South Sudan ambassador John Andruga Duku spoke to our writer Ramadhan Rajab about his new role and the just signed IGAD-plus Compromise Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan.
Before your country’s independence you had served in Kenya as head of mission from 2005 to 2011. After independence, you declined a posting to be an envoy of the new nation in Geneva. Why did you decline this prestigious posting?
Earlier on, I had played some role that led to the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005. I then embarked on serving as head of delegation, making my contribution to ensure that our country gets independence.
The events of July 9, 2011 when South Sudan got self-determination meant the goal of political independence had been achieved.
Looking ahead I saw another goal — that of economic Independence — still beckoning. So when I was nominated for the Geneva job I declined because I wanted to get involved in the next phase of struggle, which is to free the country from the yokes of poverty and hunger and use ideas rather than the gun in the journey towards economic liberation.
I also declined not because I had issues with the government but because I wanted other South Sudanese to get a chance to serve and get the needed experience.
I therefore decided to go back to the village and start farming to trigger interest in the economic freedom slogan. I am confident my little contribution goes a long way to achieving that dream of our founding father, the late Dr John Garang Mabior, on economic liberation.
What brings you back to Nairobi?
I am here as a special envoy for peace as regards the recently signed peace deal. However, for the South Sudanese, Kenya is our second home.
We are grateful for the role all successive regimes and the Kenyan people have played to make us what we are today. Essentially without Kenya maybe we would not be having a Republic of South Sudan.
I am here to persuade everyone that we need to work to see that the agreement signed in Addis Ababa and Juba last month succeeds, despite its shortfalls.
What does this peace deal mean and will it hold given that this is not the first time such agreements have been signed?
To us this peace deal signals an end to mass slaughter of our people; it signals an end to conflicts.
What gives me hope in this agreement is that it is different from the others in the past — it’s unique because it has come after a long struggle to freedom, which has been bumpy and painful where we lost millions of our people.
Vultures and hyenas that fed on their bodies can only give the exact number of those died.
In that regard, we must be sensitive to the sacrifices made by our people, specifically our founding leader Dr John Garang. We miss him.
When the tragedy happened, the leaders of SPLM including Riek Machar agreed that Salva Kiir leads us, like Joshua, to the Promised Land; our independence.
After independence many thought never again would South Sudanese turn against each other. Why has war and armed struggle been part of the world’s youngest nation’s lifestyle?
In my view, there is no reason for these unnecessary wars. I personally believe what we are involved in today is unjust war — with no justification or vision.
The war that started as a result of the events of July 2013 after President Kiir reshuffled his entire cabinet that saw the current rebel leader Riek Machar, who was then vice president, dropped can be summarized in two words — power struggle.
Some people may argue that Riek is fighting for justice, democracy or inclusivity. However, those are just fabrications and excuses, because one is tempted to ask why is he talking about corruption after he was sacked from cabinet.
Why were there no such discussions like human rights when he was presiding over government during the transition period between 2005 to 2011 when he had a lot of free hand on the Council of Ministers as Kiir was shuttling between Khartoum and Juba when he served as vice president of the government of national unity headed by President [Omar al] Bashir.
All those who joined the rebellion never raised a finger when they were serving the government. This is the reason I say this is a pure power struggle.
You say the war is all about power struggle yet innocent civilians have been the greatest casualties. Where do these citizens go from here?
We must open a new page. When there is war, combatants and non-combatants get entangled and there are casualties. There is always gross human rights violation in wartime, especially whenever soldiers are involved. However, President Kiir has said whoever kills in his name is an enemy of the country.
But where we are now, we must open a new page and stop dwelling on the negativity in the interest of peace. This new phase of peace requires tolerance, patience and forgiveness.
This is where we must all head to and stop the blame game and issuing inflammatory statements. Both parties have signed the agreement and this is the most important part, the rest is immaterial.
Riek and Salva have in the past committed themselves to such peace deals but they end in another cycle of violence. Two days after the signing of the agreement, there was a violation of the ceasefire with Riek troops accusing the government soldiers of attacking them. Why is this so and are you hopeful that this time round it will hold?
The failure to end hostility is a result of Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad) fence-sitting attitude and failing to be an honest broker that can put issues in black and white; it seems they only want to appear neutral.
Igad needs to do a better job than what it has done now. When we signed the cessation of hostility pact in 2014 in Addis, they — Igad and the international community — failed to provide necessary logistics to form monitoring and verifications teams to be on ground always to act as independent monitors to verify, document and report those who violate the agreement.
What we have now is that when we have accusations, Igad concludes by throwing around a general statement saying both parties have violated the cessation of hostility agreement.
To me, these ‘both-side’ statements are what are causing the problem. If we can’t pinpoint the side that violates the agreement first so that pressure is put on them, then we are just entangled in a zero-sum game.
Let’s have this [monitoring] unit set up and then let’s have the international community focus on Salva and Riek to make this agreement to work because the inclusion of expanded parties like civil society, former detainees and churches, though important stakeholders, have little role in cessation of hostilities. They are needed for peacebuilding.
President Kiir said he signed the peace agreement under duress and that he is pessimistic that it will hold. What did he mean and what were his reservations that led to this statement?
I cannot speak on behalf of President Kiir but to be candid with you, I have been keenly following how the agreement was signed. Unlike previous agreements like the CPA that was signed here publicly with lots of jubilation, this particular one was signed in a strange way.
It was done in secrecy and will go down in history as having been signed behind closed doors with frowns.
Never before have we ever seen guarantors and witnesses to an agreement sign the deal before the parties in a conflict do so. Interestingly, by the time Salva was signing the agreement in Juba, all the witnesses had appended their signatures.
Secondly, this is not a perfect agreement because it is full of mistakes including typos and mismatch of titles, but even after the flaws were raised there were concerted efforts that included threats of sanctions and arms embargo on government to sign it, meaning this was a an imposed agreement on the people of South Sudan.
But despite all that, President Kiir, after wide consultations, signed it outlining areas with difficulties in implementation, which he called reservations, which was ideally the compilation of people's feelings about the agreement.
He raised reservations on the agreement's demand for demilitarisation of Juba within a 25km radius, arguing that the issue was provocative and tantamount to undermining the country's sovereignty.
He also raised issue with the performance of monitoring and verification mechanisms which he said needs to be upgraded as the previous one has been generally biased against the government of South Sudan.
On the condition of regular reporting to yet to be formed Transitional Government of National Unity Council of Ministers, chairperson of council of ministers in Ethiopia and other AU bodies and the UN, our people raised reservations about this as they viewed it as a reintroduction of neo-colonialism as it amounts to ceding sovereignty and hard-earned independence.
Another reservation was the demand for an immediate shared Unified Command of the National Defence Forces of South Sudan (NDFS), which according to the government is an unknown organisation and that its formation will amount to creation of two separate armies contrary to the agreed provision where the transitional period should start with one national army.
These were just some of the difficulties the president highlighted and he was only expressing the sentiments and the mood of the country. Unfortunately people were subdued and the agreement was entered without the needed jubilation.
Even worse, some members of the international community say the leadership is not sensitive, even after the GOSS and the president committed to make it this deal work.
The reservations should not be ignored if we are interested in reaching a lasting peace in South Sudan. Igad should look at this keenly and positively.
Sanctions have been touted especially by the international community as one of the sticks that should be used against South Sudan to make sure that the peace deal is respected but this has been widely criticised and dismissed by the leadership in Juba. Why don't they want to be held to account?
Heavy-handed approach of sanctions and arms embargo isn't a feasible route. To make this agreement work, the Igad leadership should just look and iron out the reservations laid down by Kiir.
Ignoring them is postponing a problem and giving ammunition to those who want the agreement to fail. Let Igad put its act together and concentrate on making sure that the two principals work to deliver; this should not be done through threats and arm-twisting.
When you put sanctions on South Sudan because of a few people, you are simply trying to punish not only the entire South Sudanese population but also the entire region.
For instance, we have over 500,000 Kenyans in Sudan working in separate sectors of the economy, remitting over Sh180 billion back to their families in Kenya annually. When you put sanctions all this financial flow will be disrupted.
Do you think the international community has been unfair to you as far as resolution of this conflict is concerned?
Our appeal is to see that we are talking about peace and not war. This language of threat isn't a language for peace.
Peace deals can’t be implemented with ultimatums, so the militant statements from some cycles are going to undermine the implementation of the peace agreement.
These kinds of ultimatums are intended to weaken government, President Kiir and tamper with our sovereignty.
Some have argued that part of the obstacles to achieving stability in South Sudan is having neighbours (Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda) who are deeply involved in the armed conflicts, others for economic interests, whereas they are part of the peace brokers and guarantors even though seem keen to take sides. To what extent are these arguments valid?
I don't think they have selfish interests. But all our neighbours have a stake in stability of South Sudan in a positive way.
In case there are any other interests at play then it’s better for member states to understand that a torn South Sudan will trigger instability in the entire region.
I think Kenya doesn't need a failed South Sudan that forces them to shoulder the refugees burden but it needs a stable one where they can do trade, and grow the two economies.
A militarised culture and society where military-political systems take centre stage in decision-making in South Sudan is partly to blame for unending wars, how accurate are these observations?
The militarised situation in South Sudan isn't a peculiar scenario. It is common with countries coming out from liberation struggles, where there are so many guns in the hands of civilians who initially had been mobilised in the struggle.
Negative ethnicity, especially that pitting Dinka and Nuer against each other, has been pointed out as the main contributory factor that fuels the South Sudan conflicts, what are your thoughts?
It’s very unfortunate that when this rebellion started the former Vice President Riek Machar used the ethnic card to mobilise his clans, to simplify it to Dinka and Nuer war. Ironically, in his ranks there are non-Nuer people thus I fail to understand why it is being categorised as ethnic wars.
The definition was only used to whip up emotions, get a platform and achieve awkward goals. To me categorising it as a Nuer versus Dinka conflict is wrong.
If at all it were a tribal war we couldn't have bothered to engage Igad, we would have called the council of local elders to settle the matter.
These conflicts should be defined in its right terms, which is power struggle, nothing more, and nothing less.
Some analysts have argued that Salva Kiir and Riek Machar are the most polarising individuals in the South Sudan politics. They have even suggested that the two should be kicked out from the political scene. What are your thoughts?
Those are wrong analogies that are loaded with tribal overtones that are aimed at blurring the vision of the country and should never be entertained. To me, everyone should be judged by his ability to lead and deliver, not tribe.
You represented SPLM in the EU, played a role in negotiation and signing of the CPA and was at the front line during the South Sudan referendum that brought independence. Looking back, are you proud of your efforts?
I am proud of my humble contribution that has brought South Sudan this far. I have no regrets for my efforts; we did a good job for the country and the region history should judge us.
Despite the instability challenges facing us today, nobody can ever reverse our independence. This is what makes me so proud.
I am optimistic that if all us play our role and help bring silence to guns in South Sudan, then the new country will regain its rightful place in the community of nations.