Did South Sudan ask the real questions?

For more than a week now, South Sudan has been embroiled in a military conflict that has claimed more than 500 lives. This conflict is a result of what the South Sudan government alleges to be a failed military coup/mutiny orchestrated by Riek Machar, South Sudan’s former vice president.

The roots of this conflict reside in the military struggle between military groups in South Sudan and the Khartoum government that started more than 30 years ago.  Whereas SPLM/A was the dominant force in this struggles (with its military leader, John Garang at the forefront), there were so many other military groups and ethnic militias that were engaged in this struggle such as South Sudan Defence Forces (SSDF). It is worth noting that these different military groups controlled territory, some of which was and is still mineral rich.

After signing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement  (CPA) with the Khartoum government in 2005,  SPLM/A was trapped in a conflict of interests. Some leaders within its ranks such as John Garang pursued the idea of a new (unified) Sudan whereas others preferred secession of South Sudan from North Sudan. John Garang pushes the idea of a new Sudan with hope that he would be the first black president of the new Sudan. Both Arabs and non Arab Sudanese endorsed his ambition and vision when they massively welcomed him and the SPLM/A leadership to Khartoum on July 08, 2005, a gesture that shocked the Khartoum regime.

Dr. John Garang. Maybe his dream of a new/unified Sudan had solutions to the crises in Darfur, South Kordofan and South Sudan

It seems that after signing the CPA in 2005, the SPLM/A leadership preoccupied themselves with finding a compromise between these two interests. This may have weakened the internal capacity of the new state to fully focus on the existing political and military challenges of the time.

One of the areas that the SPLM/A government needed to urgently address was how to assimilate and integrate other military groups and militias into one military structure. Instead, the SPLM/A created a structure where the military groups and militias remained militarily semi-autonomous with all the infrastructure and fully fledge chains of command. SPLM/A just coopted leaders of these groups into government but never dissolved their military structures into one unified force.  Worst of all, these leaders wielded influence authority and control over their respective groups. As such, these semi-autonomous units became a bargaining tool for political and economic self-aggrandizement by their respective coopted leaders.

This volatile arrangement created internal dislocations and instability and fed secessionist sentiments and threats of breaking away inside South. This fragility was compounded by the fact that some military groups were tribal in composition, and they controlled territory and mineral wealth.

It should be born in our mind that ever since she attained independence in 2011, South Sudan has been under siege from Sudan (north) over disputed border territories. The tension between the two countries reached its peak in 2012 during the Heglig crisis when soldiers of both countries clashed in the border town of Heglig. Additionally, South Sudan has been a ground on which the Ugandan government and that of Sudan have continued to settle their military scores. Since 2011, SPLM/A government has been engaged both internally and externally, an act that has denied it ample time and space to concentrate on finding solutions to internal challenges facing South Sudan.

Mineral dealers who bankroll leaders of different armed groups and militias in exchange for unconstrained access to mineral resources have also fueled the internal conflicts in South Sudan. If the current crisis is not resolved this behavior will do none but escalate.

As planes evacuate foreign nationals from South Sudan, let's remember that there are millions of South Sudanese whose only home is South Sudan. The danger with this crisis is that it might energize or be energized by other armed conflicts in nearby areas such as Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Central African Republic, and Darfur.

South Sudan people are caught in the middle of this conflict. It is only a political solution that can deliver peace and hope to their hearts

It is politics that brought all these warring military factions together. The same politics can help these same groups to mend fences. Politics is the only womb that will give birth to peace, hope, and prosperity for the people of South Sudan. The current crisis is begging for a political solution.

Alfdaniels Mabingo is a Fulbright Fellow at New York University