The speech that President Salva Kiir delivered at a rally last Wednesday differed substantially from the prepared text of the speech as circulated online. This suggests differences between Kiir and the close advisors who drafted the speech.
Kiir’s changes consisted primarily of extemporaneous additions – most of which he made in local Arabic, or a mix of Arabic and English – as well as omissions of sections of the drafted text. The changes amounted to more than minor discrepancies: the tone, substance and length of the delivered speech were all different from that of the prepared text.
Radio Tamazuj details some of these changes:
Opening protocol: In greeting his listeners, Kiir inserts, “members of Central Equatoria government” – a rhetorical gesture to Equatorians. His speech is repeatedly conciliatory to the Equatorian constituency, in line with efforts to “unify the internal front.”
Absence from negotiations: Kiir begins his first major extemporaneous addition to the speech about four and half minutes into the speech, after saying “I accepted to negotiate peace with those who took arms against the state…” Switching to the local Arabic dialect, he hints that it was beneath his dignity to negotiate directly with Riek Machar:
“I mean that, in order for there to be peace, I agreed to get up from my place as President of the Republic of South Sudan in order to go talk to those who took up arms to wage war against the nation. There is no president who talks with rebels. Negotiations are done by the negotiators. But because I want peace to come quickly to South Sudan, I went in order to talk to Riek Machar. When Riek Machar saw that I came to him, he said to me, ‘We are equal.’ He said we are equal in a way that he is also recognized as a head of state. And this is why he became so intransigent.”
Peacemaking by decree: After this digression about Machar, Kiir returns to the speech text only briefly, before elaborating on three decrees he issued after the Arusha deal:
“Those were done in good spirit, that we want peace – not because of anything [else]… I gave general amnesty to all those who are carrying arms against the state, and so that they come back… until now they are not accepting the olive branch that I have given to them. If they think that they prefer to fight for their victory, I think there is nothing that we have been doing in South Sudan except war. We know war, how it is, but if it is imposed on us, we will also fight back.”
None of these references to the rejection of the ‘olive branch’ or a possible return to war were included in the prepared text of the speech.
Suffering and disappointment: The speech text includes a sentence reading, “I can understand why our people were very disappointed when the deadline of 5th March 2015 set by IGAD to sign peace agreement was not met.” Kiir omits this sentence. He also omits in part another sentence about the suffering of the people and declines to describe the current “state of war” as “unfortunate”, as it is described in the written speech.
The speech text further says that the people’s suffering is “something Riek and I could have ended.” Kiir omits to say this.
Criticism of 5 March deadline: The speech text frankly acknowledges that the international threats of sanctions is connected to the failure of the two warring parties to meet the mediators’ 5 March deadline. It reads: “At the same time, and as a result of not reaching a peace deal by 5th March 2015, the international community is threatening to impose sanctions on us.”
Kiir opts not to read this, instead slamming the 5 March deadline as “something imposed on us… something mechanical as if we were just going to play a football match.” He continues at length, explaining that he did not want to sign a “bad peace agreement.”
‘The powers of Riek Machar’: Continuing a lengthy extemporaneous addition to the speech, Kiir emphasizes the dispute between him and Riek Machar over the powers of their respective offices. He explains that he accepted to make Riek Machar a “non-executive prime minister” but not an “executive prime minister.” He cites the examples of Uganda and Tanzania who have prime ministers who are not ‘executives’, according to Kiir.
Instead, Machar wanted to “divide the powers of the president” and give some of them to him, according to Kiir. “And this is what some people want to impose. To impose that powers of the president have to be given to Riek Machar. And Machar is determined that there should be nobody between me and him, so that when I go for my travels, he remains acting. If I die then he succeeds immediately, he becomes the president.”
Machar vs Wani: Kiir continues speaking freely, without reading the speech text. He argues that Riek Machar should not be given the seat of Vice President James Wani Igga, as was proposed by the IGAD peace mediators, on the basis that Wani has been “loyal” whereas Machar has been repeatedly disloyal.
Referring to Machar’s signature to the Khartoum Peace Agreement of 1997, Kiir calls it a “surrender agreement with Sudan” – implying treason and cowardice. Because of this, Machar never should have been made number three in the SPLM, according to Kiir. “When you [i.e., Machar] came back, Wani was then displaced. And you were put on his chair. You became number three. And when God took John Garang you became number two. That was the first unfortunate situation of Wani.”
During these remarks, Kiir addresses himself not to the audience immediately before him but rather to Riek Machar directly.
“Now this time you rebelled again. You wanted to repeat what you did 1991. Because you want to be a president by all means. And you are in a hurry. Now you have not succeeded, on the 15 December at night, and until 17 December, you did not succeed to take the chair of the presidency by the force of arms. You did not succeed, so you went to the bush and changed your coup to an armed struggle.”
“Now if you are coming back, you will not be appeased by giving you the position of James Wani, who remained loyal to the SPLM/SPLA [in] 1991 and he remained loyal until we came to the agreement in 2005. Again he remained loyal now that God gave him his right position to become number two in the country. I will not do it myself, to throw him away and bring you.”
‘Never surrender’: As Kiir pauses, a military band at this point briefly interrupts. “Yes, we shall never surrender,” Kiir reacts, referring to the tune of the song. “This flag, which was raised on the 9th of July will never be taken away by anybody, wherever he comes from. Yes, there were people standing with Riek Machar. They told me, ‘Give Riek Machar first vice president, so that his people who were killed in Juba area compensated, and peace will come.’”
‘He slaughtered Dinkas’: “I told them, if it is a matter of compensation of the people who have died, let Riek Machar tell you how many Dinkas did he slaughter in Bor in 1991? And what did we give to the people of Bor to compensate their people?”
Kiir reiterates his refusal to make Machar vice president and he describes this in tribal terms, implying that the position is now for the Equatorians and should not be taken away from them. He refuses “appeasing him [Machar] at the expense of Equatorians.”
Defiant response to sanctions: More than ten minutes after leaving the speech text, Kiir continues to speak extemporaneously. “We ran into a deadlock, and then the threats of sanctions were being waved in my eyes,” says Kiir.
He responds defiantly to this threat. He also attacks the group of dissident SPLM politicians known as the ‘Former Detainees’, saying that they ‘talked rubbish’ and supported proposals for UN trusteeship and international sanctions. These remarks were not included in the speech text.
No concessions: Kiir delivers a lengthy explanation for his rejection of the so-called ‘two armies’ proposal. His own speechwriters had touched on the matter only briefly. Further, he says that he refused to pay the debts that the rebels incurred during the war, which they had requested would be covered by the government after the war.
He proceeds to explain at length disputes with the rebels over representation in parliament, which again his speechwriters had addressed only in brief. He touches on details about government structure, such as the “Ministry of Planning”.
After point by point discussion of such issues, Kiir concludes, “All this was not easy, but we stood our ground that we should not be pushed into something that we are not sure of.”
‘The way forward’: Here Kiir pauses to find his place in the prepared text, more than 20 minutes after he had stopped reading from it. He skips the part about the peace talks, since has already spoken extemporaneously about this.
Kiir resumes under the heading, ‘The way forward.’ He reads much of this section essentially as it is written, with few additions.
One significant addition is under the section about boosting agriculture production in view of declining oil revenues and economic hardship. Here he expresses his readiness to embark on a policy of economic isolationism if necessary – something not drafted by his speechwriters.
“If people are talking about sanctions against South Sudan, unless they go up and agree with God to stop raining in South Sudan – that means it will be real sanctions – but as long as there will be rain in South Sudan, we can make use of that land, and we can grow what we can eat there, forgetting about anything to be brought from any other country.”
“Last year I promised that I would bring tractors – it did not materialize. But now as we speak here, those tractors are just here near the river, 1000 of them. You think that if these 1000 are properly managed and used in the agricultural schemes, can they not produce for South Sudan and can we not again bring the same number again, or more, so that we embark on agriculture? These are things that we can do by ourselves.”
Control over customs revenues: Kiir acknowledges that corruption in the Customs and Immigration departments is diverting resources from the national treasury. He says that many people want to work in these departments because they are a “place of money”.
“If a customs officer takes money from cars and puts it in his pocket, then what will be the fate of the country? We must stop this thing,” he says in part.
After this remark, Kiir reads the rest of the speech substantially as written.
Related:
Kiir postpones first public address after failed peace talks (13 March)