Building dictatorship and war
SPLM says will not endorse national security bill
The current law, the 1999 National Security Forces Act, allows the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) to arrest and detain people without charge for up to nine months, and without judicial review for six months. It also grants them broad powers of search and seizure, and contains immunity provisions.
Yaser Arman, the leader of SPLM block at the Sudanese parliament and SPLM deputy Secretary General for northern Sudan, told Sudan Tribune Thursday they reiterated their opposition to the national security bill during the meeting because they "are opposed the powers to arrest, detention, search and seizure, and immunities for national security personnel," he said.
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article33492
I agree with them but they have to propose something. The old strategy of being opposed to everything did not work in any of the African countries. Opposition has to come with propositions and bill draft, not just oppose.
South Sudan army minister says peace is vital for growth
Defense forces have a critical responsibility of preserving, protecting and defending the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country to safeguard citizens from internal and external aggression, the minister said.
Nhial further blatantly admitted Government cognizant of numerous challenges particularly those personnel in the defense force faces in carrying out their duties, he called on men and women in uniforms not to deviate from the cause of the SPLM.
Here again, who will disagree with such the assertion that defense forces have the responsibility to protect and defend the people? No one.
But in a nation, an army (here the SPLA) is not the army of a party (the SPLM).
Once again, nation building hits at full speed its limits and our great incapacity to introduce and conduct security reforms in post conflict countries and fragile states.
Nations are built on two things: the ownership of power sharing mechanism by the people (democracy) AND the ownership violence monopoly by the people through defense forces (the submission of the army to a State apparatus and not a party).
US army is the tool of a nation not the property of a man or a party.
SPLA has to be the tool of a nation and not the armed wing of a party.
What we are building in South Sudan is a democratic dictatorship.
Elections are not fake because parties will tickle the boxes but because democratic power basics are not in place in Sudan.
As long as the elite of North and South Sudan will not be able to separate military and political power, the democratisation process supported by the UN will never build a democratic nation. It will just give another flavor to a dictatorship. In Sudan as in so many other places…
But by saying so, I just said that nation building is not just limited to elections and replacing an elite by another. I just rejected all assumptions of nation building as we do it to day.
But the worst comes from IGC:
the latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, examines the situation in the run-up to national elections due next year and the early 2011 referendum on self-determination in the South. It concludes that key elements of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended the two-decades-long civil war between North and South Sudan, have not been implemented. The failure to foster democratic transformation in the North has also undermined the chances for political settlement in Darfur and exacerbated tensions in other parts of the country.
“Sudan is sliding towards violent breakup, and time is running out” says Fouad Hikmat, Crisis Group’s Sudan Adviser. “Less than thirteen months remain to ensure that national elections and the South’s self-determination referendum lead to democratic transformation and stability in the country”.
The current negotiations between President Bashir’s National Congress Party (NCP) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) cannot achieve an all-Sudan peace. Both want elections but for the wrong reasons. Bashir’s party wants to re-establish its political legitimacy, the SPLM to ensure that the referendum, which must be no later than 9 January 2011, goes ahead.
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=6438&l=1
In one word, neither North nor South are looking to build a democratic nation through an electoral process but are looking for a just war coming from electoral boxes.
And the proof of how bad it is from Small Arms Survey :
According to Small Arms Survey, North army is strong of 225000 men and 310000 small fire arms. South army is strong of 125000 men with 175000 small fire arms. This is naturally without counting the 2 000 000 small arms hold by civilian population. Neither the 100 tanks bought by South and North military industrial capacity.
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