It isn’t Kiir’s job to disentangle what Bashir has muddled

The ICC-indicted Sudan’s President Omer Al-Bashiir has, on July 16, 2008, appointed a crisis committee to be led by his 1st Vice President Lt. General Salva Kiir. The mission is aimed at combating the negative impacts of the ICC’s indictment on the country. This is but a euphemism here for ‘to protect the President from the ICC.’ The indictment came at a time when the majority of Sudanese in general and supporters of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) in particular were cheering that a golden opportunity has finally arrived for them to declare with one voice: enough is enough. Politics being what it is, and given that the National Congress Party (NCP) is on its knees now, the SPLM leadership could have masterfully hammered the NCP and pushed it hard towards fully implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), but our General, Salva Kiir, seems to have missed, yet again, another very lucrative opportunity. What in the world is wrong with the SPLM leadership?

To delineate the problems, we will first see what the circulating propositions regarding the reasons why Mr. Kiir has opted to accept the chairmanship of the so-called crisis committee are. There are several propositions out there but three of them are more compelling than the rest. We will address each of these three propositions and see what the merits of each are and how much the SPLM, its supporters and the Sudanese people can gain from it.

First, there is this view that the SPLM should appease the NCP and simply totter towards 2011 referendum. The SPLM Chairman is rumored to share this view like many other Southern Sudanese. The proponents of this proposition believe that Kiir is simply faking credulity by buying into whatever comes up with the NCP in order to keep the status quo – no return to war motto - until 2011; after which, Southern Sudan may decide to secede and thus relieving Southerners from having to mingle with Islamists anymore. We hear this view often from some of our fellow Southerners.

Second, another proposition is the view that the SPLM would want to peacefully heave the NCP into next year’s (2009) general election upon which, the proponents of this view believe, the NCP will loose big time, and the SPLM will emerge victorious and thus rule the Sudan. Therefore, Kiir needs not of start a confrontation with Al-Bashiir since Al-Bashiir is going to last no further than next year, anyways, in his position. A typical view of the New Sudan proponents, and there are lots of them.

Third, there is a proposition that Kiir is simply a novice in politics; that he is unable to differentiate between what is a gimmick and what is a genuine policy position, that Kiir‘s credulity isn‘t fake but real, that he has missed several opportunities before despite their being too obvious. Therefore, Kiir’s acceptance to lead the so-called crisis committee was simply out of his sheer unawareness of the real issues at stake and his inability to detect NCP’s sinister ruses.

These are the three propositions and views that are floating around and to which Kiir’s late move could be attributed. Now let’s see what the merits of each proposition are.

Take the first proposition, its main premise, which is appeasement of the NCP in order to reach 2011. This is befogged by a severe naivety. The reason why Omer Al-Bashiir is keeping the CPA is not because the SPLM is meek, but because of Al-Bashiir’s own calculations in which he sensed the post-9/11’s dangers that could have cost him his throne and may be his life as well. In addition, it is because of Al-Bashiir’s failure to flush out the SPLA from the South as he promised in the beginning of his reign. In fact, Al-Bashiir signed the CPA out of his own interest and not because he liked the behavior of the SPLM’s leadership. The same is still true now: Al-Bashiir is clinging to the CPA because he knows that without it he would simply vanish. As such, it isn’t the appeasement of the NCP that will enable us to reach the much awaited 2011 referendum, but the toughness we exude and the pressure we exert on the NCP. This means not missing any opportunity to push back on the NCP. Therefore, if this was the reason why Kiir accepted to lead Al-Bashiir’s crisis committee, then he is simply wrong and needs to redress his move.

Regarding the premise of the second proposition, which asserts that the SPLM would want to contain the NCP for now in order to defeat them in elections next year, it is simply invalid too; worse, it is indicative of a severe naivety of its proponents. The NCP has consistently shown, time and again, that elections are but decorative procedures that it can stage-manage to suit its goals; thus, any body that plans to outvote the NCP through elections is simply daydreaming and should have learned his lesson from how the NCP has conducted this year (2008) general population census. Unless the NCP is cornered - not bailed out, and unless the international community is allowed to press hard on the NCP, the so-called 2009 election is simply going to be a sham because the NCP can easily doctor its results. Therefore, this proposition doesn’t justify Kiir’s late move.

For the third proposition‘s premise, that Kiir is a novice in politics and is simply juggling the eggs, well the fickle nature of his stances during his 3-years reign over the SPLM lends some truth to this argument. In fact, this is the most probable reason why Kiir has accepted to lead that infamous crisis committee, because if the other two propositions aren’t valid as we explained above, then we are left with nothing but to conclude that Kiir is a novice. Anyway, it is debatable whether or not Kiir is an amateur, so let’s park it here.

Now what?

Having repudiated all the propositions above, except for the third one; that Kiir is a novice, some of you may be asking already: then what? Well, we would say here that no matter what camp you belong to within the SPLM, whether it is the one that wants to take over the whole Sudan by pushing aside the NCP through 2009’s elections, or whether you are from the secessionists camp and would want to respite the NCP into 2011, the way to achieve either of them isn’t by appeasing the NCP.

Let’s put it bluntly that the CPA’s interim period is nothing but a cold war period, and the winner of such a war is he who shows how tough he can be, not the appeaser. So, here is what Kiir could have done and can still do if he wants:

Keep a low profile in the ICC-NCP confrontation by simply doing what he does usually: retreat back to Juba. The ramification of being seen in the international arena taking shots at the ICC or appearing to be defending a war criminal are detrimental; especially, for some one who would, some time later, want the international community to come to his rescue. Yes, we will need the international support for the would-be independent state of South Sudan after the 2011 referendum, which won’t bode well with the same quarters Mr. Kiir, now, wants to protect. Even if the SPLM were to, magically, win the elections and become the ruling party in the Sudan, the international support will also be essential.

I’m well aware of the fact that Mr. Kiir cannot afford to be seen as siding with the ICC against his president, but I’m also aware that he can afford to stay away from the whole debacle and keep a low profile.

To conclude, one would want to remind Mr. Kiir that he is the most powerful man now in the Sudan: he rules and controls half of the country, he is the second man in GoNU with a veto, he has the mighty SPLA behind him, he has the sympathy of the other marginalized regions in the Sudan like Darfur, the international community has high expectation for the SPLM to take the Sudan to a new direction, and so forth. All that Mr. Kiir needs is to step up to the arena and articulate his positions and the NCP will have no where to turn but to listen.

SPLM Oyee