Reshuffle puts 'right person in right place': government

32 World THE MYANMAR TIMES JULY 29 - AUGUST 4, 2013
Talks under
way for new
S. Sudan govt.
Putin hosts
world’s
Orthodox
leaders
SOUTH Sudan’s President Salva Kiir
on Thursday held consultations with
a view to setting up a new government,
two days after firing his entire
cabinet, a government official said.
“The president wants to have
time to consult before coming out
with the government,” Mayen Makol,
spokesman at the foreign affairs
ministry, told AFP.
He declined to say how long the
consultations would last.
“It could be three days, four days,
a week,” he said, adding that in the
meantime ministries are being run
by senior civil servants.
In a series of decrees signed Tuesday
evening Kiir sacked his 28 ministers
and their deputies as well as 17
police brigadiers and he announced
his next government would consist
of only 19 ministries.
A joint statement Thursday from
the African Union, Canada, Norway,
Switzerland, Britain and the United
States urged all parties in South Sudan
“to take all measures necessary
to maintain calm and prevent violence”.
On Thursday the South Sudanese
capital Juba, where security was
beefed up following Tuesday’s decrees,
was calm.
The diplomats further called on
South Sudan’s leaders “to expedite
the formation of a new cabinet”.
“We encourage South Sudan to
do so in a manner that reflects the
diversity of the South Sudanese people,”
the statement said.
“It is critical that South Sudan
stay true to the vision it laid out for
itself two years ago at its independence.
That vision can only be realized
through sustained commitment
to democracy and good governance,
justice and accountability, and respect
for rule of law and the human
rights of all of South Sudan’s people,”
it went on.
Among those fired was Kiir’s
deputy and major political rival Riek
Machar.
Another of Kiir’s political rivals,
Pagan Amum, secretary general of
the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation
Movement, was suspended and is
being investigated for “mismanagement”
and “insubordination”. He was
banned late Thursday from leaving
Juba during the inquiry or speaking
to the media, an official statement
read on national television said.
Many of the ministers were key
figures in the rebel SPLM or its
armed wing that fought a brutal
1983-2005 war against the government
of Sudan, which led to a 2011
Sudanese tribesmen and government officials attend a meeting in Localities,
in el-Fasher, North Darfur. Photo: AFP
referendum in which South Sudan
voted overwhelmingly to split from
the north.
Fired vice president Machar, of
the Dok Nuer people from the key
oil-producing Unity state, is a controversial
figure but commands loyalty
among many branches of the Nuer,
who form an integral part of the foot
soldiers of the new nation’s ex-rebel
army.
He has made no secret of his desire
to challenge Kiir for the presidency
in elections due in 2015.
However, he fought on both sides
of the civil war, leading a splinter
SPLM faction that sided with the Sudanese
government, battling troops
commanded by Kiir, who comes
from the Dinka people.
Machar’s troops are accused of a
brutal massacre in the ethnic Dinka
town of Bor in 1991.
“This latest move is part of an
ongoing struggle in the highest levels
of South Sudan’s political leadership,”
said Akshaya Kumar of the
US-based Enough Project, which
campaigns for peace in the Sudans.
However, Charles Manyang, foreign
affairs undersecretary and now
temporarily in charge of the ministry,
told reporters the sackings were
a “legitimate exercise” of power by
Kiir.
Last month, Machar led talks with
Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir to
ease tensions after his government
threatened to halt South Sudanese
oil flows transported through Sudan,
worth billions of dollars to both impoverished
neighbours.
Amum was the top negotiator
with Sudan at long-running African
Union-mediated talks over a raft of
issues left unresolved at independence,
including border demarcation
and oil exports. – AFP
PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin praised
close ties between the Kremlin and
the powerful Orthodox Church as
he hosted top Orthodox clergy from
across the world Thursday to mark the
1025 year anniversary of the arrival of
Christianity in Russia.
Convening the heads and senior
members of 15 Orthodox Churches
for an unprecedented meeting at the
Kremlin, Putin praised the moral authority
of the Church as he seeks to
strengthen his power following huge
protests against his 13-year rule.
“It is important that relations between
the state and the church are
developing at a new level,” Putin said
in televised remarks, with Russian Orthodox
Patriarch Kirill by his side.
“We act as genuine partners and
colleagues to solve the most pressing
domestic and international tasks,
to implement joint initiatives for the
benefit of our country and people,” he
told the black-robed clerics.
Alongside Kirill, those present included
Patriarch Theodore II of Alexandria,
Theophilos III of Jerusalem
and Ilia II of Georgia, the Kremlin
said.
Also present were the heads of the
Bulgarian, Serbian, Polish and Cypriot
Orthodox Churches. Together they
represented more than 227 million
faithful.
Conspicuously, however, Istanbulbased
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew
I did not go to the meeting and
was represented by a lower-ranking
cleric.
The Russian Orthodox Church
was suppressed under Communism
but has staged an astonishing recovery
in post-Soviet Russia to become
one of the country’s most powerful
institutions.
Putin, an ex-KGB agent who has
said his mother had him secretly
christened in the Soviet Union, has
enjoyed unstinting support from the
Church throughout his years in power,
including during the unprecedented
protests that broke out in Moscow and
other big cities in the winter of 2011.
Since returning to the presidency
for a third term last year, Putin has
been promoting an unflinchingly conservative
agenda in a move aimed at
cementing his support among bluecollar
workers and elderly Russians,
his core backers.
This summer Russia’s parliament
passed a law imposing jail terms of up
to three years on those who offend religious
believers.
The controversial bill was proposed
after several members of rock band
Pussy Riot belted out a “punk prayer”
against Putin and his close ties with
the Church last year.
Two Pussy Riot members, Nadezhda
Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina,
are now serving two years in a
penal colony after being convicted last
August on charges of hooliganism motivated
by religious hatred.
The Russian parliament also adopted
a law imposing jail terms for people
promoting homosexual “propaganda”
to minors, while another recently
adopted law bans gay and lesbian couples
in foreign countries from adopting
Russian children.
Historian Alexei Beglov said Putin
was the first Russian leader to have
convened so many heads of Orthodox
Churches, calling the meeting a “political
gesture”.
But he said it was not appropriate
to speak of the coalescence of church
and state in Russia, noting Putin was
simply using the Church to advance
his political goals.
“Putin is trying to exploit the Orthodox
religion to strengthen the authoritarian
system,” he said. – AFP