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January 14th, 2014 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
Special to WorldTribune.com
GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs, Juba
Riek Machar’s failed coup attempt in South Sudan was, by Sunday, Jan. 12, nearing its inevitable end. The main challenge facing President Salva Kiir Mayardit and official Juba is getting over the crisis and putting the State on the right track to stability, security, reforms, and development.
On Jan. 11, President Kiir nominated a 27-member Crisis Management Committee (CMC). The CMC is chaired by Vice-President James Wani Igga, and the national parliament’s former deputy speaker Daniel Awet Akot is the deputy chairman.
South Sudan soldiers celebrate after recapturing Bentiu on Jan. 12. /Reuters
The CMC was tasked with assessing the political, social, economic, security, and diplomatic ramifications of the coup attempt and devising strategies for mitigating the consequences of the conflict for the South Sudanese population, the region and the international community at large.
The CMC was to provide daily updates to both President Kiir the SPLM leadership. The CMC’s task was daunting given the shock the nation of South Sudan had undergone and the ongoing political reverberations of the coup attempt.
Machar’s was a well-prepared coup, implemented in haste and ahead of schedule, and thus failed to reach its full potential.
However, Machar’s was also a coup attempt doomed to fail from the start.
Machar’s main goal was to restore a tribally-based system of power and resource distribution. He was apprehensive, and rightly so, that time was running out for tribal-based politics. During 2013, President Kiir focused on establishing a tribe-blind society and nation state as the key to the long-term reform and development of South Sudan.
Senior officials rose on the basis of professional merit and political loyalty and not tribal affiliation.
(The accusations of a pre-eminence of Dinka in Kiir’s Juba were disingenuous at best. There are more Dinka in official Juba because there are more Dinka in South Sudan. Moreover, the Dinka have been the best educated of the lot since the British colonial authorities encouraged them to get education and join the colonial civil service, military and police, thus creating a tradition of education and government/military service that holds till now.)
If there were doubts about President Kiir’s commitment among the South Sudanese grassroots, they evaporated as a result of the revamping of government and Party (the SPLM) which President Kiir initiated during Spring-Summer 2013. The public witnessed, and became convinced, that President Kiir and official Juba would not shy away from the most drastic of steps in order to put the country on the right track.
In Autumn 2013, Machar and his allies realized that the nation was about to cross the point-of-no-return in the pursuit and adopting of tribe-blind approach to nation building, and resolved to act hastily before it was too late.
The Obama White House all but encouraged Machar to rebel.
President Barack Obama’s Washington and other liberal foci of power in the West warmly endorsed Machar’s rhetoric about reforms and human rights. They provided positive coverage in the liberal media while harshly criticizing Kiir’s actions and record. Western foci of power encouraged private foundations, mostly very close to the Obama coterie, to funnel funds to Machar. Thus, the Obama White House and the liberal foci of power in the West created the impression of support and endorsement should Machar seize power.
Indeed, Obama’s Washington took sides from the moment crisis erupted in December. U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice had been in constant contact with Machar and was providing him advice for the Addis Ababa negotiations. Meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador Susan Page has continued to pressure President Kiir and official Juba to commit to power-sharing with the rebels and to meet the unilateral concessions they were demanding.
Obama’s Washington publicly doubted that there had been a coup attempt and continues to threaten President Kiir and Juba with sanctions and cutting of aid in order to coerce Juba into giving Machar victory in a failed coup rejected by the vast majority of South Sudanese.
Significantly, the U.S. position stands in stark contrast with both all African states and all other Western powers, all of which reject the coup and support the restoration of legitimate state authority in Juba.
However, the outcome of the coup attempt is, in any event, being decided on the ground throughout South Sudan, as the refusal of the main Nuer communities to rise up and support the Machar coup attempt aptly demonstrated.
Even the segments of the population which were to be the primary beneficiaries of the coup attempt prefer the tribe-blind nation building to short-term sectarian benefits. And so, the grassroots population from Bor to Bentiu — the main cities the pro-Machar forces attempted to capture and use as recruitment pool and springboard for the originally planned march on Juba — refused to cooperate. The majority of the “White Army�, with its child soldiers, crumbled when challenged by tribal and local leaders not far from Bor.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of the SPLA — including both Nuer troops and senior officers — remained loyal to the state and carried out successful operations against the rebel forces.
Khartoum, the prime provider of military support for Machar’s forces in the initial phase of the coup, quickly recognized the reality on the ground. Thus, on Jan. 6, Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir arrived in Juba to express support for the Kiir Administration.
For stability and democracy to be restored, the coup needs to be brought to a speedy end. The Machar camp, late on Jan. 12, still hoped for a miracle through U.S.-led Western political intervention or a sudden military development. The delaying tactics through procedural maneuvers and other technicalities of the Machar delegation in Addis Ababa were still, however, causing a delay to wrapping up the affair.
The still elusive ceasefire still needed to be. The IGAD mediators should clarify to the Machar delegation that if Machar still wants to be considered a viable factor in political South Sudan, it must accept the ceasefire and start negotiating on issues of substance. Riek Machar and his supporters in both South Sudan and Washington now faced the prospect that they must internalize by now that the coup they had launched was soundly rejected by both the grassroots populace of South Sudan and all African governments, and act accordingly.
By mid-January, the paramount challenges facing South Sudan were to heal the wounds and return to the concentrated effort to build the country. With the financial shortages about to be resolved with oil revenues, Juba’s focus should be on long-term reforms and development. Back in late 2013, President Kiir was studying and preparing to pursue numerous regional and national development and reforms programs. These were shelved during the crisis.
With the new Crisis Management Committee (CMC) at the helm, these programs should soon be resurrected and the original time-tables restored to the degree possible.
Source Article from http://www.worldtribune.com/2014/01/13/south-sudan-its-people-and-even-sudan-reject-a-coup-attempt-that-had-obamas-backing/
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