One year on, South Sudan's liberation incomplete -Kiir
Mon Jul 9, 2012 2:04pm GMT
* Independence seen as prize after decades of war
* New nation struggling with economic crisis
* Border fighting with Sudan keeps tensions high (Recasts with Kiir's
independence day speech)
By Hereward Holland
JUBA, July 9 (Reuters) - South Sudan's President Salva Kiir vowed on Monday
to confront the corruption plaguing his country a year after it declared
independence and said the new nation's economy still had to be "liberated"
from its dependence on foreign powers.
Wearing his signature black fedora, Kiir addressed an assembly of
dignitaries and a cheering crowd to mark the nation's first independence day
after splitting from Sudan under a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of
civil war.
Two helicopters bearing the country's red, green and black flags flew over
the crowd of thousands gathered in the scorching sun to attend the
ceremonies. Tanks, rocket launchers and infantry paraded past.
Many South Sudanese hoped the country's emergence as the world's newest
nation would begin an era of prosperity, but the country has remained mired
in disputes with its northern neighbour over oil, the border and a many
other issues.
The landlocked South shut off its oil production in January, instantly
erasing 98 percent of state revenues, as part of a dispute with Sudan over
how much it should pay to export crude using pipelines and other
infrastructure in the north.
In his speech, Kiir sought to portray the country's economy as part of the
country's broader "liberation" struggle.
" We still depend on others. Our liberty today is incomplete. We must be
more than liberated. We have to be independent economically," he told the
crowd.
Discontent has been rising over the oil shutdown, which piled hardships on
people already weary from years of conflict.
While many South Sudanese are still basking in the pride of their hard-won
political freedom, they are starting to ask when they will enjoy the
material benefits of independence.
Prices have been soaring, forcing many people to tighten their belts while
corruption has gone largely unchecked.
"Now we are struggling for even the basic needs," one government employee
said as she sat in a traffic jam, cursing at the luxury cars creeping along
newly-tarmacked streets.
"We've given the government a lot of responsibility, allowed them to take
decisions on our behalf but they don't make any consultations. They shut
down the oil without telling us anything and they didn't even have a plan
B."
WOUNDED LION
South Sudanese voted overwhelmingly to secede in a referendum last year that
was promised in a peace deal that ended more than two decades of war over
ideology, religion, ethnicity and oil. Some 2 million people died in the
conflict.
Amid pomp and flag-waving, the former guerrillas of the Sudan People's
Liberation Movement took full control of the country on July 9, 2011.
They also took about three-quarters of Sudan's oil output, bringing in
billions of dollars that many citizens hoped would be channelled to develop
a nation where just over a quarter of adults can read and life expectancy is
under 50.
Instead, officials are now scrambling to find enough money to keep basic
services running.
Businessman Tong Albino Akot said the government's new interest in
collecting taxes was a positive step, but his agriculture and import venture
was feeling the sting.
"The government tried to explain that there's no money. They're even getting
tough on income tax. They're like a wounded lion opening its mouth. You can
feel it," Akot said.
Corruption and mismanagement have not helped. In June, Kiir sent a letter to
current and former officials asking them to return $4 billion of "stolen"
government money.
On Monday, Kiir vowed to end such abuses. "This government will not tolerate
what is called corruption," he said.
The country would also trim its government and was working on developing
alternatives to oil revenues, including tax collection and "alternative oil
infrastructure," he said.
South Sudan had started work on a small refinery in its Upper Nile state, he
said. "These will solve some of our problems although it will not solve all
our problems."
FLOWER OF FREEDOM
Independence has also failed to end violence both inside the country and on
the border with Sudan. In April, South Sudan's army occupied an
oil-producing region also claimed by Sudan, bringing the countries close to
a new war.
A few months earlier, the armed forces failed to prevent cattle raids
between warring ethnic groups that killed hundreds of people.
Human rights groups say weak rule of law allows security forces to carry out
abuses against civilians with impunity.
The challenges have not dampened everyone's optimism. Leaning back on a
plastic garden chair in an unfinished building near Juba airport, student
Pater Achuil sipped a glass of milk and listed the ways life had improved
since secession.
"We have waited for the flower of freedom," he said, shards of concrete
poking through the capital's skyline behind him. "The difference you can
feel here in South Sudan is that ... even the government cannot hassle you
(now)."
But moments later, police in blue camouflage brandishing Kalashnikov rifles
raided the tea stall, confiscated the shisha water pipes and loaded the
chairs onto a truck.
Achuil stood with his friend to the side, baffled. The officer brushed off a
question about whether the raid was part of a drive to clean up Juba ahead
of celebrations.
"This is not your concern," he said. (Writing by Alexander Dziadosz; Editing
by Robin Pomeroy)
NEWSMAKER-S.Sudan rebel now president takes on poverty, graft
Sun Jul 8, 2012 10:48pm GMT
* Salva Kiir won his leadership credentials in battle
* Says constructing South Sudan is work of lifetime
* Sees relationship with Sudan as biggest challenge
* South Sudan can "forgive but not forget" war years
By Pascal Fletcher
July 9 (Reuters) - South Sudan's President Salva Kiir, who fought as a rebel
chief in one of Africa's longest civil wars, has confronted those two old
and deadly enemies of development - poverty and corruption - in his first
year as head of the world's newest state.
The guerrilla fighter turned president, who likes to wear wide-brimmed
cowboy hats, has also faced persisting hostility from South Sudan's arch-foe
to the north, Sudan, from whom it wrested independence last year after a
secession vote that followed the end in 2005 of more than two decades of
civil war.
The two neighbours in what was once Africa's biggest nation, straddling the
fault line between the largely Muslim, Arabic-speaking north and black
Africa to the south, came close to plunging back into war in April when they
clashed over unresolved borders and the oil on which they both depend.
Kiir, seen as a no-nonsense army man, stunned the world when he sent troops
to occupy the disputed Heglig oil zone, alleging self-defence against what
he said were repeated attacks by the Sudanese army. A threat of sanctions by
the U.N. Security Council forced both sides back to the negotiating table.
"Good fences make good neighbours," Kiir defiantly told South Sudan's
parliament in June, proposing international arbitration of the border
dispute. He insisted his landlocked country would not allow itself to be
dominated by its more developed northern neighbour, which offers a gateway
to the sea.
"I reject the proposition that the best way to peace with Sudan is through
dependence on Sudan. No nation can prosper by surrendering control of its
economy to another," he said.
Accusing Khartoum of "stealing" South Sudanese crude flowing through
northern pipelines, Kiir's ruling Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement (SPLM)
shut down southern oil output from January, badly straining the economies of
the two Sudans.
But Kiir, a committed Catholic with a reputation as a conciliator, also
knows - and South Sudan's Western donors never tire of reminding him - that
a good relationship with Sudan is the best guarantee for his country to be
able to build a secure, prosperous, self-sufficient future for its 8.26
million people.
"The time for peace has come. We will stop at nothing short of a lasting
peace between our two countries," he told parliament in a June 11 speech.
CREDIBILITY ON THE LINE
While other members of the southern elite boast academic credentials
obtained in the West, Kiir won his main leadership credentials on the
battlefield. He joined the south's first insurgency (1955-1972) at 17 and
later became a major in the Sudanese intelligence services.
He constantly reminds his ministers and the South Sudanese people of the
huge development challenges facing their newborn state, which has only about
100 km (60 miles) of paved road and health and education levels among the
lowest in the world.
"Building a nation will take our lifetimes," he says, adding South Sudan
must also bury tribal enmities that still erupt into cattle raids and
bloodletting, the most recent only months ago.
Kiir has shown awareness too of the corrosive threat of corruption and
inequality to his emerging nation, where walled private mansions and
gleaming SUVs owned by a wealthy few contrast sharply with the humble
mud-and-thatch homes and daily struggle to survive that is the lot of most
South Sudanese.
In a letter sent in May to 75 current and former officials, Kiir estimated
$4 billion had been "stolen" from public coffers and urged those responsible
to return it.
"We fought for freedom, justice and equality," the president wrote, adding:
"Many people in South Sudan are suffering and yet some government officials
simply care about themselves. The credibility of our government is on the
line".
Despite experts' warnings that the oil shutdown could cause economic
collapse, Kiir is asking his long-suffering people to tighten their belts
and rein in their expectations while his SPLM government implements
austerity measures.
South Sudan is counting on foreign loans and aid from friendly states to
keep on its toddler's feet until planned alternative pipelines can be built
in 2-3 years to carry the south's crude to Kenya or Ethiopia, instead of
through Sudan.
But the president says he wants to wean his people off the foreign aid
handouts that have kept millions of South Sudanese from starving to death
during decades of civil conflict.
"Let us not become addicted to free things ... people have learned how to be
fed and not to feed themselves," he says.
"FORGIVE, BUT NOT FORGET"
Kiir, one of the founders of the SPLM who took over as its leader after the
2005 death in a helicopter crash of the charismatic John Garang, has
repeatedly said he does not want to go back to war with Sudan. Before this
month's clashes, Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir made similar
statements.
It is clear that years of conflict between South Sudanese, who are mostly
Christian or follow traditional religions, and the government, military and
militias of the largely Muslim and Arabic-speaking north have left deep
scars.
"We have been bombed, maimed, enslaved and treated worse than refugees in
our own country, but we have to forgive, although we will not forget," Kiir
said at the moment of independence on July 9 last year.
Kiir and Bashir had been due to meet in Juba on April 3 before border
clashes scotched the meeting. They now plan to hold a meeting on the
sidelines of an African Union (AU) summit in Addis Ababa this week,
officials say,
When Kiir first stepped up as the leader of the then semi- autonomous south
in 2005, many compared him unfavourably with his firebrand predecessor, the
civil war hero Garang.
But Kiir, who rarely gives interviews, has concentrated on keeping his
fragmented territory united. He has repeatedly offered amnesties to renegade
militia leaders in the south and made progress in fighting rebels.
Kiir has been good at bringing old foes into the SPLM and the southern army.
But worries remain about the ability of his party to accept rivals who
insist on staying outside the fold.
His quiet approach and lack of polarising rhetoric are seen as his main
strengths in governing a landlocked territory handicapped by tribal
divisions, severe poverty, unstable neighbours and huge supplies of
privately held weapons.
Thousands of people have died inside South Sudan in recent years in tribal
clashes. The south says northern-backed militias provoked the violence.
Khartoum denies the accusation.
Kiir is a member of the country's largest tribe, the Dinka, which largely
controls the army and government, to the dismay of smaller tribes.
North and South Sudan's armies are also still facing off in flashpoints
along their ill-defined shared border - including in Southern Kordofan,
South Blue Nile and the contested Abyei area.
Kiir says he wants to turn South Sudan into "a land of promise - not a land
of conflict, fragility and disaster".
But as he told an audience earlier this year: "We are starting from zero and
starting with very little". (Writing by Pascal Fletcher, editing by Diana
Abdallah)
C Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved
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Received on Mon Jul 09 2012 - 18:19:08 EDT
