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      John Garang's legacy to the peace process, the SPLM/A & the south

      research-article
      Review of African Political Economy
      Review of African Political Economy
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            Abstract

            The death of Dr. John Garang, First Vice President of Sudan, President of Southern Sudan, and Chairman of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/ Army (SPLM/A) in a helicopter crash on 30 July, and the riots that followed, produced doubts about the viability of the 9 January 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and the prospects of peace processes underway elsewhere in the country. On the surface, this is not surprising because Garang had been the leader of the SPLM/A since its founding in 1983 and for many in Sudan and abroad he virtually personified the struggle of the south. Garang was also the unchallenged focal point during the various peace processes, in particular during the final phase of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) negotiations which were largely reduced to then First Vice President Ali Osman Taha and himself. And more than anyone else on either side of the table, Garang was the biggest beneficiary of the peace process which granted him a virtual hegemonic position in the south and the holding of a strong vice presidency nationally.

            Main article text

            Beyond the south Garang was held in high esteem by many northern Sudanese who believed in his rhetoric of ‘New Sudan’, and – at least until recently – saw support of him and the SPLM/A as the best means to remove the highly unpopular ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and bring about a democratic transformation in the country. The Western powers, led by the US, saw Garang as the linchpin of the north-south peace process, indeed helped make him so, and looked to him to resolve the conflicts in western and eastern Sudan, as well as serving as a critical element in the ‘war on terror’. He also had close relations with many regional leaders, all of whom hoped he would be instrumental in ending Sudanese support for Islamist terrorism and groups like the Lord's Resistance Army.

            However, despite the lavish praise that greeted the signing of the CPA, and the critical role ascribed to Garang in achieving that agreement, the peace process was facing a crisis before Garang's untimely death because the agreement was not – as its defenders claimed – comprehensive (Young, 2005). At the core of the agreement was the Machakos Protocol, which involved a trade-off of self-determination for the south (a popular demand of all southerners) for the acceptance of Sharia in the north, a demand designed to give a measure of legitimacy to the NCP. And even this demand, which implied the commitment of the NCP to an Islamic vision of governance, was disingenuous since the leading elements of the ruling party had long since been displaced by security operatives for whom Islam was only a slogan.

            The impact of the agreement was not to invigorate a broader peace process, but instead to galvanise opposition across the south and north by those who feared that the entire national pie was being divided in their absence and at their expense. The backers of the agreement routinely labelled these critics ‘spoilers’ and either attempted to isolate them or looked to Garang to bring them on board a peace train, albeit a train that had already left the station. Although Garang and the SPLM/A proclaimed a ‘New Sudan’ which provided democracy and equity for all, the CPA was not a national agreement, nor was it a model that could be implemented elsewhere in the country, and even less was it a roadmap for democratic transformation. With most of the government and state resources divided between the parties to the CPA, there was little to give the large majority of Sudanese outside the process.

            Aftermath of Garang's death

            It might have been assumed that the commitment of the SPLM/A to a ‘New Sudan’ embracing all Sudanese, together with 2½ years of almost continuous negotiations with the NCP to reach a peace agreement, would have created a measure of trust between Sudan's disparate peoples. But within hours of the announcement of Garang's death, shemasha (street people) in Khartoum and a number of towns in the south were attacking and looting northern establishments. The rioters drew support from many disadvantaged communities, but significantly the largest numbers were from Darfur and the Nuba Mountains, and these groups were also most likely to have carried out the fire bombings. As a result, the rioters included more Moslems than Christians in their ranks. The cleavage was thus racial with the rioters coming from various African tribes, the targets were businesses owned by so-called Arab northerners and the security services, and apart from the local police, the rioters were confronted by security personnel from the north, most from the Shaggiya tribe of Vice President Ali Osman. Although there was little order and even less leadership in the riots, it appears that some Darfurians were inspired by the propaganda of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army. Generally, however, the riots took the form of the African marginalised from the streets and IDP camps looting the property of northern merchants and attacking northerners, after which the revenge attacks of the northerners began.

            Although the ‘New Sudan’ rhetoric of Garang opposed racialism and tribalism, the approach of the rioters was not in fact completely different from the SPLM/A's popular appeal which was widely understood to be a struggle against the jallaba, which is a pejorative term originally applied to Arab merchants operating in the south, but is now largely applied to all northerners (Young, 2003). In Juba, and to some extent Malakal, the small population of ‘Arab’ merchants, most of whom had lived in the south for two decades and had married locally, were ruthlessly attacked and many subsequently left, thus precipitating a food and market crisis. And in Khartoum, northern street fighters retaliated after the first day of attacks and for a brief period it appeared that the city would erupt into a race war. That did not happen, but the contrast between the language of the CPA, which stressed pluralism and national unity, and the reality expressed by those on the streets could not have been greater.

            Other currents came to the surface in the immediate aftermath of Garang's death. Islamists who had long opposed any agreement with the south that did not involve southern assimilation into the Islamist-Arabist mode used mosques to preach sermons of hate and struggle and appealed to parishioners to ‘take care of the infidels’. They held that Christian and pagan Africans were at the gates and should be fought. The hand of Turabi was widely held to be behind these efforts, but there are other Islamist currents at work in the north, and some are in the government itself. The Forum for Justice and Peace, a group fearful that the peace process will threaten Sharia in the north and supports northern self-determination, used the opportunity of the riots to appeal for the establishment of self-defence brigades. This group is led by Al-Tayeeb Mustafa, an uncle of President Beshir. The Ansar-Sunna, a Wahabbi group, also used the opportunity to press its extremist views.

            Divisions among southerners came to the surface during the riots in Khartoum. While many were saddened by Garang's death, there were some among the Dinka community from which Garang derives his origins who held that the Nuers were not demonstrating either enough grief or were not taking a sufficiently active role in the riots. It was also widely and falsely reported that Paulino Matieb, leader of the Nuer dominated South Sudan Defence Force (SSDF), had been assassinated and this rumour may have been spread to bring them in greater numbers into the anti-northerner rampage. Thankfully the Nuers for the most part did not rise to the bait because traditionally they strike more fear into northern Sudanese than other southerners. As well as a contingent of SPLM/A soldiers, armed men from the SSDF patrolled the streets to protect southerners from retaliation by irate northerners and SSDF leaders later reported that they came close to open conflict with the security services. Garang had long accused the SSDF of being stooges of the government and rejected any power sharing arrangement with them. Later the Military Intelligence refused to permit an SSDF contingent to attend Garang's funeral in Juba, apparently out of fear that it might end up in a violent conflict with the SPLM/A.

            Initially the security services watched, but did little, as rioters brazenly attacked northern establishments. This led to speculation that elements of the security services wanted the riots to develop as a means to deepen the divisions between northerners and southerners and weaken the growing influence of the SPLM/A in the north. Later when it became apparent that Darfurians and not southerners were the dominant elements in the melee the security services clamped down. Nonetheless, there were widespread reports that they or their friends conducted assassinations of enemies during the evening hours when Khartoum was under a curfew. After the riots, the security services claimed that their lack of preparedness was due to their weakness, particularly at the neighbourhood level, and argued for more resources.

            The riots spoke to the deep socio-economic and cultural divide in the country, and in particular in Khartoum. As a result, the capital has become a tinder box, with a largely Arab NIF linked elite at the apex, a decimated northern middle class, an impoverished working class, and a large population of marginalised and displaced from the south, west, Nuba Mountains, and the east. In recent years the marginalised and poverty-stricken have steadily increased, largely because of the multiple wars under way in the country, growing polarisation as a result of oil wealth, and the NCP's neo-liberal economic policies. And while the traditional northern opposition leadership has long called for an intefadah against the government, it did not support the riots, and nor did the poor from the centre and the riverine core, thus again emphasising the racial dimensions of the riots.

            Although the riots must be understood as a revolt of the marginalised, many of whom came from the north, they had the effect of driving the wedge further into the divide between northerners and southerners, between Arabs and Africans. Thus moderate northerners sometimes concluded that it was neither possible nor desirable to have southerners and northerners under one roof, while others from the north expressed the view that the abed (slaves, a pejorative term applied to southerners) should either behave themselves or return to the south. As a result, Garang's death and the ensuing riots have had the effect of increasing tensions between all of Sudan's disparate peoples, further undermining Garang's notion of ‘New Sudan’, and bringing the separation of the south one step closer.

            Garang & the development of the SPLM/A

            As was made clear in the Machakos Protocol of 20 July 2002, the peace process is built upon a compromise between southern demands for self-determination and the NCP's demand for Sharia in the north. But Garang did not initially press the demand for self-determination. Mainstream history dates the second civil war from the 1983 revolt by southern soldiers in the garrison town of Bor and the establishment of the SPLA under Garang a few months later. But the Addis Ababa Agreement of 1972, which ended the first civil war, was a subject of controversy from the beginning by those angered at the decision of Anyanya's leader, Joseph Lagu, to forego the struggle for independence and accept autonomy for the south. These opponents re-grouped and calling themselves Anyanya II began military operations in 1978 in eastern Upper Nile along the Ethiopian border under the banner of southern separation, or in contemporary parlance, national self-determination.

            The circumstances surrounding the formation of the SPLA and Garang's assumption of leadership of it remains murky, but there is little doubt that the Ethiopian Derg and its leader Haile Mengistu Mariam played a critical role (see for example, Adwok, 2000 and Akol, 2001). By 1983 the Derg was threatened by a number of Eritrean and Ethiopian guerrilla groups, all of whom espoused self-determination. Many of these groups received small amounts of logistical support from Khartoum, and Mengistu saw the revolt on his western border as an opportune means to counter the threat posed by Sudan. But he could not support Anyanya II with its separatist ideology which mirrored that of some of his opponents in Ethiopia.

            Instead, Mengistu looked to the creation of the SPLA to pursue a national agenda that called for a united Sudan and adopted a Marxist ideology of the type favoured by the Ethiopians, that is, statist, centralised, and beholden to Addis Ababa and its Eastern Bloc supporters. With Ethiopian support the newly formed and Garangled SPLA was able to largely defeat the separatist Anyanya II rebels and thus assume a dominant position in the southern rebellion. The natural proclivity of southerners to support self-determination was rejected and the vaguely leftist notion of ‘New Sudan’ became the guiding political objective. Attractive though this was among northern intellectuals and foreign supporters, ‘New Sudan’ never had any resonance among southerners and Garang was unable to use the SPLA as a vehicle to mobilise support for it. Garang's acceptance of Mengistu's crude Marxism also had no basis or support in a south Sudan characterised by an overwhelmingly rural economy of small landholders and fiercely independent pastoralists. However, there is no doubt that he learned much from the ruthless Mengistu and his Eastern Bloc allies when it came to matters of security and control, as Garang's many political victims can readily testify. And Garang was nothing if not loyal to his benefactors in Addis Ababa. Even with the rebels of the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) virtually at the doors of Addis Ababa in 1991, Garang's forces fought a rearguard action to preserve the Derg (Young, 1999).

            This would have seemed an ideal time to re-assess the SPLA's political stance and Garang's mode of leadership, but that was not to be. Nor did Garang give ground when in 1991 some of his senior officers, notably Drs. Riek Macher and Lam Akol, and the Anyanya veteran, Gordon Kong, called for a clear commitment to self-determination and accountable leadership. The result was a conflagration as the power struggle frequently took on the form of a war between Dinka, and particularly Garang's Bor Dinka, and the Nuer of Riek and Gordon. But ultimately these battles were not determined by political positions (since most southerners supported the views of the dissidents), but on the basis of logistical assistance where Garang was more successful. But ironically Garang had no sooner defeated his opponents than the notion of self-determination began creeping into the ideology of the SPLA. Without the need to satisfy Mengistu, and with the increasing regional popularity of self-determination after the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) capture of power in Eritrea and the organisation of the Ethiopian state on the basis of the concept, it became very difficult to challenge. Thus from the mid1990s two notions – self-determination which southerners equated solely as independence – and ‘New Sudan’, which was understood to be a call for a united Sudan, went hand in hand. But never comfortably. Indeed, few in the SPLM/A leadership ever supported a united Sudan and most have been forthright in their espousal of independence. ‘New Sudan’ was officially accepted because it was favoured by Garang and everyone knew what the consequences would be to openly challenge the leader on this issue.

            The SPLM/A's Marxism met a quicker death. Communism was in terminal decline by the early 1990s and not a viable ideology from which to appeal to international supporters, particularly the growing number of foreign Christian organisations and the US Government. So without virtually any debate, Marxism was jettisoned. However, the top-down dictatorial control of John Garang did not change. With the passing of time Garang did not so readily resort to having his opponents physically eliminated, but he proved remarkably effective in having them politically isolated and maintaining a hegemonic position in the SPLM/A.

            And in doing so Garang kept the banner of southern resistance flying, even after the 1991 loss of Ethiopian support and the subsequent divisions in the movement's leadership. His rule has been tough and high-handed, but many argue necessary in the difficult political environment of south Sudan. However, the costs of his leadership have been high. The SPLM/A has never developed an ideology that was coherent and acceptable to its followers because it always had to be subject to the dictates and needs of Garang. By calling for a united Sudan and at the same time giving support to southern self-determination, Garang has been able to be all things to all people. In the Arab world and for northerners his rhetoric has been strongly in favour of a united and democratic Sudan, while in the south he presented himself as a true son of the soil. Of course this duplicity ran thin over time and Sudanese and foreigners alike increasingly began asking what John Garang really stood for.

            Garang's party

            More damaging to the SPLM/A has been the failure to develop viable civil, political and military institutions. If, as some students of insurrections have argued, revolutionary groups must build institutions in opposition to the established ones (see Migdal, 1974), they would have to think again when looking at the SPLM/A because Garang has consistently fought to minimise institutionalisation in the movement. A major problem Garang faced was bringing independent minded commanders under control, but instead of constraining them through strong institutions he made them personally beholden to him. Thus he maintained complete control over weapons and supplies, divided military and political control at the local level, placed his supporters in key positions, and went over the top of his army high command to deal directly with selected commanders, all of which had the effect of seriously weakening the military capacity of the organisation. Senior security officials in both Ethiopia and Eritrea have told the author in almost identical terms how their efforts to train and create a professional fighting force of SPLA units that could operate independently were repeatedly undermined by Garang. The result is an army dependent upon personal control – and as has been made clear in the months following the 9 January 2005 peace agreement – only too quick to resort to settling of scores and pursuing tribalist concerns when its senior members were not in the field with them. These problems in the SPLA are well known and figured prominently in what almost amounted to a coup against Garang during three days of meetings in Rumbek in late November 2004 between the chairman and his commanders. So compelling were the criticisms that Garang was forced to accept the appointment of a committee under his deputy, Salva Kiir, to re-organise the army. Little has been heard of this committee, but Salva was promoted, and then removed from his position and retired from the army, no doubt for his leading role in challenging Garang's authority.

            Civil administration under the SPLM is notoriously weak, the more so when it is appreciated that the movement has been in the field for twenty-two years and some areas have been under continuous SPLM/A control for more than a decade. While liberation movements that took power in neighbouring Eritrea, Ethiopia and Uganda utilised their experience in public administration acquired during the war years when they assumed state authority, the SPLM/A has little experience and no model from which to operate. Indeed, during the movement's Marxist phase local structures were dismantled because of their ‘feudal’ character and replaced by commissars and the like. Only years later when it was appreciated how destructive this was, were attempts made to resurrect the tribal institutions, but by then it was largely too late. Instead, to the extent that local services are delivered, they are mostly provided by international NGOs.

            Misplaced resources, underdevelopment, and the demands of military struggle all figure in explaining this sad state of affairs, but the over-riding reason was Garang's fear that establishing strong systems of governance could lay the basis for a challenge to his authority. In recent months USAID and the International Republican Institute has been working overtime to try and implant some technical skills, but the real problem has been a lack of political commitment to public administration and the SPLM/A's poorly developed sense of civic ethics. Like the problems in the military, concern with the poor state of local government was considered at the Rumbek meeting of the commanders with Garang. As a result, a committee was duly appointed to come up with proposals, but at the time of his death there was no word on the fate of the committee's report and this is hardly surprising given the chairman's past performance at stifling such reforms.

            As noted, Garang has controlled the political direction of the SPLM/A from its inception and again this was best accomplished by putting the breaks on institutionalisation. While liberation movements need structures, Garang strove to ensure that they were weak and that the organs the established bodies met infrequently. Critical in this light was his opposition to the holding of national conferences and with his control over resources he was very effective. However, in the wake of the crisis of the early 1990s Garang was forced to give way and hold a conference in Chukudum in 1994 and its clear emphasis was on establishing effective and accountable local governance structures. These decisions had the potential of radically changing the character of the SPLM/A and its leadership, and no doubt for that reason only a few of them were ever implemented and Garang has ensured that no other national conferences were held. The National Leadership Council has only been marginally more effective than the national conference in controlling Garang and again his preferred approach was to ensure that it not be called.

            Rumbek challenge to Garang's rule

            Despite increasing dissent with his autocratic leadership during the years of armed struggle, Garang could silence his critics by removing them or arguing that unity must prevail, and for the most part it did. This accomplishment should not be underestimated given the fractious character of southern Sudan culture, but with the advancement of the peace process there were growing concerns among the SPLM/A leadership at Garang's overwhelming domination, reluctance to consult, failure to operate through party institutions, and utilisation of the peace process to further strengthen his personal authority in both the south and the north. The explosion came when rumours circulated in late 2004 that Garang's long-standing deputy and Chief of Staff, Salva Kiir, was to be relieved of his command and arrested. This galvanised the opposition to Garang, particularly from the commanders of Bahr El Ghazal who were closest to Salva. The result was a three day meeting in Rumbek from 29 November to 1 December where Garang faced off with his critics. The minutes of the meeting, which were leaked to the Khartoum media and others within hours of their completion, were a shock. Even Garang's closest colleagues strongly criticised him, and the theme of those criticisms is largely summarised above, namely, his autocratic style of leadership, failure to consult, ethnic favouritism, and the corruption of some of those nearest him. Salva probably best summarised the views of many when he accused Garang of carrying the SPLM/A in his briefcase.

            For those three days the fate of Garang, the SPLM/A, and implicitly the peace process, hung in the balance. But the critics, and particularly Salva and Riek Macher, succumbed to Garang's argument that open dissension among the leadership at this time would lead to the destruction of the dreams of southern Sudanese for peace and self-determination. In response, however, Garang accepted the formation of three committees under Riek Macher, Salva Kiir, and James Wanni to put forward a package of reforms in the spheres of administration, military and governance. And underlying all of these reform efforts was the clearly appreciated need to develop institutions of accountability, and hence to restrict Garang's capacity for arbitrary decision-making.

            But having taken the SPLM/A to the cliff's edge the leading critics appeared reluctant to permit another crisis to unfold when Garang subsequently resorted to favouritism in the selection of disproportionate numbers of Bor Dinkas to attend senior administration courses in South Africa, or his high-handedness in choosing state advisors. At every step when his critics could have used the commitments Garang made at Rumbek to challenge and potentially displace him, they drew back. And all the while Garang was dispensing with his critics, mostly through reassigning them to new and less threatening positions. Salva was replaced as chief of staff with Garang's son-in-law, Oyai Deng Ajak, and then promoted, retired from the army and made vice-president of southern Sudan. This meant that the two highest positions in the south were held by Dinkas, a difficult sell in the tribally conscious region. Presumably to reduce criticism of his high-handedness Garang went on to abolish the SPLM/A's National Leadership Council.

            It would appear that the critics were either so traumatised by the civil war within the ranks of the SPLM/A in the early 1990s, or feared that their actions could impede or even end the prospects of an agreement with the north, that they repeatedly drew back from challenging Garang. And when the peace agreement was signed it was contended that the SPLM/A's dirty linen could only be dealt with after it had entered the government. There always seemed reasons to put off the confrontation and Garang proved very effective at playing to these reasons. Many of Garang's critics, both in the SPLM/A and outside, took the view that with virtual unanimous southern support for the CPA and only slightly smaller numbers crediting Garang for that agreement, any challenge to his leadership would not be understood or accepted by southerners. But these critics also seemed confident that with time Garang's autocratic approach to leadership and the peace process would make him more vulnerable to challenge. And so things stood at the time of Garang's death.

            Garang & the southern opposition

            While the SPLM/A alone negotiated the fate of southern Sudan with the NCP, it by no means represented all southern Sudanese and it might have been expected that efforts would be made by Garang to unite his divided community. And indeed, two conferences were held: a south-south dialogue in Karen, Kenya and a meeting of the SPLM/A and the SSDF in Nairobi. These conferences made clear that southerners supported the CPA, and in particular the commitment to self-determination. But if anything the meetings served to emphasise the divisions within the south and the focus of the dissidents was the autocratic leadership of John Garang and thus they largely echoed the critics at the Rumbek meeting. The southern opposition to Garang outside the SPLM/A came from three sources: southerners in the NCP government, independent organisations and individuals, and the SSDF. By far the biggest threat to both the SPLM/A and to the stability of south Sudan, however, was posed by the SSDF.

            Although the SSDF has long been used as a tool of the government's Military Intelligence, it is capable of independent action, its commanders are unpredictable, and the largely Nuer membership can be mobilised to challenge the SPLM/A that is held to be dominated by Dinkas (Young, 2003). But Garang was not anxious to negotiate with the SSDF or acknowledge that the large majority of SSDF members were formerly from the movement, and that they controlled considerable sections of southern Sudan, particularly in Upper Nile. Indeed, he denied the extent of SSDF control and claimed that the organisation was a militia operating solely at the behest of the government and hence did not warrant a voice at the negotiating table. And with the friends of the SPLM/A (notably the US) only too willing to accept this, and in any case being concerned about unduly complicating the negotiations by bringing in other groups, the SSDF was ignored (Young, 2005). This may have been effective in the short term, but in the end the SSDF had to be dealt with.

            Knowing the strong desire of southerners, and particularly those in Upper Nile who have suffered the most from SPLA-SSDF confrontations, for reconciliation between the two armed groups, Garang was forced to give ground. But only after the SPLM/A's hegemonic position in southern Sudan was confirmed by the CPA and Garang's position of leadership were virtually beyond challenge. Then Garang went to his long-standing friends in the Moi Foundation and asked them to sponsor a south-south reconciliation conference. With the view that this was the best means to overcome insecurity in southern Sudan, donors lined up to put money behind a process they were led to believe would neutralise the SSDF. In the event, because of Moi Foundation errors in sending out invitations and because the Military Intelligence did not want to lose their valued allies, the SSDF was not able to attend the conference in the Kenyan town of Karen on 18-22 April 2005. But efforts to stop the SSDF from meeting with the SPLM/A proved counter-productive and another conference was quickly organised with the explicit objective of dealing with the SPLA-SSDF problem; Khartoum was forced to provide assurances that it would not interfere.

            That conference was held in the first week of July in Nairobi, again under the auspices of the Moi Foundation. Although SSDF leader, Major-General Paulino Matieb, made clear his support for the CPA and his willingness to integrate his forces into a duly constituted army under a Government of South Sudan (GoSS), Garang insisted that during the interim period it must be absorbed into the SPLA. He also did not accept the demand that SSDF troops be part of the Joint Integrated Units that are to be established under the CPA, and rejected any SSDF representation in the GoSS or say in the appointment of southern state governors. The SSDF leadership calculated that Garang would reject any proposal other than a full and un-negotiated integration of its forces into an SPLA under his personal control (SSDF interviews, June, 2005). But the SSDF also assumed that many in the SPLM/A would be sympathetic (even if passively because of fears of raising Garang's ire) to its proposals. Not surprisingly the conference broke down. Probably Garang calculated that because the CPA stated that only two armed groups – those of the SPLM/A and the government – would be permitted in southern Sudan, and that the government would be obliged to stop providing logistical support to the SSDF on the first anniversary of the 9 January 2005 agreement, time was on his side. If the SSDF was still on the ground at the beginning of 2006 then he could call upon his allies to force the Government of Sudan to have their units dismantled. From a narrow legal perspective Garang was probably correct, but if he had been successful it would have produced a legacy of bitterness, if not the outbreak of a civil war among southerners. With Garang's death and his replacement by Salva, the dynamics of the SPLM/A's relations with other southern groups, and that of the SSDF in particular, has markedly improved.

            Improving the situation is the fact that in the most successful effort at south-south reconciliation during two decades of conflict Salva dragged a very reluctant Garang and the SPLM/A into the Wunlit Agreement of March 1999 that ended tribal fighting between Dinkas and Nuers that had gone on for eight years. Salva's efforts to reform the SPLA and place it under the accountable leadership of the soon to be established Government of South Sudan also increases the prospects of SPLM/A-SSDF reconciliation. The widespread perception that unlike Garang, Salva favours the independence of south Sudan, further serves to reduce misunderstanding. During Salva's visit to Khartoum for his inauguration on 11 August he held a number of informal meetings with the SSDF leadership during which he made clear that he had a different approach to reconciliation than that of Garang and that he looked forward to an early conference to achieve this objective (SSDF interviews, August, 2005). Indeed, Salva and a team that included Drs. Riek Macher and Lam Akol went far in a very few days to overcome the animosity and suspicion between the SPLM/A and the SSDF that had developed over many years. No doubt many hurdles still lie in the way of achieving reconciliation between these armed groups, but there is no denying that the prospects have greatly improved under Salva's leadership.

            An indication of the direction of the SPLM/A leadership under Salva Kiir can be seen in his appointments to the GNU (Government of National Unity) announced on 20 September 2005. And most noteworthy was the failure of the SPLM/A to get the much prized Energy and Mines portfolio, which most southerners thought was their due. Of the senior ministries of Defence, Interior, Energy, Finance, and Foreign Affairs, the SPLM/A only picked up Foreign Affairs. And of the twelve advisors to the president, the SPLM/A took only one. Although Garang allies like Deng Alor (Cabinet Affairs), Malik Agar (Investment), and Dr. Mansour Khalid (Presidential Advisor) gained appointments, major critics of Garang like Dr. Lam Akol (Foreign Affairs), John Luc (State Minister for Energy, although he subsequently refused the position), Telar Deng (State Minister of the Presidency), and Dr. Peter Niyot (Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research) mark a slight shift away from the old guard, without however marginalising them. What is most striking about the new government is the marginal position of the SPLM/A in it. Although reckoned to be a close friend of Salva, Bona Malwal owes his appointment as presidential advisor to President Beshir, an appointment which has caused widespread consternation. Whether Salva can continue to maintain harmony between the Garang loyalists and the Garang critics remains to be seen. Among the other politically significant southerners who were appointed to the government are Galwak Deng and Alison Magaya from the NCP who kept their positions of Ministers of Animal Resources and Labour respectively, while Dr. Riek Gai assumed the position of Presidential Advisor as well as serving as a deputy leader of the ruling party. Joseph Malwal, leader of the NCP-aligned United Democratic Salvation Front (UDSF) shifts from Civil Aviation to Tourism and rounding out the major southerners appointed to the government is Joseph Okelo, leader of the SPLM/A-aligned Union of Sudan African Parties (USAP), who becomes Minister of Parliamentary Affairs.

            Conclusion

            Garang was a strong man in a movement that could only have survived under the leadership of a strong man. And to his lasting credit he kept the SPLM/A alive in the face of enormous challenges from within, from Khartoum, and internationally. He was an intellectual and had a vision. He was adept at winning the support of regional and extra-regional actors. By making alliances with parties in the north and courting Arabs in the region he weakened the claims of successive Khartoum governments that the movement he led was dedicated to southern independence and represented a threat to the unity of the Arab and Islamic world. Probably because of his lack of ideological convictions he had little trouble presenting the SPLM/A in a favourable light to the socialist world, and then even more effectively selling it to the West and the increasingly powerful Christian organisations. After losing the support of Ethiopia and the East Bloc he worked tirelessly to win the support of the US, and with its commitment to the peace process as an ally of the SPLM/A he achieved one of his biggest victories. Although the SPLM/A leadership includes many talented men (and unfortunately no women), there are almost certainly none who could match Garang in these areas.

            But Garang's achievements came at a very high cost to his party, to southern Sudanese, and to the peace process. He was a dictator who fought to his dying day to maintain a hegemonic position in the SPLM/A. Challengers were routinely killed and jailed in the early years, and banished and marginalised in the later period. Garang talked the language of democracy, but ruled like Savimbi. He created an artificial unity based on a forced acceptance of his rule, but as the Rumbek meeting of late 2004 demonstrated, his authority was increasingly being challenged. The weaknesses of the SPLM/A in civil administration, the political sphere, and in the military, are largely due to his failings and his refusal to continence reform and the establishment of accountable institutions. The nepotism in his appointments and the favouritism of the Bor Dinka fostered resentment and tribalism. His espousal of a united Sudan may have weakened opposition to the SPLM/A in the north and beyond, but left the movement and his followers without a clear sense of direction. His opportunist courting of the US and American fundamentalist Christian groups met short-term needs, but would (and probably still will) make the south and through him all of Sudan increasingly subject to the demands of US interests, and in particular the ‘war on terror’.

            It can be argued that the SPLM/A needed a man of Garang's strong character during its difficult formative period, but even if that contention is accepted that era has ended, and for some time he has been both a liability to his movement and a threat to the viability of the peace process. Salva Kiir has few of Garang's attributes – he is not an intellectual, not urbane, has little understanding of the niceties of diplomacy, appears to have a limited interest in the rest of the country and hence cannot be expected to magically resolve the conflicts in Darfur and the east as the West expected from Garang. But more importantly, Salva does not have Garang's many failings – most significantly his record is not that of a dictator, but a leader who searches for compromises and reconciliation. Salva supported the Wunlit process, and he pressed for the reform and accountability of the army in the face of Garang's opposition, and he opposed Garang's efforts to alone hold all the major positions of power. Salva is also not perceived as sharing the same tribalist orientation as Garang, and indeed almost his first act of leadership was to confirm Riek Macher, a Nuer, as his deputy, thus with one stroke markedly reducing growing Dinka-Nuer tensions. Moreover, within days of his arrival in Khartoum Salva's humility, genuineness, and transparency (all in marked contrast to Garang) were proving remarkably successful in winning over many southerners alienated by Garang. His simplicity, absence of formality and pretension, all of which set him apart from Garang, are held to demonstrate his lack of sophistication and inability to deal effectively with the devious and scheming leaders of the NCP and the other northern parties. Indeed, Salva does represent a break from the intellectuals who have dominated much of Sudan's political life (in the north and the south) since independence, but it should not be forgotten that this class has brought ruin to the country.

            Although in his first public address in Khartoum Salva voiced his support for the CPA and a united Sudan, his words and record over two decades speak for themselves, and his views are far closer to those of the majority of south Sudanese than Garang's ever were. The clique that surrounded Garang may find that its influence is reduced, but this may be less disruptive than expected because they do not have significant constituencies. In any case, Salva appears far more concerned about bringing unity to the SPLM/A and south Sudan than with settling old scores. Nonetheless, he is constrained by the extent to which Garang had defined the course of the peace process and by his still loyal followers in the movement. However, with the emergence of a leadership closer to the south Sudanese and the commanders in the field, there is a real prospect of the SPLM/A becoming a more responsible organisation, developing an accountable leadership, and moving to overcome the divisions between the disparate communities of the south. This approach is more likely to protect the interests of southerners than the scheming of Garang, which was so admired by his supporters.

            The road forward will not be easy. The security cabal that controls the NCP does not support the peace agreement and its very existence would be threatened by a democratic transformation. Based on his record Salva will not be expected to have any great concern for introducing democracy in the north, or in challenging the security cabal. If the cabal can accept a separate southern Sudan then a deal can be cut (more likely without any formal agreement) and south Sudan can go its own way and the north its way. But this is by no means clear and Salva's lack of knowledge or interest in the north could prove to be a liability. However, based on his appointments to the GNU it appears that he will lean heavily on Bona Malwal (a close friend from his home area of Gorgriel in northern Bahr El Ghazal), Dr. Lam Akol, and more surprisingly because of his former close ties with Garang, Dr. Mansour Khalid, for direction, particularly when dealing with the north. The failure of the SPLM/A to gain the Energy portfolio weakened Salva and deepened the scepticism of the southerners about the direction of the peace process. At the same time, the death of Garang served to undermine the hold of the NCP on its southern allies in the government and in the SSDF. While the security services will continue to employ their time-tested schemes to win support and divide the SSDF, the time when they could mobilise on the basis of hatred of Garang has ended.

            Another implication of Garang's passing and the rise to power of Salva is that the northern opponents of the NCP must realise that they now stand on their own in the struggle for justice and democracy. Since 1983, and particularly since the advent of the NCP coup in 1989, many in the northern opposition have looked to the SPLM/A as a critical ally in their struggle, or to put it more negatively, they looked to the SPLM/A to carry them to power. But Garang was well on his way to disabusing them of that illusion, and Salva is unlikely to give them reason for hope from his quarter. Indeed, in an interview four years ago, Salva spoke of his resentment of members of the northern opposition who expected to come to power on the backs of southerners (Salva, 5 March 2001). Salva inherits Garang's political partnership with the NCP, ostensibly a critical element in implementing the peace agreement, but just as significantly as a mechanism to entrench the power of the parties to the CPA. And not surprisingly this caused anxiety among opposition parties which saw the partnership as a means to exclude them from the peace process and obstruct Sudan's democratic transformation. However, much as the SPLM/A leadership would like this arrangement to work, it is by no means clear that the NCP is in fact willing to genuinely share power. While Salva does not appear to have Garang's interest in the north or his personal political ambitions, which probably included running for president in the national elections in four years, the new leader may continue the political alliance with the NCP if he concludes that it represents the best means to achieve his objectives for southern Sudan. Nor should it be forgotten that Salva was leading the SPLM/A negotiating team in the lead up to the Machakos Protocol, which permitted the NCP to pursue an Islamist agenda in the north.

            And in that light, the struggle for democratic change in Sudan does not look positive. The international community continues to give strong backing to the CPA and that means supporting the parties that signed that agreement, namely the SPLM/A and the NCP. The CPA commitment to hold a national election within four years is viewed with concern by many in the international community and among southerners because if free and fair they could bring to power a party or coalition in the north which might press to open up the peace agreement. Added to this difficulty is the strength of the relations between the CIA and the Sudanese security services. This was graphically emphasised by the Agency's feting in the US of Salah Gosh, the head of the National Security Agency, and a man widely believed to be at the top of the International Criminal Court list of those suspected of crimes against humanity for his actions in Darfur ( LA Times, 29 April 2005). Meanwhile, the war in Darfur is largely in a stalemate, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) is politically divided, unable to hold its repeatedly announced convention, and its leadership which was endorsed by Garang, is weakened with his demise. In the east, the Eastern Front of the Beja Congress and Free Lions has been unable to capitalise on the attention given it in the wake of the army's killing of civilians in Port Sudan in late January, and indeed it looks militarily vulnerable with the evacuation of the SPLM/A forces from the area.

            The only new factor in the political equation is that the intefadah is again becoming a political prospect to consider. The long proposed intefadah favoured by the elites of the northern opposition has died, but in the wake of the riots following Garang's death, an intefadah of the marginalised has become a possibility. The marginalised from the north, leaderless, directionless, hungry for loot, angry and frustrated, have entered the political stage and since there is little that the existing peace processes can offer them, they are unlikely to be easily satisfied. The cultured but failed elites that have dominated Sudanese political life since independence may find that they must share the political stage with the unsophisticated marginalised masses. The security services appear to have concluded that the riots of August will be repeated. And that begs the question: in the event of an intefadah of the marginalised, on which side of the divide would the SPLM/A make its stand? Even before the riots one very senior SPLM/A official expressed his fear to the author that the movement would stand with the government in opposition to the masses. It would be the height of ironies if Garang's notion of a ‘New Sudan’ was taken forward by the marginalised and the SPLM/A as part of the government opposed it.

            The engagement of the international community in Sudan's peace process also looks increasingly exposed in the wake of Garang's death. That approach had largely involved clinging to the CPA as the one peace process that could be realised, making peace processes in the west and east subject to the constraints of the CPA, and looking to Garang to pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat and successfully resolve these conflicts. But the division of spoils between the NCP and the SPLM/ A made agreements in the west and east virtually impossible without opening up the CPA. Moreover, the CPA gave legitimacy to the NCP, which has never given any indication of relaxing its hardnosed approach to these conflicts. Indeed, according to the UN, the NCP government has not stopped supporting the Jingaweed and has done little to create security in Darfur that would permit the return of two million displaced and refugees. Negotiations are talked about, but not underway, to resolve the eastern conflict. Since the international community frequently employs ‘big men’ in top-down peace processes, its leaders must be wringing their hands in despair at the death of Garang and at the same time trying to get Salva to step into the former chairman's shoes. But these efforts are unlikely to be successful. Just as the hope of the northern opposition that the Garang led SPLM/A would be their salvation was rapidly fading even before his death, their faith in the US, UN, and international community to usher in democracy and bring peace to the country is also in free fall.

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            3. Los Angeles Times. . 2005. . Official Pariah Sudan Valuable to America's War on Terrorism. . 29 April;

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            Interviews

            Bona Malwal (Oxford, 6 June 2005); Salva Kiier (Yei, 5 March 2001); SSDF leadership (Khartoum, throughout May 2005); SSDF leadership (Khartoum, 13 /14 August 2005).

            Author and article information

            Contributors
            Journal
            crea20
            CREA
            Review of African Political Economy
            Review of African Political Economy
            0305-6244
            1740-1720
            December 2005
            : 32
            : 106
            : 535-548
            Article
            10335329 Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 32, No. 106, December 2005, pp. 535–548
            10.1080/03056240500467039
            b86fd6f4-677a-46ec-9593-e767b329d422

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            Sociology,Economic development,Political science,Labor & Demographic economics,Political economics,Africa

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