---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: John Ashworth <[email protected]> Date: Sun, Aug 28, 2016 at 8:30 AM Subject: [sudans-john-ashworth] The tragedy of the 'warring elite' To: Group <[email protected]>
1. The tragedy that is South Sudan and warring elite By Makau Mutua Updated Sun, August 28th 2016 at 00:04 GMT +3 The Standard (Kenya) For years, I thought South Sudan was a victim society. History has a wicked way of dealing some people a cruel hand. Bad topography is one. Another is simply having bad neighbours – predatory and malevolent neighbours. Yet another is the cruelty of being colonised – internally, or eternally. A greedy and myopic elite can be the final straw. But dynamics internal to a people can also do them in. Taken together, a combination of these factors can lead to damnation. That’s what I believe is South Sudan’s curse. Everything – including the proverbial kitchen sink – has been thrown at South Sudan. It’s a tragedy that the elite in South Sudan can’t stop digging although it’s already in a deep hole. One of the arguments made by the colonial empires was that the so-called natives lacked sovereignty of reason. That people who were not white – defined as “the other” – lacked faculties of the mind required for self-governance. By the way, that’s the genesis of international law – as a legal justification to occupy and take territories occupied by “natives” in the Americas, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. These lands were terra nullius – no man’s land. This Eurocentric worldview held that non-whites were subhuman and that it was the duty of the white man – predestination, or white man’s burden – to raise backward peoples to full humanity. This was one rationale for the colonisation and “salvation” of the native, the heathen, the pagan, the savage, the kaffir. Even the League of Nations and the United Nations ratified the legality of colonisation and put colonial peoples under the “trust” or “mandate” of the colonisers. The period of the “trust” and the “mandate” was supposed to prepare natives for self-governance. Apart from pitting native and against native, this was one function of Lord Lugard’s Indirect Rule. It was the same logic for Alliance High School – and other missionary or colonial schools – for native children. The idea was to “beat the savage” out of them and “civilise” them so they could first serve the empire, and later an African-ruled state, if it came to that. That’s why we need to critique Carey Francis again. But I digress. What does all of this have to do with South Sudan? I think Afro-pessimists and racists must be smiling in glee at the woes in South Sudan and Somalia. Especially South Sudan. A state of dystopia has descended on the poor people of that godforsaken country. I do not know any rational human being who didn’t celebrate the secession of South Sudan from Sudan. That forced marriage – born out of rape – was doomed from the day it was conceived. The Arabised North owned Sudan where the black African South and the black and Muslim Darfur region were nothing but vassals for plunder. The trauma of decades – centuries – of dispossession is evident in the people of South Sudan. My point is that those who believe that Africans are incapable of ruling themselves must be dusting racist colonial manuals over afternoon tea. These are the facts. After years of brutal, genocidal wars, South Sudan walks away from Sudan. It’s blessed with abundant natural resources and untold gushers of oil. The so-called international community is itching to be part of South Sudan’s success. Investors flock. Advisors on everything from infrastructure to governance flood the country. Kenyan teachers and other professionals, including builders and bankers, rush in to fill the skills gap. For a moment, the world lives in false bliss. Then everything falls apart. Fighting breaks out between factions of government. Thousands are killed and many more flee. We are back to square one. President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar – two antagonistic individuals – ignite the conflict. Alas, it seems that South Sudan didn’t need Sudan to tear itself apart. The world pleads for sense. Kenya and her sane neighbours – and there are not many – exert pressure on Mr Kiir and Dr Machar to put their own people first. Nothing gives. Ceasefires are signed. Unity meetings are held. Mr Machar even returns to Juba to take his seat as Vice President. Then he flees again – and is replaced by his former comrades. From where I sit, I can predict with certainty that Mr Machar or his lieutenants will launch a guerilla war against Juba. There’s no respite. What does the tragedy of South Sudan tell us about post-colonial states, and especially the dysfunctional one in South Sudan? What does it tell us about predatory post-colonial elites who can’t see beyond the bridge of their noses? How do we answer the racist charge “we told you so?” Is it the post-colonial state that’s incapable of redemption, or the post-colonial elite that’s the doom of many an African state? Can South Sudan save itself? I am tortured. http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000213658/the- tragedy-that-is-south-sudan-and-warring-elite END1 2. South Sudan's troubled agreement is not keeping the peace By JUSTIN LYNCH Aug. 27, 2016 10:30 AM EDT JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — When South Sudan's president signed a peace deal a year ago to try to end the country's civil war, he added 16 reservations to the agreement. Salva Kiir called it "the most divisive and unprecedented peace deal" in African history and said he only signed it because of "many messages of intimidations and threats" from the international community. He complained about the power given to opposition leader Riek Machar as First Vice President, the placement of rebel forces in the capital of Juba, and the authority given to monitors of the peace deal. Kiir's reservations were swiftly rejected by the U.S. government, which led the charge for the peace agreement, according to diplomats in Juba. One year after the deal was signed, Kiir's list of reservations has become a map of how South Sudan's peace agreement has unraveled: Machar is no longer vice president, his forces have largely left Juba, and U.N. peacekeepers have been largely ineffective. "The year since the peace deal was signed has been an absolute disaster for South Sudan," said Joshua Craze, a South Sudan researcher at the Small Arms Survey. "Both sides, and especially the government, have very little interest in keeping the peace deal which was largely forced on them and accepted to pacify regional and international actors." South Sudan's civil war, which began in December 2013 and killed tens of thousands of people, was a mixture of ethnic and personal conflicts. After the agreement was signed in August 2015, fighting continued and even intensified in some areas. President Kiir increased the number of states from 10 to 28, a move of gerrymandering that put local power in the hands of his allies, analysts say. It took eight months of painstaking negotiations to persuade Machar and his rebel forces to return to Juba, only for the city to erupt into conflict in July which killed hundreds of civilians and soldiers. Machar was controversially removed as First Vice President, and hundreds more people have been killed in fighting between the two armies in at least three other parts of the country since the July clashes in Juba. Adding to South Sudan's problems, inflation has reached 660 percent and many hospitals face drug shortages. Nearly 197,000 people live in U.N. protected camps across the country and many say they feel unsafe to return home. The international community is searching for new ways to keep the peace in South Sudan but many question how much influence diplomats have. "Diplomacy only works where it's married to two things. One is a hard-nosed grasp of the real truth on the ground, and second, credible political will behind the diplomacy. We don't have either," said J. Peter Pham, director of the Atlantic Council's Africa Center. The United States is the single largest humanitarian donor to South Sudan, giving $1.7 billion since the country's civil war began in 2013. This week, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said aid to South Sudan will not continue forever if its leaders "are not prepared to do what's necessary for their people." State Department officials say that while the peace agreement has not been fully implemented, it is still the best way to create peace in South Sudan. A U.N. resolution, written by the United States and passed earlier this month, plans to send 4,000 additional peacekeepers into the capital to boost the existing force of 12,000 peacekeepers. The resolution says that if South Sudan blocks the force, an arms embargo will be considered. "If the best we can do as an international community has been to merely threaten the possibility of an arms embargo," said Pham, "It should not be surprising that the South Sudanese warring factions have not exactly been rushing to the peace table." http://bigstory.ap.org/article/5a33d1332d25491187bf010936ebe8 4d/south-sudans-troubled-agreement-not-keeping-peace END2 ______________________ John Ashworth [email protected] +254 725 926 297 (Kenya mobile) +211 919 695 362 (South Sudan mobile) +44 787 976 8030 (UK mobile) +88 216 4334 0735 (Thuraya satphone) Skype: jashworth1 PO Box 52002 - 00200, Nairobi, Kenya This is a personal e-mail address and the contents do not necessarily reflect the views of any organisation -- -- The content of this message does not necessarily reflect John Ashworth's views. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, John Ashworth is not the author of the content and the source is always cited. You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sudan-john-ashworth" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sudan-john-ashworth- [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.co.za/ group/sudan-john-ashworth --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sudans-john-ashworth" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/sudans-john-ashworth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/southsudankob View this message at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/southsudankob/topic-id/message-id For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/SouthSudanKob. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/SouthSudanKob/CAJb14oqX2p0xYxX4egYg7-FUcdwyRTRqTz282O9goJJnzVDRqQ%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
