I’ve been trying not to write much on
politics- but politics is a day-to-day aspect of life here and is difficult to
ignore.
On Monday there were protests within the
town. My office is relatively far from the protest sites so couldn’t really
hear or see anything- but… the airport was closed for a few hours in the
morning, there were (rumoured) gunshots –in one of -the army barracks (why is
this even within the town?) and the police shot live ammunition at the
protesters around Juba Universityß I don’t even
know what to say about this.
Northern Bahr-el-Ghazal (NBeG) is pretty
upset about the decision to include the 14-mile area in the demilitarized zone
and Abyei is upset that the issue of their referendum is taking too long to
resolve/ was ignored in the recent Addis Ababa agreement. In general, there are
those who feel like we keep giving up too much during the negotiations.
There also seems to be quite a bit of
confusion regarding the nitty-gritty of the Addis Ababa agreement in general,
e.g. some in NBeG believe that it means we are giving up area-14 to the North.
(Btw, here’s a map of disputed border
regions: North-South
Sudan – this should immediately give you an idea of how
long the border demarcation issue will take to resolve)
These are some of the reasons for the
protests.
There have been rumours of attempted coups-
Salva finally addressed this recent spate of rumours at Bilpam: coup.
However, rumours have been persistent all year- a few roadblocks were put up on
the roads leading to the president’s house, and the road leading to the airport
is now permanently closed after 7.00pm, there was also recent change in the
presidential guards.
Some claim that these coup attempts
(whether real or imagined) are led by those from Jonglei State–or rather former
close allies of Garang’ who feel sidelined by the Kiir government. And it cant help the situation when the son
of the former leader lends his voice in criticism about the current govt’s
direction- and does this with the help of what could possibly be the worst type
of journalist (rant posing as
news article ). But who knows…. I’ve also heard its affiliated
with NBeG.
Not to mention the soldiers overall
disenchantment with a recent decision to cut their pay.
Not to mention whatever else is going on in
the country
I guess I should take it as some sign of
progress that despite all this the town isn’t in lockdown/curfew, with soldiers
at every corner checking all cars and harassing pedestrians- which is what
usually happened in the most recent past.
An
aside in apropos to nothing: Recently I was exposed
to something I have never actually thought of: the notion that people from Blue
Nile and Kordofan, who are in SPLM –which now becomes SPLM-North- and are currently
living in South Sudan are accorded refugee status. It feels like a mental
disconnect: being a refugee in a country you fought to liberate, and for some-
you consider to be your country. Does the
recent agreement mean that they are now not refugees? (For me this raises a
wider question about citizenship and governments’ monotony over according
individuals legal status; I don’t necessarily believe this should be in the
hands of governments. Perhaps my fellow blogger-AFRICAN- and I can have a
discussion on this at a later date- if we can figure out the mechanics of
blogging!). But… this- to me at least-
raises the question of the relationship between SPLM N&S. The N/S divorce
also resulted in a break between former allies. What does this mean, really?
