South Sudan: Nothing to Celebrate

Three years ago South Sudan became an independent state. Despite civil war and humanitarian disaster, the government insists on celebrating. It's an affront to the people of South Sudan says Daniel Pelz.

Thousands of people dead, more than one and a half million displaced, a growing threat of famine. Celebrating a birthday in these circumstances is just cynical. If South Sudan's leaders have achieved anything in the last three years, it is that they have managed to take a country with huge potential and govern it into the ground. The population of South Sudan deserves better than President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar, who purport to be fighting for the good of their people, and in reality are only interested in power and the revenue the country's oil can bring them - regardless of the fact that hundreds of thousands of people could die in the process.

For anyone who witnessed South Sudan's emergence as an independent state, the current situation is heartbreaking. Three years ago, it seemed that anything was possible. After decades of civil war with the north, people dreamt of the things that many around the world consider a matter of course: a life without fearing for one's life every day, hospitals so that their children would no longer die of diarrhea or malaria, schools to give these children a better life. The country has the potential to make these things a reality - South Sudan is rich in oil, farmland, and other resources.

Calls for peace and reconciliation

But the government has invested nothing in the country. The revenue from the oil business? Used to pay the wages of the heavily inflated army and for shiny government cars. The development of a healthcare system? Left to foreign NGOs. Road construction? No chance.

In comparison, the population of South Sudan has achieved an impressive amount. After fleeing for decades, many people returned to their villages and tried, somehow, to survive. Many an exiled South Sudanese gave up a good job abroad, returning to help build up the new country - in vain. Many of them are now fleeing again. Others, drawn in by cheap promises from one of the two sides, are recruited to fight, fated to die as cannon fodder in a brutal power struggle.

It is heartbreaking, that although many in South Sudan are calling for peace and an end to the violence, neither Kiir nor Machar are listening. Behind the scenes, church officials are working constantly across denominational boundaries to bring a stop to the fighting between Machar's and Kiir's camps. The churches are one of the louder voices calling for a peaceful and democratic South Sudan. Through their intervention they have been able to bring an end to numerous conflicts between different ethnic groups in recent years. But in Machar's and Kiir's world view, conflicts are resolved through fighting. Neither of them seem to care how many people have to die because of their own thirst for power.