Peter Adwok Nyaba PhD,

INTRODUCTION

Many South Sudanese researchers and writers have published books, in referral journals and newspapers on the social and political configuration of South Sudan with little or no policy impact in the sociology and political economy of the country. The dominant political remains impervious to the oral and published critique. The rate at which our young republic of South Sudan is sliding back into prehistory is alarming. This is a modest contribution to the discourse on the inordinately huge challenges facing the people of South Sudan as they construct their state and build their nation.

The research we conducted in the context of ‘the House of Nationalities’[Nyaba, 2000] revealed that sixty seven nationalities in their variegated demographic weight differentials, with the Dinka and Makaraka being the single largest and smallest nationalities respectively, populate South Sudan. This fact is important to note, given that these nationalities constitute the building blocks of the South Sudan nation. Indeed the concepts of inclusivity and visibility of each nationality in the national liberation process drove the idea of the house of nationalities in the context of unity in diversity.

Having said that, I want now to problematize the issues that face our young republic of South Sudan along the concepts of ‘society’, ‘state’ and ‘liberation’ in this order. In this exercise, I hope my tools for analysis and synthesis will not fail me. My theoretical foundation of this discourse grounds in Marxist analysis of history that state is a superstructure of society. That is to say, society predates the emergence of state as a social construct. The Sudanese state and for that matter South Sudan as a state is an extension of Westphalian state model transmitted to us through the agency of colonialism in the nineteen century.

Colonialism and colonial rule distorted, indeed interrupted and froze at a primoval stages what would have been the autochthonous development of Sudanese nationalities. While the colonial administration united them in one country nevertheless it instituted the policy of ‘divide and rule’to segregate, weaken their resistance and prevent solidarity among them. The ‘Closed Districts Ordinance’[1]was intended to insulate the people of Southern Sudan, the Nuba and Funj from modernizing ideas and ideologies. The colonial administration tasked the Christian Missionaries with the job of block and blunting the social and political consciousness of their converts. Paradoxically the Church inadvertently produced such radical clergy as Fr. Saturnino Lohure..

SOCIETY IN SOUTH SUDAN

Except in certain cases where slavery and disease decimated their population, the nationalities that inhabit South Sudan have remained for nearly three hundred years unaffected by industrialization, communication and information technology. Their mode means and relations of production have unchanged over the last two hundred years since the Turco-Egyptian occupation of Sudan [1821 -1885]. There has been extensive social segmentation and migration due to internal or external wars, disease and depletion of resources resulting in differentiation and emergence of subnational groups in adjacent or distant locations. Consequent to separate and sometimes isolated existence some of these subnational groups developed different dialects, traditions and customs.

This phenomenon pronounces more among the Dinka [found in Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile and Kordofan], Nuer [found in Upper Nile and western Ethiopian], Moro [found Equatoria and West Nile in Uganda], the Ateker group [South Sudan, Southwest Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda] and the Murle group [found in Upper Nile, Equatoria and Kenya]. The most characteristic feature of this phenomenon, which anthropologists described as ‘ethnic federation’, is the absence of centralized authority and with it the concept of state.

This contrasts development with the segmentation and migration of the Luo [found in Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile, Western Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and DR Congo], who wherever they settled established some form of centralized authority in the person of the ‘Nyie’ [Anywaa], Reth [Chollo], Ruot [Acholi, Luo (Jur Chol), Luo (Kenya)] representing a primordial state. The Azande [found in South Sudan, DR Congo and Central African Republic] established a state, which the French and the British destroyed consequent to the cooperation between Gbudwe and the Mahdist state. The key point in this theoretical configuration is, whether in acephalous or cephalous societies (where centralized authority has evolved) that society and state remain undifferentiated and power not emancipated (through institutionalization) from the person wielding and exercising it.

On the political economy plane, the mode of social production ranges from gathering, hunting/fishing to subsistence agriculture in crop production and traditional animal husbandry. The relations of production remains communal which also defines the social identity and all that goes with it. The community dominates and defines the individual’s attitudes, perceptions and preferences. The individual remains hostage to the society s/he hails from, which also expects he/r to respond according to its concerns, interests and aspirations. This plays out negatively where the individual holding public office behaves according and responds to society’s expectation in respect of public property. This resulted, more often than not, in abuse of office, corruption, nepotism and similar mal-administrative practices. When you find government, ministry or department, populated by the ethnic community from the top person to junior then you know what I mean.

THE STATE IN SOUTH SUDAN

Although a successor state from the Sudan following independence on July 9, 2011, state formation in South Sudan is at its rudimentary stage precisely because of the development of society and other contributing factors linked o colonialism. The Turco-Egyptian (1821-1885), the Mahdiya (1885 -1898) and the Anglo-Egyptian (1899 -1956) states in the Sudan were brutal, extractive, exploitative and oppressive that linked the Sudan to the world capital system of exploitation. This prompted massive resistance on the part of the people in different parts of the country. The state expanded establishing finally its 1917[2]international borders at the expense and subjugation of the various kingdoms and nationalities.

The struggle for liberty, freedom and human dignity that characterized the resistance of the people of South Sudan did not end with colonial pacification. It continued after independence of Sudan on January 1^st, 1956 against the national governments. In order to achieve independent statehood and international recognition the people of South Sudan had to fight two wars. The two wars and the culture of armed resistance to political exclusion, domination and oppression meant that South Sudan had to forfeit socio-economic development of its human and huge natural resources.

The underdevelopment of the natural resources of South Sudan registers in the low level of social awareness and political consciousness of its people. Social awareness and political consciousness reflected in the culture of political organization and action are a function of socio-economic development. Industrialized parts of the Sudan [Khartoum and Gezira] demonstrate high level of social awareness and political consciousness compared to the less developed parts. In South Sudan, the wars and culture of resistance operated to block potentialities for social and economic development[3]while at the same time unlocking the potentials for violence and war.

This explains why it is easy to mobilise South Sudanese for war than for passive political resistance characteristic of urban proletariat and lumpens in North Sudan. The struggle for social and economic rights in the cities and towns in northern Sudan translate into political struggle resulting in change oppressive regimes e.g. in 1964 and 1985 popular uprisings. It is worth noting that the civil wars fought in southern Sudan created conditions for the success of the two respective popular uprisings.

LIBERATION IN SOUTH SUDAN

The concept of liberation links up with the struggle against oppressive reality, which submerges people’s consciousness. As a process liberation obtains in the context of conscientisation, whereby people conceive and change reality consequent to praxis – reflection and action [Paulo Fererri, 1974]. Thus transforming an oppressive reality essentially means liberating the oppressed and the oppressor. In this context, liberation must occur initially at the personal level before it works to produce a counter society emerged from oppression. In 1983, Dr. John Garang de Mabior deserted his post in the Sudan Armed Forces to establish and lead the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army [SPLM/SPLA] to wage the ‘revolutionary’ war of national liberation. The SPLM/SPLA, a section of the national democratic revolution, emerged from South Sudan, which due to its underdevelopment constituted the weakest link in the Sudanese state system and an unlikely spot for revolution[4].

The ‘society’, ‘state’ and ‘liberation’ linkages played out in a contradiction that produced the current social and political environment in South Sudan, which justifies the notion that revolution leading to social change or transformation can only spearheaded by a conscientious organized working class armed with a political ideology for this transformation. South Sudan consequent to its underdevelopment had no organized working class. The onus of liberation therefore fell on what Amilcar Cabral[5]termed ‘bourgeois petit’the literate section of society whose dominance in the state and society accrue not from social production of economic wealth but from letters.

According to Cabral, for the petty bourgeois to transform a socially and economically underdeveloped society as obtaining in South Sudan it must commit class suicide to resurrect in the guise of revolutionary intellectuals closely allied in solidarity with the masses of the people. The war of national liberation the SPLM/SPLA spearheaded instead produced a military elite – the SPLA generals, who due to lack of political ideology of transforming society, emerged completely detached from the masses of the people. The clutch slipped and the wheel turned full circle to the starting point of social domination and oppression.

South Sudan is in a state of civil war. Its people have never been as fragmented as today along ethnic and regional fault lines in a manner that jeopardizes its sovereignty and independence. The war quickly eroded the social capital that bounded the people for decades if not centuries enabling them to resist their common enemies. The state in South Sudan is at risk of failing and total collapse. The writings on the wall suggest that UN Security Council or IGAD Regional intervention is imminent. Several factors conspired to construct this socio-political architecture.

The SPLM/SPLA lacked political ideology

As mentioned above the SPLM/SPLA emerged from the backward parts of Sudan characterized by shallow culture of social and political organization. It was a military rather than political insurrection. The failure to evolve a political ideology reflecting the objective reality obtaining in the country and the aspiration of the people condemned the SPLM/SPLA to militarization of society and militarism as its modis operandisrather than political organization for military action. The subculture of militarism eclipsed the political message and character of the SPLM/SPLA pushing to the background the liberation process of conscientisation and transforming the oppressive reality through praxis. The SPLM/SPLA therefore became a militarist machine conditioned by military doctrine and routine that produced and promoted a cult of personality and a subculture that emphasized hierarchical rather than horizontal or comradely relations in the ranks and file as well as between the combatants and civil population among whom they operated. The execution of military action outside its political and ideological context generated serious contradictions within the SPLM/SPLA ranks.

The SPLM/SPLA shunt political education and organization

The conventionalization of the guerrilla war, consequent to availability and external access to abundant military logistics, accelerated the pace of war [Nyaba, 1997]. This deprived the SPLM/SPLA of the opportunity to undertake political mobilisation, education and organization. It is not feasible to conceive of social transformation of an oppressive reality without political education and organization. Political enlightenment and education is necessary for attitudinal change to enable correction perception of the oppressive reality, which submerges the people. Organization is a necessary tool for uniting the people for action.

The absence of political education and organization inadvertently forced the complete and absolute reliance on military discipline leading to alienation of the masses of the people. The SPLM/SPLA interaction with the civil population in essence appeared like liberating the people with the tools of domestication. It produced and passive, rather than active, mass not involved in their own liberation. The condescending attitude of many SPLA combatants that ‘we liberated you’ smacks of this militarist arrogance.

Without change of attitudes, because of political education, it was not possible to disseminate and inculcate in the masses of the people the ideas and principles of social justice, equality, freedom and democracy without which we cannot envisage liberation. Therefore social awareness and political consciousness of the masses fossilized at the primoval level of society.

The SPLM/SPLA leadership disdained institutions and democratic structures

As a corollary of shunning political education and organization was the SPLM/SPLA’s disdain of institutions and structure in the SPLM. That explains why the SPLM produced its draft constitution only in 2008 exactly twenty-five years after the launch of the SPLM/SPLA and the publication of the SPLM Manifesto in July 1983. The resistance to construction of institutions and structures in the SPLM corresponded to the certain logic of absolute power whereby the leader did everything from reflective thinking and conceptualization to the distribution of material goods military or otherwise.

This led to marginalization and exclusion of colleagues in decision-making process of the SPLM generating contradictions within the SPLM/SPLA leadership leading to factionalisation and splinterism. Dr. Lam Akol’s clandestine paper “Why Garang must go now”(1990) came in this context. The refusal to construct institutions that defined the roles and responsibilities in the SPLM/SPLA eventually led to the Nasir Declaration [August 1991] and precipitated the split with the SPLM/SPLA.

The absence of political structures, rules and procedures to resolve the internal contradictions meant that no avenues existed in the movement for venting the excessive internal pressures the leadership contradictions generated. This condemned the SPLM/SPLA to rely on violence and military action as means of resolving the contradictions.

The SPLM/SPLA lacked political programme

It is virtually impossible to envisage liberation without a minimum political programme for social and economic transformation. To date (December 31, 2014), the SPLM has not produced a political programme, which is an elaborate document that translate the SPLM vision and strategic political objectives in policies and plans of action the SPLM government implements to transform the lives of the people in accordance with liberation agenda.

During the war and SPLM/SPLA’s emphasis on war efforts registered in two negativities. The first one was that it failed to evolve a society in the liberated areas counter to the society under the oppressive regime. The concept of ‘counter society’ encapsulated in the concept of ‘strong rear base’ developed by the Chinese [against the Japanese and the Nationalist] and the Vietnamese [against the Americans] is relevant to the situation in South Sudan. The rear base is the social, economic and political bases of the guerrilla army where the SPLM would implement its political programme and exercise political authority establishes its administration and implements the concepts of justice, social equality, freedom and democracy. In the rear base, the SPLM would build an economy to support its war efforts instead of relying wholly on external resources.

However, instead of developing and applying the concept of rear base in the liberated areas, the SPLM/SPLA encouraged migration of the population to become refugees [Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda] as a means of accessing logistics and food for the army. This generated another negativity. The SPLM/SPLA became dependent on external resources unlike the Anya-nya, which relied on the people in matters of food, health care and other necessities. The SPLM/SPLA forced the population that remained behind in the villages to rely on international humanitarian assistance to generated food for the army. This produced relief dependence syndrome, which still stalks the people to date in some areas.

The second negativity involved the relation between the SPLA combatants and the civil population among whom they operated characterized by brutality, dehumanization and abuse of human rights. Absolute dependence on external resources produced in the combatants an attitude that engendered disrespect for and condescendence upon the civil population.

Inability to transform the SPLM/SPLA into their respective professional spheres

The factors above combined to prevent the separation of the SPLM/SPLA into their respective professional spheres. In fact, the SPLM/SPLA evolved like Siamese twins conjoined in the heads that a surgical operation to separate them into their respective professional spheres would result in their mutual death[6]. The lack of political education and organization; absence of constitutional order implying lack of institutions and structures in the SPLM/SPLA and lack of political programme virtually delegitimized the SPLM, demystified its leadership and disempowered its cadres. Thus, the SPLM/SPLA failed to self-transform into a mass based political party sensu stricto on the one hand and professional army on the other.

The CPA thrust the SPLM unto an unfamiliar domain of government and governance. The tragic and sudden disappearance of Dr. John Garang complicated the SPLM/SPLA political predicament as it embarked on CPA implementation. The new SPLM leadership was inept and could not manage the baggage of contradictions accumulated without resolution over twenty-one years of armed struggle.

One such contradictions is the lack of institutionalization of the SPLM/SPLA political and military power. Since its inception in 1983, power in the SPLM remained personified in the person of the Chairman and SPLA Commander in Chief that all contradictions in the SPLM/SPLA leadership revolved around that issue. It was the drivers of the split with Anya-nya two in 1983 and again within the SPLM/SPLA following the Nasir Declaration 1991. Power was the driver of the Yei crisis 2004 at the eve of the CPA and finally of the events leading to December 15, 2013 and the current civil war.

The wielding and exercise of SPLM political authority without rules and procedures negatively affected the relations within the Movement. It engendered a subculture of political patronage and clients, which eschewed democratic principles and practice. In this connection, the political tact and stature of the leader became the determinant factor in the functioning of the SPLM system. Thus although patronage system obtained Dr. John Garang managed through his personal charisma to keep the system functioning, what Dr. Lual Deng (2012) described as ‘the power of creative thinking.’ That explains how the SPLM/SPLA survived through difficult and challenging political and military situations in spite of its internal contradictions generated by the factors I discussed above.

The contradictions rocked the SPLM/SPLA generating strong ethnic under currents and civil war barely three years after independence because of those factors and the failure to resolve them through political and ideological debate, and internal dialogue. However, it was more the leadership style of comrade Salva Kiir Mayardit that permitted the fashions to reach boiling point and eruption of violence. Comrade Salva Kiir employed his military intelligence skills rather state and the SPLM institutions to manage the government of South Sudan. He built a series of spies and informants networks to inform his decisions. For the first time ethnic and regional lobbies surrounded the SPLM leadership the most notable being the Bahr el Ghazal Elders mainly from Warrap and the Jieng Council of Elders (JCE) entailing Dinka also from Upper Nile.

Through his style of leadership, President Salva Kiir Mayardit has brought South Sudan to the edge of disaster. In less than three years, the state in South Sudan made a quantum slide from fragility to failure and now tending to collapse. The society is demoralized and in despair. The economy is in shambles as the only foreign exchange earner is pumping incredibly at a loss that it might as well been better to stop production. The IGAD peace process hung up unconscionably at the sharing of power between President [Salva Kiir] and the proposed Prime Minister [Dr. Riek Machar] while innocent lives continue to perish. The current context of South Sudan is pathetic. No patriots would countenance it on account of speculation for whatsoever advantage.

DISCUSSING THE INTELLECTUAL JOURNEY

Having attempted above to locate the political malaise, I want to discuss the intellectual journey proposed by Dr. Lual Deng at the beginning of the discourse. The elements of this journey are the present social and political context in South Sudan, which we attempted above to analyse. The social and political forces capable of participation in the journey, their ideological disposition, the time span of the journey. The journey trajectory situates in the globalized world defined by high level of technological and scientific development.

Before embarking on the journey I realize that South Sudan and its people have yet to place their feet on the first step are the bottom of the world socio-economic and technological development ladder hundred ninety three years since the Ottomans linked the Sudan to the world capitalist system of extraction and exploitation. This is subject of Eddie Thomas eye-catching latest title “South Sudan: A Slow Liberation” [Zed Books in press].

What then have the political, military and business elite that drive the social and political engineering processes of the state in South Sudan being doing? A cursory look into this dominant class reveals an astounding reality that it remains primitive intimately attached to archaic values and traditions of their respective ethnic formations. In 1999, I participated in a study that became the basis of implementation of USAID funded multimillion-dollar Sudan Transition Aid for Rehabilitation [STAR] Programme in ten counties of Central and Western Equatoria and Lakes in Bahr el Ghazal. The Programme provided cash to the civil society groups to engage in business that would generate wealth. After three years, the Programme discovered that the recipients of the STAR loans had invested much of the money in traditional economic activities[7]that frustrated its strategic objective of recycling to other beneficiaries the reimbursed money.

Between 2005 and 2011 when South Sudan became independent, it had received in total about US Dollars sixteen billion from the oil revenue. I want to ask the economists what percentage of this money was invested in productive economic projects [agriculture, industry], in services sector and in education? Our people instead of ordering new cars from manufacturers in Japan, carrying cash dollars went to Uganda to buy dilapidated second sometimes third hand right-hand steering wheeled mini buses that became traffic hazards on our roads. South Sudan because the only country in the world where the US dollar note became a commodity on the formal and informal markets and which worked to service the economies of its neighbours than its own.

The political, military and business elite most of them former SPLA combatants were now involved and entangled in an intertwined blackmail that they closed their eyes and ears to what they were doing bringing down the country. They eschewed the SPLM vision and concepts of social justice, equality, freedom and prosperity as they engaged in cutthroat competition in the context of primitive accumulation of wealth. They jettisoned the comradeship cultivated in the context of the war of national liberation. This is how social and blood relations, rather than institutional and political relationships, imperceptibly crept into their practice. This engendered corruption, nepotism and ethnic favouritism (tribalism). The social, economic and political environment favoured erection of ethnic and regional lobbies as agencies for extracting favours in the form of government contracts, appoints to constitutional post and others.

The experience of the last ten years epitomizes the historical failure of bourgeois petit as agents of social transformation of an underdeveloped country like South Sudan. This brings me back to Cabral that the bourgeois petitrepresented by many of us must commit class suicide to resurrect in the guise of revolutionary intellectuals armed with a political ideology that places the people at the centre of our development discourse. In this connection, the class suicide blends well with the intellectual journey towards a coherent political ideology for transforming South Sudan. It cannot be another way.

Are we ready to commit class suicide to have solidarity with our people? Many of us outshine ourselves opportunistically endearing ourselves to our ethnic communities when in the heart of our hearts we foster different value systems. Do the elements that make up the Jieng Council of Elders genuinely believe in what they are doing propping up President Salva Kiir Mayardit in all the horrible things he is doing? Do they countenance the collapse of South Sudan as long as Salva Kiir is president? It is necessary to reflect before the suicide lest we may not resurrect after all. For committing class suicide means eschewing archaic ideas, false beliefs and deflating inordinately large self- or collective-ego.

This brings me to another question: in what coherent political ideology do we encapsulate the concepts of social justice, equality, freedom, democracy and prosperity for all? According to Marxist historical materialism, history does not repeat itself. You cannot catch a train that has already left station. South Sudan is in such pains today because the bourgeois petitare generating contradictions trying to recreate the conditions of primitive accumulation humankind passed five hundred years ago. This is not permissible. We should start where the world is while we live.

It is feasible and possible to implement social justice in South Sudan. Why not? The social stratification in terms of economic is bridgeable. The Government of South Sudan, with the resources available, can create conditions for social justice by combating the tendency to ethnic and regional favouritism in ditching out government contracts in order to promote equality in society. Since the bourgeois petit is not economically powerful to undertake large scale industrial installations, the government of South Sudan should undertake the construction of large industrial and infrastructural projects like railways, huge hydroelectric power planta and dams, power transmission grids and highways which need huge investments. The government can undertake these in the context of public private participation. In this way of wealth generation and distribution, it is possible to realise prosperity for all and in short time of ten to twenty years.

Democracy is another component element of social transformation. Democracy is not a raincoat you put on only in summer. A cultural trait stays with you in all that you whether private or public. The society cultivates and internalizes democracy [theory and practice] through participation in social, economic and political engineering processes of state formation and nation building. There is no other way you can parachute democratic principles and practice except in the context of the struggle for social transformation of society. That is why the concepts of democracy and democratic transformation blends with the class suicide the bourgeois petit must undertake. In this case, the concept and practice of democracy registers in active participation in the engineering processes and not establishment of bogus and briefcase political parties.

This brings me to the political format and organisation for participation. In the recent SPLM/SPLA Consultative Conference on the IGAD Peace process in Pagak, I was put to task explaining why it was necessary to reconcile the SPLM leadership and reunite the SPLM. The conference was negative charged against the Intra-SPLM Dialogue in Arusha, Tanzania. I had to mark every word I uttered. I told the conference the story of the conference of reconciliation of Jikany and Lou in Akobo in 1994. The Moderator of the reconciliation conference was a Ugandan Bishop of seventy-seven Churches. He told us a story concerning his two-year old son. I hope I will not be bothering you.

“As I prepared for Sunday service my son kept interrupting my preparation. I would give him arithmetic problem to solve. He would do it correctly. I did it several times while the time for my sermon in the Church was approaching. This prompted me to pull down and tear to pieces the world map that hung on the wall. I asked him to fix it and in two minutes, he came back with the map fixed correctly. I asked his to tell me how he did it.” The boy replied, “on the reverse side of the world map was a man, so what I did was to fix the man”. “Fixing man to resolve the problems of the world became the subject of my sermon that Sunday.”

There is nothing wrong with the SPLM per se; the people who make up the SPLM constitute the crisis in the SPLM. You will find this in what I recounted above that the SPLM leadership lost the vision that attracted the masses of the Sudanese to the SPLM to sacrifice their lives for the ideals of social justice, equality, freedom, democracy and prosperity for all. The Arusha process is an exercise in self-appraisal, criticism and self-criticism the entire SPLM membership, the half-hearted hang-ons who believe in the arrival rather than the journey, must urgently undertake to save the country from collapse.

The young republic of South Sudan and its people are in the present situation because of the SPLM historical failure to evolve a political ideology, to construct a constitution with institutions and structures, to formulate a political programme for social and economic transformation of the oppressive reality that submerged our people. In this context and for over twenty-one years the contest for power at the top consumed the energy of our people. This divided instead of uniting them as soon as the contradiction with the north had been resolved through the referendum.

The SPLM remains the only viable political forces that united South Sudanese across ethnic and regional fault lines. It is therefore the only guarantee against fragmentation of South Sudan. However, it must reconcile and reunite its ranks, reorganize and revitalize itself, build its institutions and institutionalize its relationship along the ideology of social democracy as practiced by the labour Parties in northern European countries.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

The intellectual journey towards a coherent political ideology spurs serious reflections and I hope we can discourse this to its logical conclusion. For those of us in the DPF who are not SPLM members or who have an axe to grind with the SPLM I would implore that we discuss these issues sombrely. We should learn to live with our differences whether gender, political ideas, facial marks or body complexion. This is the essence of democracy. They may lead us to unity of ideas

There is nothing outrageously fatal with having one strong political party in South Sudan. If we have to catch up with the rest of humanity by stepping onto its development ladder, we cannot do that while struggling against ourselves in futile and meaningless battles that prevent us from focusing on building our country and improving our people’s quality of life.

We may have to explore the different experiences on the African continent and elsewhere and draw leaf from them. The social and political stability in Tanzania attributes to the maturity demonstrated by Chama Cha Mapenduzi (CCM) initially under the leadership of Mwalimu Julius K Nyerere. The ethnic federalism implemented by Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Party (EPRDP) has somehow created conditions of political stability in Ethiopian.

Let us pursue the dual processes of peace making and Intra-SPLM Dialogue as elements of our intellectual journey towards a coherent political ideology, a stable and peaceful South Sudan.

Nairobi, Kenya

December 30, 2014.

Footnotes

[1]This followed the 1924 revolution of the White Flag under the leadership of Ali Abdelatif and Black officer in the Egyptian Army.

[2]The international border of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan were established after the forceful annexation of Dar Fur following the defeat of Sultan Ali Dinar in 1916.

[3]Wars impede investments and more over the government diverts development budget to war efforts. When war broke out in Southern Sudan in 1955, the government closed down the Equatoria Projects Board that managed the Nzara agro-industrial complex/

[4]In the same manner, Marxists in Europe expected revolution to erupt in Germany and Britain, which had an advanced industrial proletariat rather than Russia, which was still underdeveloped by 1917.

[5]The founding intellectual revolutionary leader of Action Party for Independence of Guinea Bissau and Cap Verde [PAIGC] whom the fascist Portuguese Dictatorship assassinated in 1973.

[6]A Newspaper article written by the author and published by the Nile Mirror edited by Dan Effie in 2002.

[7]In Mundri, Rumbek and Thiet the beneficiaries invested in cattle, which in traditional animal husbandry takes longer gestation period than the time requires to start refunding the loan.