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President Salva Kiir

Stephen Mpofu
ENTICINGLY beautiful and bursting with life at birth, Africa’s newest baby is bleeding profusely, might soon become skeletal and then wither away.

But as South Sudan goes to the dogs as it were, a progressive world that celebrated the birth of Africa’s newest state with fun-fare, has tragically pre-occupied itself with bursts upon bursts of sweet nothings as that oil-rich country teeters on the brink of death at the hands of arch-tribalists at the very top of the country’s leadership and with armed bands mowing down civilians with glee as if swatting bothersome flies in their house.

International organisations say that so far, as many as 1,5 million South Sudanese have fled their homes to the safety of neighbouring states with about 700 000 of them flocking to Uganda and others fleeing to Sudan from which the South severed itself, and to the Central African Republic as well as to the two Congos — creating Africa’s biggest refugee crisis.

The unending conflict in South Sudan was apparently triggered by a desire for tribal supremacy, and therefore political control of the country, between the majority Dinka to which President Salvar Kiir and leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army belongs and his rival and former Vice President Riek Machar of the Nuer tribe and who heads the Sudan People’s Liberation Army In Opposition, has fled the country and is believed to be directing the fight against Kiir from exile.

Armed bands reportedly roam the countryside, blocking roads and killing civilians who flee their homes and into the bush, abandoning their fields and causing the economy to collapse so that now about five million Sudanese are now experiencing a food crisis with women and children the most vulnerable victims of the violence.

Kiir’s government says Machar can only be allowed to return home after “denouncing violence” — a demand that in the present circumstances seems a far cry.

But as the strife-stricken South Sudanese desert their country or homes to save their lives in the wake of the continuing slaughter, but just what do the United Nations and the African Union think they are doing by remaining ensconced on their laurels and issuing sterile warnings instead of taking effective steps once and for all to restore peace and stability in Africa’s newest republic?

If, for instance, a combined military intervention by the UN and the AU to save lives in the Sudan, instead of ineffective rhetoric, is deemed unjustified, then what and where on this globe is that action commendable?

Or is the apparent laissez faire approach by the UN in quelling the strife in South Sudan not likely to tempt other power hungry rebellion elements in other countries, including our own where some political elements hunger after power for its own sake, to square up with their governments in the belief that the UN or the AU are toothless bulldogs?

Prospects for a vibrant new South Sudanese state encouraged well wishers, including our own government to send their nationals to that country at its birth to help with social and economic development there. But the foreign helpers have had to be withdrawn to save their lives as South Sudan became engulfed in the internecine conflict with no end in sight.

Seventy-five percent of the people in that country are Catholics who together with other believers in God have however failed to bring about unity and stability by preaching love, peace and forgiveness.

In the circumstances, people of goodwill around the world should continue to pray, and treating the intervention of the Lord of Peace who alone has the power to intervene and bring about normalcy in South Sudan as in other conflict ridden nations around the globe.