In my blog, Africa, My Africa, I wrote generally about the mess Black Africa is making of itself. You can hardly single out any black African country that is well ruled, well run and making reasonable progress. It is chaos, corruption, vested interest, impunity, greed, murder and mayhem everywhere. It may be an escape route to blame it all on colonialism and slavery. But most African countries have had independence and ruled themselves for over fifty years. But they are proving the critics that say black people cannot rule themselves right by their performance.
Today we look at land-locked South Sudan, the youngest member of the United Nations. South Sudan gained independence in the year two thousand and eleven after having been ruled by the England who created dichotomy by actively developing the north while neglecting the south. Of course there were the Arabs who also found South Sudan a rich source of slaves. The Egyptians ruled South Sudan and then Arab North Sudan took over and did next to nothing for the South. The last straw that broke the camel’s back was when the whole Sudan was declared an Islamic state under Sharia Law. That was a signal for the animist and Christian Upper Nile black Southern Sudanese to unite under the SPLA/M led by John Garang to declare a war of independence. Unfortunately, as so often happens, during the war which lasted until 2005, more Southern Sudanese died from infighting than were killed by the fighting with Arab Sudan. Riek Machar was paid by or coerced by Arab Sudan to play traitor in the war and led a section of South Sudan against his fellow black people. The war consumed John Garang the leader of South Sudan and after a referendum South Sudan gained independence in 2011 led by two sworn enemies, Salva Kiir as president and Riek Machar as vice president. And suddenly the sixty tribes and eighty linguistic groups realised that they were different! Apart from being black they had not much in common. Since independence it has been war between different groups, genocide, murder and rape. More than three hundred thousand have died in the civil war. Two million people are internally displaced and over one million in refugee camps in neighbouring countries. Despite all these Salva Kiir in his signature hat given him by George W. Bush remains doggedly in power looking every inch a war monger! About one third of the population of over thirteen million citizens is facing hunger and over five million are in need of aid. Millions are in refugee camps in neighbouring countries.
Unfortunately many other countries are in need of aid now and the donors seem to be tiring especially with the United States of America engaged in post election problems. The Syrian refugee problems are keeping the attention of the world. Where will Africa be without all those humanitarian organisations, the Red Cross, Medicine Sans Frontier, Doctors without Borders and the rest. So how long can we estimate that these warring parties seemingly lost in prehistoric times can gain a measure of peace, unity and mutual respect enough to move the country forward, to embark on educating its masses? To begin with many of these people are nomadic, following their cattle from grazing field to grazing field day in day out. The rest are agrarian, scratching a living out of their little patches of land holdings. Of course the skirmishes with Sudan continue. South Sudan has eighty per cent of the petroleum exported from the region but this must go through Sudan. So there is the possibility of blackmail. It seems we will be having unsavoury news of wars, starvation and famine from South Sudan for at least the next quarter century, nothing to cheer or hide the shame of Black Africa.