My fellow citizens of South Sudan,
April 13, 2011 (Mayom) — Today it is historical day in South Sudan as country and its people. It is a day that will go down in history of new nation for second phase for our liberation struggle against unjust rule by our sons and daughters in the SPLM led government. From the start, we thank all Southern Sudanese for their free choice which all of us had tirelessly worked for and resulted to be the Republic of Southern Sudan on the 9th of July2011.
My fellow citizens,
Our nation had groomed a monster that will swallow generation after generation in terms of bad leadership and extreme level of corruption which poisons our values and tradition that rejects thefts in our midst. It is a fact that the comprehensive peace agreement was a landmark in the history of the Sudan in general and South Sudan in particular. It set the country on the path to democratic transformation and the respect of human rights.
For South Sudan, CPA promised the people of the South the exercise of the right of Self-determination though an internationally supervised referendum, instituted government that was, for all practical purposes, independent politically, economically and security wise. It is true that we had been running our affairs by ourselves without interferences from Khartoum, but our bad administration in Juba always point finger to Northern Sudan to cover their failure. Is it logical that the disappearance of billions of pounds from our finance be blamed on the North?
My fellow citizens,
What we saw in the six years of the interim period was a complete deviation from the path set by the CPA. There is an absolute failure in the area of good governance. For instance our entire nation has witnessed rampant corruption on the top echelon of GOSS. It is shocking that only five years in government, the private bank accounts of the leadership of GOSS in foreign banks fatting from Zero to tens of millions of Dollars! Little wonder that the more than 20 billion dollars of oil revenue received by GOSS could not be seen in terms of tangible services delivery in areas such as health, education, water, etc. Our children went without schools while the Children of our leaders enjoyed the best education in foreign lands. Our people continued to die from treatable diseases while those in charge and their families visited the best hospitals abroad. In fact, the current leadership of GOSS never felt the sense of belonging to the South for their families continued to stay in their expensive mansion in east Africa, America, Australia, etc. These leaders of GOSS continue to siphon off the meagre resources of the South bleeding our people dry. Who is now the enemy of our people?
It is crystal clear like a noon day, that the accounts of GOSS were never audited for the last six years of the interim period. The noise and empty statements of zero tolerance of corruption in Juba is bogus and hollow because none in Juba is capable of doing so for they are all in the thick of it.
My fellow countrymen,
Your armed force, SPLA, is in a miserable state. It is budgeted more than 40% of the total budget of GOSS every financial year. Yet, your soldiers are poorly paid and some of them have not received any salary since the CPA was signed! The General high command eats up most of the budget allocated to the SPLA. Furthermore, many officers are not given assignments and promotion system is so discriminative to the extent that many have been in one rank for almost ten years. The wounded heroes had been forgotten and even the families of the martyrs are neglected.
The law and order has broken down as police is poorly trained and its functions are taken over by private armies, and unconstitutional security, the so-called, Special Branch, whose bulk are one family and one ethnic group. The judicial system is politicised and a good number of judges do not deserve to sit on the bench. Hence you cannot speak of the rule of law in Southern Sudan under the current injudicious leadership.
In the states the security has broken down due to tribal and sectional fights gripping the South as the traditional leaders are deprived of their traditional authority. County commissioners have turned the counties into fiefdoms and their misbehaviour has become a source of insecurity. On the political level, the SPLM leadership continues to pursue the politics of exclusion within itself and outside it. It denies the other Southern political parties the right to propagate their ideas and present their political program to the people. Above all, the SPLM leadership used SPLA high command to intimidate other leaders in the South reducing the level of our supposedly national army to a party militia. The noises of victory by the SPLM in the last elections in the South are preposterous and ludicrous, we in the SPLA know the truth.
The exclusion politics of the SPLM has generated extreme disillusionment with the SPLM among the people of South Sudan. However, many people were restrained from taking action by the fact that everybody was awaiting the conduct of the referendum. This was misread by the SPLM as impotence and inability to do something.
The leadership of the SPLM was abusing our patriotism for their narrow interests. Again after the result of referendum was announced, the SPLM reneged on the resolutions of the South -South dialogue conference on post-referendum arrangements thus throwing away the last chance for the South to close its ranks. Now that the people of South Sudan have voted for a state of their own, now is the time to say enough is enough.
My fellow citizens,
To bring to an end the suffering of our people, and stop the glide of our newly born state into an abyss under the current corrupt gangs in Juba, I have decided, today, to denounce and reject the evil practices against my people by GOSS leadership. The objectives we intend to achieve include the following:
1. The dissolution of the current government of Southern Sudan to be replaced by a national broad-base government agreed upon by all the South Sudan political parties,
2. A meeting of all the South Sudan political parties shall be convened immediately to discuss and agree on the transitional process and form a transitional government of South Sudan that shall prepare the newly born state for independence,
3. The army of South Sudan shall be taken care of and transformed into a truly professional national army.
4. The transitional government shall carry out general election in the Republic of South Sudan within two years to elect the Constituent Assembly that shall promulgate the permanent constitution of the Republic of South Sudan.
5. Priority to be given to services delivery to our people.
6. Take practical legal steps to bring all those involved in corruption to account.
Dear Compatriots,
We remain committed to the letter and spirit of the CPA and shall negotiate in good faith with the government of the North the outstanding post-referendum South-North issues.
I appeal to the officers, NCOs, men and women of the SPLA to abandon the clique in Juba and join us in the struggle to set South Sudan on a correct path as the difficult task of joining the club of nations of the world.
Signed: