General Salva Kiir X-Factor

When Dr. John Garang died mysteriously only three weeks in the office as the vice president of the government of national unity, and as the president of the South Sudan autonomous government, there were lot of nervous people in South Sudan about what the future holds. Some Southerners who have known Garang thought nobody will match the Bashiir cunningness. They feared that Garang demise would put the country fragile peace in limbo. The only people who cheered Garang death were the Northerners and the Khartoum regime who banked that Garang absent in the political discourse would give them an edge.

Well, both Khartoum and South Sudan doubted Thomas were all wrong. General Kiir Mayardit has presented himself to be a wild card at all fronts. First and foremost, he has surprised Khartoum regime which thought and hoped that Garang death was going to be a blessing to them. They were dead wrong, while we dearly missed Dr. Garang, we praised him every single day for his wisdom to have chosen capable leaders like General Kiir Mayardit who happened to have filled Garang’s big shoe at such a critical time in our history. Kiir being a disciplined and shrew general who knows how to juggle with turbulent times has kept the boat from being rocked over by the enemies of South Sudan. He has learned from his predecessor with whom he has fought side by side since the first Sudan war after its independent.

I guessed it is safe to say, these two men know how to lay down mines, how to dodge bullets and how to lead guerilla soldiers. So it should not be a surprise to South Sudanese about Kiir unwavering determination to stand his ground in face of many challenges that are facing the CPA. On many fronts, he maneuvered the difficult political terrains including making tough decisions of which many have left Khartoum speechless e.g. with drawing MPs from the government of national unity in protest of non compliance with CPA and many other difficult decisions like offering amnesty to all different rebels leaders who have made bad choices. Such decision to offer political amnesty to people like General Dau and General Athor was unpopular but necessary to maintain the unity of southerners.

Although many people saw General Kiir as an opportunist whom Garang death has brought him into power, Kiir is a giant of his own, he understands his generals and his generals understand him and together, they have out witted the cunningness of the Khartoum regime. When he decided not to run for president of the national government last year but instead announced his candidacy for the presidency of the South Sudan, southerners including me were convinced that South Sudan will reach it destiny. There was no doubt with him being the captain of the boat, there was a feeling that we were going to approach the Promised Land. That’s Southerners gave him their seal of approval by voting almost 96 percent for his candidacy. With such blessing, General Kiir has kept his promise that he made almost fifty years ago to free his people from the bondage of the Arabs and their Islamized and oppressive governments.

Since Kiir became a president, he has managed to hold together Southerners with exception of few power greedy generals who have lost the cause of the Southern Sudanese people. Let us all image, without Kiir as a captain of this boat, finding other unifying figure to lead Southerners in this tumultuous time would have been like asking Chol Mong to throw away his fish.
I don’t agree with some of his decisions leadership ability particularly how he is handling the issue of corruption. However, I gave General Kiir a thumb up for bringing us this close to our long awaited destiny. Just exactly 78 days left till South Sudan becomes the Republic of South Sudan. I still have the faith in Kiir to finish the race and to finally usher in a new era in our Republic.

Democratic Election Challenges in Africa

When the first of wave of democratic transformation reached Africa during the 1990s, there was a great hope for change among the first few African countries which embraced it. From Kenya, Zambia, Tanzania and South Africa, people thought that democracy would replace old colonial pessimistic governments. Some even thought that democracy would bring a new era of peace and stability to Africa. However, what many regular Africans never knew back then is that democracy is a messy process which sometimes appears worse than authoritative and authoritarian regimes that African countries have experimented several decades earlier.

Take the case of Zambia and Zimbabwe where leaders during the 1990s used the democratic institutions to solidify their regimes. In Zambia for example, president Fredrick Chiluba promised democratic transformation by promising good governance while at the same time used the same institutions to slowly eradicate most political oppositions particularly one he saw where threats to his dictatorial styled democracy. The same story is true in the case of Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Uganda and with mild exception to Tanzania where democracy was somehow prospering.

After almost 20 years of experimentation with democracy in Africa, little is understood about the role of democracy in Africa and how it works. The continent is in worse shape than what it was before the introduction of democracy with many countries plagued by civil wars and ethnic tensions as a result of falsified democratic elections. From the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Liberia, and recently event in Post Ivory Coast election echoed the messiness of the so called democratic election in Africa.

It is becoming self evident that Africa has not either understood how the democracy work or that the government institutions among African countries are not ripe to sustain the kind of democracy that we see in the western countries. If the first case is true that Africans have not understood how democracy works, then there is a need to educate people on how the democratic processes work to ensure that people understand the work of this messy governing mechanism. And if it is true that institutions in Africa are not strong enough to sustain the nature of the democratic transformation, then there is a choice to be made whether to develop institutions that foster the kind of the democratic transformation that we see in the western countries. However, if it is impossible at this time for Africa to develop such institutions to deal with post election issues, then it is about time for Africans to push the pause button on the democratic pendulum to evaluate why the democratic processes have not work well on the continent of Africa since its introduction to the continent.

International response to Libya: Lessons of Genocide in Rwanda and Massacre in Sarajevo

Almost two decades ago, the world saw thousands of people massacre in a cold blood bath in Rwanda. In matter of months, 800,000 Hutus and Moderate Tutsi were murdered while the world was watching. Just a year later after the Rwandan massacre, international opinions began to take shape. The outcry and condemnation of the barbaric massacre in Rwanda spread across capitals of the world, from Paris to London, Washington DC to Berlin, Rome to Kigali. Every civilized nation vehemently denounced Rwandan massacre and labeled it as genocide. Some influential people like former U.S. President Bill Clinton said, such massacre should have happened in 21st century.

Unfortunately, history repeated itself. In 1998, hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered in Yugoslavia while the same international community was debating the language of the UN mandate regarding the United Nations and NATO intervention in the Balkan. However, because the conflict in the Balkan took place in the European Community backyards, Europe was quick to intervene and NATO took the lead to enforce UN mandate to prevent what would have been the largest European massacre second to holocaust in which millions of innocent Jews were murdered.

So when Colonel Gaddafi said a month ago that, “he would have no mercy on his people.” I was personally afraid thinking that Rwandan like massacre was going to repeat itself again in Libya. It might be too soon to say that the world has averted blood bath in Libya. However it is safe to say that something an extraordinary has happened. It hard to assess how this quick response was coordinated but one this is certain to me. The images and scope of Rwandan genocide have made it hard for people like the French President Nicholas Sarkozy to sit back and watched the Libyan dictator slaughtering his own people.


Regardless of the outcome of this international operation, credit has to been given to the French, British, Italy and United States for taking the lead and diverted a blood bath in Libya. The question that I am wrestling with is this, what kind of Libya is the world expecting after the departure of Gaddafi? Would it be a stable Libya or unstable one? With Libya being a nation state made up of tribes, I am concerned that 42 years of Gaddafi dictatorial rule will be replaced by instability and civil wars. It likely that the international community may succeed in getting rid of Gaddafi regime, however, international community is nervous of Libyan future. The world knows little about the Libyan rebels and that is troubling by itself. What if the very rebel that the world may bring to power in Libya will turn out to be like Taliban?