By Butrus Ajak
January 27, 2014 (SSNA) — This discussion paper is about Riek Machar political gaffes and shenanigans on Bor People. The analysis is one sided and only one sided episode. Warning, those who will not be contented with how the paper reads and may call it a grouchy, go write your Riek take the way you wish. This is not to say I am denying Nuer civilians massacre in Juba.
This author goes one-sided because Dr Riek’s destroyed my people and their hometown twice. Instead of taking war where it started, he fought it at a wrong place, Bortown. Believe it or not Dr Riek perfectly fits for the International Criminal Court hearing. Dr Riek is a serial killer and a dangerous criminal if he remains at large. He was compromised by the people of Bor regarding the atrocities he committed in 1991 and such conciliation makes him repeat the Bor genocide in 2013/14. He is capable of repeating similar atrocities for the third time if not taken behind bars once and for all.
Riek desperate quest for SPLM top seat at any cost, took and still taking countless civilians life. Bor town is shockingly littered with numerous dead bodies and properties ransacked, go see graphic photos taken after Bor fell to the government forces by both Aljazeera and BBC news outlet and you will come to grasp ‘Dr Riek’s token democracy is hell of a shock’. Civilians who could not run especially the sick, pensioners, disable and many others who remained in Bor were all ruthlessly murdered in cold blood.
The attack happened at the time Buor people were absorbing and re-evaluating Riek’s ‘1991 Bor Massacre apology’ regrettably, he inanely blew it off again. Dr Riek’s second rebellion flared up the old and nearly healed wound of Bor Massacre. The onslaught on Bor County communities has deplorably reopened hoary lesions and invigorated ethnic divisions from carnages of the long civil war where infamous Bor Massacre was perpetrated on us.
In 1991 this very Riek fell out with Dr John Garang, the erstwhile SPLA/SPLM chairman. Dr Riek disagreed with John Garang over objectives. Where Dr John Garang wanted a secular and democratic but united Sudan in which the southerners would have full representation, Dr Riek wanted a fully independent South Sudan. In August the same year Dr Riek Machar, Dr Lam Akol and General Gordon Kong announced that Dr John Garang had been expelled from the SPLM chairmanship.
The breakaway faction headed by Dr Riek went on and declared a war on Southerners just exactly the way he did it in 2013. Riek ordered the same White Army to destroy Garang’s birth place in order to make Garang relinquished chairmanship. The political fell out resulted in deadly Dinka Bor tribal cleansing. The White Army massacred more than 2,000 people mostly civilians in Bor in 1991, while tens of thousands died in the following years from the resulting famine. Dr Riek forces drove away my people primary source of living, cattle, goats and many others were all taken. What started as power squabbling took a tribal dimension at the watch and command of Dr Riek who bragged about consideration of democracy and Human Rights values. Barefacedly, the time his forces overrun Bor killing civilians and taking away cattle, he was heard self-aggrandised of where Garang’s forces were to fight him when he surely knew SPLA forces were concentrated around Juba.
In December 2013, political disagreement in Juba between the reformists and conservatives resulted in a full blown up war. Innocent people in Juba, Bor, Bentiu and Akobo were mercilessly killed subsequently. The government apparatus namely ‘Presidential Guards’ who are purportedly to have killed Nuer civilians are in Juba and the leaders who commanded the killing are from Juba. The question is why Riek took the war to Bortown? My innocent civilians were viciously killed indiscriminately and properties destroyed as if our people were the one killing Nuer civilians in Juba.
The following are the findings atrocities committed and inflicted on Bor civilians by the forces of ‘prophet of doom’: I must say here his new found name fits him very well as the name goes in line with his actions the previous, and the current one.
- Amnesty International and members of Parliament of the South Sudan National Assembly reported that at least 2,500 people have died in Bor, following three week occupation by rebels who have been fighting Republic of South Sudan for over a month.
- Research organisation, the International Crisis Group estimated that over 10,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
- The United Nations had it that over half a million people has been displaced.
- Human Rights Watch reported that about 84,000 civilians from Bor and surrounding areas fled following successive waves of fighting in December and January.
- MPs by the name June Malet, told Sudan Tribune (Jan 21) in Bor that she saw bodies of 14 women killed in church compound, Episcopal Church of South Sudan. The bodies of 32 patients, including 10 children, where also found in Bor civil hospital and all elderly people who refused to leave Bor before 31 December 2013 have been killed.
- According to Sudan Tribune (Jan 21) about 32 dead bodies were found dumped in a small room at in Bor town hospital.
- Gurtong news recounted that in Saint Cathedral, known as Leudier in Bor, 14 elderly women loyal to God have been murdered in cold blood, most of whom were workers of God who take care of church affairs in the ministry of God.
Riek goes down the history of the Republic of South Sudan as brutal and a worse warlord known for being excellent at tribal incitement. He talked of lack of democracy in the SPLM/SPLA in the 90s and 2013, and instead of following democracy route he took arms mobilised his Nuer and waged unreasonable war on his fellow Southerners. His action in the 90s nearly derailed the SPLA/SPLM movement from attainment its overarching objects, his recent coup attempt has now taken the nation back to square one. Riek demeanors of forcing his way to secure leadership of the movement using bullet and not ballot and has been terribly catastrophic and a complete disenchantments of a man who would have become a president had he wisely used his academics prowess.
Whatever dogmatic variances, Riek should not have resorted to taking arms against the nation he helped built in the last eight years, and the people he desperately needs to vote him in. He should have learnt a lesson or two from 1991 split, which was a complete shame to him and his blind followers. As this war is unfolding and subsiding at the same time, one would believe Riek, Taban and Hussein Nyot were not innocent about the coup attempt. Riek, Taban and Nyot escaped to their base in Nuerland and from what White Army did to my innocent people in Bortown, they surely have communicated something sinister and tribal to them. While on a run, Riek called upon the army to depose the democratically elected President Kiir and UN, Western countries and his stanch online followers said it’s not a coup d’état. The detainees could be innocent as most of them opted for SPLM internal reform and not necessarily arm taking, little did they know, Taban, Nyot and Riek had a contingency plan which was exclusively kept secret to the entire faction.
As I write, I do not still know where my parents are. They were mercilessly driven out of their homeland by the White Army. Their houses are vandalized which reminds us of the episode of 1991, a history almost forgiven and forgotten.
Is this the democracy Dr Riek has been talking about all these years?
According to Human Rights Watch, Yanadet Garang, a chief from Bor reported that those unable to run from the rebels were burned in their houses, including two elderly men, Achieng Mayen and Kuol Garang, and a paralysed woman. Is this the democracy Dr Riek talked about all these years?
From social site called Facebook a gentleman by name Eng Deng Kuol Nyuon wrote this “my grandfather Wuor Jok Nak (My mum’s uncle) 90 yrs old was killed in cold blood in his house in Bor by Riek forces of darkness” besides this, the decease father was too killed by the same Riek forces in 1991.
Is this what democracy means to Riek and his forces?
Thon Alier Nhial 70 year old mother was killed alongside her 12 other family members, all of whom were women and children at her house in Bor.
Is this what democracy means to Riek and his followers?
Michael Majok Piel, father (Piel Mayen Deng) 62-year old and a war disable whose leg was amputated his brother and their brother-in-law and other family members were killed in their compound in town of Bor.
Is this what democracy means to Riek and his forces?
49 civilians all elderly people from Anyidi, Palek only were all massacred alone at their house in Mareng an outpost of Anyidi Payam. And few of their names are here:
Is this what democracy means to Dr Riek and his forces?
In closing remark, Dr Riek is a dangerous tribal warlord who needs put behind bars if International Criminal Court does not need to see third time atrocities being committed again in the Republic of South Sudan. Riek action of 2013 would not have happened had he prosecuted for committing crimes against humanity in the year 1991.
In 91 he declared rebellion to topple Dr Garang from SPLA/SPLM chairmanship by force using his Nuer people. He killed countless civilians and was militarily defeated and forgiven without charges laid on him. That being the case, in 2013 he organised his people again to fight his way to the SPLA/SPLM chairmanship. Fighting broke out in Juba and when his forces were defeated he smuggled out of Juba by the UNIMMIS officials on to his hiding boat in Rivernile and off he absconded to his stronghold in Nuerland. While on the run he called upon National army to topple Salva Kiir and wanted himself install as president, a clear case of a coup though being brushed off by the so-called Western powers that are interest driven other than gospel truth. We people of Bor County will not rest until Riek and his partners in crime are brought to justice to answer the atrocities they have committed twice on Dinka Bor people.
Butrus Ajak is an erstwhile Red Army South Sudanese who resides in Australia; he holds MPH, MHP, BBus and Dip.BBus. He can be reached at [email protected].