United in Corruption We Fall

By Justin Ambago Ramba

November 23, 2008 — The unity amongst South Sudanese has for a long time been an issue for both active politicians as well as academics as the region. After the five decades of civil war with the Arab Islamic North, South Sudan is expected to foster itself into a uniform political entity.

Many ways for achieving the much anticipated South Sudanese unity have been suggested and formulated by differed groups and individuals since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005. The first step taken was to initiate the South–South dialogue which owing to some inter–tribal politics and narrow party interests, did not happen right away as expected.

Even before the South–South dialogue, the First Vice President of the Sudan, President of South Sudan, Chairman of SPLM (the dominant party in the south) and the Commander–in-Chief of the SPLA the South Sudan President, His Excellency Salva Kiir Mayardit, has kept calling for unity amongst southerners. “United we stand, divided we fall”, he always says.

He constantly does this fully aware of the deep disunity which, unfortunately, exists between the people he has been entrusted to lead.

However, President Kiir should ask himself the simple question; when last were the people of South Sudan united, and why are they not united now? There must have been reasons why the people were at one time united and there are also reasons which dealt this unity its fatal blow.

Post-war reconciliation never happened, though we are all aware that many South–South atrocities were committed during the two decades of the second liberation struggle.  These  atrocities are still haunting  us  and will continue to do so until such a time that we face it and  openly  revisit  it  with  the ultimate aim of reconciling ourselves, otherwise  our  talks  of unity will just remain commodities for ‘platforms consumption’.

Presently, though southerners apparently can be seen as united under the SPLM-led Government of South Sudan (GoSS), progress in all sectors is still very slow, if any. This sluggish pace in the realisation of the peace dividends is simply because the South Sudanese masses have unfortunately been marooned by the policy makers and law enforcement agents into a unity overridden by corruption.

Corruption is indeed an issue which anybody with conscience should not back down on. How can you unite with a corrupt person or one who condones such behaviour?  As  long  as our leadership is not effectively fighting corruption, it is there to stay and any unity amongst us under such a situation will only be based on personal or group interests, far away from any national aspirations,  leave  alone  the  time-long expectations of our poor masses.

We  are  now  indeed  passing  through  hard times as we have to face both internal  and  external  enemies simultaneously. Though the unity of South Sudanese is so much needed, it should not be at the expense of fighting the rampant corruption in our system.

The so called Leadership Forum proposed by the South–South dialogue is yet another paper tiger. As it appeared in the communiqué, the anticipated forum is meant to follow up the implementation of the resolutions adopted at the dialogue under the same SPLM chairperson who has failed to deliver for the last three years since the conception of the CPA.

The proposed leadership forum if anything, is meant to appease those South Sudanese  political  parties  who  are  desperately  hunting for posts and wealth on one hand and the providence of immunity and impunity to SPLM-led GoSS  on  the  other  hand. This mischievous program is meant to blindfold all the parties  which  are  now collectively members of the unholy Association of South Sudan Political Parties(ASSPP), and  thus  prevent them from pointing  out the shortcomings in the government’s  record breaking lackluster performance on corruption, tribalism, nepotism, embezzlement  of  public funds, weak judiciary and law enforcement system and many others.

The  truth  is  that  what cannot be followed up by the parliament which is there to evaluate the government’s  performance cannot even the more be made to materialise  through  some  quasi- multiparty,  non-constitutional political  organs which are completely outside the mainstream of the well known political tradition.

The domination of Sudanese politics by the SPLM is yet another unusual political practice. The SPLM which is a national Sudanese political party is still struggling to rise to the level of challenges which it has brought on its self by adopting the vague ideology of creating a New Sudan. As per the CPA, SPLM is a ruling partner to the Islamic National Congress Party of Omer al Bashir.  But following the parties tracks, you can easily see that SPLM is both in the Government of National Unity (GoNU) as well as maintaining its strong position in the opposition. It is the first time that a political party exists in such an amorphous and ambiguous position.

Moreover, by establishing the so called leadership forum to be chaired by SPLM with the membership  of  the  other  South  Sudanese  political  parties  who  have tactfully  converged  under the newly formed ASSPP is in fact nothing but the  replication  of the very ambiguous position of SPLM which it is known for in the GoNU. If things are left to go in this direction, once more the supposedly opposition parties of the south will eventually begin to swing between the government and the opposition as well.  Is this not really another clear indication of an imminent political manipulation meant to promote impunity in South Sudan?
  
The  SPLM’s  political  position in  the  country  as  one of the senior partners  in  the  CPA  is  undisputable,  even  so  much so in the semi –autonomous  South  Sudan,  but  not  to  the extent of giving it any extra  platform  in  the  form of the dubious leadership forum or any of its kind allowing  it to chair over the agendas and policies of the other political parties. Additionally, if there are any political groups out there who would want to be dominated by SPLM, then they had better directly join the SPLM as some have already done rather than pretend to be independent while at the same time their leaderships are actually directly reporting to the SPLM boss.

History should have taught us what usually brings governments down. If any, it is   corruption and especially when it becomes an institutionalised practice. When we turn blind eyes on our uncles, nephews, wives, husbands, in-laws, sons, daughters, friends, neighbours, acquaintances and tribesmen who loot the public funds, then we are nothing but the enemy within.

Until we have a proper and reliable rule of law in the whole of South Sudan, the unity we are always talking about and which has always been mentioned in our Commander–in-Chief’s speeches will all be nothing but empty words.

Now, the 2009 national budget is expected to include all the revenues generated by the departments of customs, immigration, nationality and others. These are expected to be estimated and directly deducted from the GoSS budget.  However, the biggest doubt here is whether the money collected ever gets to the GoSS treasury or whether a big portion of it finds its way right into the pockets of the officials. The answer, we all know.

While we look forward to building an internal joint front to face the north and its allies in other parts of the world, it is equally important that we put in place a responsible patriotic media to expose any evils in our society and governing system so that the earlier they are identified and tackled, the more we will progress and develop, thus realising a healthy unity amongst our people.
  
However, the unity that South Sudan badly needs will remain an illusion to be pursued but never attained if the current causes of conflicts are not addressed. The dominance of  the so called ‘big ethnic communities’ over the ‘small ethnic communities’, the broad day light tribal bullying in places like Nimule, Mugali and Yei continues unabated, the inter–clan clashes initiated  by cattle rustlers and made worse by political interference with utter negligence of the law, the Government’s lip service in combating corruption and the lack of  clear political demarcations between the government and the opposition are some of the key obstacles to finding lasting unity in South Sudan.

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 The author of this article is a South Sudanese doctor living in the United Kingdom and can be reached at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.