By Luk Kuth Dak
“Dig deep, and then when you’ve gone deep go deeper.” Ben Bradlee, former executive editor of the Washington Post.
November 19, 2014 (SSNA) — I am writing in protest of the recent agreement reached by the SPLM’s warring factions in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
The rule of thumb’s that all things that last are built on a strong foundation and, around people with complete honesty and integrity in everything they do.
Certainly, that was not the case, unfortunately, with the recent agreement, because it was simply constructed on a shaky footing, therefore, it has a zero chance to survive!
There are a couple of factors at work here. First, South Sudanese of most political persuasions view the disgraced President of the republic of South Sudan, Mr. Salva Kiir Mayardit as corrupt, half-wit and morally inverted a leader to conduct a productive business with.
Secondly, Mr. Kiir no longer is the decision maker in the country ever since he sold the nation’s sovereignty to the Ugandan’s dictator, Yoweri Museveni. Today, Kiir literally is taking orders to run the county directly from the Ugandan strong man, who sees the republic of South Sudan as just another province in Uganda.
How ludicrous?
As of this writing, there have been numerous violations on the recent volatile agreement by Kiir’s regime, which are widely believed to be a deliberate attempt orchestrated by Museveni to foil what South Sudanese nationals had agreed upon already.
Evidently the continuation of war in South Sudan is a source of revenue Museveni cannot afford to lose. The longer it takes, the richer he gets.
Worse, on the minds of the Nuer people, Kiir’s not a legitimate leader, but a cold blooded murderer, who cannot be trusted with life and death decisions. They will forever remember him only for the massacre of the innocent, unarmed and an apolitical Naath on that bloody day of December the 15th, 2013, and for establishing a fascist type tribal regime that recognizes only one tribe.
How shameful?
Ironically, there are people who expect us to remain silent about lives taken from us in an act of pure evil by the terrorist regime of Mr. Salva Kiir Mayardit! How absurd?
To be neutral about those heinous crimes means being a co-conspirator. When I was viewing those images of the murdered Nuer staring back at me on the TV screen, I could only think of my parents… they looked just like them.
And while the Nuer families are still grieving over their losses, the perpetrator, Mr. Kiir remains President of the country and, not a single person has been held accountable!!
And as we predicted on this column, the regime doesn’t go to the negotiating round table in good faith. It only does so just to buy the time to regroup whenever it suffers some loses in the battle fields and, in the diplomatic arena.
Don’t we all know that? I do.
Dr. Riek Machar Teny must keep in the forefront of his mind that any agreement that doesn’t include justice for the massacre’s victims will be flatly rejected. He must take a hard line against tyrant Kiir, or risk losing his credibility. After all, he has the backing of the overwhelming majority of the people of South Sudan from all spectrums including some open-minded Jieeng (Dinka), who have come to realize that we are boned together by our shared values.
Before the massacre, I was regarded as a nationalist writer/columnist by my friends in the Jieeng intellectual community. Today, however, am being called a ‘Nuer writer’, a jieeng ‘ hater’, all for standing along side some of our fellow countrymen, who were slaughtered for no wrong doing other than their ethnic heritage. No regrets, but I would take the exact same stand, if the Jieeng were subjected to such barbaric act of evil by a Nuer.
The experience also took me back to the Sudan’s first civil war, when the Arab soldiers brought down our entire village into ashes, and so many men women and children were killed or displaced. I am only alive today because of an Arab merchant, by the name of Suleiman Khojili Ali, had allowed us to stay the nights at his compound in order to shield us from the brutal Arabs’ soldiers.
The author is a former broadcasting journalist/reporter for Juba radio. He can be reached at [email protected].