The Fresh Fighting In Juba Proves That The UPDF Intervention Simply Postponed The Problem

The Fresh Fighting In Juba Proves That The UPDF Intervention Simply Postponed The Problem

• ·         If a foreign force Had Intervened in Uganda in 1985 , Museveni Would Never have Emerged as President of Uganda and If the International Community Had Intervened to Stop The 1994 Genocide , Paul Kagame wouldn’t have Emerged President Of Rwanda
  
  
  

The news that Gunfire had rocked Juba again on the very eve of their fifth independence anniversary was received with a sense of dejavu by some of us.

 For someone who was opposed the hasty UPDF intervention in the south Sudan conflict when President Yoweri Museveni sent troops to shore up President Salvar Kiir government, I felt roundly vindicated.

I always felt that we never gave war a chance in Southern Sudan.

I know that there has been a series of wars in Sudan for the last sixty or so years. But all those wars have had different dimensions.

Anyanya one, Anyanya two, SPLA 1983 up to the secession from Khartoum that culminated into the signing of the peace agreement with President Omar Bashir are all different wars that happened for different reasons and at different times.

HELTER-SKELTER INTERVENTION OF UPDF

The war that erupted on 15^th December 2013 happened for different reasons and we should have given it time to see how it would evolve.

But the helter-skelter intervention of the UPDF denied the chance for the most powerful group to emerge from that skirmish.

A lot of reasons have been advanced about what led to the 15^th December 2013 war in juba.

One of the most talked about reason is ethnic divisions between the Dinka (to which President Salvar Kiir belongs) and the Nuer (Where Dr Riek Machar belongs).

But the issue for the fallout is beyond ethnicity.

President Salvar Kiir was accused by his colleagues (DR Riek Machar and co)of intolerance and subverting democracy within the SPLA.

But many people are only discussing the war in terms of Dinka Versus Nuer, which is a misleading prognosis of the conflict.

There is an obvious possibility that if President Salvar Kiir had not violated democratic principles within the SPLA, these misunderstandings, which have claimed a lot of lives, would have been avoided.

He who mismanages a group of people will provoke undesirable consequences, irrespective of whether they are brothers or not.

These are cases where members of one family can fight each other simply because of the poor management style of their elder.

A misunderstanding doesn’t have to emerge simply because there is a fundamental difference in tribe or religion as many will have us believe.

Therefore the problems of southern Sudan are a management issues.

And when those contradictions reached boiling point, it was imperative that we left the protagonists to tussle it out in the ring to get the winner.

Once the UPDF intervened, the whole issue stagnated into a very dangerous stalemate.

War happens for a reason(s). And war is the midwife of a new society. Once you interfere in a war that was about to produce a new society, you have postponed the problem.

And that is exactly what happened in southern Sudan.

Fitting Analogies

I think I should give you analogies to qualify my point.

When a relatively younger Museveni disagreed with the Obote group in the early 1980s, it was inevitable that only war would provide the lasting solution to the problem.

And it was good that the world gave war a chance which gave museveni’s NRA an opportunity to takeover in 1986.

If a foreign force had intervened in 1985 when the NRA was still rooted at Katonga Bridge, Museveni would never have emerged as president of Uganda.

We would never have known the discipline and good conduct of the NRA\UPDF.

We would have been content with a very bad situation where you had UNLA in charge of one part of the country and NRA in charge of another part of the country.  

But it was good that the NRA managed to fight its way into Kampala and liberate the country as a whole.

If some country had intervened, the NRA would have been forced into a power sharing arrangement with military junta of Gen Tito Okello.

Your guess as what would have emerged from that confusion is as good as mine.

The RPF Experience

Likewise, many Rwandese officials including President Paul Kagame accuse the international community for not having intervened to stop the genocide of 1994.

Well, they (RPF officials) never ask themselves what would have happened if the international community had intervened and indeed managed to stop the 1994 genocide.

The answer is simply that if, the international community had intervened to stop the 1994 genocide, the RPF would never have managed to takeover power.

The RPF would instead have been forced to engage into a power sharing arrangement with remnants of the late president Juvenal Habyarimana’s government.

Intervention Postpones A Problem

All this shows that a hasty intervention in a given conflict doesn’t necessarily provide durable solutions to a given conflict.

In fact the intervention simply postpones the problem as you can see what is happening in juba today.

I know that UPDF was defending a legitimate government of President Salvar Kiir. Another economically advanced theory is that Uganda was trying to restore order in a country regarded as its biggest trade partner. But even that so called trade with southern Sudan was coming at the expense of the comfort of a local Ugandan.

I will write another blog about the negative effects of trade with Sudan and the regional neighbors as a whole.  

Conclusion

The bottom line is that we should let the Sudanese people determine their own destiny. We need a powerful person to emerge from that conflict. And we cannot have a durable outcome when we are busy interfering. If we keep on interfering we shall be postponing the problem.

If intervention in conflicts was a solution, Congo which has been having UN peacekeepers since 1963 would have been settled by now. But it has never been stable. Most times its war that can provide a lasting solution to a given conflict.

Thank you for reading this far

The Author Fred Daka Kamwada is a journalist, researcher and blogger,;Contact him at kamwadafred@gmail.com or chat him up at 0782480121