May 6, 2014 (SSNA) — People around the world are shaking their heads with bewilderment over President’s Kiir behavior and his handling of the country’s crisis that he created some four months ago. His latest non-stop shuttling to the neighboring countries showed the President at his worst: angry, irritable, defensive, arrogant, contradictory, and in most cases he appeared like a total psychopath.
So let’s talk about Mr. Kiir’s performance. Many South Sudanese, especially non-Dinka have a serious case to make on this front. They believe, rightfully so, that the tyrant has set the standards for a failed presidency the world has ever seen. Even some fair-minded Dinka do solemnly agree with their fellow countrymen in other ethnicities that in fact, Kiir’s legitimacy hangs in the ballot ever since he orchestrated the genocide of the innocent Nuer people in the capital Juba.
As you may expect, Kiir’s first rhetoric – in broken English- was putting the blame on Dr. Riek Machar, as the person solely responsible for the full-blown human catastrophe in the world’s youngest nation. Yet despite the world’s genuine efforts to end hostilities, bring peace to the nation, Kiir’s still disingenuous in finding a way out of the logjam he faces, which will only globalize the conflict and broaden the differences between him and his former Vice President, Machar.
Hence, it will be far too late when dictator Kiir finally realizes that his enemy is actually not Dr. Riek Machar, but the mob he surrounded himself with, notably: Presidential Legal Advisor, Tilar Deng, Spokesman and Minister of Information, Michael Makuei, respectively. It’s no secret that these corrupt couple is well documented for their hatred of the Nuer people in particular and all of the rest of the other non-Dinka ethnicities in the country in general.
See what I mean?
Most recently, in a private gathering that included one of the few Nuer boot-lickers who remained loyal to tyrant Kiir, Makuei was heard openly as saying: “the Dinka are born to rule… and not to be ruled.”
Evidently, Makuei, a lawyer, took the Nuer stooge’s loyalty for granted. He thought that he was talking with an alley, and that as Americans often say: ‘what is said in Vegas remains in Vegas.’ Sure enough, he was deadly wrong in that he didn’t realize that his divisive, immature, bigoted and insensitive remarks had angered the attendee, who immediately after the event was over, went viral in spreading the word out to the social media, which included this columnist. Now, you ask: are these the kinds of leaders the Dinka Kingdom can offer the nation?
You weigh in!
More so to the point, on her Facebook account, Ms. Ashai Arob Bagat, the daughter of the veteran journalist, Arob Bagat Tongluth, quoted Makuei as saying “Alor (Deng) is suffering from an identity crisis. He would be better off if he speaks only about Abyei… and not the South Sudan,” He disparaged.
There goes Abyei!!
But if the rulers of our great nation must come from the Dinka Kingdom, as Makuei and others like him believe, then, we suggest that the Kingdom should have the moral obligation to give the nation some of its best sons and daughters that money can buy… and not just a bunch of mob, whose only purpose is tear the country apart, and rob our children of their pride and dignity by using bigoted words such: “Dinka are born to rule.”
In essence, Dr. Riek Machar Teny should be commended for his heroic stand with the majority of the people of South Sudan against this an out- of- control dictator, Mr. Salva Kiir Mayardit. There should be no face-to- meeting with a murderer until justice for the genocide victims emerges.
Those who started the ‘mess’ must be held accountable… not the other way around.
Luk Kuth Dak is a veteran journalist and a former anchorman at Juba Radio. Email me at lukedak@hotmail .com. or follow him on tweeter @kuthdak.