Patrick (Dunga) Papyec Pakwan
November 27, 2012 (SSNA) — Mr. Luk does not seem to have luck in finding a niche in professional life nor in the quicksand of South Sudanese politics. After more than 20 good (in this case, bad) years in America, the man still identifies himself interestingly as a former anchorman at Radio Juba (whatever that means). While it is not one’s business, one cannot help but wonder and ask: What kind of work does our ‘former anchorman’ really do in America when he is not peddling mumble-jumble on the internet? Is the title of former anchorman at Radio Juba a title for life or is it a shorthand message which when deciphered simply means that our man has not have a job of which he is proud since he left Radio Juba for the ‘greener’ pastures in the New World more than 20 years ago? Was being a news reader at Radio Juba the only job Mr. Luk Kuth Dak did in the Sudan before he went to America? Why doesn’t he, for instance, mention his title when he wallowed in corruption while working for and with one of the corrupt governors of Upper Nile? Well, these queries may appear mundane or irrelevant at a glance, but their answers may not only unearth Mr. Luk’s corrupt skeletons hidden beneath a heap of pretentious nationalist rhetoric but may also help explain the man’s addiction to writing flimsy articles in which he deliriously duels with imaginary enemies that exist only in his tormented mind and in the minds of the cabal that rules with an iron fist in South Sudan.
Having abstained for sometime from his stated habit of writing about the “Jallaba Golden Boys’ as well as from other equally harmful habits (I hope), the former anchorman at Radio Juba suffered a relapse recently and returned to his old addictive ways by writing an article titled Dr. Lam Akol: No Sugar-coating!!! Did he say ‘sugar-coating? What has Sugar-coating got to do with it?
In the article, the former anchorman at Radio Juba seethed unintelligibly and deliriously about Dr. Lam Akol’s ‘pilligrimage’ to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, putting his fingers in the eyes of our people, shutting the door of reconciliation among our people, slamming our friends in the state of Israel and slamming Juba for corruption.
From the proceeding gibberish, it is very safe to assume that our ‘former anchorman’ –in his own distorted world of convoluted logic—has a different meaning for ‘sugar-coating.’ All the same, let’s respond to his rage by throwing the questions back at him, and let me (I hope I don’t confuse him) do that in a reversed order.
Who is not slamming Juba for corruption these days? Hasn’t President Kiir himself said that some 75 of his former and present ministers have stolen $4 billion of public money? Haven’t many members of the ,that of public has hindered development in South Sudan? Has corruption or has it not reached levels that make officials of our government look the other way when security forces and other state organs violate our people and those of UN staff with impunity? Has the US ambassador to Juba or has she not only last week slammed our rudderless government for the kidnapping and disappearance of an American citizen in Juba for whose release some quarters have allegedly demanded ransom? Hasn’t corruption in our country hindered development because governors of the regions are also as corrupt as their colleagues in the Council of Ministers in Juba?
Who is not slamming our friends in the state of Israel these days for their brutal bombardment of innocent civilians in Gaza? Isn’t the Israeli air bombardment of women and children in Gaza reminiscent of the raids carried out by jets of the Sudanese army on innocent women and children in the Nuba Mountains and Northern Bahr Ghazal? Should we not condemn brutality wherever and whenever it is visited upon fellow human beings? Isn’t brutality ‘race-less’, ‘colorless’ and ‘religion-less’ as the late Chairman Dr. Garang correctly cautioned us? Is the state of Israel a sacred cow that cannot be touched even when it is in the wrong? Are we more Jewish than the liberal Jews who constantly slam the ultra-conservative Israeli government for its repressive policies against Palestinians and refugees, including South Sudanese? Don’t many Palestinians profess the Christian faith that many of us claim to do, or are we so blinded by our own racism that we do not see their suffering simply because they happen to be Arabs by birth?
Who shut the door that could have brought reconciliation and peace among our people? Didn’t Dr. Lam spend two months in Juba in 2011 mending political fences with President Kiir who promises reconciliation on a larger scale? Where is that reconciliation now and where are the other opposition leaders such as Peter Sole? Are they not in SPLM/SPLA prisons? Has anyone heard anything about South-South dialogue since we gained our independence more than a year ago? What has become of the once hyped dialogue? Hasn’t President Kiir and the notorious kitchen cabinet shot down the process by insisting on co-opting opposition leaders into the SPLM ala NCP tradition? Why has it taken the government an eternity only to come up week with an announcement about intention to organize a reconciliation conference in collaboration with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP)? Who unwisely and selfishly seeks to run away with governing the entire South singlehandedly and without input from other parties other than the SPLM? How can reconciliation efforts see the light of the day when SPLM and attack dogs continue to wantonly assassinate the character of opposition leaders?
Who is poking the eyes of our people with long, sharp fingers these days so that they do not see the evil that our government does to its own people? Has not our beloved government in Juba starved our people by shutting the oil off in defiance to wise counsel from national and international figures? Haven’t Dr. Lam and SPLM-DC warned our government of the dire consequences of its foolish act of shooting itself in the foot in our oil fields? Haven’t Dr. Lam and SPLM-DC warned our government of the exorbitant cost of the resumption of oil production and import through the Sudan per the shabby agreement that our negotiating team signed hurriedly with the Sudan in Addis Ababa last September? Who is poking its fingers in the eyes of our people now? Isn’t our ‘security’ service ruthlessly beating senseless any citizen who dares question the malpractices of our government? Aren’t our ‘security’ agents literarily poking the eyes of our artists (Jal, for instance), our civil society activists (Deng Athuai Mawiir Rehan, for instance), the undersecretaries of our ministries (Dr. Jok Madut Jok, for example), our members of the Parliament (Hon. Arop Madut and Hon Onyotti Adigo, for instance), our professors and our engineers (for instance, Professor Taban Lol Lyiong and Daniel Wani respectively) and our opposition leaders (Peter Sole, for example)? Who has literarily given these prominent individuals and others more than a black eye? Who is poking the eye of our people and staining the reputation of our young country by allowing the killing of many nationals and foreigners in the hands of ‘security’ agents? Who is poking the eyes of our people by cutting more than 60% of their salaries in the name of self-inflicted austerity measures while ministers and governors continue to fly in and out of Juba to and from as far away as Australia and the US in a repulsive business-as-usual manner? Hasn’t the governor-king of Unity State just returned from a public-funded three month sabbatical in Australia during which time his people were mercilessly battered by floods and disease? Wasn’t he the one who announced out of the blue that South Sudan will resume oil export through the Sudan on 21 November 2012. Instead of contradicting and reprimanding Governor Taban Deng for his premature announcement, didn’t President Kiir repeat the same announcement a few days later? Who, Mr. former anchorman at Radio Juba, are now poking the eyes of our people with false hopes of oil money and who are thumbing their noses at our people at our darkest hour of need?
Who is not traveling to Egypt these days? Have the Egyptian people not elected the Muslim Brotherhood in fair elections following the popular uprising that toppled former dictator Mubarak? Isn’t the current Egyptian government recognized by the international community, including the US and South Sudan, as legitimate? Hasn’t the Secretary of State of the most powerful nation of earth jetted to Cairo recently to engineer with her Egyptian counterpart the current cease-fire between Hamas and the Israeli government? Hasn’t South Sudan established diplomatic relations with the current government of the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo soon after President Mursi came to power? If the Muslim Brotherhood has admitted its role in killing two million of our people, as the former anchorman at Radio Juba claims, why does our government have diplomatic relations with their government? Do we or do we not have our embassy in the den of the Muslim Brotherhood, or have we, unbeknown to the general public, withdrawn the South Sudanese ambassador and his staff from Cairo? If we have not, why doesMr. ‘former anchorman at Radio Juba’ want us to believe that it is a sin for Dr. Lam to travel to Egypt where our government has already paid homage to the Muslim Brotherhood by establishing an embassy in Cairo? Isn’t this double standard? Aren’t the visible manifestations of Dr. Lam’s political weight at home and abroad and your own Lam phobia driving you and the cabal senselessly bonkers?
Having asked these questions (our people know the answers very well), I suppose one would be understandably justified to adduce that perhaps the title of ‘former anchorman at Radio Juba,’ is nothing but a sugar-coated title that a mendacious pauper bestows upon himself in a desperate quest for a sourly-needed veneer from behind which he writes in appeasement of the powers that be in Juba who in their blissful ignorance know not that the pauper—crippled by his past iniquities and present intellectual inadequacies—writes as he lies prostate on the inhospitable pavement of glorious bygone times. His life-long quest for knighthood by imaginary people in high places in Juba having come to naught, the Quixotic scoundrel—unaware that he stands on a slippery slope–continues to duel with giant windmills and other perceived enemies. Now that he has lost his footing and fallen miserably on his face, he expectedly blames imaginary enemies for both his predicament and that of his imaginary friends in high places in Juba. Needless to say, no one waited with bated breath for the riffraff in a knight’s shining armor to fall honorably on his own sword for the scalawag has no honor.
The writer works for an international non-governmental organization in the USA and is currently on leave in Malakal, Upper Nile State. He can be reached at [email protected]