From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2013
According to international communities, particularly the USA, the tension in South Sudan is mounting because President Salva Kiir sacked his vice president, Riek Machar. In South Sudan we need to see beyond Machar’s sacking.
This is a war between two giant tribes, Mr Kiir, from the majority Dinka ethnic group, and Mr Machar, from the second largest Nuer group. Historically these two ethnic communities have been at odds for decades.
It is not an easy tension to contain because it extends to the Dinka and Nuer army, which owes allegiance to the two rivals. Machar still owns his army and many other politicians who fought for South Sudan’s liberation.
In November 2007 when Catholic South Sudanese Episcopal Conference Justice and Peace Secretary, Mr Julius Ojok issued a press report on clashes between the Dinka and Zande in Yambio, he did mention that the conflict in south Sudan is not only far from the end, but also complex.
It is an enormous challenge for any president of the Republic of South Sudan to effectively bring together all these tribal units under one and effective system of government. That is why even if Riek Machar contested in 2015 as he has expressed the tension between tribes will still be there.
The inter-ethnic conflict in southern is difficult to understand. Apart from Dinka and Zande, the Nuer and the Dinka are poised to go to war against each other. Many homes, villages, community structures, and grain have been reduced to ashes.
From the commencement of the movement early inauguration between 1983-7, the SPLM political deployment took a sharp on the tribal line where the Twich Dinka were given significant opportunity for a reason to join and attain military strategic places, with the purpose to defend themselves against the neighboring tribes such as Nuer, Murle, Toposa and Mundari.
When the historic Nasir declaration was announced on August 28, 1991, by Riek Machar and Lam Akol, calling for the removal of Garang from leadership, this was typically on tribal line.
Although according to Machar, South Sudan needs the president who can unite all the tribes, his sacking and a wider dismissal of the entire cabinet by Kiir, had followed reports of a power struggle within the ruling party.
On Thursday, the US raised concern that the sackings could threaten the stability in South Sudan. The president gave no clear reason for the move, but analysts say he and Mr Machar have been embroiled in a power struggle for months.
When Kiir issued a decree in April, withdrawing executive powers that were delegated to Riek Machar, according to a broadcast by the state-run South Sudan Television, the order did not cite or state any reason for the move and no official statement has been released.
It also did not specify to the public which powers he delegated to the Vice President and had to be withdrawn or the difference such powers have with the powers stipulated in the constitution and wanted him to continue to exercise.
The decision however, may be linked to Machar’s intentions, which he made clear during the last politburo meeting of the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), to run for its chairmanship in the upcoming convention.
When Riek Machar formed SPLM/A Nasir the idea was not that South Sudan could be self determined as he claimed. In fact the reason was to remove Garang from power so that he could take over.
The first action by SPLA/M Nasir was unfortunate and regrettable summary execution of Dinka officers who sided with Garang. Hundreds of thousands of head of cattle were raid and taken.
Riek Machar joined the SPLM/SPLA in 1984 and was soon put in charge of the movement’s head office in Addis Ababa by John Garang de Mabior. He was given military training and deployed at the rank of major as a zonal commander in 1985 in Western Upper Nile.
Machar quickly rose to the rank of Alternate-Commander and then to the rank of a Commander before he then disagreed with Garang in 1991 on how the movement was being run.
Machar has been replaced by my great friend and colleague, Gen James Wani Igga whose nature does not disappoint. In his book where he appreciated the work of People for Peace in Africa’s struggles for South Sudan’s self determination, Igga is identified as a strategist to promote unity in diversity as well as enhance peaceful co-existence and consolidate efforts to build the new nation ravaged by decades of conflict.
Whenever he visited Kenya he came to our People for Peace in Africa’s offices at Waumini House, Westlands to seek advice of how South Sudanese could co-exist as one nation.
For minority ethnic communities of South Sudanese, Igga is the best choice. His strategy is premised on respect of the law and intermarriages. He argues, “For us to unite South Sudanese, we must respect the rule of law. Nobody should be jailed and released because he is above the law.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
Tel +254 7350 14559/+254 722 623 578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com
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Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.
-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ
UN Disarmament
Conference, 2002