Stop Kiir Tribal Terror

October 9, 2015

Finally, Kiir has decided to hatch openly the real agenda behind his unilateral decree to divide South Sudan to 28 States: establishment of his tribe's permanent control over other South Sudanese communities. Let there be no mistake about it, the real reason behind Kiir's Order to create 28 states is exactly so he and his tribal zealots can execute their agenda of Dinka hegemony over South Sudan. It is also the real reason why Kiir in 2014 illegally dissolved SPLM party structures and undemocratically extended his term in office in 2015. In fact, a growing number of South Sudanese skeptics, this writer included, now increasingly believe that the SPLM/SPLM was originally created to realize a hidden Dinka agenda, a plot to dominate South Sudan forever.

We should recognize the man for what he is really up to. President Kiir, no doubt, is out in force to execute his real plan, which is forming a Dinka-controlled state no matter what. The President and his tribal Jieng (Dinka) Council of Elders, who in fact first circulated the 28-state scheme long before he put it into a Republican Decree last Friday, October 2, see in the recently signed IGAD-Plus mediated compromise peace agreement the beginning of the end of Dinka's ambition to establish a Dinka-dominated country in Africa. By bypassing legislative processes and unilaterally decreeing the creation of 28 states, Kiir and his tribal land grabbers want to let the whole universe know that their tribal agenda will not be undermined and that he and his tribal supporters behind him are pushing ahead with it anyway.

However, what Kiir just did, intentionally or unintentionally, by his undemocratic action to grab other tribes' lands in the newly created 28 states, has unleashed his tribal terror and consequently opened the door like never before for the possibility of the young nation descending into total collapse, fragmentation and Somalization. But Kiir and his lasting Dinka power dreamers are losers in this dangerous game that he's just introduced, for he should know that the rightful owners whose lands he is stealing through the authority of state will stand their ground in defence of their ancestral lands or die.

Kiir should know better that his unjust tribal ambitions would have long been gone had it not been the unlawful intervention of the Ugandan "strongman", Yuri Museveni, whom he cowardly bought with Southern Sudanese people's money to rescue his tribal dictatorship.

A little Bit About Dinka

Despite speaking one language and displaying similar physical tribal identification markings, historically the Dinka are not known to have ruled themselves as one people, let alone ruling over other ethnicities in South Sudan. In fact, by nature the Dinka are acephalous society, a form of medieval tribal society that doesn't believe in the logic of consensus but in physical force and terror of powerful individuals or group of individuals. Born and raised in the wilderness of cattle wanderers in the depths of South Sudan's Bahr El-Ghazal region, President Kiir is a true embodiment of that acephalous, lawless culture. Little wonder therefore that all Dinka-led governments have invariably been a total disgrace on South Sudan, with failure to deliver basic services, widespread corruption and looting of public resources by the ruling elites as recurring scandals, whether during the era of the Regional Autonomous Government for Southern Sudan from 1972 to 1983, during the CPA-mandated transitional period from 2005 to 2011 or the present failed state presided over by Mr. Kiir.

After the former Sudanese President Jaffer Mohammed Nimeri (May 1969 – April 1985) engineered the ascendance of Dinka to political power in the then southern Sudan region as the center-piece of his own calculation to divide and rule that region following the signing of the Addis Ababa Agreement in 1972, Dinka found themselves in a position of authority overnight. Suddenly they falsely began to speak of themselves as being "born to rule". And today, simply because the founder of the SPLM/SPLA, late Dr John Garang, happened to be a Dinka, Dinka tribal zealots are all over the place telling South Sudanese: "We liberated you". These are shameful, self-aggrandizing buzz words they use to justify their theft of public resources and to rule South Sudan as they so wish.

Defeat Tribal Terror

Kiir's tribal objectives to steal others' land and to subordinate and terrorize the people of South Sudan through the creation of tribal dictatorship must be confronted:

1. The tribes whose lands Kirr is stealing and giving to his kinship must become acutely aware of his tribal agenda and get ready to exercise their universal human rights to defend their ancestral lands and dignity. This is the most reliable and most sustainable deterrence against the tribal land grabbers.

2. Local, national, regional and international organizations and nations, especially IGAD-Plus countries which helped bring the peace agreement recently signed by the parties to the conflict in South Sudan must take decisive action to prevent Kiir and anyone from standing in the way of peace in the young new nation.

3. To help stem tribal scheming and tribal dictatorship, during the transitional period South Sudanese should be consulted through a referendum to choose which governance system they think should guide their country at the end of the transitional period. The choice of majority of the people should then be written into a permanent constitution as the law of the land for the young nation. A permanent constitution should not be written before a vote by the people on which governance system they prefer, for writing such a document before a referendum would be akin to putting the cart before the horse.

4. To act decisively against impunity and to deliver a powerful message to everyone that massacres of innocent civilians, rape and other violations of human rights as witnessed during the current conflict will not go unpunished, the hybrid Court that is provided for in the Peace Agreement should be allowed to execute its mandate to bring to justice anyone involved, no matter what position they occupy or which side of the conflict they stood.

Oyhath Aromi is independent occasional observer on South Sudanese and Sudanese affairs. This is his second appearance on the problems of governance in South Sudan.