By Awumtiaidit Deng
December 30, 2012 (SSNA) — While Bor community is still regrouping to digest and embrace bitter departure of Isaiah Abraham, who was allegedly gunned down by Kueth-piny’s loyalist, this community has again lost seven lives from Duk County to Murle scavengers on 30/12/2012.
Bor community citizens inside and outside must immediately arrest their differences and rescue Pan-Bor from being entirely displaced. We have failed governor, failed president and failed disarmament chief who seemed to have no clue how to run South Nation, Jonglei State and successfully disarming civilians effectively.
I hope the triad must have known by now that being a combatant general in an army doesn’t necessarily the same as administering civilians. They are distinctive loyalties. Lt. Kuol Manyang and Lt. Kuol Deng kuol have miserably failed Jonglei State.
For my novice, it was March 2012 when the disastrous president by the name of Salva Kiir Kueth-piny traditionally known as Mayardit launched disarmament campaign in Jonglei State when tribal conflict in this region reached climax. The Dinka Bor and Lou Nuer were exhaustively disarmed leaving Murle tribe of Pibor heavily arm.
The tribes that are disarmed were left vulnerable to the Murle marauders. The first mistake the so-called Kueth-Piny did was putting in charge of disarmament the failed general whose citizenship is in crises. Lt. Kuol Deng Kuol.
Kuol Deng hailed from the disputed Abyei’s area of which Republic of South Sudan and Republic of Sudan are scrambling upon a mess trace back to his grandparents. Without strategically stratagems in place, this oblivious officer flew into action disarming communities that are, and never a major threat to Jonglei ecosystem Dinka Bor and Lou Nuer. The two only go for revenge when Murle hit and run.
This job would have been given to a South Sudan general whose citizenship is free from ambiguity. I love my Ngok Dinka people but not this Kueth-Piny stalwart who seem happy to hear daily loss of life in Jonglei.
I doubt Kuol’s impartiality in bringing peace into this bleeding part of the region. A real and true soldier in charge of 15,000 troops meant to protect and disarm civilian, would have sat down charted out clearly how to go about disarming all civilians in in the region uniformly. 15,000 troops are hell lots of soldiers who could even disarm the whole South Sudan let alone Jonglei. What lacks here are tactics and strategies to carry out the mission.
Why are civilians still killing themselves in numbers as such? Why is it very hard to protect those that are disarmed? Why always waiting orders when Murle marauders attacked and took cattle before responding?
From reliable source, according the latest attacked in Jalle Payam, Murle were in a reach and Kuol Deng’s ordered the pursuers to stop and get back while the assailants were about to surrender. The soldiers were asked guns by Jalle youth so as to continue the chase and youth were threatened to get shot if they failed to listen to retreat orders from Lt. Kuol Deng. I just believe Lt. General Kuol Deng is not for peace in Jonglei.
Bor community from Cuei-keer to Cuei-thon have lost lots of lives as the result of this unnecessary and un-uniform disarmament. From unknown reason, the disarmament was left in limbo, Murle was left untouched. If anything, then this was a nincompoop decision by Kuol Deng. He deserves denouncement for it.
In the other hand, L.t Kuol Manyang Juuk, the Jonglei governor has just proven to be unreliable governor of all time. He has failed his duties and he deserves to go and rest before many more lives are lost. The people he is governing have been butchering themselves under his watchful eyes and he can’t do anything about it.
First of all, Jalle community has been an epicentre. It is raided on number of occasions; countless herds of cattle were driven off while lots of unarm and innocent civilians lives were lost. Second, four gentlemen from Anyidi, Makuac and Kol-nyang Payams smuggled themselves into Murle’s territory and stole 68 herds of cattle.
Murle owners followed the trail of cattle and reported their stolen cattle to governor with an imaginary and bloated numbers insinuating the stolen number cows to be up to 480 herds of cattle. Without wasting time to checking reference, and sourcing evidence, Kuol Manyang took the case head on, he exercised his sheer onus similar to his then gorilla behaviours and ordered with threat the three Payams local chiefs to recollect the stolen cattle back forthwith.
My people including the previous Bor County commissioner tried to give the case a second hearing, and Kuol was just terribly arrogant and couldn’t listen to any other side of the story. These Payams were made to pay extra 412 herds of cattle, while exact number was 68 according to the cattle rustlers.
These cattle were sent to Pibor within a very short period of time. Equally, Jalle Payam byre was attacked and several thousands of cows were stolen to Pibor, report was given to Kuol Manyang to do the same, and as I write we are yet to hearing from this failed governor.
On a personal note, I am calling Bor community citizens from Cuei-keer to Cuei-thon wherever they are to come back to their rescue. I heard our community was once ruled by Achiek Mabior and Ajang de Duot simultaneously, there was a reason for such conformity, and I guess one those reasons are such as this (external threat).
That previous unity has to be re-established again if Bor community shall remain in its traditional setting. Politicians have led down this community terribly and we have to resort to our people outside to arm our youth as Salva Kiir, Kuol Manyang and Kuol Deng converge to destroy us using Murle.
I ask every Payam from Kol-nyang to Duk x2 has to recruit 200 strong youths from their localities that will be armed and deployed in Payam to protect civilians’ properties. When this is done, we will let our people from outside especially in America, Canada, Australia, Uganda, Kenya and you name it, pay them their Monthly dues. Let this not be taken as rebellion, this community has no history of betraying South Sudan cause. We are desperate, and desperate time asks for desperate measures, my people. SPLA soldiers we have here are not able to protect lives and retrieve our stolen cattle, let try something different.
You come home and you would be astonishingly shock and sorry to see our community is clearly uprooted by the insecurity while we have 15,000 doves on the ground in Jonglei plus divisions of Bol Bol and Bol Koang. What these troops are doing in Bortown if they can’t protect the disarm civilians is what you and I need to ask?
Personally, I believe the aetiology of Jonglei insecurity is a setup ploy by the failed Juba’s government whose hypothesis is to engage Bor community so that it doesn’t keep an eye to the hobgoblin and dysfunctional government in Juba, and ignominiously Kuol Manyang is sightless to see this conspiracy by Kueth-Piny and his secluded gangs. Get back our guns and we will protect ourselves. Happy New Year 2013, my people.
The Author can be reached at [email protected]