Op-Ed| The new separatists – Radio Tamazuj

For the past six decades, old separatists have manipulated Sudanese public opinion, portraying their desire for dominance and control over post-British Sudan as the “Southern Sudan problem.” In reality, what was presented as a problem of Southern Sudan was fundamentally a question of how power would be organized, shared and exercised in a new Sudan after British rule.

From the outset, these separatists adopted a “hit me and then cry, wrong me and then complain” tactic to obscure awareness of a range of political, economic and social issues. They presented themselves as victims and demonized the true victims whenever they acted against their desire for dominance and control.

These were beginnings in which hopes were intertwined with fears, doubts with certainty, and patriotism with arrogance. Southerners quickly expressed their concerns about the new arrangements as early as 1947, when several tribal leaders and prominent figures from the South called for organizing the relationship between North and South based on a federal system. For Southern leaders, federalism was not a call for separation; it was an attempt to secure political representation, self-government, and protection from the domination of an excessively centralized state.

This move was not isolated. It was quickly reinforced by the Southern Sudan Liberal Party, led by Fr. Saturnino Lohure and Both Diu, which officially adopted federalism as its political platform at its general conference in 1954. Thus began a long and arduous struggle between the exclusionary central government and Southern Sudan, whose citizens were firmly convinced that the anticipated independence was merely a change of masters. As time passed, this suspicion, which the old separatists were unable to dispel, proved correct, until Southern Sudan finally seceded.

Southerners answered the question of what they wanted early on. However, the old separatists treated their demand with contempt and great irresponsibility, deceiving them by claiming that “the Constituent Assembly will give due consideration to the demand of the Southern representatives to establish a federal system” within the arrangements of the permanent constitution, which remains to this day a distant dream in post-secession Sudan.

The beginning was faltering, characterized by a double arrogance and an unbridled desire to subjugate others through political manipulation, physical elimination, and the use of state resources and power to buy loyalties and time, all in the hope of keeping South Sudan within the map of national unity, a map of hegemony, control, and oppression. This led to the mutiny of the Torit garrison on August 18, 1955.

For decades, the executioner, without a shred of conscience, played the role of the victim, supposedly committed to national unity, through the tools of oppression and injustice that he constantly renewed. This remained the primary concern of most governments and regimes that ruled Sudan.

This is our painful past, reminding us not only of the tragedy but also of our national responsibilities, especially after we chose secession as a path to rebirth as a people determined to live freely in a state of liberty, justice, development and prosperity. This is the path on which the SPLM failed us; it continues to treat our independence as though it were its own possession, or, at best, something to be brokered and traded away, rather than the achievement of a people who fought for and chose freedom.

It is true that we raised the flag of independence united, but the manner in which the state was established and subsequently governed divided us from day one. The deplorable reality today is the best proof of this. It is the product of continuous efforts to maintain hegemony and control, and to subjugate others through state authority, which the SPLM, the treacherous wing, uses as a shield in its battle against our people’s will for freedom and a dignified life.

It appears from the current political landscape that the new separatists are preoccupied with raising the banner of the old separatists in one of the worst attempts ever to reproduce injustice, oppression, and wars under flimsy pretexts, revealing each time the danger of the existing tribal republic. The new separatists differ in time and circumstance, but not in the fundamental logic of domination: they seek to preserve political power by dividing the people, subordinating the state to narrow interests, and turning the independence of South Sudan into an instrument of control rather than a foundation for national unity.

In short, independence is one thing, and the SPLM’s failure to govern is another. Therefore, our independence should unite us against the efforts of the SPLM “dogs,” as General Kuol Manyang Juuk called them, to fragment the unity of the country.

Fifteen years of our independence being targeted by the “old and new dogs” of the SPLM remind us of our collective inaction. For fifteen years, the promise of independence has been undermined by tribal segregation, political exclusion, repression, and the concentration of state power in the hands of a few. We must dismantle the republic of tribal segregation that exists today, a true national crisis that we must resolve before it is too late.

The writer, Sokiri Lo Poni, is a concerned South Sudanese. He can be reached via Sokiril8@gmail.com.

The views expressed in ‘opinion’ articles published by Radio Tamazuj are solely those of the writer. The veracity of any claims made is the responsibility of the author, not Radio Tamazuj.