Posts by southsudannews

By Zechariah Manyok Biar

April 14, 2010 (SSNA) — The elections taking place in Sudan today and the upcoming referendum are exposing the real interest of some members in the international community in Sudan. Some people in the international community are trying to brand South Sudan as a failed state to scare South Sudanese away from voting for secession in 2011. There are disturbing articles that are published these days by great newspapers like New York Times that appear to play nothing more than planting fear in the people of South Sudan.

Alex Perry, in his article published by the New York Times on April 12, 2010, quoted David Gressly, the U.N.’s regional coordinator for southern Sudan; former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, whose Carter Center promotes health and democracy in Sudan; and Major General Scott Gration, U.S. special envoy to Sudan as doubting the standing-alone of South Sudan if its people chose to secede from the North in 2011. Mr. Perry says in his article that many aid workers and development experts in Juba have now coined the term “pre-failed state” to refer to a potential state of South Sudan. Can South Sudanese agree with these views?

One cannot rule out the difficulties that South Sudanese will face when they voted for independence in 2011. There might be violence or even economic collapse. However, nobody in South Sudan will regret his or her choice for secession as some people in the international community would like South Sudanese to believe.

What standard of functional state in Sudan is the international community using to call South Sudan a potential failed state? Had there been a functional government in South Sudan under both the British and the Arab rules in Sudan? If functional economy and stability are among the criteria used to judge a functioning state or a failed state, then when did South Sudan have the functioning economy and the stability since the independence of Sudan in 1956?

I lost six siblings from late 1950s to early 1970s in their young ages to malaria that would have been treated if there were clinics in the area. I am the first to graduate with the college degree in my family since the creation of the world. I am now thirty-five years old and I have never voted in any election. Some people who are voting at the age of 90 today in South Sudan are voting for the first and the last time in their lives, but the voting process is still not free and fair. Many people in South Sudan tasted sugar for the first time in the history of their families in the 1980s from the rations provided by the United Nations.

Do we have any criterion of a functional state in the above examples to compare the potential South Sudan nation with? If staying under Khartoum rule is what makes South Sudan functional, then why did we face all the above conditions and more under the Khartoum rule from 1956 to the time we rebelled against the government in 1983? What evidence shows that Southerners cannot rule themselves?

The fact that the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/A (SPLM/A) managed to control Southerners during the war would have been a good indicator on how South Sudanese can rule themselves. SPLM/A was undoubtedly one of the most organized rebel groups over the last two decades. SPLM/A even had better human rights records, compared to the government in Khartoum. SPLM/A was able to educate its soldiers during the liberation war not to kill the prisoners of war (POWs). After the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005, SPLM/A set free thousands of the POWs of Sudanese army. Those freed POWs are still alive today. How many POWs from SPLA did the government in Khartoum release? None.

So, who between SPLM and the National Congress Party (NCP) can lead a functional state? If SPLM/A could control the people under its command during the war without paying them any salary, then why would one think that South Sudan under SPLM or any other Southern party would be a failed state after 2011 when it will be paying at least some kind of salary to its workers?

The international community does not seem to care about the freedom of choice of South Sudanese. Some groups in the media are hunting these days for people who are willing to say whatever the media would like them to say in order to give the impression that Southerners love to live in the united Sudan, even when opinion polls of Southerners indicate otherwise both internationally and locally.

The Voice of America (VOA), the Radio that I admire, published on April 12, 2010 an article that has so many errors that the well-known Radio like the VOA would have first crosschecked before publishing the article.

By Dr. James Okuk

April 11, 2010 (SSNA) — With all the manifestation of unfairness and tactics of blocking freedom-for-others by the SPLM/SPLA in Southern Sudan, the April general elections slightly missed the abortion disaster and got born lamely at last. Of course some of us are happy to see the life of these lame elections than abortion, which could have made the 2011 referendum for self-determination of Southern Sudan a casualty of leadership incompetence. But bravo to the CPA dictates and international/regional pressure on the SPLM to respect the schedule of the elections as the National Congress Party (NCP)’s partner and President Omer Al-Bashir has shown the whole world without wavering. This is great even if not the greatest yet!!!!

At last, and despite the SPLM confusions of disorganization here and there from within and without, the people got allowed to practice their secret right of choosing their best leaders even though in an atmosphere fêted with fear of Salva Kiir’s lost to Dr. Lam Akol Ajawin after counting of the casted votes in the South. Dr. Lam himself has been denied by Kiir’s undemocratic directives to cast his vote in the South because by the time of voter registration he (Dr. Lam) was still banned to go to the South to practice his constitutional democratic rights. However, after intense pressure on Kiir and the group, Dr. Lam was allowed at the last hours to take his campaign trail to the South but under some confidential restrictions and harassment by Kiir’s supporters. See how unfair is the April elections on Dr. Lam’s civic rights.

Any way, thanks to Dr. Lam Akol and his team of Southern political parties for accepting to play the elections political games on unleveled ground in the South for the sake of safeguarding the 2011 referendum and waking Mr. Salva Kiir from his political slumbers with blunders. If at all there are people whose complaints would have been justifiable for boycotting the elections, it would have been Dr. Lam Akol and his Southern allies (including some of the independent candidates) whose political activities were obstructed by the SPLM in the South under the pretext of fake reasons of militia-lization and NCP-lization.

However, the very man who fears much now is Mr. Salva Kiir because of possibility of not making it to resume officially the duty of the GoSS president who automatically becomes the SPLA Commander-In-Chief after taking the oath of office. This fear of lost is terrible for Mr. Kiir because it shall be a big lost for the kingdom he has been building up for himself in the South, surrounded by shameless parasitic thieves of public rights, the corruptists. I hope the elections campaigns has taught Mr. Kiir some tough lessons and perceptions he has never had conceived in his life as a leader of Southern Sudan, thanks to Dr. Lam’s courage.

It was so laughable to hear and see Mr. Kiir calling for “change” in his electioneering slogans when the very target to be changed was supposed to be himself for the sake of making Southern Sudan a free zone from bad omens that befell her in the last five years of CPA era. Will Mr. Salva Kiir be capable of the change and will the hopeless situation that crept in during his rule in the South become a source of good hope again for the people? I give a benefit of doubt.

The only credit that makes me to agree with Mr. Kiir and some SPLM leaders, so far and so good now, is their unwavering stand on conducting the referendum in time as agreed in the CPA document.