Dear Editor,
A power sharing announcement came. No! It was not about Guyana. Not just yet. As the BBC headlined on August 17th, it was in a similarly ruptured place way over there as encapsulated in the title, “Sudan conflict: Army and civilians sign power-sharing deal.” I wish that could be said of Guyana, but it is not.
In Guyana, the “army and civilians” are observers on the edge. The former is there; the latter regularly loud, but questionable as to ideals and priorities and credibility. In place of the Sudanese army and civilians committing to commonsense and common visions (at least, as publicly presented) relative to country and citizen, I recommend the domestic proxies of their equivalents: the PNC and PPP. Both have hailed themselves as advocates of the people and the country. The only issue is this: which people and which country?
Since both have exhibited an unrelenting drive towards the self-serving, I serve up a reminder of how other brutalized and exploited societies (by their own) go about attempting (attempting, mind you) searching for a way out of the muck and madness and misery.
“The agreement ushers in a new governing council, including both civilians and generals, to pave the way towards elections and civilian rule.” I suggest the heresy of a combination of civilians and servants (no generals) to lead forward to a new constitutional point, a new elections mentality, and a new post elections reality. No! I assure all that I have not partaken of either Black Gold or Demerara Gold. Let there be a period of sanity to reengineer.
Regrettably, there are grave problems with this formula: no trust. No across-the board interest to relinquish anything: not the hold on the tribes; not the hold on the electoral prisoners; not the hold on the levers of power (believe it or not, even in the opposition from where those levers are also accessed and pushed).
The BBC indicated that, “Mohamed Hamdan `Hemeti’ Dagolo, widely regarded as Sudan’s most powerful man, has pledged to abide by its terms.” Could there be embarking towards such a place, in local society, where there is an absence of trust; where only the worst motives can be ascribed and feared? A place of pledging to cooperation, and working towards binding consensus? I have my doubts, but I refuse to accept the alternatives.
As also noted by the BBC, “the prime ministers of Ethiopia and Egypt and the south Sudanese president were among the regional leaders attending Saturday’s signing ceremony in Khartoum”. No! It was not Michener galloping to save, or of whirling dervishes in the desert, but the ABC powers, with the Americans wielding their big stick behind the curtains of the boardrooms in Guyana, have to persist with their Guyanese rescue operations. Still, over there, it took Sudanese locals with the vision, interest, and will (honesty, too) to commit towards what is about country. Yes, country. I am still either to observe or sense any political honesty in this country. But things have to be native driven.
If there is such honesty and conscientious vision, then Guyanese leaders have to be like the Sudanese, who affirm that, “We will stick to every single letter we have agreed on…
“Even without the agreement we [would] have to work in this direction because it’s in the country’s interest,…Therefore we have to carry out the agreement, stick to it and support it.”
Even though I continue to hope against hope, I must admit publicly that “’stick to” and “work in this direction” and “the country’s interest” might simply be asking too much, and expecting too much, from leaders and populace too long fastened to unworkable and destructive mentalities.
Further, “The two sides have agreed to rotate the chairmanship of the council for just over three years. A prime minister nominated by civilians is due to be appointed next week.” Such a period is needed here; let the oil be stewarded by those that measure up differently. These are parts of the face-saving formula that could lead Sudanese out of the quagmire of endless quarrels and controversies. It calls for trust, for the national, not the partisan. Maybe, they will get somewhere; somewhere higher than where they are. At least, they tried to rise from the ashes of their political pyre.
The latest here is that elections will be held this year. That matches my own intuition and prompts this fatalism: and then? Then what, if not the same sad saga of a society that sells itself for slop?
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
