United States is getting it wrong every day. As the history repeats
itself, the diplomacy of this war is still myriad with a lot of
strategic mistakes. In Iraq for example, the United States used some
wrong intelligences to take a decision that defeated the very ultimate
goal of combating terrorism. The unilateral military action taken by
Bush Administration in violation of the United Nations Charter brought
about permanent turmoil that has eventually produced ISIS.
A comprehensive review of American foreign policy towards Africa
exposes a consistent lack of statesmanship, double standards, lack of
preventive diplomacy and a disposition to defeat the very core values
of American freedom and democracy. The irony of all ironies is the
tragic fact that the United States has a long history of building
dictators and terrorists that often cost more to oust once the policy
makers in Washington realized that they are hazardous to the vital
interest of the United States. By then, the permanent damage is done.
>From Sadam Hussien to Ben-Laden, Mumbuto Seazeko and Emmanuel Noriga,
the United State has always been ripping what it has sawn at the
expense of American lives and taxpayers’ dollars. For whatever
mind-boggling reason, the United Sates often pays dearly to contradict
what it values the most as a nation (freedom) and it has done that
more in Africa than anywhere else in the world. Successive American
leaderships have been maintaining that there is no American strategic
interest in the continent. The United Sate Foreign Policy in Africa
has thus been dubbed as constructive engagement with Africa. This
policy subtly resolves that Africa is a different place with its own
human right and jungle political standards that must be left alone to
evolve without heavy hand from the outside world. This has terribly
worked against the cause of human right and the protracted war against
terrorism in the second largest continent on earth.
The Democratic Administrations in particular have done more disservice
to humanity in this continent. Even the two terns of Obama
Administration have done nothing to deter the despotic behaviour of
these dictators in this war-ravaged region. Until today, Washington
has been talking the talk without walking the walk. In Washington’s
best traditional practice, things are practically done about Europe
and the Middle East but African affairs are just talked about.
The intelligence of the profession (diplomacy) teaches that, you don’t
send your best to strategically none essential places. That is why the
Obama Administration deployed two incompetent diplomats in the persons
of Donald Booth and Molly Phee to South Sudan. These two diplomats
have been approaching their assignment in a very fallible manner. The
negotiation between the SPLMIO and Kiir’s regime took that long in
Ethiopia simply because Donald Booth has totally failed to educate
himself of the root causes of the conflict and resigned to bashing
both sides for failure to implement the peace agreement which has been
unilaterally violated by Salva Kiir and his Jieng Council of Elders in
open defiance of all western empty threats. Those of us who worked
with Ambassador Phee in Juba to implement ACRISS have known first hand
that she has been miserably defeated by Kiir’s regime. As we witnessed
during the recent evacuation, the malleable diplomat succumbed to
Kiir’s hoodlums who humiliated American citizens in a broad daylight
at Juba International Airport. Where on the planet -earth can you
subject evacuation of your citizens to scrutiny by the same government
they are escaping death and rape from? Only in Juba where the
Ambassador of the United States is Molly Phee ! South Sudanese
Americans will not forget that dreadful experience in which they were
left to fend for themselves amidst turmoil. In any case, whatever the
two diplomats represent in this region, we are terribly embarrassed as
proud citizens of the United State. Beyond any reasonable doubt, this
South Sudan conundrum is beyond their punch and capacity. Having
failed the United States and the people of South Sudan, it is widely
recommended now that the two should just pack their suitcases and go
home. In the mean time, the United States must take quick and
practical action to reverse this costly foreign policy fiasco in the
Horn of Africa. In truth, it makes fool of the United States to
appease fascist dictators who are purchasing lethal weapons from
Russia and China to kill their fellow citizens while yearning for
western financial aid at the same time.
In one of his usual undiplomatic blusters, Yoweri Museveni , the
darling of the United States and number one recipient of USAID in the
region uttered that, “Africa is not prepared for full blown democracy
during our life time”. This notion has been driving the western
foreign policy toward Africa for decades. This has been done in
disregard of the fact that Yoweri Museveni has been fanning
insurgencies in DRC and the genocides in Rwanda and South Sudan while
practising the worst brand of African dictatorship at home in Uganda.
For the worst part, Museveni is also supporting notorious Islamic
terrorist organizations like Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) of
the Sudan using Kiir’s regime as a conduit. This project of arming
rebels with well known affiliation with international terrorist
network does not only complicate resolution of the conflicts in the
two Sudans but also poses eminent threat of breeding another brand of
terrorism in the region. This background verified that Yoweri Museveni
does not have a track record of being a stabilizing factor in this
region. If any thing, he has been the gent of destabilization.
Unfortunately, Washington has been and is still putting its biggest
bets on strong African men who give false sense of order while in
reality sowing the seeds of future destabilization at home and in
their surrounding regions. Yoweri Museveni is in a long string of
fascists with whom Washington has disastrously waltzed. With the
weight of the United States behind him, Yoweri Museveni has bullied
every political force at home to servitude while coaching other inept
dictators like Salva Kiir to destabilize South Sudan. Presently, the
American love affair with the Ugandan dictator is based on his
opportunistic vow to fight Alshaba in Somalia and protect South
Sudanese dictator Kiir who has committed genocide and practising Idi
Amin brand of tyranny in the nascent nation. So the strategic line
pursued by Washington in South Sudan and Uganda is deeply mistaken.
This policy is crowned with utter failure as it has stooped low to
supporting these red –handed fascists in both countries of Uganda and
South Sudan. In the process, the United States has become an
accomplice in commission of war crimes, crime against humanity
(genocide) and violation of the international law on prohibition of
weapons of mass destruction like cluster bomb they used on our
civilian White Army in the year 2014.
The records must also be informed that through undeterred behaviour of
the two fascist dictators (Kiir and Museveni), the United Nations
Mission in South Sudan has been weaken and it is becoming a fiasco in
its own right. As a result of its failed operations under Chapter 7,
the UNIMISS will leave the country in worse chaos. That is why we are
calling for higher mandate instead of this one that has failed to even
accomplish its prime goal (protection of civilians). The United
Nations Mission in South Sudan has been partly weaken by American
impotent diplomatic engagement with Kiir’s Police State, which is now
resisting a robust regional and international intervention to save
lives in whatever is left of South Sudan. It is understandable that
the world is not governed in the light of human right but the
unfolding crisis in South Sudan will soon embarrass both the supper
powers in the United Nations Security Council and the regional powers
who have also been appeasing Kiir’s regime in the same manner. Hence,
the word has been said that any cosmetic project to save Kiir’s face
will back fire and cost more in term of human lives, material
resources, humanitarian assistance and the economies of the
neighbouring states including Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and the Sudan.
Hence, the downtrodden people of South Sudan are urgently calling for
a robust and independent hybrid mission of the United Nations and the
region in South Sudan to compel this fascist regime to implement the
Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (ACRISS) or
face radical regime change as the only way to rescue the people of
South Sudan. Do that or do as per Princeton Lyman’s recommendation
(life support solution). Any thing short of that is what I call
Another US Foreign Policy Fiasco in Africa in general and in South
Sudan particular.
The author is a former Deputy Ambassador of Sudan to Tanzania and a
freelance writer. He can be reached by email through
:[email protected]
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