South Sudan, a new nation born out of American endeavours to control the country’s vast oil supply and provide ‘Israel’ with access to the African continent to meet its oil and security needs is quickly descending into the abyss of chaos. Washington is struggling to prevent a full-scale civil war. The usual culprits are two Western agents – President Salva Kiir and his former vice-president Riek Machar – at loggerheads with each other. Both are using inflammatory tribal politics to stake their claim to rule the fledgling African nation of 10 million people.
In July 2013, the first signs of a political power struggle surfaced within the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), the ruling party when President Kiir sacked his entire government in an attempt to curb the ambitions of his powerful vice president. Tensions within the ranks of SPLM soon engulfed not only the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) but also South Sudan’s two largest communities: Mr Kiir’s Dinka, the largest of South Sudan’s tribes, versus Mr Machar’s Nuer tribe. However, major violence first erupted between two communities on December 15th 2013, when Dinkas in the presidential guard in the capital Juba sought to disarm their Nuer colleagues. The situation worsened when President Kiir publicly accused Machar of plotting a coup against him.
The hastily arranged talks in Ethiopia at the behest of America, threats to rein in Machar by President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni—America’s strong man in the region—the mobilisation of 7500 UN peace keepers and other measures have hitherto failed to halt the violence. What was once touted as President Obama’s major foreign policy triumph is now more looking like a major disaster.
In 2005, as part of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed between SPLM and the Khartoum, Sudanese living in southern Sudan had a right vote to for independence in a referendum. In July 2011, South Sudanese voted overwhelming under US auspices to cede from Sudan. The new country was essentially curved out of Sudan by America to exert greater control over the oil resources in the South, and to limit China’s growing influence. Nonetheless, the country was prone to extreme bouts of civil strife, which prompted the CIA in 2010 to issue a warning: ‘over the next five years…a new mass killing or genocide is most likely to occur in southern Sudan’.
The marriage of convenience between Kirr and Machar to unite against a common enemy the Sudanese government in Khartoum was bound to fall apart. As soon as the South Sudan became independent and Washington became pre-occupied with other matters, relations between Kirr and Machar nose-dived, eventually culminating into the killing spree witnessed today.
Regardless of America’s military superiority and her capacity to generate billions of dollars in aid, America has a terrible record when it comes to nation building. American ventures into Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and other countries have only left behind a trail of destruction and disillusionment with freedom and democracy. South Sudan is just another one of America’s failed states.
This is ample evidence that America cannot nation build or stabilise countries it invades through diplomacy or political work. The longer this carries on, the more futile becomes America’s military superiority in turning battlefield gains into political bargaining chips, which can be exploited by American politicians to implement political solutions that have a more durable shelf-life. But perhaps, more damaging than America’s failure to nation build is the perception that America cannot get the job done i.e. America is good at toppling regimes but nothing else.
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Abed Mustafa