African elder statemen should teach the young country of South Sudan politicians that ethnic conflict, violent political and religious conflicts are a thing of the past. We are living now in a business and corporation world.
Winner take all majority vote democracy doesn't work well in multi ethnic and multi religious/sect countries. The ethnic or religious group in power will always oppress the other ethnic groups. I prefer the Egyptian and Roman system of council of elder were every ethnic group are represented in the government. That council of elder will choose a leader and a council of ten to govern the country. Instead of copying the ancient civilisations representative ancient form of government they are copying western form of plutocratic-oligarchic democracy were winner take all.
Salva Kiir President Of Sudan from Mandinka ethnic group
Rech Makiar Prime minister from Nuer ethnic group
Ethnic map of Sudan
Ethnic map of South sudan
Posts: 5374 | From: sepedat/sirius | Registered: Jul 2012
| IP: Logged |
Ugandan Troops enter South Sudan to help bring peace. .
quote:
The Uganda Peoples Defence Forces troops have entered Juba at the invitation of the government in South Sudan to secure the capital, Juba.
According to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity, the UPDF will also be charged with securing the safety of Ugandans in Juba, their safe evacuation and a possible return to normalcy of the troubled South Sudan.
The first batch of crack troops from the Special Forces group left yesterday and have secured the airport, the aircraft that took the troops is on its way back to Uganda with 150 people on board.
posted
3000 troops of the Ugandan Special Forces Enter Juba. Under the darkness of Thursday night, an elite team of 3,000 battle-hardened and guerrilla-experienced soldiers under the elite Special Forces Command (SFC) crossed the Ugandan border to South Sudan. By Giles Muhame 1 hour ago
In the volatile country, the Ugandan soldiers were directed to secure Juba International Airport, the presidential compound and other strategic government installations in the city.
This literally implies that Ugandan armed forces are likely to take full charge of Juba’s security, which will surely shatter sacked Vice president, Riek Machar’s hopes of toppling Kiir’s government.
By ruling out all chances of removing Kiir from power by military means, Machar and his loyalist commanders will definitely come to a round table for talks.
Uganda’s Special Forces, who have received specialised training in counter insurgency, hostage rescue and high-risk military missions, reconnaissance and surveillance, will work closely with American and UN security personnel in the two year-old country to ensure the government of Kiir is not toppled.
Sources in the army told Chimpreports that the directive was given by President Museveni in his capacity as the Commander-in-chief of the armed forces, following a request by President Salva Kiir to intervene.
The United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon also telephoned Museveni on Wednesday, urging his swift intervention as a “regional leader” to stop the military crisis from slipping into ethnic cleansing.
At least 500 people have been killed in the latest armed clashes in South Sudan.
The SFC spokesperson, Chris Magezi, could not comment on the latest deployment.
He referred this Corp to army spokesperson, Lt Col Paddy Ankunda, who promised to return our calls. He was yet to call our news desk when we posted this story.
However, it is understood, Museveni ordered the deployment after chairing a high-level security meeting at State House, Entebbe on Monday.
He directed Chief of Defence Forces Gen Katumba Wamala and SFG boss, Brig Muhoozi Keinerugaba to quickly mobilize a special force to “help our brothers in South Sudan.”
“We were at the border for several days, waiting for the green light from our superiors. We are now in Juba,” said a source in the SFC.
Uganda has for the last 15 years or so been a strong ally of the SPLA. Kampala contributed billions of shillings and military logistics to SPLA in its war of secession from Khartoum-Sudan.
Since its independence two years ago, Juba has maintained close ties with Kampala.
Why?
Observers say Museveni was bound to intervene for three reasons.
One is that an unstable South Sudan would lead to the birth of new rebel groups to destabilize Uganda.
LRA’s Joseph Kony has been playing hide and seek games with UPDF at the border of South Sudan, CAR and DRC.
Lt Col Ankunda recently said UPDF had increased its troop presence at the over 400km borderline with South Sudan to “stop wrong elements from exploiting the turmoil in Juba to wreck havoc on our people.”
The second reason is that South Sudan is one of the main sources of Uganda’s foreign exchange revenues. The better part of imports in form of construction materials, food items, medical supplies and general merchandise is imported from Uganda.
The third reason is that the fragile situation in South Sudan would provide Sudan an opportunity to resume supplies to groups hostile to Kiir’s government which would lead to a protracted civil war.
The fall of Kiir would also imply the rise of Bashir, something Museveni would not tolerate.
Museveni’s main threats have always been rebel groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
With the UN Intervention Brigade expected to fight the rebel Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) in DRC, Museveni had started having a peace of mind.
Posts: 2561 | From: Somewhere | Registered: May 2012
| IP: Logged |
posted
I am impress by Uganda rapid deployment force in South Sudan. Uganda army is very professional to be able to deploy 3000 troops in one night. Uganda probably stop civil war and genocide from happening in South Sudan. Uganda army show their competence by defeating the tough guerilla army of Somalia with Kenya army and bringing peace and stability to Somalia. President Yoweri Musevini show is political experience by thinking quick and deciding to send the special force to South Sudan.
The African Union need to have a rapid deployment force of 20,000 troops to intervene in country were there is chaos and threat of civil war and genocide.
posted
The problem for a number of African countries is that the nation state--in the modern sense--was formed indigenously as it was done for the most part in Europe. What happened was that a new state evolved out of a set of smaller ethnic groupings. The language issue was also solved indigenously.
The point is that out of the internal conflicts and negotiations new states were formed. Bismarck and Garibaldi unified Germany and Italy respectively in the modern era. Spain did the same except that there is the Catalan problem. And in the U.K.(a kingdom united from England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland) a united state was formed with English as the unifying language. Gaelic and Welsh fell by the wayside.
Not so in Africa for the most part. New states were imposed by the colonials but peoples' identities still remained the same as in precolonial days. That's the problem. This matter can be solved as it is in a place like Senegal where people don't care or know the ethnicity of the President. One reason is that there is a lingua franca, Wolof.
But aside language people can just live and let live but opportunistic and crooked politicians exploit the issue to get votes. If African governments were serious then national languages could be created and spoken by all. For example, Hebrew as the national language of Israel was an almost dead language for centuries with European Jews speaking Yiddish instead. But all Israelis now speak Hebrew.
The point is that opportunistic and power-hungry politicians campaign on the grounds of ethnicity and if they win dole out political positions mainly to their own group. But later for the poor--they don't get anything even though they voted on ethnic lines. They continue to be fooled big time. And they even fight and kill each other on those grounds as was the case in Kenya in 2007. Kikuyu against Luo. Kikuyu must vote for Kikuyu and Luo for Luo. More than 1,000 killed in the fighting. And what did the fighters gain? Zero.
In South Africa, Dutch settlers fought the British in the Boer wars but once matters were settled, Dutch(Afrikaans) and British cooperated under the Apartheid system.
So until the ethnic problem is solved there will always be ethnic conflict in the African state for the reasons given above.
It would be interesting to study how Russia--a vast land, almost as big as Africa-- and China, an equally vast land, solved their ethnic and language problems.
The U.S. is an interesting case because there are many more ethnic groups in the U.S. than for any African state, yet we don't hear of any of the groups physically fighting each other--except on grounds of race( a kind of natural ethnicity). Blacks have fought whites during the Civil Rights era and Mexicans fight blacks for turf in the SW of the U.S. But I doubt Kenyan Kikuyus and Luos would fight each other in the U.S. on the basis of elections in Kenya
Posts: 5492 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Lamin say: The point is that out of the internal conflicts and negotiations new states were formed. Bismarck and Garibaldi unified Germany and Italy respectively in the modern era. Spain did the same except that there is the Catalan problem. And in the U.K.(a kingdom united from England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland) a united state was formed with English as the unifying language. Gaelic and Welsh fell by the wayside.
Mena say: Lamin good job to remind us that Spain, UK, Germany and Italy were multi ethnic, multi lingual and multi racial(the black people were force to mixed, exiled or genocided ex spain) states who were united under one religion and one language.
Lamin say : Not so in Africa for the most part. New states were imposed by the colonials but peoples' identities still remained the same as in precolonial days. That's the problem. This matter can be solved as it is in a place like Senegal where people don't care or know the ethnicity of the President. One reason is that there is a lingua franca, Wolof.
But aside language people can just live and let live but opportunistic and crooked politicians exploit the issue to get votes. If African governments were serious then national languages could be created and spoken by all. For example, Hebrew as the national language of Israel was an almost dead language for centuries with European Jews speaking Yiddish instead. But all Israelis now speak Hebrew
Mena say : African leaders know very well how to create a multiethnic and multi religious state. Egypt was a united states of 42 African tribes. The 42 nomes governors represented their people in meetings with the Pharaoh. The Empire of Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Monomotapa and kingdom of Kongo were multi ethnic. There are many multi national African languages. Haussa is the multi national language of West Africa. Swahili is the multi national language of east and Central Africa. The Nigerian have a great political system of ethnic rotation. Every five or ten years a member of a different ethnic groups will be president. Creating ethnic unity in an African country is easy, you create an assembly of all the ethnic elders or representants that will represent the different ethnic groups interest in the government. That assembly will help create a multi ethnic government.
Lamin say: But aside language people can just live and let live but opportunistic and crooked politicians exploit the issue to get votes. If African governments were serious then national languages could be created and spoken by all. For example, Hebrew as the national language of Israel was an almost dead language for centuries with European Jews speaking Yiddish instead. But all Israelis now speak Hebrew.
The point is that opportunistic and power-hungry politicians campaign on the grounds of ethnicity and if they win dole out political positions mainly to their own group. But later for the poor--they don't get anything even though they voted on ethnic lines. They continue to be fooled big time. And they even fight and kill each other on those grounds as was the case in Kenya in 2007. Kikuyu against Luo. Kikuyu must vote for Kikuyu and Luo for Luo. More than 1,000 killed in the fighting. And what did the fighters gain? Zero
Mena say: I agree Ethnic problem are created by African politicians who want to exploit and manipulate the ignorant and poor mass for political gain. Some African politicians are corrupt, immoral, superstitious, western agent and sell out. The solution is the political system of a country should be control by its permanent elite(intellectual, business, rich, noble)not by somebody elected every four or five years(Exemple UK, USA, China, Russia< Japan).
Posts: 5374 | From: sepedat/sirius | Registered: Jul 2012
| IP: Logged |
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic