The Father who puts  Himself first

BY: Joana Adams, SOUTH SUDAN

DEC. 23/2011, SSN; This week, billions of believers and non-believers worldwide celebrate Christmas.  Whereas some people just mark the day others celebrate it as a season spanning from 1^st week of December to 1^st week of January of the New Year.  This week like the Easter week is a holy week for Christians.  We all celebrate Christmas for various reasons.  Even non-believers in many countries these days join in, in the celebrations of the “festive” season.  Believers celebrate Christmas to commemorate the birth of baby Jesus as a special gift to save mankind from eternal death. 

This week many parents will strive to buy presents for their children; friends will exchange presents; extended families and communities will come together to celebrate the joyous occasion with prayers, feasting, and dancing. 

Women in our communities go to extraordinary length to decorate their (tukuls) traditional mud-walled houses, with fresh mud-plastering to present the best of their homes to the string of visitors who will be dropping in and out.  Those who are better off will buy new curtains bed spreads, and baked cakes.  In addition, on Christmas day, they will slaughter lambs, goats or chickens to celebrate the festive season.  Those who cannot afford beers and whiskies will brew traditional drinks to ensure that they entertain themselves and their guests adequately.   Christmas is a time of peace, love, forgiveness and goodwill towards mankind.  This is what the joy of a new born brings to the heart of every family and humanity.  This week South Sudanese celebrate their first Christmas as an independent nation and so the celebrations will be better and bigger.  But will all share in the joy of Christmas? 

The Christmas spirit of sharing and generosity will ensure that neighbours who normally go without will have something.  Churches will brace themselves to visit those in prisons and hospitals to share food and the good news of the gospel.  As we celebrate Christmas as an independent country, let us remember those who have perished during our years of struggle, and in peace time, so that our lives may be improved.  And let us also remember those who are bereaved and distraught or those who have nothing to celebrate Christmas with. 

Let us examine the example of Ms Iklas Monu Ahmed in a story entitled “Since I’ve been here, nobody has come to talk to me or show us where to go” which can be found on the website of the humanitarian news and analysis http://www.irinnews.org, reproduced below in italics including the photograph for ease of reference.

   Photo: Hannah McNeish/IRIN , Iklas Monu Ahmed and one of her children

“Iklas Monu Ahmad; Ahmad is desperate as three year old Mamdu lies prone on bare bed-frame and the family is stuck, facing sickness and hunger.   I was taken to Khartoum at the age of 11…now I’m 31.  The life was ok in Khartoum.  I was working…and I was able to feed the family.  But since I came here there is no one to receive us and nobody to take us home.  Life is difficult, there is no food, and I came with children.  Now the younger one is sick and the elder ones went to town looking for something to treat him. 

Of course Juba is my place where I want to stay but I have nowhere to go and nobody to take care of me.  If only I could take a piece of land to put the family and my luggage that is down here, I would be able to get something to do for myself, like making tea and the family would be sustained.  Since I have been here, nobody has come, either the government or any of the agencies, to talk to me or at least show us where to go.  We were given cards,[ratio] cards but we have not been served any food or non-food items up to now. 

I left Juba after my mother died when I was 11 and my father was gone.  So I went to Khartoum I stayed with the relatives of my mother there and got married to a Darfuri and we separated.  I do work in hotels helping to wash dishes and fetch water.  They pay me 10 pounds[US$3.70] a day and I buy food every evening for the children.  But for three days I have not gone as my son is sick.  I took the child to the hospital and he has been prescribed drugs but they are not easiest to buy from the clinics as we don’t have the money.  He has malaria and he vomits whenever he tastes something.  We sleep outside here on this floor.  I’m here because the country now is at peace and it is a separate nation and I have come back home like any other national.  If only I can get a piece of land, I can sustain the family just like in Khartoum.” 

This is the story of Iklas Ahmad.  The pain of Iklas is the pain of the disadvantaged and forgotten women of South Sudan.  It is the story of wars and displacement; it is the story of dispossession, and of broken families.  It is the story of death and survival.  It is the story of orphans and abandoned women.  It is the story of a government that doesn’t care.  Yet it is also a story of resilience and determination to survive a story of resourcefulness and hope for a better future if only…  The story of Iklas is the epitome of the 5 decades of struggle for liberation, dignity and justice and social justice.  It is the real cost of the war.  Whereas President Kiir and his ministers and commanders have visibly arrived at the promised land and use state resources and power as their own with impunity, countless Southerners will this year spent their Christmas in the “wilderness”, while others are stuck between “the Red Sea and the Egyptian army” with no route to escape.

 Iklas is not alone in her predicament.  Let us look at another story in the same website above entitled:  Sudan-South Sudanese left in limbo, similarly reproduced below.     

Photo: Hannah McNeish/IRIN, Nairobi, 5^th December 2011(IRIN).

“This photo shows homeward bound... Southern Sudanese arrive by barge in Juba - Some had camped for months waiting for promised transport to South Sudan, others have been returned, disappointed with life in the newest state.  Five months after the South gained independence, the fate of hundreds of thousands of Southerners living north of the border remains uncertain, particularly so as the Northern military battles borderland rebels it accuses Juba of sponsoring.  Even their numbers lack consensus: 700,000, according to the UN, 150,000 according to Khartoum.  

Most lost their citizenship after secession on 9 July and were given nine months-until 9^th April to “regularize their status” but were not told what this means in practice.  Many have spent their entire lives in the north; dual nationality has been ruled out.  More than 350,000 people of southern origin have headed south on their own over the past year, another 130,000 with help from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organisation for Migration.  By the end years, UNHCR expects a further 140,000 to register for assisted return.  

Tens and thousands still in the north, who have made the first steps to returning, selling their homes and many of their possessions, have found themselves stuck in temporary camps with limited access to basic amenities.     The hardest this is that nothing has changed since independence of south Sudan, said Victor Rabbi, leaders of a camp called Al-Andaluz, in Mayo near Khartoum.  We sold everything months ago because we thought we would go back to our homeland in July.  We have nothing left.  Not even a job.  Since independence, as South Sudanese we no longer have the right to work in the public sector or for NGO’s, he said. 

The camp consists of hundreds of shelters made from wood and fabric and is home to 3,600 people.   Water is brought in by mules, and two four-litre of jerry cans are sold for five pounds (US$ 1.80), a considerable expense for the residents.  Children cannot go to school anymore, as they are no longer considered Sudanese.  In the absence of electricity, power cables serve as skipping ropes for the girls.  “We are waiting for someone to tell us to leave,”said Rabbi.   Forty families arrived at Al-Anduz over a year ago.  In the run-up to independence, there were promises of lorries paid for by the Southern Sudan government”.   

This is a case of utter failure by the SPLM led government of South Sudan.  By the end of  2004, the SPLM which was negotiating on behalf of the people of South Sudan with the government of Khartoum, knew that the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was imminent and but made no tangible plans for repatriation of its citizens to the South.  This failure is the more unacceptable because throughout the CPA implementation (2005-2011), in the GoNU the ministry of humanitarian Affairs was headed by an SPLM minister as a part of the power sharing scheme.  Furthermore, in Juba from 2005, GoSS had a commission of humanitarian Affairs and from June 2010 a fully fledged ministry running parallel to the commission.  How these institutions which are all headed by SPLM officials, could in 7 years, fail to organise for the orderly repatriation and resettlement of its citizens beats common logic. 

This failure to repatriate and resettle Southerners must be shared to some extent by the international community especially the UNHCR and the International Office of Migration (IOM).  Someone needs to be able to answer why Southerners are still stuck as destitutes in temporary camps in Khartoum and those who arrive in their dream land of freedom and prosperity are sleeping rough with children in open air, where they are expose to diseases and hunger. Where are the resettlement packages returnees are entitled to from the various levels of authorities and agencies, which should ultimately include allocation of plots of land?      

However, in South Sudan you don’t have to be a destitute returnee like Iklas or a despondent immigrant stuck in Khartoum like Rabbi to live in abject poverty.   There are millions of Southerners who are facing hunger and life threatening diseases daily and each one of us, know neighbours or relatives living in these appalling conditions. 

Sometimes it takes others to pick out the “plank” in our eyes.  Although poverty is a part of our daily struggles, it took an article published in [Gurtong] website entitled:  7 ‘Deadly’ Decisions South Sudanese Make Daily To Fight Poverty to prick my conscience about the level of our poverty.  According to the article, a recent research on fighting poverty in South Sudan indicates that ordinary households have to make at least 7 deadly decisions daily while struggling to provide basic needs of the family.  The article plus the photos are reproduced below. 

A woman in Pibor County walking home from her garden [©Gurtong]By Waakhe Simon Wudu
JUBA, 30th November 2011 [Gurtong].  

“These decisions are referred to as deadly because they all have to be achieved only on a dollar, a day.  The ordinary South Sudanese household must make them in a day, the head of the United Nations development Program, (UNDP) Lise Grande said.    Lise stated that they must make decisions in order to achieve efforts to partly address the provision of basic services or else their children will die if there is no medicine, shelter and food.  They have to decide if they use it to buy second meal of the day or use it to buy school uniforms, or use it to buy anti-malaria drugs.   They also decide if the one dollar can be used for buying paraffin, or for building their tookles (grass thatch huts), or use it to buy seeds, or farming equipments or they also decide if they can use it for taxes”.   

This heart breaking story is the reality of daily life for at least 90% of the 8-9 million South Sudanese people –scrapping a living out of equivalent of 1 dollar a day- in a country that is potentially rich, if we are to fully develop our non-oil natural resources in agriculture, livestock, mineral resources and of course human capital.   This week, millions of Southerners in the South or in temporary camps in Khartoum will spend Christmas without basic essentials for them and their families. 

Whereas the Southern political and military elite will provide gifts for their children and multiple wives, or fly out of the country to spend Christmas abroad with their families, the ordinary family especially female headed households like that of Iklas, will struggle to provide a decent Christmas meal for their children.  Their children will have to look on with envy on the better-off children, who will at least be bought new clothes and shoes for attending church on Christmas day.

Thanks to the less hostile weather of our country, even the homeless will be able to celebrate their Christmas under trees during the day and in the open air at night.  And these are the lucky ones because many have recently lost their lives due to the rampant insecurity in the country and many others are bereaved.   How do you celebrate Christmas when you have just lost your husband, your wife or child?  

What are the answers of the government to the ordinary problems facing ordinary people needing ordinary solutions?  

• 1.      Luxury ministerial retreats to neighbouring countries.

• 2.      Inter-city shuttle of Pagan Amum between Juba and Addis-Ababa without results.  

• 3.      Impotent national army that cannot defend the country’s territorial integrity. 

• 4.      Calling upon big brother to declare no fly zone along the borderlands between the South and North. 

• 5.      A President that cannot name, shame or prosecute top government officials suspected of banking millions/ billions of public funds, in their private accounts abroad.  

• 6.      A government that cannot provide internal security and protection of lives and property of its own citizens.

• 7.      A government that is oblivious to the immediate basic needs of its citizens like protection of lives, provision of medicines for sick children, and provision of food and education which are all basic human rights. 

• 8.      Deception of the international community about the real issues facing the country.

• 9.      Deception of the citizens about why their demands for opportunities/jobs, services and security are not being met… and the list continues.       

 There is a lot one can say under each of the items enumerated above but this is not the time.  This time is a time of peace, love and goodwill towards mankind.  As you enjoy your Christmas just think of Iklas and her children, think of Rabbi and all the other who are stranded in temporary camps in Khartoum and elsewhere wishing to return home.  Think of the women who have to make life threatening decisions daily, to divide one dollar to meet all the urgent needs of their families. 

In contrast think of the CPA millionaires who have stacked billions of public monies in their personal bank accounts in foreign lands.  Look at how some of them are obese and can hardly walk because they eat food which could be eaten by at least 4 people in a day and their sight is quite frankly embarrassing. These people who are clearly swimming in affluence are surrounded by destitute local people who are anything but walking sticks.  

Not so long ago, these CPA millionaires were like this woman who had to make ends meet out of one dollar a day or sleep hungry.  But human beings have short memories.     

These people have used the people of South Sudan to gain wealth and power and have quickly turned their backs against their own people.  Outside the country, they behave like spoilt children who have inherited immense wealth from their fathers and wilfully squander our wealth on personal luxuries and comforts. 

In its 7 years in power, the SPLM dominated government has treated its people with utter contempt and disrespect.  On the one hand it assumes it knows it all, and the people must follow them blindly, on the other, it shades crocodile tears for lack of capacity.  

Unfortunately for us, with no offence to ordinary Kenyans who are decent people, our leaders are being groomed by a country that according to Transparency International (2004) is one of the country that tops the list of bribery in the world.  What other vices will our leaders bring home from their mentors?

Let’s not forget Kenya has served as a safe haven for stolen public funds from South Sudan.  If Kenyan banks and the Kenyan government are honest, they should disclose names of institutions and/or individuals that have been “illegally” banking in Kenya since 2005.  Otherwise this “cosy” relationship will be friendship of partners in crime which will not ultimately serve the interests of the peoples of the two friendly and sisterly countries of South Sudan and Kenya.  No amount of training will reform these bush politicians.

A moral choice :

The government of South Sudan has failed the people not because it has no capacity but because it has wilfully chosen to do wrong.  This moral decision to do wrong, has nothing to do with capacity or lack of it.  It is a choice individuals or governments make because they want to.  It is a path the SPLM leadership has chosen because it benefits them. 

President Kiir and his cohorts are behaving like fathers who have chosen to put themselves first before the interest of their children.  And this Christmas, the first Christmas in independent South Sudan, President Kiir and his government have let down the people of South Sudan.

 It seems people inside or outside South Sudan know and care about what should be done to ameliorate the conditions of the ordinary citizens except President Kiir and his government.  This sentiment was echoed by the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair who visited Juba on 13^th December 2011.  Tony Blair was right to visit South Sudan because Britain was/is a part of the TROIKA that along with the US pushed for the successful negotiation of the CPA, during the tenure of Blair’s Labour government. 

And Britain was also a host to Southern refugees especially intellectuals and professionals some of who have since returned to participate in construction of the country.  But Britain continues to be a home for children and wives of many GoSS ministers and MPs. 

During the South Sudan Engagement Conference, Wednesday, December 

14, 2011, Washington, D.C. Robert B. Zoellick, President, World Bank Group,

said, “South Sudan has now emerged as a new nation, optimistic and hopeful. 

Yet it is a nation that still bears the scars of decades of conflict that killed millions, 

made refugees of most of its people, and crippled the country’s development”.  

He narrated in detail the challenges facing the people: the worst human

development indices; how more than half of the population live in grinding 

poverty; resettlement and rebuilding of individuals and communities; lack of 

health services ; and illiteracy, bare 60 miles of paved road in a country the

 size of France.  But noted abundance of untapped resources: young population, 

good land and good weather, good agricultural land and forestry, lots of water,

resilient traditional customary laws, and conflict resolution mechanisms.

Admitting that the international community cannot shoulder this responsibility alone Mr Zoellick advocated the adoption of three layered approach: country, regional and global.  “We congratulate their commitment and their courage.  We stand with you and walk with you… I know President Kiir and the government face many demands and are deluged with suggestions.  Perhaps the most important point now is to act.  Sometimes too much advice from donors can overwhelm, even paralyze.  Exercise your judgment as best you can, and then we and others will work with you to learn and improve.”

But if the [RSS] government needed any lecturing at all, they got it in no uncertain

 terms from the lady who could have become President of the United States of 

America, US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton.  I am not very sure our 

distinguished delegates to the conference fully comprehended Mrs Clinton’s

 speech.  We ought to be ashamed that others know more about us and 

can read us like books.  As for me, I need the Christmas holidays to digest 

what the American iron lady has said to be able to fully engage with it in not 

too distant a future.  Watch the space! 

Like Tony Blair said during his press conference on SSTV on Dec 13th, when

he was visibly overwhelmed by everything around him, “the living conditions and

 welfare of the people must be improved”.  For mothers like Iklas what they need

 are not fancy roads or luxury cars but simple plots of land to erect their tukuls

 (grass thatched houses) and simple micro-finance to generate income 

through petty trade such as tea-selling, for feeding their families.  Through a 

small-business, she will gain dignity and have money to buy food, clothing, 

medicines and school requirements for her children.  How come nobody came

 to “talk to her or direct her where to go”?  Is that too much to ask?  Not everyone 

has relatives to fall back onto in times of difficulties.  

Women like Iklas will lose their daily wages when they are unable to attend 

to work due to illness of their children.   What financial security do they 

have to ensure that they and their children do not end up destitute or engaged

 in illicit practices such as prostitution or stealing just to stay alive? It is time 

President Kiir starts putting the nation and the people first, or women like Iklas

 and people like Rabbi must never vote for him and his party again.   

African fathers traditionally don’t eat, until their children have eaten and are 

satisfied.  What sort of a father is he, who puts himself first before his children?

What sort of fathers and mothers of the nation are these who put themselves 

first before the interests of their long suffering citizens?  We have seen what an

elitist party and government can do to its people and resources.  Now we want

 a government of the people for the people.  

Merry Christmas and Happy New year!

Joana Adams, RSS, Juba

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