This leads me to my next topic; South Sudan (officially the
Republic of South Sudan). Now a few of you might be thinking what? South Sudan?
There is no South Sudan, there’s only Sudan... well that was my reaction too
when I first heard of the place, so don’t worry. What I (and I’m sure a few
others) didn’t know was that Sudan had been undergoing a 50 year two part civil
war in which over 2 million people died. The “black” south was fighting against
the “Arab” north for independence; the war ended in 2005 and in 2011 over 98%
of the black South Sudan voted to create a new nation.
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| Celebration after gaining independence. |
There, now that we’ve gotten the history out the way; let’s
see how this very new and young nation is developing. Well.... to put it
mildly, South Sudan has some problems, some of these problems include corruption,
undisciplined military, no political unity, no delivery of services and a poor
economy.
Their first problem is Sudan (or should I say North Sudan..
in order to avoid confusion I’ll just use North Sudan from now on). Over the
years, North Sudan have invested the bulk of revenues from resources like the
oil found in the south on its own capital and land. Ergo half a century of
almost 0% investment in the south have left its infrastructure hopeless and the
people relying heavily on outside aid. Furthermore there are constant border
disputes between the south and the north.
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| Oil reserves are in the south but pipeline leads north |
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| North Sudan's capital Kartoum |
Other problems include the 2million plus unexploded landmines
that prevent the south from growing food and the LRA (rebels from Uganda) that
live in the jungle of Western Equatoria (WE). WE is a state south of the
country with enough lush vegetation and rich soil to feed the whole country.
Unfortunately the LRA constantly patrol the area and attack the farming
villages mercilessly killing and mutilating its inhabitants. The resistance
against these trained rebel fighters with automatic weapons are young and old
villagers with arrows, spears and homemade guns (known as the home guard). Why doesn’t the government arm
them properly you ask? Well because “it can’t afford to” and to be honest it is
pretty dangerous to arm average people with guns and lethal weapons. So the
next logical question is why doesn’t the government’s army do something?
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| An home guard waiting with an arrow |
Well.. Government army can’t help because it is busy fighting
and killing its own people; rebels in the newly formed 2 year old country.
There are over 40 different tribes in South Sudan, of which the Dinka is the
largest. The rebels are accusing the government which is mainly filled with
Dinka people of favouring the Dinka majority and blocking minority tribes for
power. There are reports of the army using child soldiers again and both sides are now laying landmines (it seemed the odd 2million wasn't enough). Amongst this internal strife, ethnic and tribal conflicts still continue
between some other tribes as well (with modern weapons, not arrows and spears).
Innocent bystanders and especially children are the main casualty of these
conflicts.
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| Mine exploding during conflict between rebels and SPLA |
And now onto the final, major issue; the corruption. Seeing
as the government has made no effort to seize and exploit one of its major
advantage (the agriculture), it now has no choice but to rely purely on their share
of the oil revenues to develop its economy. However the oil revenues alone
cannot achieve this and to make things worse corruption is strong in the
government. The government holds 96% of the revenue and gives the oil producing
states 4%, it also focuses on developing the chosen capital Juba even though
90% of the people live in the states. When the people flock to Juba to share in
the wealth they are forced to live in slums on the outskirts of the city. Many
believe government officials horde millions of dollars for themselves and their
families and it is public knowledge that government officials and private businesses
have siphoned off hundreds of millions of dollars in oil revenues.
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| Juba: capital of South Sudan |
Already the gap between the rich and the poor is extreme as
the greed of humanity has been allowed to flow. An example of this is a Minister
of finance who claimed he had bought a car for $97,000 but it turns out he had actually
transferred $60million to a dealer in order to buy 153 top of the range cars (mainly
SUVs) for ministers and senior civil servants (approximately $400,000 each).
“Who decided that these are the kinds of cars we need as a
government? Who decided that we have to buy these expensive cars? What happened
to the regular cars that we use to drive during the war” Jok Madut Jok (Dep Minister of Culture) Al Jazeera Fight forthe heart of the South
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| The Top of the range SUVs in question |
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| Other states in Sudan |
In another blatant scandal, $2 BILLION dollars “mysteriously
went missing” in a key project to create emergency grain stores around the
country in case of famine. Government have created an anti corruption commission
and are “thinking” of giving them the power to prosecute. Meanwhile the president
keeps his right to sack all current governors and elect his own members of
parliament.
Final thoughts:
In conclusion, South Sudan has been very educational in showing
me how NOT to create a successful and prosperous nation. Sure they have problems
that they couldn’t help; like the LRA, the landmines, North Sudan and so on but
instead of working as one to tackle these problems and better the lives of their
children and their future generation. They turn on one another and add fuel to
the fire.
It angers me because I know they could be something better.
They could easily be a very prosperous nation. They had a great opportunity to
start again, a clean new slate, they knew all the mistakes made by other
countries neighbouring them. Instead of the leaders learning from those
mistakes and building a strong foundation for their country, they are focusing
on petty squabbles and “get rich quick” schemes. Rather than doing their job
for the good of their country and their people, they give in to their greed and
desires.
I mean think about it, how great would it be if South Sudan
had picked leaders with honour & integrity. Leaders that didn’t think of themselves
alone and instead chose to be different, chose to keep the people in mind with
every decision they made. For all we know South Sudan may have become the business
hub for central Africa in the next 10 -20 years.
For more information see sources
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