By Luk Kuth Dak
April 10, 2010 (SSNA) — It’s ridiculous that the very journalists, who made a living on extolling the dictators in Sudan while they were turning South into blood pool, are now lecturing us on the benefits that come along with Sudan being a one country and a one nation.
I spent most of my adult life in the field of journalism, whether as a correspondent, a press secretary, an anchorman, or a writer in the various newspapers that I am today.
I have served under some high profiled North’s own journalists of the caliber of Ustaz Ahmed al Balal al Tyib, the current Editor- in- Chief of Akhbar al Yom, and Dr. Mahi al Deen Titawi, to name a few. Yet, there was not a single time that I heard or read an opinion for them or the other fellow journalists, in respect to the intangible injustices and human rights violations, that were occurring before their bare eyes, against the people of the marginalized area in general and South Sudan in particular.
Now, after more than- five- decades long of silence and singing for the dictators, some of these so-called journalists have now taken an anomalous position, and they are coming out of their hideouts, in numbers, speaking up about the disastrous future that awaits an independent South Sudan.
… “The separation of South Sudan would be all but peaceful; we need to keep this country together,” so wrote the Editor-in-Chief of the pro NIF/ NCP newspaper, al Ray al aam, and President al Basher’s first cousin, Ustaz Kamal Hassan Bekhiet. “It will be a deadly crime to allow that to happen to this great nation; it’s not the right thing to do,” he asserted.
In most respects, the likes of Kamal, Adil al Baz, Diaa al deen Bala, Muhammad Abduladir, Rashid Abdulrahim, and the Sudan’s First Uncle, al Tayib Mustafa, still do believe that Southerners are just too easy to be manipulated and lured into accepting the notion that Sudan must be kept united against all odds. They also think that the same methods in which South’s representative were once fooled back in 1956 could also be used for the Southerners of today!!
But, is this 1956? You be the judge!!
Of course, those racists lunatics are entitled to their opinion. But there’s an old saying that says: “Once an oppressor, will almost always be an oppressor.” Therefore, the only way we can get them off our backs is, to deny theme the opportunity to continue oppressing us comes the referendum in 2011.
In reality, unity is a marvelous thing for any nation. But that unity should and must be built first on mutual respect, trust, honesty, and more importantly, equality. But as far one ethnicity, one religion and one culture continues to impose its will on the majority of the citizens, unity will not have a chance to see the light at the end of the tunnel. In deed, it will remain only as a day dream on the minds of the beholders.
And so in this coming election, particularly in the South, if you really care about a brighter future for your children, then you must cast your vote for Salva Kiir Mayardit, The SPLM candidate for the Government of South Sudan.
Kiir, is a man of great stature.
The author’s former anchorman w/Juba Radio and vice President of the Sudanese Journalists Union, USA. He can be reach at: [email protected]