Meet Salva Kiir, an SPLA democrat
By Julie Flint
Commentary by
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=17450
John Garang never faced an election. Despite the outpouring of grief over his death in a helicopter crash on July 30, the people of Southern Sudan had little love for the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) he led for 22 years. They revered Garang for his unwavering opposition to the Sudan government and the northern elite controlling it, but they deplored the behavior of his soldiers. And they made clear that the buck stopped with the SPLA's leaders - commander in chief included.
The closest Garang ever came to a popular vote was during a grassroots peace movement initiated by the New Sudan Council of Churches in 1999 to end years of bitter inter-tribal fighting - fighting that took tens of thousands of lives in Southern Sudan and often overshadowed the war against the government. The people's verdict on Garang's SPLA was overwhelmingly negative. "When we fought with your fathers, we never, never killed a child, a woman or an aged person like me," an elderly chief told youths attending the first "people-to-people" peace meeting in the village of Wunlit, on the west bank of the Nile. "Where are you getting this culture of killing from? You got it from the SPLA!"
A young woman went as far as to suggest that women stop sleeping with their husbands to bring them to their senses. "We women are tired of giving birth to children only to see them slaughtered," she said. "We will make a revolution: we will stop giving birth!"
In meeting after meeting, southerners shouted their opposition to the "PhDs" who led the two main rebel factions - Garang, a Dinka from the largest tribe in the South, and Riek Machar, a Nuer from the second largest tribe. As a Nuer chief said at Wunlit, deploring the battles that turned the Nuer-Dinka front line into a wasteland: "We did not make the problem. Our leaders did!"
The Wunlit process was designed to help civilians bury the hatchet and encourage the SPLA to do the same; to re-empower traditional and community leaders in the face of the SPLA's suffocating control. Garang gave verbal consent to Wunlit, but refused written endorsement. His inner circle opposed it. His fellow Bor Dinka, the SPLA's controllers, boycotted it.
The hero of Wunlit was Salva Kiir Mayardit, the SPLA's chief of staff and Garang's successor as first vice president of Sudan. Had it not been for Kiir - known to southerners simply as "Salva" - there might never have been a Wunlit. Nuer and Dinka would not have signed a peace covenant. When government forces began attacking oil-rich areas on the east bank of the Nile, displacing tens of thousands of Nuer, there would be no safe refuge for them among the Dinka of Bahr al-Ghazal.
Despite the opposition of many SPLA commanders to Wunlit, Kiir committed himself from day one. When a local commander threatened force to halt the conference, Salva Kiir warned him off. "This is a trial of strength between us," he said, "and I will win!" He sent 250 of his men, a tank and an armored personnel carrier to ensure security. He opened the conference, but then withdrew. It was the first time the SPLA had been a genuine "people's" army, at the service of the people and unafraid of criticism.
Garang's death has caused concern for the future of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement he signed with Sudanese President Omar Bashir on January 9. It is true that the 54-year-old Kiir does not have Garang's political experience. But he was the SPLA's chief negotiator in the early stages of the peace talks and won respect for his pragmatism and willingness to compromise. The peace process itself was driven largely by external forces - primarily the behavior of the United States. Washington's commitment to the process is the main guarantee of its continuation.Although few are saying it openly in the immediate aftermath of Garang's death, the consensus among most Sudan-watchers, and many southerners too, is that a South Sudan government led by Kiir will be more united, more democratic and more competent than a government led by Garang. At a meeting of the S
PLA's
Leadership Council in November, Garang was heavily criticized by many of his commanders - prime among them, Salva Kiir. A confidential report of the meeting that I obtained quotes Kiir as saying: "There is no code of conduct to guide the movement's structures. When the Chairman leaves for abroad, no directives are left and no-one is left to act on his behalf. I don't know with whom the Movement is left with; or does he carry it in his briefcase?"
Kiir also attacked corruption within the SPLA. This had, he said, "created a lack of accountability which has reached a proportion that will be difficult to eradicate ... Some members of the Movement have formed private companies, bought houses and have huge bank accounts in foreign countries. I wonder what kind of system we are going to establish in South Sudan?"
Kiir was always one of Garang's most vigorous critics, constantly pushing for greater democracy and accountability within the SPLA. He is not one of the "PhDs" whom southerners blame for their divisions: in fact he never progressed beyond an elementary mission school education. He began fighting the government in 1970, at the age of 19, and was incorporated into the national army two years later under the Addis Ababa peace agreement. Like Garang, he joined the SPLA in 1983 when President Jaafar Numeiri abrogated the peace agreement and imposed Islamic law throughout Sudan, including the predominantly Christian South. Unlike Garang - but like most southerners - he is thought to be more of a separatist than a unionist.
The handover of power in South Sudan has been astonishingly smooth. Kiir was unanimously appointed Garang's successor the day after his death. In a gesture of reconciliation, he invited to his funeral the children of the SPLA's original founders, including those killed in intra-SPLA fighting. He has most elegantly sidestepped questions about his disagreements with Garang, saying: "Whether his style was good or not is no longer relevant."
Garang's death has given the enemies of peace, those who do not want to share wealth or power, a golden opportunity to destabilize peace by playing on Southern divisions. All the signs so far are that southerners will close ranks under Salva Kiir's leadership. For the moment, at least, the peace agreement is not in danger. Kiir's opening words to the Wunlit conference have lost none of their resonance: "I plead with you to stop propagating fratricidal war ... Unity is all-important."
Julie Flint has written extensively on Sudan. She is the author, with Alex de Waal, of "Darfur: A Short History of a Long War" (Zed Press, forthcoming September 2005). She wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.
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