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By James Nguen Nyol
November 29, 2013 (SSNA) — Call it dictatorial or otherwise, it is what it is, authoritarianism. It is an uncounseled positive ambition of the president to stay in power by force or else. President Salva Kiir Mayardit is determined to stay in POWER at all cost. Recent developments, from that of July 23rd of 2013 to present showcased an ugly nature of a beast. A monster determined to stay foot to destroy a freedom we painfully earned with selfless sacrifices. President Kiir is determined to drive South Sudan and her people to abyss if they (South Sudanese) give-in to his jungle rule, coupled by high class tribalism.
It appeared the opportunists around the president are enjoying the turbulent rides. That said they did not learned from our troubled past mistakes. When drawing political punches, they didn’t take into account what caused Rwandans to bleed in 1994. With their lazy thoughts, they did not considered what make Somalia a lawless and failed state from 1991 to present.
With our poor president, he is a laming duck and often acted blindly to consolidate his power base, even though evidence shown he does not know how orchestrate strategy to win. President Kiir is being run and programs elsewhere from a distant, by Bashir and the Ugandan president. With that in mind, Kiir’s actions are intended to cause agony among our innocence civilians because fabrications and facts to him appeared alike. In return, thus, tells me, South Sudan is hooked for a long and ugly ride.
Under weak leadership, South Sudan becomes a host of all kind of parasites. The Islamic regime in Khartoum for example has recently secured money feeding tube, South Sudan. In the expense of our president’s weakness, Khartoum is now building its infrastructure and weaponizing itself to ensure that Abyei, the land of Dinka Ngok is never part of South Sudan. Sadly, South Sudan government is the financier. Our government is financing such projects in the name of maintaining peace between the two nations. Call it cooperation agreements. Recently, South Sudan government paid Khartoum Islamic regime $2.1 billion dollars since the production of oil resumed.
It is unbelievable that President Salva Kiir government values foreigners’ livelihood than its own. The South Sudanese Dinka Ngok is a prime example in the mix. Local radio stations were banned not to broadcast Abyei Referendum. South Sudan Minister of information, Mr. Makuei Lueth went on SSTV to denounnce Dinka Nyok people. It is a shameful betrayal that ought to be condemned. The Dinka Ngok people are comrades, brothers and sisters in armed and bloodline and deserve not to be betrayed. Above all else, they bled with us and paid selfless sacrifices during the war of liberation. In our collective view, anyone that denies them freedom and right to decide their fate is our enemy, people enemy number one.
Like it or not, betrayal has occurred. It is the ugly truth of having a disorganized system led by confused personalities. You may or may not be aware that the $ 4 billion dollars claimed by South Sudan minister of finance, Mr. Tisa went to loans was instead secretly deposited into the Ugandan and Sudan secret accounts. Kiir and opportunists around him had no choice but to pay Ugandan troops stationed in South Sudan to protect president dynasty from unfounded people revolt. South Sudan is run by mercenaries from Uganda under Uganda president directive. This is sad and shameful trajectory. If this cannot provoke your inner hard feelings, what can? South Sudanese did not take arms for Ugandans to come and rule us after unselfish sacrifices.
Kiir and opportunists around him had no choice but to pay Bashir and his Islamic terrorists in Khartoum to ensure South Sudan oil passage, yet our people are not getting oil dividend. In reverse, Bashir weaponries it bases to take over Abyei by force and other parts of our lands, especially the 14 mile. Not only that, Khartoum uses our own money to arm David Yau and the consequences of that was the recent vicious killing in Jonglei State Twic East and Lou-Nuer. It is an ironic and disappointing reality at best!
You may or may not be aware that South Sudan Government is sponsoring terrorists and selling arms to Al Shabbab, an Al Quaeda terrorist organization based in Somalia. Like it or not, 72 SPLA generals are now under Interpol Police watch list for secretly selling arms to Al qaeda operatives in Somalia and to David Yau, respectively. Who can believe this wild tips, but true.
Similarly, if I may; Maj. Gen. Philip Aguer, the SPLA spokesperson and Gen. Peter Gatdet two others I like not to name are under arrest warrant for warcrime committed in Murl lands. Our Commander-In- Chief betrayed them even though they were simply following orders from non-other than our President Kiir himself. I know, this is too much information but it give one a sense where our country seats. I must also assure you that this is just tip of an iceberg, I have more sensitive information to share if need be.
Out of these few tips, you may also conclude that our country is set for a hell of a ride. We are set on a roller coaster doomed to crash anytime. We are very much in a dangerous course of collision, among ourselves and with international bodies. I am afraid, if we do collide though, both have and have not will equally suffer. It is good to write about these so you know. Tomorrow, history will judge us, but we will not pretend that we don’t know and didn’t see it coming.
Who is to blame?
President Kiir is squarely responsible for the messes made and worse that to come. For one, our president has created a conducive environment to allow chaos to take hold. All South Sudanese are damn aware about this reality, it is not secrete anymore because those who killed Isaiah Abraham and Engineer Louis are his coconspirators.
In political realms, logic often defies deception, I wonder if South Sudanese should not continue to push for better change to get rid of untrusted president because of consequences. If I have to bear witness to anything, I can assert that positive change is not easy and could means bloodshed and destruction but worthwhile. History had it that no positive change without any sufferings. To relent to any misrule however is rightly accepting injustice in a golden plate. In our case, relenting is letting another Robert Mugabe to take hold in South Sudan. Pushing for a meaningful change is importance and a revelation that we are consciously aware of our freedom and not being run by proxies Ugandans mercenaries because Kiir cannot trust our gallantry forces.
This is equally true that South Sudanese did not fight the war of liberation for Ugandans to tell us what to do thereafter and run our state of affairs remotely. Thus tell me, we must push for a positive change. We fought injustices to be free and not to be place under authoritarian regime run by foreigners on remote control, because the man we entrusted our aspirations is not a shrewd politician but weak and opened to manipulations.
The recent dissolution of the SPLM party hierarchies by President Salva Kiir is undeniably a confirmation of Robert Mugabe rule. However, the different between Mugabe and Kiir is that the later has seven degrees and the latest has guerilla warfare tact. Subsequently, the question before us and the rest of the world is, are we ready to take on another Robert Mugabe brutality? I leave that to you to ponder, for my goal herein is to provide you with raw information for you to remain fully informed about our state of affairs. Though the current government of South Sudan for example shown us only how to be tribal and primitively remains legion to our tribal bases, a case we must all reject in unison.
SPLM party dissolution was a wrong step
Even demons will agree with me that the dissolution of the SPLM party hierarchies was a wrong step. On November 25, 2013, Sabrino Majok falsely claimed that the dissolution of the SPLM hierarchies by President Kiir was a right step. One wonders, really what a right step is if a grave wrong step suddenly turned good one. I supposed the right step for Majok is to do wrong instead. Despite Majok sandwiching the wrong deed, President Kiir has made a fatal mistake that might end his leadership in the SPLM.
Allow me to state why the dissolution of the SPLM party is wrong and allowing our president to get away with such as a violation is uncalled for and a ticket doom. President Kiir has violated the party constitution. The leaders of the SPLM party were duly and democratically elected in the 2008 party convention, by party members. In this context, no one can ever dissolve the Party structures in a vacuum without the same forum.
For Sabrino Majok, he was wrong for giving the president credits he does not deserve. The reality is our president never earned clear outright credit out of his good deeds. Since the inception of the SPLM in 1983, Salva Kiir Mayardit has never been a good captian. He never captured a town during the war of liberation. My ponding memory of a man is that he allowed thousands of red army perishes under his care in June 1991.
His leadership after Dr. Garang tragic death is marked and riddled with unquestionable failures, sell-outs and premature embarrassing decisions that make us all look fools. As a president his legacy is tainted by rampat corruption, outright thieveries within his own office, premature decisions, and submission to Khartoum by auctioning out 14 mile in Majok’s own state, lands grabing and human rights abuses. To this day, none of the above has been addressed despites his rule for good 8 years as a president. He failed in every step of the way and nothing good is available in public domain for our president, but anguish.
Again, for Majok, I supposed education must be guided by integrity and sincere conviction of how truth can be told. Surprisingly Sabrino Majok intentionally refused to tell the truth but instead bend the truth. For one, the conduct of South Sudan referendum was oversea by none other than Dr. Riek Machar and many other countless South Sudanese who help that referendum succeed. It was unforgivable mistake for Majok to bend that truth just to appease the president and mislead his readers. If anyone deserves any credit for that matter, Dr. Riek does. I must also acknowledge that President Kiir was/is the president of our nation and therefore Riek’s credits can also be attributed to president.
Another misplaced credit is the Sudanese General election in 2010. For one, Kiir failed or refused to run for Sudan presidential candidate in 2010, but instead, he chose to remain in South Sudan and run for lower seat. Had he ran for Sudanese presidential candidate for SPLM’s ticket, the Abyei, the Blue Nile and the Nubian cases would be a done deals by now. Not only that, 2010 election was marked by violence and created rebellions with dire consequences. The elections were striking marked by savageries and uncivilized conducts by many candidates President Kiir included. For example, SPLM-DC party candidate was banned from campaigning in all South Sudan ten states. Therefore, one wonders if these could even be count as a credit rather than shame and undemocratic procession.
The last misplace credit is the “Khartoum stumbling blocks.” Majok failed to give that credit to comrade Pagan Amum simply because he did not want to embarrass our president. But, Pagan Amum himself bravely negotiated all referendum conduct and post referendum terms with Khartoum without any direction from the president because at times the man (president) has nothing to offer. I wonder how Mr. Majok could not see his argument gaps. If anything became of fruition for South Sudan and her people, the credits duly belongs to Pagan. President doesn’t deserve an iota credit but Pagan Amum and those whom he seek their councils.
SPLM failure
First, I thought the culture of blaming game and denial was for Arabs ONLY but Majok’s piece suggested otherwise. The undisputable truth is that President Kiir is squarely responsible for the SPLM underperformance, unless someone is not telling the whole truth like Sabrino Majok to maintain his/her employment. I got it, but for how long are we going to not tell the truth? I must say Sabrino Majok has no point because such these misplaced statements are the ones that misinformed and blurred president’s thinking, which led to SPLM failure.
The SPLM cradle failure begun in 2010 election if Sabrino Majok needs to be reminded about the root cause of the matter. Under President Kiir leadership, SPLM aspirants who were rightfully chosen by our people to carries SPLM’s batons in the states gubernatorial elections were wrongly denied to run on baseless grounds. If Majok didn’t know this is where the failure of the SPLM started and President Kiir is fully responsible. Not Pagan or Dr. Riek but Kiir himself is responsible. Recently, Mr. President Fall-out with his favorites and then he (president) decided to remove them from governorships, which constitute a constitution violation. The premise of their disagreement is that the removed governors happened to place their citizens first instead of taking care of Mr. President’s personal needs. As a result, this caused Chol Tong and Taban Deng their jobs.
Therefore, the removal of the elected Governors also added to the cradle failure of the SPLM. Who did these constitutional violations and who is to be blame? President Kiir. To the make matter worse, he did these violations alone without consulting with his Vice president, Dr. Riek at the time or Political Bureau members for a word. Now, who is responsible? More 110% percent, President Kiir is responsible.
Lastly, President Kiir staffed all the Government of South Sudan sensitive positions with his clan men by disfranchising the rest us who are not from his clan, Awan Chan but patriotic members of the SPLM party. President government discriminated the rest of us based on our tribal and clan affiliations if one happened to be a Dinka by tribe. Besides, in numerous occasions President Kiir refused to call for either Political Bureau or the SPLM National liberation Council meeting to discuss and iron out these problems for better solutions.
Not only that, he also refused to call for SPLM National Convention after Mr. Pagan requested him to do so more than 8 times because he was afraid for being voted out. Now, I would like Sabrino Majok to tell us who destroyed the peoples’ party? In everyone view in South Sudan and aboard, President Kiir did it in flying colors.
Way forward
If President Kiir continued to refuse to reverse his decision, I therefore recommend that he must be given an ultimatum to resign from the peoples’ party, the SPLM’s chairmanship. The political bureau and the SPLM liberation National Council must enforce this with immediate effect. If our president persists, he MUST BE voted out by vote – of -no -confident in absentia from the SPLM party chairman on ground of misconduct and violation of the SPLM party constitution.
J. Nguen is a South Sudanese living in Canada and he can be reached at [email protected].