Page 77 - EVOLUTION OF THE SUDAN PEOPLE’S LIBERATION MOVEMENT(SPLM),

authoritarianism and repression using state security agencies(SAD.533/5/23-25; 533/5/40-42, 44).

Melber (2003) observes that descent to authoritarian rule begins when specific goals promised
during the armed liberation struggle that seek to reduce social and wealth imbalances or promise
redistribution of wealth or resources yet upon capturing state power, they deviate from their original
plans of social transformation. This is gradually or immediately followed by dissent from within

the movement or elite rapture into factionalism as strategic elites struggle for power. Liberation
movements in general neither hands over power nor undertake true fundamental changes. Instead
it reproduces the past in their own impression. They also tend to be pragmatists. Furthermore,

they tend to mislead the people that new society they fought for is already in existence and what
was needed was more action (Gibson, 2001:375). The elites fail to tackle poverty; ignorance and
disease not because of lack of resources but due to bad policy choices(SAD.533/5/23-25; 533/5/40-
42, 44).

The goal of any liberation movement is victory as opposed to a government, which has diverse

goals that require complex intellectual and organizational framework that require more than
carrying arms. The goal of any liberation movement requires the services of the state as the driver
of development or as the answer to the social and national question. Development is perceived
as more sustainable or meaningful in the context of the liberation movement if the state remains
strong in service delivery or the role of the public is rendered primary. We have already noted

that the SPLM adopted neoliberal market solutions to the problems facing the people through
overreliance on the role of the private sector. The SPLM adopted austerity measures leading to
the devaluation of the South Sudanese pound that plunged the economy into national abyss and

crises associated with the first generation of structural adjustment programs in Africa in the early
1980s.

“With reduced government spending, increased tax collection and heavy depts. on the
government, all was not well. Civil servants’ pay and allowances reduced and others
laid off, the economy was ailing. The main source of revenue was Oil and Juba halted its

oil sale citing Khartoum stealing it’s oil. This was the hardest time for South Sudanese
economy”(O1, David K. Deng, Juba, 16/03/2016).

The austerity measures seek to roll back the responsibility of the state to make the title role of
the state in the economy irrelevant and substitute the same with the markets through the private
sector. Among others neoliberal economic reforms come as a package that promotes the role of
the private sector, retrenchment of the public sector workers, devaluation and deregulation of the

state from the economy. The cumulative effect of all these reform packages is to create a weak
state not directly accountable to the people. Cabral’s theory of national liberation and the reasons
he advances why the liberation elites betray the struggle is failure to commit class suicide and
succumbing to human internal weaknesses in the context of liberation. Struggle against one’s

own weakness is a variable of measuring success or failure in answering the social and national
question. In other words, everything that was initially considered national becomes international
or global to be owned by foreigners who have better access to credit and resources than the local
populace.

Other defining feature of the post liberation governments is corruption and factionalism. The
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