In politics there are no permanent enemies, just interests

“Kenya and Sudan will work closely to tackle extremist elements threatening the security of Kenya and other nations in the region.” The announcement was made Monday by President Uhuru Kenyatta.

In politics there are no permanent enemies, just interests

By Opoka Christopher Arop

Recent developments have proven critics right that South Sudanese politics is replete with simpletons and simple ideas. This has been seen in the shifting of friends. At one moment, the government in Juba was signing post CPA and secession agreements with Khartoum, the next minute, President Kiir attempts at wooing Ethiopia as soon as his government discovered that the rebel forces were steps ahead. Remember, it was not less than a year ago when President Kiir cried to his brother President Museveni of Uganda to ‘quell the fires in your brother’s house’ as President Museveni chose to describe Uganda’s continued military presence in Juba and South Sudan.

Then came the Nairobi trips and more Ethiopia trips. The G11 drama and finally their handover to the Kenyan government came next. Of recent, Uganda has also played its cards, then Tanzania brought Kiir and Dr. Riek face to face, the heinous smiles too evident, or do they call it skin-teething. It might be true that ChapaChaMapinduzi, CCM pulled a genie out of their hat of politics, almost a shocking surprise that the world didn’t expect. It proves how other countries in the region are all plotting for a share of the South Sudan spoils of politics and subsequent wars.

Let me bring to your attention why I am writing about our dismal and reactionary politics and planning. A simple example. Before the so called austerity measures, we spent as foolish school boys, only to realize that it was foolhardy of a nation to spend too much of what it didn’t have in the place, or at least we were at best duped by the Khartoum government that we had oil. This phase of terrible planning was our supposed austerity government and its budget.

This resulted in the dumping of some disgruntled senior government officials, and replacing them with even more corrupt government officials. It always beat my understanding why a senior economist like Finance minister Aggrey Tisa Sabuni could have allowed such an even larger cabinet, if his economics was still more than presentations to students at World Bank and IMF forum! I mean if the previous government had a minister and under secretary and several director generals and directors; this was already too fertile a ground for stealing and over spending on such government officials. This surely isn’t rocket science. But what did we do?

We increased the cabinet, accommodated several already incompetent sycophants, a bunch of yes-men and women, with little political base to command [although we simply took the foolish chance that these leaders had the unquestionable support of the masses!] So the next move for our finance minister was to make speeches about belt tightening! He discussed belt tightening while promising to raise more revenue from non-oil revenues. So I imagine we improved our tax collections in all state capitals as well as those from our borders. We simply shifted the financial burden of the government on to the foreign traders who in turn shoved the tax somewhere in the tax-payer.

Then of course our blatant day light robbers at the borders got angry that their fair share of the lucrative trade in Nimule and other border posts [this trade often very characteristic: a connection with an official in customs directorate in Juba, a chair, table, a cell-phone and some few police officers and soldiers shoving their guns around their ‘big-man’ and voila, mission accomplished; a bag of money by mid-week and then a trip to Nairobi. Again is this rocket science? This question is not directed at our finance minister, whom I find to be a classic example of the geeks in science-fiction movies. He is a simple man to say the least.

His simplicity is by no way a mistake that he doesn’t know his work. But I have always seen him as slightly too clever for his position. He soon avoided [unknowingly perhaps] protocol and just wandered about.] Enough with my attempt at vilifying my good Uncle Aggrey Tisa.

He is among some few who have served and continue to do so with a brand of vigilance only very few like him have. The more crucial matter in this debate I hope you may agree, or agree to disagree is that we have become pawns in games of chess orchestrated by regional leaders and their interests. And we have continued to just tow the line as if we are not a nation state! Where is our pride if we do not have any interests, let alone that those interests be strategic? We seem to make one week plans, only to find a leaked document in which our neighbors have drawn ten year plans for their countries’ engagement with us; be it economic, political, military, social; make your pick.

Our next engagements with East Africa let alone the rest of the world have already been designed, and without our knowledge or consent. The fact that we are ten years behind if not more in how we manage our country or how we engage with those hell-bent on managing our affairs for us, is enough cause for alarm and constructive deliberate action. We may not diagnose any best approach, but the first step must be with acknowledging that we are treading on thin ice in a land of fires.

Another example in the offing is the recent shift in relations between Khartoum and Nairobi. Mwai Kibabi and Raila Odinga for their part had every cause to shun President Bashir. And so relations were very low profile. After all Bashir was a wanted criminal by the International Criminal Court’s Moreno Ocampo. But now, Kenya’s international relations has undergone a swift change, and Uhuru and his deputy Ruto have shamed the ICC enough for them to side with President Bashir. This is strategic in my opinion. As the saying goes, that one hand by itself can’t clap. Rub my back and I will rub yours. Well done Uhuru and Ruto! I also like the fact that there is some sugar-coating to the whole marriage of true minds. “Kenya and Sudan will work closely to tackle extremist elements threatening the security of Kenya and other nations in the region.” The announcement was made Monday when President Uhuru Kenyatta met a Sudanese government delegation led by Foreign Affairs Minister Ali Ahmed Karti.

Karti said Sudan has managed to contain terrorist elements and wants to share its skills with Kenya.The President and the delegation agreed that the security organs of the two countries will create channels to exchange information and ideas. President Kenyatta said countries in the region must unite and deny extremists space to operate from. “Many Kenyans have suffered at the hands of extremists.

There should be no space for extremist ideologies in the region and we look to partner with friends in the region and from outside to control them,” said President Kenyatta said. Can South Sudan afford to strike a similar deal? I do not think so. We are too fragile politically to even attempt such smart politicking.

Whether not the cause for security agreement between Kenya and Sudan is and can be exclusively about fighting extremists in the region, and how much Sudan can provide in way of fighting extremism, unless lessons on how training has been provided to jihadists and similar extremists as written by Kimberly Hollingsworth the founder of ‘Humanity Is Us’ are what Kenya wants to borrow. At the end of the day it’s a marriage of interests not changing, just the enemies. The first lesson in politics!