Profile: Salva Kiir - South Sudan's Commander-in-Chief - Image vs. Reality
AfricanargumentsEditor
<
http://africanarguments.org/author/africanargumentseditor/>
15.10.2014
Ten years before the start of South Sudan's current war, the Sudan People's
Liberation Movement (SPLM) held a meeting at Rumbek in which the party
leadership sought to resolve a major problem between their chairman and
deputy chairman.
<
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article26320> Minutes of that crucial
meeting reveal that the SPLM Chairman John Garang, in the final year of his
life, distrusted his deputy Salva Kiir, preferred to downplay their
differences rather than confront him outright, and sought to avoid setting
up formal processes in which he would have to manage affairs through Kiir.
Many party leaders urged the chairman to make structural reforms and address
Kiir's grievances head on. But Garang refused. Perhaps he knew something
about Salva Kiir that others did not.
Today, even after Kiir has ruled South Sudan for nearly ten years, few
writers have sought to understand the real personality behind Kiir's often
scripted appearances. Instead, most observers see only a cultivated
non-personality - a monotone, emotionless, uncharismatic speaker, with
almost no known personal history and a completely hidden private life.
Oral accounts and historical documents therefore offer a clearer window into
the 'real' Kiir. A close look back at the Rumbek meeting reveals a man who
deeply distrusts his close associates, who rebuffs attempts at
reconciliation, and who thirsts for more structure and authority to allay
his insecurities.
This is not a matter of mere historical curiosity, given the role that
personality differences continue to play in South Sudan's politics and peace
process today.
At the 2004 conference, senior members of the SPLM tried to encourage Garang
and Kiir to address their personal differences directly.
Kiir himself downplayed personal differences with Garang, while at the same
time acknowledging that he refused a direct order to meet him at Yirol out
of fear of being arrested; refused entreaties of one of his envoys (the
current police inspector-general, Pieng Deng); and rebuffed yet another
appeal for 'reconciliation' by two more senior envoys - apparently out of
fear that 'reconciliation' equated somehow to an admission of wrongdoing.
"I considered the word reconciliation as something very serious, and
therefore decided to tell them that I will not go to Nairobi," Kiir said of
a meeting with Kuol Manyang and Deng Alor, who were sent to persuade Kiir to
meet Garang in Kenya.
Kiir's main stated grievance was not personal but rather that the Chairman
did not entrust him with enough power: "When the Chairman leaves for abroad,
no directives are left and no one is left to act on his behalf. I don't know
with whom the Movement is left with; or does he carry it in his own brief
case?"
This famous statement has elsewhere been interpreted as a criticism of
Garang's dictatorial manner of running the SPLM. Read in context, however,
Kiir's complaint appears to be less about Garang's conduct generally than
about his unwillingness to delegate powers to him specifically, or pass
orders through him.
'Two orphans'
Garang sought to allay Kiir's concerns by emphasizing their 'friendship' and
even recounting a ritual sacrifice of a bull, interpreted as demonstrating
their unity. He described himself and Kiir as "the two orphans" (because the
other original members of the SPLM/A High Command had all died) - implying
brotherhood with Kiir and even a degree of equal status.
Yet he refused to commit to structural changes that would give Kiir more
power.
Kiir, dissatisfied, threatened to resign should he not be given more formal
authority: "I would also want Comrade Chairman to give me full powers... to
enable me expedite the regrouping and reorganization of the SPLA, and if
Comrade Chairman sees that I am not able to do that job, then he can appoint
another person to do it."
In the final statement recorded from the inconclusive Rumbek meeting, Kiir
describes himself metaphorically as a man adrift and stranded, feeling
betrayed: "Mr. Chairman, you have talked about people eating the boat while
we are in the middle of the river... Let me add this, the issue is not
eating the boat in the middle of the river. The issue is that there are a
few who have already crossed to the other side of the river and when the
remaining ones asked them to bring the boat, they refused to return the
boat."
Personal dignity
This basic feeling of orphan-like insecurity may be understood as the root
of other characteristic traits. The first is a remarkable sensitivity to
perceived slights to his personal dignity, including his personal
appearance.
Kiir's <
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article40686> involvement in
the forced closure of a newspaper in 2011 and detention of its editor, for
publishing an opinion article critical of his daughter's wedding, is one
example.
More recently, his government ordered newspapers not to publish any photos
of him wiping his brow, saying to do so was "destroying the image of South
Sudan"; during speeches, state television sometimes conspicuously cuts away
from Kiir as he reaches to his face with his handkerchief.
Enemies
More seriously, Kiir demonstrates a ruthless streak toward those perceived
to have slighted him. In a <
http://youtu.be/LBZCHPTqoBI?t=28m7s> speech on
15 February 2014, he describes a personal confrontation with the Sudanese
government delegation at peace talks in Kenya prior to the 2005
Comprehensive Peace Agreement.
Kiir described SPLA ambushes laid for Sudanese troops using "Vietnamese
tactics." Soldiers who fell into booby traps bled to death. "People were
crying there until their death. Nobody came to get them," the president
boasted, without emotion.
A similar glimpse of anger was seen at a
<
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCJ9YWChiB0> press conference on 20 January
2014, where he accused the United Nations, the international community and
aid organizations of supporting his enemies and even plotting to take over
the country. Claiming that these foreigners were responsible for Riek
Machar's 1991 coup, he said, "Now he has repeated it again and with the
support of the so-called humanitarian organizations for the second time."
He went on to refer to 'guns' and 'uniforms' that he said were being kept at
the UN bases where ethnic Nuers had taken refuge - implying, as his
information minister later would after the massacre of more than 50 ethnic
Nuers at a UN base, that the UN was harboring rebels, rather than unarmed
civilians fleeing racial violence.
"There is a problem with the international community, and it is something
that people will have to thrash out with them," he said.
Those familiar with the political history of the country also will recognize
in Kiir's allegation of NGO support for Machar's 1991 coup an implicit
reference to Emma McCune, the British aid worker who became Riek Machar's
second wife and died in a road accident in 1993.
In this connection, it is relevant to note that McCune featured occasionally
in SPLA war propaganda in early 2014 (e.g., clip 1, clip 2), her marriage to
Machar being cited as an example of his supposed infidelity to his country.
Kiir's vitriol against the UN and aid organizations cannot therefore be
dismissed as merely a touch of xenophobia or paranoia. Rather, he makes a
direct political association between foreign organizations helping the
people of Riek Machar - the ethnic Nuer, many of whom are under UN
protection - and Machar himself.
They are, in other words, mistress to his enemy.
Kiir and the Image of Kiir
These glimpses into the real person of Kiir are rare, whereas the
appearances of the Image of Kiir - the benign, calmer, expressionless Kiir -
are commonplace.
For example, he appears controlled and measured - even reticent - in an
<
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_-WncqcZ5o> interview with BBC Hardtalk in
May. He is challenged and even accused, but does not respond in anger. At
one point, he lies directly in response to a question about the presence of
Darfur's Justice and Equality Movement fighters in South Sudan, whose
involvement in the war is documented by video evidence.
He shows no emotion in doing so - none of the 'duper's delight' that is a
typical expression of his rival Riek Machar. That is perhaps because Kiir
takes no pleasure in lying, but sees it as necessary, truth-telling being
secondary in importance to values such as dignity, discipline and loyalty.
These values he extolled in a tribute to Nelson Mandela on 14 December, the
day before the start of the war in Juba, telling the SPLM National
Liberation Council that Mandela was a great 'African revolutionary,' a man
possessing 'extraordinary revolutionary dignity and bravery'.
He went on to overtly associate Mandela with his predecessor in the SPLM,
John Garang, whose mantle he himself now holds - or claims to hold. The
point, of course, had nothing to do with the historical Mandela, but rather
was about the icon of an African revolutionary, an 'extraordinary' man.
The climax of Kiir's speech is really a statement about himself,
deliberately contrasted to his rival, Riek Machar: "Since I decided to take
up arms in the 1960s, I have never betrayed the cause of my people," he
says.
There is applause, and a military band strikes up. Prompted by the martial
music, a woman supporter begins singing. Here Kiir, who has otherwise been
emotionless and flat, begins to come alive. At first he motions for silence,
but soon stops as he begins to laugh quietly, listening. Then Kiir too
begins softly to join in the singing, just under his breath, smiling.
It is a Dinka war song.
The author has worked for several years in South Sudan.
Received on Wed Oct 15 2014 - 10:02:33 EDT