Canada: Juba Regime To Begin Basketball Diplomacy In The West.

By Chadi Michael,

BC, Canada

August 11, 2016(Nyamilepedia) —— Juba regime is both financially and credibility strapped on international stage. The United Nations and IGAD have overstretched their financial and diplomatic resources over the last five years to make South Sudan look a little worthy of international efforts put into it. However, such investments only exacerbate President Kiir’s tendency to consolidate power, increase corruption, war efforts and destruction of human lives.

As of now, the regime is left temporarily to its demise with short lifespan as foreign diplomats and donors pull out, giving the Dinka Council of Elders enough time to get their acts together, by pulling the nation out of warpath and focusing on the peace restoration.

How can such vital ingredients be realized when the regime is in desperate need of money, military supports, and manpower to finally crush the rebellion? To many observers watching from the sideline the Kiir-Jieng Council Elders’ show, the country is not going anywhere. It is not pulling away from its stranded past, but continues to further decline as time passes and the hope for peace deteriorates.

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Soon more lives would be lost and Mathiang Anyoor is on the verge of relinquishing its role in the war as evidenced by the latest lost in the battles against the ghost fighters of the new frontline, accidentally opened up in Western and Central Equatorian states. Thanks to Taban, Kiir, Malong and the Jieng Council of Elders for finally accepting the Equatoria cantonment sites.

It does not look like the Equatorian people, in the company of 1300th SPLA-IO are going to be deterred by empty threats coming out of Juba in the final phase of the revolution.

The regime is left wondering how in the world a more than sixty thousand army is easily defeated and repulsed back to the capital, Juba by a small number of Machar’s rebels? To answer that, it was Kiir and Malong who awoke up the reluctant warriors.

As desperation grows in the Dinka Council of Elders’ government, the regime is now resorting to all measures it can afford to earn back its long-lost international credibility.

The tribal council is using the sports of basketball to gauge its supports among the South Sudanese communities in North America or the Western Hemisphere. In the last four days, Juba gave some directives to its die-hard supporters in the west to get the ball rolling.

It has already delegated diplomatic assignments to the South Sudanese National Basketball Federation. SSBF is entrusted with the responsibility to engage members of South Sudanese in both Canada and the United States to solicit funds from the Canadian and the American people, claiming to use it to develop basketball and other sports facilities in a country that has continued to financially burden the international donors over several years with no success.

The world has been pouring billions of dollars into South Sudan, to help it develop sports facilities, future athletes, and sport-related programs, only to learn that the money winds up in the pockets of South Sudanese political elites (http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/english/2016/07/countries-losing-billions-of-dollars-to-invoice-fraud/#.V6wZJJMrJPM). According to the letter this author was able to obtain, a group of national security personnel in Juba were dispatched to carry out the government political propaganda and its new diplomatic streamline in North America, using the sports of basketball to mask the regime’s real intention.

Within this week, the so-called South Sudanese Basketball Federation is coordinating some events at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada between August 10th and August 13th. These tournaments were to be attended by a high-level delegation from Juba, together with their media entourage. South Sudanese leaders have assigned some members within the local South Sudanese communities in Canada and the US to oversee the mobilization efforts, making sure South Sudanese attend them in a huge number.

Meanwhile, the regime is sending some members of the SSBC, Eye Radio and other government controlled media to make publicity and to cook up lies during these events.

This is what we consider as a ‘backdoor diplomacy.’ The government has run out of options, time and resources as evidence by these desperate attempts to woe a number of countries behind it, using such manipulative tactics to obtain financial resources and political endorsement. This latest effort looks a lot more like the 1970s US-Chinese “ping pong diplomacy” (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/china/peopleevents/pande07.html).

This political initiative was dubbed as ‘ping pong diplomacy’ when the United States administration under Nixon’s presidency scouted Chinese diplomacy after decades of political enmity. That event provided opportunities for both Chinese and Americans to choose a new beginning, a new path in their relationships that has proven beneficial for the two countries.

Juba cannot possibly bring itself to that higher political engagement with the west because it does not have what it takes to scout Canada’s relation through basketball channel. As a matter of fact, most Canadians are not basketball enthusiasts in practical sense.

As apparent, Juba will not succeed in replicating the US-Chinese example for two reasons. First, the Jieng Council of Elders is poor financially to buy more mercenaries at this moment, let alone paying for political escorts in the west.

Second, the UN and the Americans are finally gearing up to either uproot the regime or obstruct its artery through arms embargo, sanctions and withholding foreign aids its leaders tend to divert toward military and personal amusement. My sources confirmed that the high-level delegation that was to open the events in Canada are now said to have aborted the mission either due to a lack of funds to transport the whole entourage to Canada or its inability to obtain visas clearance in Nairobi, Kenya.

The regime has now resort to collecting South Sudanese high school or college dropouts in the United States and Canada instead, to represent the South Sudanese Basketball team in these scheduled tournaments in Vancouver, in order to help save the regime from an international embarrassment.

Meanwhile, local political activists in Canada are going their way to inform their communities about this desperate move by Juba, trying to encounter the peaceful political protests in New York. We are mobilizing the entire South Sudanese community in British Columbia to come out in full swing and to show the Canadian society that we do not welcome this brutal regime agents who have raped and killed innocent civilians at will to this peace and freedom-loving nation.

Here, as South Sudanese Canadians, we will take necessary steps to help put this regime out of its misery by standing up and denouncing its basketball diplomacy.

The author can be reached at Chad8204@gmail.com