On December 16 South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir reported that an attempted coup by soldiers loyal to his sacked former deputy Riek Machar had been suppressed after heavy gunfire overnight in the South Sudan capital of Juba. The news was not entirely surprising to close observers of African history and politics.
Like many newly independent countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Sudan is not immune to the sorry pattern of political disorder that quickly follows on the heels of self-determination. Sooner rather than later, news of an attempted coup inevitably breaks, followed by a regime of repressive measures and one-man dictatorship that then proceeds to squander any resources the country might possess.
Predictably, the latest incidence of political violence in Africa is being attributed to ethnic differences among Africa’s perennial savage warring tribes. In this case President Kiir’s majority Dinka oppose sacked Deputy President Riek Machar’s second largest Nuer.
Reading reports on the latest crisis, one senses that the alleged attempted coup was simply a case of one tribe aggrieved by marginalization attempting to dislodge another tribe from power. While one cannot entirely dismiss the presence of ethnic differences in South Sudan, chalking this latest political crisis to mere ethnic differences might well paper over other, perhaps more significant factors at play in the world’s youngest country.
It should also be noted that Machar’s sacking was not an isolated incident. He was sacked alongside the entire cabinet of South Sudan in an action explained by President Kiir as an attempt to resolve power struggles within the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).
South Sudan is no stranger to civil conflict. Colonized as part of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan from 1899 to 1955, South Sudan started fighting for independence from the north in 1962, six years after Sudan’s independence from Anglo-Egyptian rule. The first Sudanese civil war raged for 10 years until 1972, when Sudan’s Col. Jafaar Numeiri granted limited autonomy to the South at the Addis Ababa peace talks.
The semi-autonomous region seemed destined for success when oil was discovered in its Abyei region in 1978. However, like other oil rich countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the precious resource boded ill for the people of Southern Sudan.
Determined to claim ownership of the new oil wealth, Sudan’s President Numeiri soon abolished the limited autonomy he granted the South five years earlier. Civil war broke out again, pitting the northern government against John Garang’s Southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement. The second Sudanese civil war raged on and off for over two decades (1983–2005). During these years, several peace talks broke down and ceasefire agreements failed to hold.
The overthrow of Numeiri’s government by Brigadier Omar Hassan Al-Bashir in 1989 did little to ease tensions. The civil war continued unabated until a major breakthrough occurred in January 2005 with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement – also called the Naivasha Agreement in Kenya.
Naivasha provided for a permanent ceasefire, put in place a power-sharing agreement between north and south, and allowed the Southern Sudanese people to determine whether they wanted independence or not in a referendum to be conducted six years after the peace deal. On July 30, 2005, six months after Naivasha, SPLM leader John Garang was killed in a plane crash. He was succeeded by Salva Kiir.
Despite several setbacks, Naivasha held. In January 2011, the promised referendum was conducted and the Southern Sudanese voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence from the north. Both before and after the referendum, sporadic fighting continued between northern and southern forces.
Most of this fighting occurred around the oil rich region of Abyei, casting doubt on reports that the violence was between hostile ethnic groups or sparked by the activities of northern Arab militiamen. The reality was that the Bashir government was not willing to cede ownership of the vast oil resources whose source was in the South, but whose only access to the world was through northern territory. Moreover, it was pretty clear that external parties such as Ukraine, China and some western countries were willing to do whatever it takes to win a slice of the black gold.
The period between the January referendum and South Sudan’s formal declaration of independence on July 9, 2011 was marked by continued conflict. Clashes between northern forces and Southern rebels broke out in Abyei in February. In March, the Southern Sudanese pulled out of peace talks, accusing the Bashir government of attempting to engineer a coup against it.
In May, northern forces moved in and occupied Abyei. An agreement to demilitarize the oil rich region and place it under the watch of Ethiopian peace keeping troops took place in June, less than a month before South Sudan formally became independent. The fighting has not stopped, with deadly clashes occurring in October and November of 2011, and in January, April and August of 2012, leaving hundreds of people dead and displacing hundreds of thousands more on both sides of the new border.
It is against the backdrop of this war-dotted history that in June 2013, President Kiir sacked his Cabinet Affairs Minister Deng Alor and Finance Minister Kosti Manibe for their alleged involvement in a multi-million dollar financial scandal. Barely a month later in July, Kiir sacked his entire cabinet, including former Vice President Riek Machar in order to contain alleged power struggles within the ruling SPLM.
It is an irony of African history that nationalist or liberation movements fight for freedom from a colonial power only to quickly deny it to their own people, becoming even more repressive than the departed foreign colonizers. The pattern repeats itself: from Ghana, the first sub-Saharan African country to become independent, to South Sudan, the continent’s newest nation.
Barely three years after independence, acts of repression by the Southern Sudanese government have become a common staple of world news. In December 2013, government soldiers opened fire on peaceful protesters in the town of Wau, killing 11 people and wounding several others. No one was arrested for the killings.
Within the same month, unknown gunmen shot and killed journalist Isaiah Abraham at his home. In February 2013, three people were reported shot dead by security forces and their bodies dumped in the Nile River. And not surprisingly, alongside these killings are reported several disappearances of people critical of the Kiir government.
One can predict with a certain level of certainty that South Sudan is headed for a one-man dictatorship of the kind we have seen in Nkrumah’s Ghana, Mobutu’s Zaire, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, Sekou Toure’s Guinea, Yahya Jammeh’s Gambia, and a host of other countries across Africa.
One dictatorial regime follows another; external colonizers are succeeded by internal colonizers as the usual bogey of national security threats is dangled before the world or ethnic animosities blamed for the intolerant tendencies of would-be dictators. The world will do better to look beyond the usual ethnic scapegoating in order to understand just what is going on in South Sudan and the rest of this conflict ridden-continent. Analyzing the nature of Africa’s political culture within the context of the western nation-state system might be a good place to start.
Baba G. Jallow is an Assistant Professor of History and Director of the African Studies Program at Creighton University
Source: http://www.theatlanticpost.com/security/south-sudan-history-repeats-6174.html