South Sudan Activists Forum

No country can thrive in isolation, #SouthSudan not an exception. The world major powers continue to keep us in their back burners. The American government after helping ‘midwifed’ our country at birth got disappointed after we couldn’t keep up with their minimum expectations of observing the rule of law, respecting human rights and misusing the natural resources instead of using the proceeds to provide peace dividends to the ordinary people and building the country from scratch. The Russian and the Chinese governments’ help are limited to protection the country from United Nations sanctions at the security council. The Russian material supported of the SPLA ended with the fall of the Soviet Union. The Chinese limited their business with some military contracts few years after our independence. The oil investment was more to do with Sudan of Omar Bashir; we only inherited the oil investment. So whom do we run to for help to get us out of the rut? Our choice of representative in DC and at the UN doesn’t help that much, we tried the lobbyist but only end with fat check and not much delivery. Can China help? Probably yes but what is there left to give them in return? Their pet projects are infrastructure projects which have now been monopolized. If you cannot give them the roads, stadia, airport and the railways then we can’t expect much in return. All these are not good for our business environment and that’s my primary concern. We can’t depend on asking our neighbors to curry favor for us with people who can have a direct relationship with us forever.