This is a terrible and flawed system for an army of peace, especially when there is no punishment for those who have acted without orders from the highest above command.
I am from the Doleib Hill that has become identified these days with start of Mr. Athor’s rebellion. I was born there and I don’t miss to go there from time to time. I lost my nephew in that mutiny as he was trying to defend the SPLA by holding to a heavy machine gun that he is best at using, and refusing to join Mr. Athor’s mutineers. But now the very SPLA that my nephew defended with blood and soul is turning its back on the Shilluk people by beating up brutally his grandmothers, grandfathers, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and cousins he left behind as orphans of SPLA war on SPLA. What a lost sorrow from a contradictory bad SPLM rule!!! Had this young man and others accepted to join Athor, we would have not mourned for their gallant stand in defence of the very SPLA, which is mistreating the Shilluk people now! Please God have mercy on their souls; we missed them in vain!!!
If the mistreated Shilluk young men and old men, even women who have been send out from their villages for hiding these days from the SPLA, cross the Nile and Sobat rivers to join Mr. Athor, nobody should blame them for that option. These grieved Shilluk people may connect what the SPLA is doing to them now as the execution of the threats during the last April elections that if they fail to vote in the SPLM candidates, SPLA tanks and heavy guns would be seen chanting bad news in the Shilluk Kingdom. But the Shilluk people were courageous enough to resist and tell those SPLM candidates that it shall not be the first time for them to see tanks and heavy machine guns roaring on their villages because it has been done by the Jellaba enemy frequently, and that if the SPLA want to behave like Jellaba the people would know how to deal with them as enemy of peace and tranquility. The bushes of South Sudan shall never reject people’s resistance to the new enemy. It has been seen now that the bushes of South Sudan never rejected Mr. Athor and it shall never reject those offended by the new enemy of the people.
Indeed, the SPLM candidates lost the elections in the Shilluk Kingdom and the bad news from tanks and heavy guns have been heard in the land of Nyikango (the founder of Shilluk Kingdom). I recalled what Urbano Tito wrote some months back that the purchased SPLA tanks from Ukraine would be turned against the people of Southern Sudan first before firing them to the Northern enemy. He was right in advance. With what Minister Michael Makeui, Governor Khuol Manyang and SPLA spokesman Kuol Diem have said, these tanks are already crushing the very people they are supposed to protect against external aggressors. Cry my beloved South Sudan!
It is the right of every human being and community to defend himself/herself/itself from oppressors in the best way possible. The SPLM and its partial army (the SPLA) have become oppressors in the South in replacement of NCP and SAF during the war time with Khartoum. In agreement with the NCP they have rigged the elections shamefully and are ready to kill anyone who criticize and oppose their evil deeds. They are ready to kill Athor and his supporters. They are ready to kill the Shilluk people. But will they make it as they wish. Not at all because God will not allow it!!!
Nevertheless, I hope that those who have commanded the SPLA to do the evils they have done in the Shilluk Kingdom these days did not forget that when these peaceful people decide to react, they become even terrible than the devil in defence or offence. Even if few numbers of them join Gen. George Athor, it should be known what damage and defeat they could do to the enemy. Go and ask all the SPLA former successful commanders in the combats who had some few Shilluk men in their combat columns and they will tell you what these people of Nyikango can do when assigned a military mission.
***Some Conflict Resolution Recommendation to Mr. Salva Kiir:
1. Please Mr. Salva Kiir tell your men in the SPLA uniform to behave themselves when carrying out the so-called disarmament in the Shilluk Kingdom these days, otherwise if these silent warriors of the South decide to join Mr. Athor, Juba might turn out to be a very hot capital for you to enjoy your rigged elections victory. Don’t think that because you have bribed some Shilluk chiefs with double-cabin Toyota Hilux these days you can mistreat and oppress their people as your rulership mood dictates you. Don’t push the Shilluk people to violence option against your bad rule. Leave the Shilluk people alone or else, don’t regret the flashback of what your politicized army in Southern Sudan is doing now. Order them to go back to their barracks before the situation goes out of control into additional military rebellion against your bad rule. Let your bad rule in the South collapse peacefully like that of President Jaafer Numeiry and Prime Minister Saddig El-Mahdi without a blood shed from resistance by the offended people!!! Don’t insist that you are a Joshua of Southerners when most of them have lost confidence in your leadership style that had thrown their hopes to dogs.
2. Please Mr. Salva Kiir try to solve the creeping rebellion of your former General Mr. Athor and others peacefully without pushing the Shilluk people, especially the angry youth to join hand with them in a more rigorous military rebellion. Tell Mr. Kuol Manyang to step down from his contested rigged governorship victory and give him a ministerial post in the GoSS, or let him go home if he refuses this offer of reconciliation. Call Mr. Athor back as the deputy SPLA Chief of General Staff and merge his forces into the SPLA or South Sudan police forces. Let’s a neutral person agreeable to both Mr. Kuol Manyang and Mr. George Athor become the Governor of Jonglei State for the sake of saving precious human lives in the South. It is time of peace and there is no need for war now, honestly!
3. Please Mr. Salva Kiir don’t ignore these two recommendations from my sincere self because these could save South Sudan from uncertain destiny in the near and far future. Human life is short and we should not disgrace it when alive and lucky to have lived part of it in leadership privileges. It is very easy to repeat bad histories but hard to replicate good ones. The choice is yours as you may know the consequences of each of them.
Dr. James Okuk is a concerned citizen of the Independent South Sudan in the waiting reachable at [email protected]