Radio Miraya
2675: Democracy in Action: The Role of Executive in Government
[MUSIC PLAYING] Hello, and welcome to Democracy in Action. My name is Sani Martin. Today, we are going to be looking at the role of the executive in government. And as you are fully aware that in this country, the executive is the branch of government responsible for the implementation of laws and policies adopted by the legislature. The executive branch also directs an overseas day-to-day operations of government, the functions of the executives. So what are the roles does the executive do, especially in the context of our country, South Sudan, or why an agreement is being implemented at the moment as we speak? These are some of the questions we are going to be discussing here with our experts. This says them and our line should be open to you later. I don't know if you want to know more about what exactly do the executive do here in our country. And we are joined in the studio by Professor Dr. Peter Adokiyaba, who is the former National Minister of Higher Education. And he has written a lot of books here. And he's also a veteran of politicians. He knows more about what is governance. We are going to be hearing more from him. Welcome to Red Amir Professor. Thank you. And also we have Marta, who is the Associate Political Affairs Officer, working for the United Nations Mission in South Sudan. Marta Chatham, and welcome to Red Amir. Thank you. And let's begin right away. Professor, you have been in the government. You were one of the members of this executive before you left. First of all, when we talk about executive of the government, how we explain this to a common man out there? Because what we know in this country is that when we talk about executive, everybody's aiming to be in that docket of executive. Well, thanks, Sunny, and went to greet all those who are listening to Radio Miraya. And thank this program, the Democracy in Action, for this opportunity of having me here. Yeah, people in everyday life, they don't talk about executive. They talk about the government. And it's only in more lenient areas or circles where you have this definition of the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary, the three arms of the government. But they are the government. And of course, the most important role of the government is to protect life and property. This is the role of the government. And it does that by virtue of its monopoly of the means of force, the means of cohesion. See, that's why it has the army. It has the police, the security, all these organs in order to be able to protect the integrity of the country and against any kind of foreign intervention and aggression. So in South Sudan, this is the role of the government because without that role, then life will be a very terrible life. You see, and you go to the history where it will be nearer to what they call the state of nature, where life is very poor, very short, very nasty, and very brutal. You see, people will be uptaxing each other to grab their things, grab their land, grab their cattle, and all these kinds of things. So you need the government there. This is what the role of the government. And whether it is being done in South Sudan, there are examples which we can quote that were, for instance, the government failed in this exercise. And in 2012, we had the long-wear youth organizing, thousands of them, and invading the Morley area. That is a violation of one of the roles of the government, of protecting-- Like property. --and property, OK? All right. Like people going with their cattle, moving all the way from Dungula to Eastern Equatorial, for instance, this in itself is a violation of-- and nobody is stopping that kind of thing. And you can see what happened in these areas of the Morley actually. [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] Even in J, you go to Western Equatorial. Western Equatorial and all these kind of things, OK? So it means that there's a failure in the area of protection. Yeah. Last year, 2022, somebody called [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] organized the youth of Ayur and Punjab, and invaded the Shuluk area. Went in to cut the head of the king. The Shuluk king. This was a violation. I think it has to be about [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] So these are some of the things where the government-- in this particular one, of course, the government intervened, OK? So all these amounts to failure by the government to protect lies and properties of the people. Yes. It's a failure in one of its aspect. Very basic rules. OK. Now, before we go into details of what can be done to maybe rectify this failure, how does the executive interact with other branches of government to ensure effective governance? Maybe this would be one way of resolving the failure talking about it. They work-- they operate together, actually. There's no where you can separate the various-- although they are operating separately, they're different mandates. In our context, now, is it applicable in our context in South Sudan? Yeah, it is applicable. They work together because when you talk of laws-- for instance, when we met the law for higher education, that we go first to the council, passed by the council, went to the Justice-- Ministry of Justice, OK? This was in the executive now. Then it brought to the executive-- I mean, to the legislature in order to promote and get it into law, OK? So the government operates together in this respect. OK. Yes, a matter. Amnesty is a partner of peace with the government, and they work hand-in-hand to supplement whatever the government do. And also, in terms of the peace building, all of how does the political affairs come in when it comes to supporting the government here? Thank you, Sunny. Amnesty is actually collaborates with the South Sudanese government to promote effective governance through various initiatives. And just to give you a few, they do that through capacity building and training, where unmiss in partnership with the South Sudanese government conducts workshops and trainings for local authorities, traditional leaders, and administrations to enhance the skills of governance and service delivery. This includes empowering women to take up leadership positions, roles as stipulated in the revitalized agreement. They also do that through political engagement, where the political affairs division engages with national stakeholders, political, participable society, women, youth, and faith-based organizations to advance political space and to facilitate leadership dialogues. This engagement also aims to support durable peace and to protect civilians in South Sudan. Another way they're doing that is by supporting the peace process, whereby unmiss supports the implementation of the peace agreement by providing technical assistance to mechanisms such as the National Constitutional Amendment Committee that just concluded their work. And this assistance helps in the constitution making process and other aspects of peace building. And then finally, they also do a lot of monitoring around political developments. And the mission's political affairs division also monitors and analyzes political development in South Sudan by identifying early warning signals and reports on trends that could pose threats to civilians. This analysis guides the unmiss in its efforts to support governance and peace building. So, in conclusion, by engaging in capacity building, political dialogue, and supporting the peace process, unmiss works closely with the government to promote effective governance and to contribute to stability in the country. Right, OK. Professor, look, historical context in South Sudan, including the struggle for independence, influenced the role of the executive in this country. Now, the question people are saying at the moment is this government, to some extent, have delivered. But to a larger extent, they have not lived up to the expectation of the people. People were looking for services and all this. And also, at the same time, if you ask somebody who is in the government, they will also outline some of the challenges that have seen or that were encountered while they're trying to deliver services to the people. But now, we want to find out from you. You have been in this government. How has South Sudan's historical context, including the struggle for independence, influenced the role of the executive in this current government? Yeah, we are emerging from war, war of national liberation, which the SPLM, SPLA, is spearheaded. And of course, when we talk of liberation, liberation is a process in which people or you really release the energies of the people, both intellectual and physical energies, to be able to change their lives. This is the essence of liberation. Unfortunately, and this is the experience we went through, we perceived liberation only in the context of chasing the Jalaba. And we missed or ignored the other important aspects of liberation, that it building the capacities of the people in the liberated areas to be able to defend themselves and leave according to the principles of self-reliance and resilience. This way, the SPLM ignored it. What was the result? The result was that we had to rely on international humanitarian intervention. So you will see the South Sudan has something like 300, to almost 350 air strips for supply of international humanitarian assistance into these areas. It's for our country. And the result is we became relief dependent. We demand that our people stop producing what they used to do. So they have to pursue this intervention, the international relief, until there is even the refugee camps. So this is one aspect, negative aspect of resulting from the process of national liberation process of the SPLM. The other aspect, of course, is that because people thought that in fighting the enemy, you only rely on force. And we forgot even to build democracy and respect for ourselves, which means that after 21 years, we never talked about democracy. We did not build the institutions for democracy in the SPLM. The SPLM remained as just what I would say, something in between brackets. What was there is the SPLA? And once the war was over in 2005, we still remained with the relics of militarism. So in our aspects of doing things, so really, aesthetically, the impact of national liberation is that we failed to build the instruments of governance. And the result is what we see today. People don't discuss, they don't dialogue, because they're not used to it. The person who is seeing the thing that what he says is the right thing. But over 10 years after gaining independence, the struggle ended in 2005. And from there, we got our independence in 2011. Over 10 years after independence, still, the instrument of good governance cannot be exhibited and given the service to the people which they need. Because the struggle doesn't end, sunny. The struggle shifts from fighting the enemy into fighting other aspects, fighting ignorance, fighting disease, fighting poverty, which we did not do, because we're not used to this. OK? So this is what has happened. We did not build the instruments for fighting ignorance, for instance. What went wrong? Well, the shifts. We left the revolution. You see? And of course, with the deaths of Garin, it was a shock for everybody. And then they think just went back to the villages. We went back into our tribal cocoons. Those who were appointed to constitutional positions were brought by their communities. We became communities. OK? And this is a problem, because communities are competitive in themselves. They are not one, like what it was in the SPL, for instance, that we were one people fighting as one, whether we are Zandi, or Moro, or Shulu, or Neur, or we were one people. But as soon as war ended, we became communities. We became Zandi, we became Dinka, we became Neur. And this is the result of it. OK. Before we hear from Marta, now the question, Professor, many people are asking, I'm sure you have heard, because you have written a lot of books. You have interacted with so many people. At the moment now, we have a government where the executive takes the lead through the work in collaboration with the rest of the arms of the government. In the country, inter-communal conflict have taken the center stage. I will give you just, for example, the recent one. In our upstate, we get the reports every day of 10 people killed, 11 killed, 9 killed, on a daily basis. Just this week, two days ago, we had a report that the county commissioner of Boma in Greater Pibor at the administrative area was killed together with other 15 people. This is not something easy, where a county commissioner is killed together with the organized forces. This is so alarming. Some people were asking, how does the executive contribute to resolving conflict and promoting peace within South Sudan given what is happening right now? - Well, as I said, we started as fragile. As a fragile state, because of the war of national liberation. We never moved out of that fragility, OK? And that's why, in 2012, we had this, the loan were going to Bibor area, or the, you see, the cattle owners moving from Dungla to Equatorial, or the conflicts in war up. They've never stopped. And that is, it means that we have not moved away. We have never improved the fragility. We have not moved away from fragility in order to succeed. And of course, you know, in 2013, there was war, because of the political problem within the ruling party itself. - Yeah. - OK? Those at the top were fighting for power, and it filtered down to the people, OK? Until it became a civil war. So we have never succeeded, because it's the same people. And what I can say, really, is that, you see, in 1972, Numeri appointed Abel to be the president of our executive council in the set of just a blago. And many saw to the knees were very angry, OK? But five years later, just a blago became the president of the executive council. But in less than two years, he was kicked out of that position. Which means that if you were first appointed, what was going to happen? There was likelihood of people going back to war. Because this is an example of a Turkish sultan who wanted to have one of his customs destroyed and rebuilt. And he asked an engineer, the best engineer in the country, to do it. And of course, the engineer did it. And after he had finished building, the castle, the new castle, the sultan asked him, when you were destroying the old castle, you use people. And when you were building, you were using a new set of people. Why did you do that? And he said, yes, those who destroyed cannot build. So people who have been fighting killing, you think they can run the country peacefully? We have had that sentiment before from some scenario that's also in this country, that people who destroy cannot build. And that is exactly what is happening. What we are seeing are aspects. Because it's the same kind of people, the same mentality. Yeah, OK. Yes, if you have, you know, because if you are colleagues, why should I be fighting my colleague? To the point that he should disappear. So there is a problem. What's the matter? OK, yes, we shall be hearing more from you, Professor Shabali. Yes, the question here is how does the United Nations mission in South Sudan contribute to ensuring effective governance in the country? Thank you, Sunny. As I mentioned earlier on, the United Nations mission in South Sudan engages the government in several ways when it comes to the implementation of the peace agreement, and several ways it does that is through capacity building in which it goes around the country to train members of local authorities, through workshops, and also members of traditional leaders and administrators to enhance their skills in governance and service delivery. This also includes empowering women to take up leadership roles in the respective constituencies and other levels of government as it stipulated in the revitalized peace agreement. They, on this also, conducts a lot of activities around political engagement with the national stakeholders and political parties, civil society representatives, women, youth, faith-based communities, to advance political space and also to facilitate leadership dialogue. This engagement aims to support durable peace and to protect civilians. I also mentioned earlier on that the enemies also support the peace process through providing technical assistance in the mechanisms. And I mentioned the National Constitutional Amendment Committee as one of the bodies that admins had supported during their work. And this assistance is geared towards helping the constitution-making process and other aspects of a critical peace building. And lastly, they also support the peace process and good governance through monitoring of political developments, which helps them to identify early warning signals and also to report on trends that could pose threats to civilians. And this analysis usually guides enemies in their efforts to support governance and peace building. Right. If you have just joined us right now, you are listening to Democracy in Action. My name is Animat, and today we are looking at the role of the executive in the government. And in the studio, we have a two guest professor, Dr. Peter Adok Yaba, who is the former national minister of higher education and better and politicians who have written a lot of books throughout his lifetime. And also, we have Matt Chateem, associate political affairs officer, working for the United Nations Mission in South Sudan. You have heard from him. And he can call us on 091-0629 or 091-062950. Or you can send us your comment or SMS number, 091-2177141, those are all our lines you can get in touch with us here and ask your question. Before our lines are open, let me ask a professor. In a practical term, like I said, I will go back to the same example, because this is something pressing right now. The level of violence throughout the country is so alarming. The sub-national violence in the communal conflict, revenge killing, and all this is taking a center stage. And it seems like the national government seems not to be raining in, because what I mentioned earlier, a commissioner is killed. And the commission is appointed by the president here. And the deputy commander versus PDF in that Obama account of Greta Pibor is also killed together with the 14 others. In total, some people are killed, according to the information minister of Greta Pibor at the administrative area. We have not seen any statement from the national government here condemning it or taking an action. But the question we are asking a professor is what initiative can the executive or the national government here undertake to address the violent happening across the country? Most especially, the inter-conversal conflict, the revenge killing. In some areas, the use are well armed. We also just heard from Mayam County of Unity State in a place called Riat, may not pronounce the name correctly, but it's a cattle camp in Mayam County. Last week, while also a brigadier general was killed during what the SSPF spokesperson town has unintended shooting. So what can the national government do to address this issue? Which is to some extent derailing the implementation of the peace process? This is a very tricky question. In that where we are now, if you look at it, you see, in 2018, the agreement was signed, a revitalized agreement. And at these provisions of this agreement, at they being implemented and put everything put in place, I believe some of these happenings would not occur. But you see, we are held up. I mean, when I talk away, now I'm talking about the government, the transitional government, the revitalized transitional government of national unity. It's not like what would be a normal government. You see, in that it is only there to implement the agreement, it has failed to implement the agreement. And now they are talking about power sharing. And you imagine, they're talking about power sharing. And the World War is about power and resources. That's why people are fighting, why the communities are fighting is because of power and resources. Certain communities want to become dominant, or to dominate and harmonize others. And in such a situation where the central government, or even the local government itself, is weak, doesn't have that capacity. And we have put it correctly that some communities are even well-armed, more powerful than the national army or the police. So it means that the government has lost the monopoly of the means of coercion. So it cannot do anything. Which means that it has to-- I mean, in some situations, I mean, if this one would respect, you and us are the forces to help, to come to this help. And of course, we don't know what is kicking, what people are thinking about it. But it's an unfortunate thing. People will continue to suffer as long as the situation demands like that. And it's unfortunate I would really pay condolence to the people of people or what has happened. It's a very sad thing that the commissioner is killed. And you see, they're also in a bae. You know, what happened in a bae? The deputy administrator was killed. And it's a very sad situation. But as I said, we have not moved out of this. Because what we had expected was that in these five years, the agreement would have been implemented. You had the National Army in place. It should have been the National Army to be able to address some of these violations. And you know, breaches, security breaches in the country. All right. Yes, let's pick a call from our listeners with just this few minutes left. Hello, everybody. Hello? Hello. Yes, your name. Yeah. [INAUDIBLE] OK, good luck from Juba. Yes. OK, go ahead, Galoq. Yes, Galoq, your line is breaking. I can't hear you well. Can you hear me now? Yes, yes, I can hear you now. OK, yeah. The topic is interesting. And I like that the guests in the studio for it. So I would like to ask questions. Yeah, now that we are discussing about democracy, as we all know, democracy, that's something that [INAUDIBLE] I don't see 14 men at all. So what is the type of [INAUDIBLE] Yes, Galoq, your line is really terrible. You can call back once again. We got part of your question. We'll try to put them to the guest here. Hello? Hello? [INAUDIBLE] OK, Galoq from Gudel, go ahead, Galoq. OK, thank you very much. OK, thank you very much. That is the people we need to give us the lecture every day, because we don't know what is the solution of our country. As we know, because in the Bible, there is King David's board, many wars. And then he went to go and build the temple of God. But unfortunately, God says that no, because your hand, you have killed many people. You know the one going to build this temple. You live it your time. Why I only cannot leave the country to other people to build the nation, while they are continuing to kill the people. While they are continuing to threaten the people, make the region, people are fighting in different places. And they are those people who are supposed to protect the people and property. Hello, Galoq. OK, the line just dropped. Yes, Professor Dok, there was discussion from Galois. He wanted your recommendation to be executive in terms of addressing these challenges the country is going through. If you move in town, everybody is talking about either election or the economic crisis people are going through. And then also Jacob is giving an example of King David in the Bible, like you echoed earlier. So what's the way for it? And then I would like you to end because our time is running out. I would like you to make a comment about this news, which is the biggest story in town today or for the past two or three days. They are later circulating online, where they may have seen a copy of all those documents from an argument stating some of the concerns, some of the critical tasks, which should be implemented as we are running out of time. Elections are coming ahead of us. And S-PELM I/O responds to those letters signed by Dr. Yac Machar, the first vice president, saying yes is open to dialogue. And yesterday, the S-PELM party also released a position paper proposing the country hold executive elections in December to choose the president and the governor's first and members of parliament one year later. And the party also cites funding strategies and limited time to the end of the transition period. The paper was signed by the S-PELM secretary, Peter Lumbos. And he said the party is ready for-- the party is not ready for an extension. So first of all, I'll respond to the two, and then we conclude with this last one. Yeah, I think we have anything as an N. You see? The best dance I leave this stage. Everything as an N. So whether you like it or not an agreement, you make an agreement, you should implement it. Because it has time limit. And the failure of the parties to implement the agreement, it goes back to them all. You see, all the parties that signed that agreement, they are responsible for this situation. There is not only one party that you can put this in on. No, it is all of them. They've been here in Cuba since 2020, OK? They've all been here. And they have been sitting and waiting. And they know very well that as politicians, they have to talk to themselves. They have to dialogue. Even if things are so difficult, they have to talk. And this is what we are saying now. Even this proposal of the SPLM, as contained in the letter of Peter Lumboth, it has to be discussed. It is not something which he imposes, or the SPLM imposes on others. No, it has to be discussed. And these people agree or disagree. So you are calling for dialogue among the parties? Yes, the dialogue among the parties, those who sign this agreement, and also those who have a stake in this thing, in this country, which was, you know, there must be a shift in the way people have been doing things. That they cannot continue doing it in that way. That you wait until the last moment, then you talk about elections. It should be this or that or no. Or you will talk about the extension, because it should be-- because of the time? No, it is not. These people, it has been deliberate. It is known why some of these things have never been implemented. But they were operating opportunistically. They were operating opportunistically, hoping that things will resolve themselves by themselves. Nothing dissolves itself. A contradiction must be resolved in order for it to be able to create the situation. What I would suggest is that our political leaders, our leaders, there must be a shift in that way of thinking. In order-- in instead of thinking about power and power sharing, they should not think more seriously and putting the people in the center, say that we address the fundamental problems that underpin the conflict in the South Sudan, because we are solving these problems, the fundamental problems that underpin the conflict, then they think this conflict will continue. It will arise in one form or the other. And then-- It's because our time is up. We have to go for the news right now, and we would like to thank you so much, Professor Doknehava, Peter Doknehava for coming to our studio. And we also want to thank Martin for coming in today for this discussion. We hope to bring you some other time so that we can have ample time. My name is Sani Martin. Stay tuned. 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