Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2014 23:43:17 +0100
Vested interests override democracy
South Sudan: it all began so well
The sudden conflict in South Sudan isn’t essentially tribal, but the result
of clever economic pressure from Khartoum on South Sudan’s president, who is
desperate to hold on to power.
by Gérard Prunier
<http://mondediplo.com/2014/02/> February 2014
The civil conflict in South Sudan began with gunfire at the headquarters of
the presidential guard in the capital, Juba, on 15 December 2013. President
Salva Kiir claimed that the former vice-president, Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon,
dismissed in July, had attempted a coup. Machar, whose bodyguards died
protecting him, claimed the shooting was the result of the president’s
attempt to get rid of the opposition.
US Assistant Secretary for Africa Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee on 9 January: “We have not seen any evidence
that this was a coup attempt.” Machar confirmed this, adding: “I had to flee
in my pyjamas.” Clashes between his supporters and the army have continued.
This young state was created in July 2011, after voting for secession from
the north in a referendum. To understand why it has fallen into chaos, we
must go back to the oil agreement of September 2012 between Khartoum and
Juba, and to President Kiir’s decision to stand for re-election in 2015. His
eight years in office ( <http://mondediplo.com/2014/02/03southsudan#nb1> 1)
have not been successful, with ethnic violence, frequent rebellions, poor
administration, a lack of economic development and massive corruption — Kiir
has even called on his own ministers to refund $4bn they stole, as the
country needs it for development.
The US has been an over-indulgent godfather to the new state. A diplomatic
mafia supporting the Sudan’s People Liberation Movement (SPLM; the rebel
movement opposed to the Khartoum government), which took power in Juba after
independence, ensured the goodwill of the Obama administration and forbade
all criticism of Washington’s favourite child.
Sudan took advantage. President Omar al-Bashir, who knew he controlled
Kiir’s re-election, began a clever blackmail campaign intended to stifle the
Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), an alliance of factions opposed to his
regime. The SRF has been fighting the government since autumn 2011,
supported by Sudan’s black Muslims, who were for many years loyal to the
Arabs on the basis of religion. But that loyalty dwindled during the long
war (1983-2002) and eventually ran out.
A game of cat and mouse
Having been used against Sudanese Christians for many years, the black
Muslims finally became conscious of their social and economic alienation,
and changed sides. The Darfur crisis of 2003 (
<http://mondediplo.com/2014/02/03southsudan#nb2> 2) was the first stage in
the process; but the independence of the Christian south in 2011 was
decisive. The Islamist government in Khartoum now knows it is fighting for
survival, and because the rebels are also Muslims, it can’t play the
religion card, so it has logically resorted to racism, emphasising the
threat of “the slaves” (al-abid), a term still widely used by Sudanese Arabs
when referring to blacks.
Al-Bashir’s first demands were that South Sudan implement the oil agreement
of September 2012 and that Kiir stop supporting the SRF. But he wanted more
than that. The economic situation in Sudan was desperate, and al-Bashir
insisted that South Sudan abandon the relatively favourable terms of the
agreement (a $10.25 transit fee on each barrel of crude for the use of
Sudan’s pipeline) and immediately begin paying the $3bn agreed as
compensation for economic losses resulting from South Sudan’s independence,
the schedule for which had yet to be decided.
To obtain this, Sudan needed still greater control over South Sudan.
Al-Bashir pressured Kiir by suspending oil exports, then partially
reinstating them in a game of cat and mouse. Kiir, having understood this
plan, dismissed his entire cabinet and his vice-president, Machar, last
July. Ten days later, he formed a new cabinet of men known to be friendly to
Khartoum (Riak Gok, Telar Ring Deng, Abdallah Deng Nhial). The oil began to
flow again, and the money too.
In November al-Bashir travelled to Juba to tell Kiir that the time had come
to pay the compensation. Payment would begin immediately, through a gradual
increase in transit fees. Kiir submitted, but the compensation demanded
increased ( <http://mondediplo.com/2014/02/03southsudan#nb3> 3). Al-Bashir
had won. Meanwhile, Juba was now governed by a cabal with a hard core of Rek
and Agar Dinka ( <http://mondediplo.com/2014/02/03southsudan#nb4> 4).
Worsening fragmentation
The operation orchestrated by Sudan is stifling democracy in South Sudan,
which is not a state but only a projection of the hyper-centralised
structures of an authoritarian guerrilla movement, with an army of poorly
integrated ethnic regiments formed from regional groups of war veterans.
This fragmentation worsened as militias that had fought for Khartoum were
gradually absorbed into the army without any attempt at homogenisation.
How the presidential election will be conducted is as much a question as who
will win, and whether there will be a qualitative change that will allow
South Sudan to move from gang rule to the rule of law. There was timid talk
of a reform movement and a fight for democracy, but this no longer seems
likely.
The brutality of the crisis does not stem from ethnic conflict, as is too
often claimed, but is mostly the result of the gradual breakdown of an
authoritarian regime hesitating between democratic modernisation and a
hardening of its clientelist position. As is often the case in Africa, the
principal actors identify with ethnic groups, but the real reasons lie in
the much broader movement that has led some of the SPLM elite to change
their minds because their interests were threatened. Most political debate
does not take place in parliament but within the SPLM, which has preserved
the vertically integrated organisation of its Leninist past. The National
Liberation Council (NLC) acts as a “parliament of the party”, and Kiir is
trying to curb its democratic talk.
Nuer against Dinka
Democratic reform could threaten Kiir’s position, and that of his
supporters. On 15 December the emerging opposition was preparing to hold a
joint discussion to demand a meeting of the NLC. The Dinka battalion of the
presidential guard tried to disarm a Nuer battalion — Kiir is a Dinka,
Machar a Nuer — while other troops arrested 11 reformist politicians that
the government judged the most dangerous. Machar managed to escape, the Nuer
units in the army rebelled and civil war broke out.
Nuer troops rose up spontaneously to defend their champion, Machar. In Juba,
Dinka troops immediately began killing Nuers, civilian and military. But
there are many exceptions to this divide. Rebecca Garang, widow of the
independence movement leader, is a Dinka but has joined the reformists, and
her eldest son is a member of Machar’s Nuer delegation. The politicians
arrested belong to five ethnic groups, and include two Dinkas. In the north
of the country, Nuer supporters of Kiir are fighting Nuers loyal to Machar
around the oil town of Bentiu. In Equatoria, a region dominated by neither
Nuers nor Dinkas, the small tribes (Madi, Bari, Lotuko, Toposa) are choosing
which side to join, in most cases Machar and the reformists. Nowhere is
there any evidence of blind loyalty to tribe.
The issues in these choices are often a matter of life and death. The
violence is extreme and is intensifying quickly because the mediators — the
members of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (
<http://mondediplo.com/2014/02/03southsudan#nb5> 5) — are divided. Ethiopia
is trying to remain neutral in a conflict that threatens its security.
Kenya, at one time tempted to support Kiir, has withdrawn. Uganda has done
worse: in supporting the “elected government” in Juba, President Yoweri
Museveni has ordered the bombing of rebel areas and Ugandan troops have been
involved in the large-scale military offensive that led to the recent
recapture of two key towns and the signing of a ceasefire agreement.
Apart from general statements of principle, the wider international
community (US, EU, China) has been strangely silent, as if this sudden
crisis had left it speechless. China, the main customer for Sudanese oil,
seems resigned to waiting to see what will happen. The US is embarrassed by
its indirect responsibility. It has tolerated a violent departure from
democracy and regrets this, although it does not accept that opposition to
this departure has escalated into armed conflict.
If the violence, aggravated by Uganda’s involvement, does not stop soon, the
country may <http://mondediplo.com/>
sliphttp://cdncache1-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png into a
spiral in which tribalism, set aside during the struggle for
democratisation, dominates once again. The risk for such an
under-institutionalised country would then be total disintegration, and this
could mean regional disaster: the whole sub-region, from the Central African
Republic to Somalia (both in civil war), and from Sudan, on the verge of
economic collapse, would be in crisis, and Ethiopia could become a victim.
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