What’s Good for Sudan Should Be Good for Nation

Daniel Kalinaki

14 July 2011

opinion

The declaration of Independence by the new Republic of South Sudan is a massive step forward for the long-suffering people of that country and vindication for those who stood by them for decades.

President Museveni has not always been spoken of fondly in this column, especially when he gets it utterly wrong or sinks into the complacency of benchmarking progress on past achievement (read since 1986) and not on future potential.

This column, however, strongly believes that Mr Museveni did the right thing in standing by the SPLA and the people of South Sudan in their fight against the racial, religious and economic discrimination by those in power in the North.

Our support for the SPLA gave Khartoum a justification to support the LRA rebels who ensured that the people of northern Uganda paid a massive price in blood over two decades of mayhem.

Whether it was a price worth paying or not, it was the right decision to oppose injustice in South Sudan in the same way we opposed injustice in Rwanda and Burundi and continue to oppose it in Somalia.

A few people have argued against the splitting of what was Africa’s largest country by land area, saying it creates more barriers in a world trying to bring down the fences.

Others have pointed out the massive task of trying to build a modern nation-state in a conflict-prone area, with an intransigent neighbour to the north, hardly any infrastructure, early worrying signs of corruption – and starting out with the lowest development indicators in many areas.

It will be a hard slog and the fortunes of the new Sudan could easily go south (forgive the pithy pun) but it is better to have the people of South Sudan mess themselves up than be messed up by those in the North – for few things are as precious to mankind as liberty, freedom and self-determination.

Which begs the question, then, why President Museveni, who has admirably stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Sudan, Somalia and Burundi to oppose injustice, would want to preside over injustice in his own backyard by amending the Constitution to deny political opponents bail.

The President was at it again this week, reportedly telling MPs from his NRM party that he would call for a referendum on the matter if they refused to amend the Constitution in Parliament.

The scales of justice are balanced on two important pillars or assumptions: that those who allege must prove, and that those who are accused are innocent until proven guilty.

Until the former assumption is fulfilled and evidence produced in the open before a competent and impartial court, those accused must always have the benefit of the doubt. An allegation, on its own, should never be sufficient to deny citizens their liberty and this principle must never be sacrificed for political convenience. It would be shameful and hypocritical if we sacrificed the lives of Ugandans to bring peace and the rule of law to countries in the region if we then went on to deny our citizens those very rights.

The independence movement in the 1960s was kick-started by African soldiers who fought alongside their colonial masters in World War II in the cause of freedom but returned to find themselves slaves at home.

President Museveni deserves credit for helping South Sudan to independence. Now he ought to reflect on freedom being a fundamental human right that is inherent and not granted by rulers. How tragic it would be if Mr Museveni gave the Sudanese liberty only to take it away from Ugandans!

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