SPLA/M: Does it Hold Hope for Sudan?

July 10th, 2011: SPLM HQ, Juba: Remarks by NCA Representative 

In 2005, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) and the Khartoum Regime (NIF) signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in Kenya, after twenty three years of Sudan’s second civil war that cost over two million lives and internally displaced more than six million people.

The civil war in Sudan is one of Africa’s longest, bloodiest and most inflexible conflicts. Civil wars have been fought in Uganda (1981-86), Ethiopia (1974-91), Rwanda (1990-94), Liberia (1990-93), and Mozambique (1980-93). Oppressed or excluded groups fought their way from the periphery into power at the center to free themselves from oppressive rule by those who had been controlling the center.

In Southern Sudan, power sharing has been absent with regards to the separation of religion from State, sharing of the natural resources, equality and justice among the Sudanese people. Despite the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), power is still centralized in Khartoum.

A point of tension and conflict is the identity of Sudan as an African nation. Despite its geographic location in the Continent and majority African population, the majority of power is held by 39% of its population who are Arabs. These are the main reasons behind the first and the second civil wars in 1950s, 1960s, and 1983s.

Slavery and war against terrorism have placed Sudan on the CIA, FBI and international community’s scrutiny- particularly the discovery of oil in Southern Sudan in 1979. The Khartoum regime allegedly gave Osama Bin-Laden a safe haven which he used to plan the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, with the support of the Khartoum regime.

Four years since the SPLA/M assumed power in Southern Sudan, the security situation has not improved. The Lord’s Resistance Army’s (LRA) military activities are still active in Central and Western Equatorial States. The Government of the Southern Sudan (GoSS) has failed to protect its citizens and disarm the Dinka tribesmen who continue to terrorize Central, Eastern, and Western Equatorial civilians in Magwi County, Nimule, Yei, Yambio, and other parts of Great Equatorial. Furthermore, the Dinka tribesmen deliberately allow their cattle to graze on the Great Equatorial farming land.

The people of South Sudan are divided by power as well. Most of the GoSS cabinet, deputies ministers, attorney generals, as well as senior officers in the police force, prisons, military, civil and foreign service are from the Dinka tribe. Dinkas in the SPLA constitute the largest portion of the military personnels within the movement. The Dinka use their dominance to suppress other Southern Sudanese tribes instead of sharing power, as Arabs did before 2005.

The Dinkas seem to be out to gain control over the natural resources of Southern Sudan; rule over the rest of the South, kill, and imprison anyone who opposes their ill-conceived “Dinka Born to Rule” notion. The classic example is the appointment of hard-line proponent of Dinka nationalism, Able Alier, as a ‘born to rule advisor’ to Salva Kiir Mayardit, for the purposes of implementing the policy of Dinka domination over other tribes.

Since the beginning of 2009, Eastern and Central Equatorial civilians have been killed and the Great Equatorial girls and women raped. The SPLA high officials have been appropriating Central and Eastern Equatorial lands and selling them to Somalia businessmen – leaving the land owners homeless and displaced.
The culture of corruption is rampant with development money leaving South Sudan and going to foreign accounts. The pattern of events in Southern Sudan is symptomatic of lack of good governance and leadership within the SPLA/M.

The GoSS has failed to educate the public on the importance of democracy, fair elections and good governance (whose components include accountability, legitimacy, democracy, equality, inclusiveness, transparency, coherency, conflict resolution, efficiency, and rule of law.)

Pressure must be put on the SPLA leadership to implement their commitments to good governance and full representation of all Southern Sudan tribes in the GoSS. Victims of rape and human rights abuse must be redressed and the lands taken forcefully from the Great Equatorial be given back to their owners. Equality in treatment is paradoxically based on the disorder and injustice produced by inequality.

 ©Laku, SR
University of Ottawa