By AGGREY MUTAMBO

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Has peace in South Sudan become a victim of negotiating parties? Or is Africa’s youngest nation simply a canvas on which warring factions paint with brushes made from factors that have always fuelled the war?

For a country rich in fertile soils, oil and other natural resources, why has its people perennially faced war, hunger and brutality from factions led by leaders they thought would deliver them from years of marginalisation?

Peace of South Sudan and Revitalisation, a recent book by Dr James Okuk, a South Sudanese academic, attempts an answer, weaving through a history of bad politics influenced by external factors and poor institutions.

Currently, South Sudanese key principals President Salva Kiir and Dr Riek Machar are on a six-month deadline to negotiate how to form a government of national unity. It is the third time since 2013 they would be doing so.

But it did not begin today. Initially a part of Sudan, the southern tribes were often victims of the “Arabanisation” in the north, starting with the Ottoman Empire and later the annexation of Sudan in a colonial arrangement between the British and the Egyptians.

The southerners were not willing participants and were brutalised for fighting taxation, slavery and annexation of their land. When Sudan got independence in 1955, new rulers continued the marginalisation.

“The post-independence Khartoum-based governments did nothing constructive to be admired in the South despite the availability of feasibility studies for big agro-industrial projects,” writes Dr Okuk.

Some of these projects which would rely on the waters of the Nile, would have seen sugar, rice and maize plantations flourish. Instead, indiscriminate detentions, torture, assassinations and massacres were common.

Things were to turn around following a series of talks that led to the secession of South Sudan in 2011. Instead, the new country entered another round of chaos.

Today, there are four million South Sudanese refugees, two million more displaced within the country and just 27 per cent of the population able to read and write.

Dr Okuk argues that the people were “betrayed” by their leaders, who have become a curse in conflict over rivalry on political interests.”

But now they have a chance to redeem themselves. First, he argues Kiir and Machar must stop thinking the world starts and ends with them.

They must then dedicate their energy to realising peace and dignity of south Sudanese. This may include things like abolishing political parties from owning militant branches, reopening schools and encouraging south Sudanese entrepreneurial spirit and “fighting insanity by changing attitudes that are not productive.”

It is not every day that the country’s stories are told by the South Sudanese themselves. This book is an attempt at contextualisation the plight of South Sudanese. Will the leaders read the suggestions in there? Hopefully.