Re: Twic East Community response to diminishing reputation of GBC President Deng Lueth Mayom of Twic people in the press- May12, 2014
May 25, 2014 (SSNA) — The Twic East community of South Sudan is a legal organization founded by the sons and daughters of Twic citizens who are based in the United States. We are working collectively and tirelessly to promote good cause of unity in strength, respect for all walks of life and obviously striving to forge true partnership with those individuals and communities of South Sudan who adhere courtesy to our principles and values we represent as decent people. It is a historical fact and our deep tradition to live a life of truth telling to others who have offered different opinion. For instance, on May 9, 2014 we released a press which seemed appropriate for us at the time, and we stand firmly by its content but it could have been worded differently. The press has accurate information that was based on fact finding from its original source.
To our neighbor in Bor County, we have no problem to coexist on the near borders of Twic and Bor county lines. Let us be clear and direct: the president of Greater Bor Community and some members on his team attempted desperately in their press release on South Sudan News Agency to demonize, belittling our character for no legitimate reason. In his capacity as president of GBC, Deng Lueth Mayom took that chance in the press to save face and, aggressively attacked Twic elected leaders to bolster his weak credibility at GBC. Mr. Mayom referred to us as “self proclaimed” of which we consider inflammatory language, that is out of touch with reality with larger Twic citizens in the diasporas. We also termed this derogatory behavior in his article as part of leadership survival. Deng, who is a son of Twic community by origin, is not a registered member to question our organizational operations nor has a role to speak for us. This particular GBC leader speaks for him, and he must leave Twic people alone to run their affairs without him meddling. Back to Mr. Mayom, we have a great respect for him, but unfortunately this individual has lost trust and confidence with most Twic people who had attended meeting in Michigan in early September 2010. We have not voted for him and that is why he is voiceless and faceless attacking Twic community in order to look good in the eyes of most Bor people. Such individual like Deng can be simply characterized as traitor because of his political expediency and championing personal interest, while recently left people of Wernyol in crisis without contributing to victims who need basic services. Frankly speaking, our press did not promote any disunity or describe Deng in direct terms; instead we highlighted facts that happen in ongoing crisis in South Sudan.
Moreover, GBC President Deng Mayom has constantly preferred social media to create division between Bor and Twic people and recent writing is evident. Nice try but we got him. As elected leaders of Twic community, we recommend to Bor community in particular to let Deng Mayom cease press attacks on us: otherwise expect robust response on our side tougher than this one. We completely rejected this mechanism of press demonization in the strongest terms possible and we believe our counterparts should follow that suite. This community of Twic we serve did reject him long time ago, and we want the rest to be careful with his policies of division and conquer. We did it in Michigan and that Mr. Mayom is now setting a stage to damage us in the press. If he wants more Twic citizens at GBC, charity begin at home and you need to recalibrate your thinking and be honest to embrace our position.
We’re disappointed with Mr. Mayom then, and we are still disappointed at him now, when we keep seeing such a repeated denial of Twic East Community of which he hails. In reference to his press release that said “ The group does not represent the Twi East community in the United States nor does it represent anything about the official entities of the said community and Greater Bor in the United States” really!! Mr. Mayom. We are based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania since 2009 before what known as GBC came to its existence. Such a truth killers’ individual like Mr. Mayom can be simply regarded as defector and hungry of position because of his political ambition and personal interest. In his May 9, 2014 press release, he also claimed that our writing was “filled with hatred bigotry and character assassination directed to word causing cleavages within the Greater Bor Community” which was filthy unwise recruitment of his loyalists to go against independent of Twic East. We love our county and our Twic, Mr. Mayom. We also love peace and unity; and more importantly, we should not be riveted nor will we be renamed especially when we have our own historical name. Twic, Duk and Bor will meet and united voluntarily, happily and jointly without any intimidation of anyone- special interest group as “Greater Bor” run by the self proclaimed group who is trying to disable our communities.
In short, our policy disagreements with Mr. Mayom are still profound and fundamental since the inception of Greater Bor Community in Michigan. As Twic elected leaders, we wanted leadership in three counties of Bor, Duk, and Twic to be key stakeholders in the early stages of this organization. But Deng Mayom and mostly certain individual who have no mandate and legitimacy from their payams as well as counties have hijacked the right process of formation and that is the simmering cause of this debate. So if meaningful unity of purpose ought to be achieved, Mr. Mayom who is leading this organization must completely stop ignoring approaches and find an alternative solution to settle his difference with us. To our viewers worldwide, it should be clear by now that we are interested in unity of purpose of which individual leaders respect existing organizations and abide by their objectives. We write this response with the aim to put GBC leader Mr. Mayom on notice and making sure that it is not business as usual to say inappropriate thing in the press.
Authorized by: Twic East community Executive Committee