Despite its problems, South Sudan is still striving to build its dream of democracy

Just five years ago, as dawn unfolded on January 9, 2011, millions of South Sudanese took the final steps on our 70-year journey to independence.

By barge and bus, on animal and on foot, we came from the four corners of our homeland and beyond to stand in long queues under a hard sun so that our voices would be heard.

And when the polling centres closed, the world did hear our shouts of joy, thankful songs, and quiet prayers.

Above all, it heard the promise of an end to the crack of the rifle and the cry of mourning.

Our bloody, terrifying struggle with the Sudanese regime in Khartoum had come to an end.

Now, however, came the difficult work of building our nation.

It was our friends in the international community who helped shape our feelings into words.

“Accountable, representative institutions”, “the rule of law”, “inalienable and equitable rights” — for many in South Sudan, the institutional vocabulary was new, but we all had known its meaning by its absence.

Five years later, we see how hollow those words can be.

I recently signed an internationally brokered peace accord to end an insurrection against my government that has plagued us for almost half of our young nation’s life.

I did not accede to this deal because it is perfect — indeed, the plan undermines the sovereignty and democratic institutions of our nation in key, unfortunate ways.

Then, too, there is the supra-national Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission, to be headed by a foreigner and with absolute veto power over the decisions of the government — even if the parties forming the governing coalition are in agreement.

And with the ordered demilitarisation of the capital city Juba and our state capitals, South Sudan’s territorial integrity is discarded — a risk made worse given our internal issues.

Of course we, the elected government, voiced our objections. We were told, however, to keep quiet.

From distant capitals came demands that we shred our Constitution and the safeguards for the South Sudanese enshrined in it, that we disregard our popular elections and dismantle our representative bodies, that we replace rule of law with political expediency, that we adopt complex formulations of ethnic distribution among our elected and appointed leaders and across our agencies.

Some of our international partners in peace even turned to threats and intimidation, both in public and private — sanctions, the withdrawal of aid and support, referrals to the International Criminal Court.

The tools of democracy, prosperity, and justice are now used to bludgeon those same principles.

Despite our misgivings, last month I committed our people, their nation, and their government to the Compromise Peace Agreement.

But let my reasons be clear: I did not sign the accord because of threats or intimidation.

THE RIGHT DECISIONI signed it because leadership is the art of the possible and choosing between difficult, imperfect options.

I signed because a government must lead. And as flawed and troubling as this agreement is, it may bring about the peace we need in advance of our 2018 elections.

Then our people will speak again.

Of course, implementing this agreement will face challenges and some aspects will simply prove untenable.

Our disagreements, after all, are very real and the accord is flawed. My hope is that we — the government, our former opposition, our people, and of course the international community — will tackle them together, collegially.

Peace will not be easy. It will take patience, compromise, and understanding.

It will take resolve, determination, and restraint. Now we must be a people who prize nationhood over narrow-mindedness, a people who know one another as countrymen and not by tribe or creed.

We are a people who, for generations, have only known war, but together, the South Sudanese can work miracles. Our nation’s very existence demonstrates this.

The words used so often in the marbled halls of long-established capitals still mean something to us.

Perhaps that can be our gift of thanks to these partners: That the world’s youngest nation serves to reaffirm the vocabulary of democracy — and its meaning — throughout the world.

But first, we must be allowed to do so.