Salvatore Kiir Mayardit and Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon — Author says time for new mediator
[Commentary]
Peter Abdelrahman Sule the leader of South Sudan’s United Democratic Front Party relayed the following in a communication he sent to very influential friends of South Sudan ahead of being granted expedited political asylum by the United Nations yet again: “My life had become so unbearable that I was forced to take the perilous option of crossing our borders secretly.”
Before fleeing for his life and applying for political asylum, Peter Abdelrahman Sule had endured the most abhorrent forms of human rights violations under the so-called democratically-elected government of Salvatore Kiir Mayardit.
A government that resulted from a cooperative plebiscite and not a presidential election; but disqualified itself immediately by violating the Interim Constitution of South Sudan in its entirety.
Peter Abdelrahman Sule’s only crime was insisting on a just society and promoting actual democracy; not the felonious version being ballyhooed by Salvatore Kiir Mayardit and his lawless cronies.
He became a marked man when he campaigned for law and order in South Sudan and pursued his Blueprint for South Sudan which is premised on negotiation and consensus. He is an articulate lawyer with extraordinary communication, diplomacy and innumerable other indispensable skills and attributes.
He’s a product of the Kitante Hill Senior Secondary School who went on to pursue law at the University of Khartoum and years later post-graduate law studies at the University of London. He brings exceptional constructs and competences to the table. His Blueprint for South Sudan is the actual solution for the carnage in the country today and it echoes the agreement that was signed in Addis Ababa on May 9, 2014 by Salvatore Kiir Mayardit and Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon.
Since his days as a young and very bright Sudanese student at Kitante Hill Secondary School in Uganda, Peter Abdelrahman Sule has been an ardent believer in consensus-building. That is the reason why his collaborative problem solving Blueprint for resolving the multiple-parties dispute currently unfolding in South Sudan echoes the agreement that was signed in Addis Ababa on May 9 between the warring parties.
However, IGAD contravened that agreement by excluding him and the other stakeholders. As articulated by him, the South Sudan carnage has transcended and gone beyond both Salvatore Kiir Mayardit and Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon and their cohorts.
Until his prison break from lawless South Sudan, Peter Abdelrahman Sule was not allowed by Salvatore Kiir Mayardit and his cronies to pursue the very Blueprint that will usher in peace, development, law and order.
He is now protected by the United Nations, away from Kiirs trigger-happy government. Criminals who double as security agents continue to break the law with impunity.
His Blueprint seeks to involve all the people of South Sudan, from the ground up in national affairs; not just the uncontrollable SPLM cum SPLA oligopoly that continues to wreak havoc on citizens and foreigners alike.
As he elaborates on his Blueprint for South Sudan, and the world rallies behind this actual solution for the country, it is anticipated that the people of South Sudan and their friends will recognize who South Sudan’s actual leaders are.
Kiir, a president who surrounds himself with criminals and allows some of them to double as “presidential guards” is unfit to lead the modern state South Sudan aspires for.
Integrally, the SPLM cum SPLA oligopoly is a criminal syndicate. It’s therefore incapable of leading a South Sudan where law and order must be paramount. To say that the wrangling and unruly so-called “liberation movement” is unable to guarantee civil and human rights is an understatement.
Not even the United Nations as an institution that is unassailable around the world is spared the outlandish consortium’s irreverent conduct. This habitual iniquity is occurring while the so-called Liberation Movement that the so-called mediating organization, the Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) is bent on rewarding is continuing to commit the most abhorrent forms of human rights violations including theft of supplies intended for children and blocking of food convoys.
South Sudan under the genocidal SPLM cum SPLA oligopoly is so lawless that even the legal concept of diplomatic immunity is violated with no scruples. Foreign diplomats aren’t exempted from the combine’s disorderly behaviors. So why is everyone just standing there and doing nothing? Why on earth would IGAD want to hand over the country to such a depraved cartel?
The Interim Constitution of South Sudan is being contradicted with reckless abandon and yet everyone is just standing there and doing nothing.
A president who feigns ignorance about his own security agents breaking laws has no business being president of a contemporary country like South Sudan. One who grants criminal security agents immunity as they relentlessly violate the main yardstick of democracy which is freedom of speech and assembly has no business invoking “democracy” to latch onto a cooperative plebiscite.
To add insult to the countrys wholesale shame and injury, Salvatore Kiir Mayardit appointed a fractious bully to the powerful position of Army Chief of General Staff.
These are the anarchists IGAD is proposing to hand South Sudan to while the country’s neglected people continue to be assaulted by the same cruel nihilists.
The regional organization is considering its condemnable proposal as a so-called Jieng (Dinka) Council of Elders is crying foul and inciting the continuation of South Sudan’s vicious war.
Revered elders in all African ethnic groups scold and extricate themselves from thoughtless, lawless and cruel younger generations but not the Jieng (Dinka) Council of Elders. That is the reason why to say that Salvatore Kiir Mayardit and his so-called Jieng (Dinka) Council of Elders have made South Sudan a laughing-stock is lax.
IGAD needs to be disqualified from mediating the South Sudan bloodbath with immediate effect. The regional organization has failed to bring about a peace agreement or deal with the root causes of the savagery in South Sudan because it contravened the May 9, 2014 agreement signed by Salvatore Kiir Mayardit and Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon.
Because of its lack of discernment, the organization and its affiliates are setting the stage for more lawlessness, death the destruction in South Sudan instead of securing a lasting peace agreement.
IGAD has not succeeded in resolving the conflict between Salvatore Kiir Mayardit and Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon and their cohorts because it broke the rules of mediation by: Taking the side of Salvatore Kiir Mayardit; imposing judgment on the issues being discoursed instead of facilitating a mutually- acceptable settlement by all the stakeholders since in mediation, the mediator will not and cannot impose a settlement: imposing itself as a mediator in a dispute in which its members have financial and personal interests in the result of the mediation; and, refusing to defer the mediation to an objective forum.
To salvage the object of the agreement that was signed in Addis Ababa on May 9, 2014 by Salvatore Kiir Mayardit and Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon, the South Sudan mediation effort needs to be reconstituted to include all the stakeholders along with advocates from the African and South Sudan Diaspora.
Simply stated, all the people of South Sudan and not just a lawless SPLM cum SPLA oligopoly should participate in pulling South Sudan from under the rubble created by the very murderous cartel IGAD appears to be dead set on rewarding.
The world should not just stand there and do nothing about the criminal mindset that was responsible for the genocide that created the murderous domino effect that is now threatening to sink the entire East and Central African region as IGAD is doing.
The people of South Sudan and their friends have good cause to replace IGAD in the South Sudan mediation immediately to avert bloodshed. Furthermore, IGAD does not have the authority to decide any issue for the people of South Sudan so it can be substituted because it has failed in facilitating the voluntary resolution of the dispute between the conflicting parties, who now include The Revolutionary Movement for National Salvation (REMNASA).
The major defections from Salvatore Kiir Mayardit continues, including Major Losuba Lodoru’s.
Losuba Lodoru Wongo has said: I am just a simple person but moved by the suffering of our people, to explain why he picked up arms in defense and protection of the suffering masses of South Sudan who are being killed daily in cold blood, harassed, looted and raped with impunity.
He added: I asked myself. Why did we fight and separate from the Sudan? Was it to get a country per se? My answer was big no. We fought because we felt we were not free, we were not treated equally and we had no opportunity to develop our natural talents as well as no democratic space to be equally represented in the governance affairs of the country we call our own.
Option one was to fix the problem if not then go to option two which is to separate. The same but even worse is happening in South Sudan now under Kiir. Our options are to topple him or fix the problem under a new interim leadership. I have decided with my team that we will continue till freedom, equality and democracy is attained in South Sudan so that we have a conducive environment where for the first time in history we shall have decent and quality education and health services with safe water for all South Sudanese children, women and men.”
Every conceivable group could take up arms against Salvatore Kiir Mayardits depraved government. Yet why spill more blood when a reconstituted mediation effort that includes all the stakeholders, along with advocates from the African and South Sudan Diaspora can avert bloodshed?
Why continue depending on a biased IGAD that is bogging down proper dialogue when a different forum can be speedily reconstituted?
Why should more precious lives be lost when a reconstituted mediation effort will ensure that every fair and just South Sudanese gets what they need and all the ethnic groups of South Sudan are guaranteed protection from murderous bullies?
The solution to South Sudan’s current free-for-all and total breakdown in law and order is ingrained in Peter Abdelrahman Sules Blueprint for South Sudan and Losuba Lodoru Wongos vision for South Sudan; both of which are complemented by proposals from professionals in the South Sudan Diaspora.
The common thread is the stakeholder involvement implanted in the May 9, 2014 agreement signed by Salvatore Kiir Mayardit and Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon and guaranteed by Hailemariam Dessalegn, Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and Chairman of the IGAD Assembly.
Margaret Akulia
For more please see www.savesouthsudan.com