BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY
Salva Kiir Mayardit
| Salva Kiir Mayardit | |
|---|---|
 | |
| President of South Sudan | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 9 July 2011 | |
| Vice President | Riek Machar James Wani Igga |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| President of Southern Sudan | |
| In office 30 July 2005 – 9 July 2011 Acting: 30 July 2005 – 11 August 2005 | |
| Vice President | Riek Machar |
| Preceded by | John Garang |
| Succeeded by | Position abolished |
| First Vice President of Sudan | |
| In office 11 August 2005 – 9 July 2011 | |
| President | Omar al-Bashir |
| Preceded by | John Garang |
| Succeeded by | Ali Osman Taha |
| Vice President of Southern Sudan | |
| In office 9 July 2005 – 11 August 2005 | |
| President | John Garang |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Riek Machar |
| Personal details | |
| Born | September 13, 1951 Bahr el Ghazal, Sudan (now South Sudan) |
| Political party | Sudan People's Liberation Movement |
| Religion | Roman Catholicism[1] |
Salva Kiir Mayardit (born 13 September 1951) is a South Sudanese politician who has been President of South Sudan since its independence in 2011. Prior to independence, he was President of the Government of Southern Sudan, as well as First Vice President of Sudan, from 2005 to 2011.
Sudanese civil wars
In the late 1960s, Kiir joined the Anyanya battalion in the First Sudanese Civil War. By the time of the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement, he was a low-ranking officer.[2] In 1983, when Dr John Garang joined an army mutiny he had been sent to put down, Kiir and other Southern leaders joined the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in the second civil war. Dr. Garang De Mabior had advanced military knowledge and experience from both theUnited States and the Sudan. President Kiir was his Deputy.[3] Kiir eventually rose to head the SPLA, the SPLM's military wing when Dr. John Garang was killed in an helicopter crash. Rumours to remove Kiir from his post as SPLA Chief of Staff in 2004 nearly caused the organization to split.[2]
South Sudanese politics
Following the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement formally ending the war in January 2005, Dr. John Garang was sworn in as the Vice President of the Republic of Sudan. After the death of Dr. John Garang in a helicopter crash on 30 July 2005, Kiir was chosen to succeed to the post of First Vice President of Sudan and President of Southern Sudan. Before independence, Kiir was popular among the military wing of the SPLA/M for his loyalty to the vision of the SPLA/M throughout the liberation struggle and among those who do not trust the successive governments that have come and gone in the Sudan.[2]
Comments by Kiir in October 2009 that the forthcoming independence referendum was a choice between being "a second class in your own country" or "a free person in your independent state" were expected to further strain political tensions.[4] Reports in January 2010 that Kiir would not contest April elections for Sudanese president, but would focus on re-election as president of Southern Sudan were interpreted to mean that the SPLM priority was independence.[5]
Kiir was re-elected with 93% of the vote in the 2010 Sudanese election. Although the vote on both the national and sub-national level was criticized by democratic activists and international observers, the overwhelming margin of Kiir's re-election was noted by some media as being "Step One" in the process of secession.[6] Following his re-election, Omar al-Bashir reappointed Kiir as the First Vice President of Sudan in accordance with the interim constitution.[7]
Presidency
South Sudanese voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence from Sudan in January 2011, with 98.83% of voters reportedly preferring to split from the North.[8] On 9 July 2011, South Sudan became an independent state, with Kiir as its first president. Kiir positioned himself as a reformer, using his inaugural address to call for the South Sudanese people "to forgive, though we shall not forget" perceived injustices at the hands of the northern Sudanese over the preceding decades[9] and announce a general amnesty for South Sudanese groups that had warred against the SPLM in the past.[10] A few weeks later, he publicly addressed members of the military and police to warn them that rape, torture, and other human rights violations carried out by armed personnel would be considered criminal acts and prosecuted aggressively by the Ministry of Justice.[11] His presidency was characterized as a period of reconstruction, with internal and foreign crises, as Heglig Crisis, which caused a border war with Sudan and an internal political crisis, which tried to overthrow him from the presidency.
Domestic policy
On 18 June 2013, Kiir issued an order lifting the immunity of two ministers in the national government pending investigations into an alleged corruption case in which they appeared to be implicated. He also issued an order suspending Cabinet Affairs Minister Deng Alor Kuol and Finance Minister Kosti Manibe Ngai from their duties during the entire duration of the probe. In July 2013, Kiir sacked his entire cabinet, including his vice president, Riek Machar, ostensibly to reduce the size of government. However, Machar said that it was a step towards dictatorship and that he would challenge Kiir for the presidency.[12] He also dismissed Taban Deng Gai as Governor of Unity State.
Kiir told Radio Netherlands Worldwide that homosexuality is not in the "character" of Southern Sudanese people. "It is not even something that anybody can talk about here in southern Sudan in particular. It is not there and if anybody wants to import or to export it to Sudan, it will not get the support and it will always be condemned by everybody," he said. He then went on the refer to homosexuality as a "mental disease" and a "bastion of Western immorality" [13]
Consolidation of power
After rumors about a planned coup surfaced in Juba in late 2012, Kiir began reorganizing the senior leadership of his government, party and military on an unprecedented scale. In January 2013, he replaced the inspector general of the national police service with a lieutenant from the army, and dismissed six deputy chiefs of staff and 29 major generals in the army. In February 2013 Kiir retired an additional 117 army generals but this was viewed as troublesome in regards to a power grab by others. Kiir had also suggested that his rivals were trying to revive the rifts that had provoked infighting in the 1990s.
Foreign policy
In mid-October 2011, Kiir announced South Sudan had applied for accession to the East African Community. He declared the EAC to be "at the centre of our hearts" due to its members' support of the South during the Sudanese civil wars.[14]
On 20 December 2011, Kiir visited Israel to thank it for its support during the First Sudanese Civil War in 1956–1972,[15] and met with Israeli president Shimon Peres to discuss establishing an embassy in Jerusalem, which would make South Sudan the only country to have one in that city.[16]
Heglig crisis and war with Sudan
On 26 March 2012, the South Sudanese army attacked the Heglig oilfield, located in the Sudanese state of South Kordofan, triggering theHeglig Crisis. On 27 September, Kiir met Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and signed eight agreements in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which led the way to resume important oil exports and create a six-mile demilitarised zone along their border. The agreements allow for the return of 350,000 barrels of South Sudanese oil to the world market. In addition, the agreements include an understanding on the parameters to follow in regards to demarcating their border, an economic cooperation agreement and a deal to protect each other's citizens. Certain issues remain unsolved and future talks are scheduled to resolve them.
On 25 November 2012, South Sudan launched a formal complaint to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) against Sudan in the wake of aerial bombings carried out by the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) in parts of South Sudan's northern Bahr el Ghazal state, killing at least eight people and injuring an equal number. South Sudan treated the attack as a gross violation of the cooperation agreement the two country's leaders signed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 27 September.[17]
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Political Program
In his speech at the 2nd anniversary of South Sudan’s Independence on 9 July 2013 Kiir outlined a broad program of reforms called to rebuild South Sudan after the decades of its independence war against the North. Kiir’s program includes building transportation infrastructure, in particular – alternative routes for oil exports via Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia which will end South’s dependence on the only present route going through the hostile North; putting an end to internal tribal hostilities; drastically improving population’s access to clean water, health care and schooling; modernizing agricultural sector; fighting gender inequality and corruption.[18]
Political crisis
| BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY |
On Dec 15, 2013 there was a coup planed to over throw Salva Kiir whom they claimed to be a dictator with unwanted tendencies and in the evening a shooting erupted at a military barracks in Juba among The Presidential Guards whose personalities were from Nuer ethnic who knew the order of the day as they were given money and new guns to over throw president Kiir from majority ethnic Dinka (aka Tiger); the next morning Salva Kiir appeared in a military uniform flanked by his cabinet to announce Dr. Riek Machar and other senior SPLM officials of staging a failed coup against his government. After they were flash out in the morning at 11 a.m., and as soldiers were making checking they also confronted another shooting from civilians in the areas and houses within the town and that made a move for soldiers to carry out that looked like a targeted killing but an international law of military engagement says that any civilian holding a gun is not a civilian and that was what happened the country. Limited revenge killings took place in Akobo, Bor, and Bentiu and the whole region of Upper got into a mess and cycle of revenge killings. Properties were destroyed and looted and innocent citizens lost their lives. Later-on the coup theory was rejected and went unrecognised by almost all western countries and African countries because of having been promised by Riek that he would give oil and other minerals under the ground to western countries for mining if he would become a leader except Uganda that sent troops to fight alongside Kiir's private army. More than 60% of the national army defected to Mr. Machar's movement in a matter of a week as the army was almost made up of one ethnic Nuer whose most of them are professional soldiers almost the entire of Upper Nile region was under their control.
Controversy of alleged marriage to daughter of William Nyuon
In politically charged social issues, it has been claimed that President Kiir secretly married the daughter of his former comrade William Nyuon Bany, who was from the Nuer ethnic group. It is alleged the ceremony was conducted by his brothers according Dinka culture. This led to a strife between the eldest daughter of Salva Kiir and Aluel William Nyuon Bany.[19] President Kiir has not publicly commented on this alleged marriage. The story continues to escalate with the subsequent in Kenya media that "Kiir's in-laws" requesting privacy.[20]
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