BY KOKA LO’LADO
South Sudanese were given a sad weekend ‘gift’ on Friday evening of their Presidency unanimously extending the transition period, really their tenure in office, by another two years and deferring the elections slated for December 2024 to December 2026.
South Sudan’s ‘collegial’ presidency is headed by President Salva Kiir, deputized by First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar and four other vice presidents; James Wani Igga, Taban Deng Gai, Rebecca Nyandeng, and Hussein Abdelbagi Akol. Dr. Machar might have sounded alarms about the lack of the implementation of the peace agreement in letter and spirit many times in the past but he is now complicit in the extension of his tenure and those of his colleagues in the Presidency because he is one of the main beneficiaries. Indeed, his party proposed an extension a while back. On a lighter note, yesterday evening at a tea place in Munuki, I overheard a chap describe the VPs as flower girls escorting the Bride and Groom and also enjoying the wedding cake.
Among the reasons given for the extension were challenges in implementing the 2018 revitalized peace agreement. This significant delay underscores the ongoing challenges to the country’s fragile peace process.
Tut Gatluak, the Presidential Adviser on Security who doubles as the chairman of the High-level Standing Committee for the Implementation of the 2018 Peace Agreement and the Roadmap, told journalists that the extension is an opportunity to implement the critical remaining protocols in R-ARCSS, such as the permanent constitution process, census, and the registration of political parties.
For his part, the haughty Cabinet Affairs Dr. Martin Elia Lomuro said the extension is in response to the recommendations from both electoral institutions and the security sector. He said there are pending critical tasks that are vital for the successful conduct of elections, necessitating the delay.
“There is a need for additional time to complete essential tasks before the polls,” he stressed.
It is now widely acknowledged that less than 20 percent of the peace agreement has been implemented. The report of the High Committee specifies that a paltry 10 percent (17 activities) of the 171 activities outlined in the Roadmap have been completed over the last 24 months. It begs the question: Why was the agreement not implemented in the first place in the last six years?
My journalistic antennae shot up and I immediately randomly started sounding out the common people across the country and abroad in person, on the phone, and via social media about their take on the extension. After tallying the results, 99.5 percent were livid, with most saying they expected the extension because the selfish leaders will do anything to stay in office at all costs and know that they cannot win even in a shambolic election organized by themselves. Most respondents highlighted that the people have had it with the so-called leaders at the helm of the country as indicated during the National Dialogue when they faulted Kiir and Machar for the country’s problems and said they should vacate power. Their popularity, or is it unpopularity, ratings have even plummeted more into the abyss nowadays. The other 0.5 percent said it was a good decision because there were no apt preparations for the polls in December.
Well, I and other discerning observers saw and predicted this extension coming and the delay was only because the players did not know how to break the unpopular decision to the now disaffected hoi pollio. Kiir, his lackeys like Gatluak, Lomuro, and others, and the members of the Presidency who are beneficiaries of the extension, went through the motions and tried to find justifiable reasons to present to the public. This was seen in Lomuro’s speech on Wednesday when he said: “The decision that will be made by the Presidency and the parties to the agreement will be based on a technical decision and not on politics.” He went ahead to beg the people not to listen to detractors. That was the moment astute observers and the people should have gotten the clue that the maladroit leaders were feathering their nests to stay on. For how long will the charade run? Indefinitely for as long as they can pull it off. Naturally!
Interestingly, this writer penned a missive here on the noble Radio Tamazuj in April 2022 predicting that government by extensions was going to be the norm in South Sudan and it has now come to pass https://www.radiotamazuj.org/en/news/article/opinion-south-sudan-peace-deal-needs-new-firm-timelines-matrix-of-implementation.
The bulk of South Sudanese, including yours truly, received the news of the extension of the government’s tenure with ire and consternation and expect a continuation and prolonging of the problems debilitating the country. We are in for:
- Another two years of lack of representation, hence suppressed people’s voices, arbitrary arrests courtesy of an archaic security law, a dictatorship that fears plebiscite, and lack of basic freedoms like that of speech, assembly, press, and other fundamental freedoms.
- Two years of lack of salaries, an economy that is spiraling out of control and characterized by runaway inflation and skyrocketing commodity prices.
- Two years of proliferation of unknown gunmen, wanton murders, land grabbing, cattle rustling, death from treatable diseases, inter and intra-community violence, and cyclic revenge killings.
- Two more years of lack of recourse to justice, the absence of rule of law and order, lack of commercial and other justice, corruption, embezzlement of public resources, extortion, etc.
- Two more years of being domiciled and suffering in refugee and IDP camps, lack of livelihoods, and more displacement.
- Two years of road ambushes, illegal roadblocks and checkpoints on rivers, and illegal tax collection points sanctioned by top dogs in power. The list of the evils is innumerable!
The leaders, or is it misleaders, often say and pretend to care about the suffering of the people, runaway inflation, skyrocketing commodity prices, etc., and say they have set aside money to import subsidized food. Once in a while, the media is called in to take pictures of trucks laden with commodities that will purportedly be sold cheaply to ease the suffering of the people. Interestingly the importers of the commodities are cronies of those in power and the distribution and sale of such items are not witnessed publicly.
The real people have to rely on the magnanimity of taxpayers and well-wishers in the West, the benevolence of government officials in the West, and ultimately, the efforts of WFP and other humanitarian and charity organizations to survive. Do we have a government worth writing home about? Now we have two more years of misery, for, mark my words, the inept leaders will not change their ways of sponging off the stoic people of South Sudan. Why would they otherwise not have implemented the agreement?
Lomuro fumbled sometime back when he was asked to explain the perennial pittance funding for and to account for funds meant for the peace implementation bodies by parliamentarians. He stammered sheepishly and repeatedly, flipped, and said some of the monies were used for special projects in President Kiir’s office. He later tried to save face but the proverbial cat was out of the back. This diversion of resources is going to be the norm during the next two years because they cannot wean themselves from the practice. They will then go basket in hand to beg for money from already fatigued donors who now know their ways. Already, donors stopped funding most of the peace implementation process because of pilfering and lack of accountability by the people who head those bodies. Interestingly, one of them occasionally dishes out and or promises money to sports teams when or if they win games. Our priorities are warped?
If indeed the members of the Presidency are genuine, let their parties that are the signatories to the 2018 peace agreement, choose new able leaders to replace Kiir and his five vice presidents to implement the agreement to the letter for the next two years. It would be shocking if they allowed this, but in the event they do, we would be shocked but it will start a new chapter. After all, the parties have severally reshuffled their nominees to government positions including MPs, governors, ministers, commissioners, etc. Why can’t the same be applied to the presidency? Are you laughing yet?
We have also never seen the president and his deputies touring this country together to build confidence. Fascinatingly, they may come out together and stand side by side to promise that they will use their new two-year unilaterally extended stay in power to ‘genuinely’ and ‘properly’ implement the peace agreement in letter and spirit. This, they might do, because what we have for leaders is a committee of vultures, actually the right phrase is a wake of vultures fighting to feed over a carcass called South Sudan.
Many among our leaders will prefer to die in power instead of losing it and being held accountable. One even said that if the other SPLM leaders want to wrest power from him, he will destroy and make it filthy till they cannot and will not want to pick it up. Resigning and or retiring are anathema to them and the specter of prosecution for robbing the state clean and their inequities against the people scares them stiff, and senseless and they would rather take the people and country down with them.
It would be ‘fairly’ good if they stuck in power, but provided security, and services and let the people live in peace and go about their livelihoods but now the people are the wretched of the earth, live in destitution and suffer and die by the day without hope on the horizon.
“The government will not be dissolved and will continue to function as usual while the institutions work to finalize their provisions,” Cabinet Affairs Minister Lomuro stressed. “The Presidency emphasized that the remaining months of the current transitional period will be utilized to mobilize funds, aimed at the effective implementation of the revitalized peace agreement.”
Now, one wonders who will give this lot known for pilfering public funds money-again. They failed to implement the peace agreement for the last six years and three extensions when South Sudan’s crude oil was flowing and donors generously contributed to the kitty for the peace implementation. Now there is an ongoing war of attrition in Sudan that has significantly cut back the flow of oil, there is donor fatigue and few will contribute to the peace implementation in South Sudan because of embezzlement, and tax revenues are diverted. Will the Presidency implement the peace during the two years they have given themselves? I doubt! Let them first publicly disclose the cash balance of the implementation of the peace in the past and declare what is left over to be transferred to the new period. Knowing our people, they have gobbled up the monies, the extension will be business as usual and they will come up with lofty budgets for the peace process which they will expect donors to fund just as the latter feed the citizens of South Sudan and provide them with services inter alia.
I recently had a discussion with a female South Sudanese lawyer from the Upper Nile Region who has consistently argued that the International Community, particularly the West, must stop providing money for the feeding of starving South Sudanese. I contended that it would not be right as innocent people would succumb to famine. She countered that it would be better for a few to die so that the people face their problems, see red, wake up, and squarely deal with those leaders enjoying and ensconced in Juba who are ultimately responsible for their suffering. She said the people already die in droves every day anyway due to treatable diseases, hunger, floods, cyclic communal violence, at the hands of soldiers, etc., and that it would be better that they die for a noble cause. I had no comeback! My mind went to the Bible verse Matt. 5:29-30 which says, “And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” Another friend, an engineer, wrote: “We told you this is a government of agreements, by agreement and for parties in the agreement.” I was dumbstruck!
Knowing our people, it is likely that individuals who have been positioning themselves and expected to vie for office during the now adjourned elections, will now get agitated and start fomenting chaos and even planning or executing rebellions. This is simply because they have been patient and have been denied the peaceful means of ascending to positions of authority. Also, people like the maverick Gen. Simon Gatwech, the leader of the breakaway SPLM-IO Kitgwang Faction, Gen. Thomas Cirillo of the rebel National Salvation Front (NAS), and Emmanuel Ajawin of the National Democratic Movement-Patriotic Front (NDM-PF) and others who have often said that Kiir and his cabal are not interested in genuine peace and thrive in ‘organized’ anarchy, are now vindicated.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation on Friday sent out an urgent invitation to all diplomatic missions and UN Agencies accredited to South Sudan on behalf of the High-Level Committee on the Implementation of the Peace Agreement. My take is that the people in government want to bamboozle, especially the diplomats and heads of UN offices, into accepting and seconding the extension of the government’s stay. They might succeed with some but the Troika has been steadfast in asking for genuine polls and a proper democratic transition and I believe they will not back down. After all, they feed and treat the bulk of the suffering people of South Sudan. We wait!
Interestingly, the acerbic Information Minister Michael Makuei has gone conspicuously mute this time round yet he used to trumpet that there will never be another extension, elections will be held on time in December 2024, and those who do not like it can go hung. I wonder what he is ruminating momentarily.
The people are already predicting that there will be another extension of the government’s term after the two years elapse. Has South Sudan now originated and embraced a new political system where a government lives on by extending its term of office? We watch!
Our leaders, being very unimaginative, I am sure they are making room in the cells at the notorious and ungazetted detention facilities or ghost houses to illegally incarcerate innocent citizens who will raise their voices against or be seen or even assumed to be opposed to the extension. And now they have the antiquated National Security Service Act to justify their actions. Please be careful and safe!
This writer once proposed that we give the dictator and other long-serving leaders immunity for their gross transgressions against the people and country and bribe them out of power. Does that now look like a better and more astute option? https://www.radiotamazuj.org/en/news/article/opinion-should-we-bribe-kiir-riek-et-al-into-quitting-power
As for the Tumaini Initiative, the opposition groups participating there might be left in limbo and Kenya left holding the short end of the stick which will likely lead to a diplomatic spat, but that is for another day.
The author, Koka Lo’Lado, is a journalist and can be reached via kokalolado@gmail.com
The views expressed in ‘opinion’ articles published by Radio Tamazuj are solely those of the writer. The veracity of any claims made is the responsibility of the author, not Radio Tamazuj.