Articles

By Deng Riak Khoryoam

“Poor leadership leads to poor living conditions.”(Former Kenyan president Daniel Arab Moi).

May 30, 2010 (SSNA) — It’s undisputable fact that there is a lot to write about the last month’s general election which has come to past now. The good thing is that the elections are long gone and the rest is just hangovers which should be dealt with peacefully. An amicable solution should be found to put the issue to rest. In fact as some good analysts have stated that if the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) is willing to negotiate with renegade general to resolve the issues at hand in a pragmatic manner, then it would show how competence and capable the SPLM/A leaders are in handling their own problems in their entity, and prove wrong those pessimists who hold the view that south Sudan will not be a viable state if it secedes from the North. This would not just be a supposition but indeed a figment imagination!

But unfortunately, the situation we are in now doesn’t seem to prove the pessimists and critics wrong. In fact it proves them right, given the unfolding events in the aftermath of elections in Southern Sudan.

As the president of GOSS, Mr. Salva Kiir, has been sworn in and his government is about to be formed sooner after this, everything seems to be at stake. And since the masses or people of Southern Sudan have been robbed of their fundamental rights (votes) when the choices they made in choosing their representatives were ignored despite overwhelmingly voting for them, it remains painful and heartbreaking. But they have decided to maintain silence for one reason or another. One obvious reason is nothing other than the referendum which is just seven months away from now. It takes a big head and a good reasoning capacity to just forgo of all this and focus on what lies ahead of us – the referendum.

Kiir‘s last five years in office was marked by rampant corruption, tribalism, nepotism, favoritism, and most badly, lack of service delivery to the grassroots. This is adequate enough to judge him based on all these facts. If anything is to be remembered of him or perhaps as his trademark, it would be the mismanagement of Southern Sudan resources, imposing unwanted leaders, instigating insecurity and encouraging other evil activities that undermine the unity of Southerners.   I guess his trademark may not be his cowboy hat alone, and am not being sarcastic but the truth!

It goes without acknowledging the adage that says: “Almost all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man‘s character, give him power” (Prescott). This helps to clearly explain the current phenomenon since it calls for a different yardstick to be employed in determining who actually is Mr Salva Kiir. And we could as well judge him by his deeds and misdeeds without any prejudice; since we have the culture of strictly evaluating and judging people on their past records like is the case for Dr. Lam Akol and Dr. Riek Machar who have been victimized and given unnecessary terms like traitors for the 1991 SPLM/A split.

So let’s review Kiir and his previous government and try to give credit where it’s not due since that is what his cronies and beneficiaries want us to do. Despite all malpractices and misappropriation of funds, this hasn’t yet hurt Kiir’s recorded collection and that of his closest friends and the beneficiaries unlike other national leaders. But what do the people of Southern Sudan expect from Kiir upcoming government?

This is a million dollar question that one could almost guess right given the experience of his five year term in office. As I mentioned that the elections are gone and what remains now is serious work to deliver to people the services they need most and that would ultimately be the fulfillment of their campaign promises if they want to be taken seriously. Failure to live to the campaign promises is tantamount to making empty promises on flattering tone and that is where lack of trust creeps in.

In retrospect, the last SPLM-led government, with comrade Kiir as its chief, did less if not nothing to improve the lives of people of Southern Sudan.

By Justin Ambago Ramba

May 29, 2010 (SSNA) — The present day Sudan, with its current borders like most of the countries in Africa only came into existence as a creation of the colonial powers. In their quest to control and exploit the continent the Europeans divided the indigenous African kingdoms and chiefdoms and replaced them with artificial borders that only served the interests of the evil minded invaders. But the local people who were mostly used by the colonizers as proxy tools to weaken one another, didn’t have enough opportunity to mix freely with the intension of forging a truly unifying and common national identity and hence they remained but to identify themselves as tribes and clans,  to which they continue to attach much pride.

Following the withdrawal of the European colonialist, the continent of Africa woke up to the realities of its artificial settings and structures. It found itself faced with this huge task of forging a unified national identity, as proposed by the fore-founders of Pan-afrikanism, but as time went by, this was never achieved, pushing the various people of the continent to further identify themselves in terms of their narrow ethnical origins and tribal identities.

In the absence of homogeneity and the lack of laws to check the wildly spreading fire of micro-nationalism and regionalism, the real allegiance of Africans today is largely turned towards their various tribes. Should the status quo remain the same, our continent risks its only remaining hope to make up for its dark history of slavery, servitude and colonialism as clearly defined in the Pan Afrikan movement principles. This in turn is likely to endanger the   noble dream of creating the “untied state of Africa”. Even the big slogan of ONE AFRIKA, will soon find itself consciously overtaken and replaced by a backward journey where every tribe on the continent will find itself going more inwards and toward its roots, origins and past glories without appreciating the roles of the others who share the same national borders. This trend as it continues to dominate today’s Africa; it is slowly evolving into a number one cancer and a great reason for concern.

Sudan clearly stands as an example of these artificially created countries that has failed to maintain any peacefully co-exist within its borders. In its five decades history of civil wars, where religion, ideology and ethnicity were all at conflict, this country by all standards   demonstrates to the world that there is more to geographical demarcations in creating a harmonious nation.

Former Yugoslavia, the Balkans, and the old Soviet Union are all examples that the human history has finally come to openly acknowledge as a failed attempt, by those greedy adventurers, emperors, tyrants and dictators in creating artificial national boundaries based entirely on carving geographical territories and forcing the inhabitants who are at their best sworn in enemies and antagonists, into the pretext of being one people.

History has brought us this far and we are now eyes witnessing a fact that, after almost a century, the Sudan state that was artificially created by the colonialist has failed to be a success story. After it went through a five decades civil war in the south, the country is now   already seven years into another separate war in Darfur (within what is known as the political northern segment of the country).

Most Sudanese and especially so, the people of the south who bore the main brunt of the sufferings that resulted from the institutionalised marginalisation and the brutality of the civil wars, have finally made it clear to those who have conscience in the international community, that south Sudan should not be left as such to pay for a crime which isn’t its making.

The comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) came into existence as a way forward to solve a humanitarian crisis which was for long ignored. It also offers an opportunity for the people of south Sudan who were practically forgotten for half a century to come and take their rightful place as fellow human beings and live side by side with others as equal members of the human community. The plights of the people of south Sudan which was once only treated as mere statistics even in the most prestigious institutions that traditionally pride themselves with  the welfare of mankind and international fraternity e.g. the united nations, the African union……etc, must now be given the due attention.

The causes for the failure of unity and peaceful co-existence between mankind at large are well demonstrated in the endless debates that continue to take place in the security council of the United Nations and the other regional organisations. The African union, the Arab League or even the much controversial international Islamic conference are all aware of their own failures in the goals they have so far set for themselves.

Many nations in different parts of the world are also struggling with issues of how to maintain unity within their borders. And to this end the Sudan, Africa’s giant of 1 million square miles, is no exception as it struggles in the south, in Darfur and in the East. Although the reasons leading to the complete failure of unity in the Sudanese setting are many, however it is those ones created by the elites, who despite their hard work in up-rooting colonialism, unfortunately turned around to become even worse than the colonizers. Their eyes and hearts went straight to those evil luxuries used to be enjoyed by the foreign rulers and they ended up doing exactly what the colonialists did.

In most revolutions there are always those who find themselves in the centre of events and it is not necessarily that they are more revolutionary than the others. History has it that all the Sudanese did put some form of resistance against the colonialist and all the other foreign invaders. But when it comes to writing the history books, they were either written by the Europeans or their Arab counterparts.

Should we restrict ourselves to the Whiteman’s books; the whole praise for the Sudanese revolution will continue to go to Imam al Mahdi, although he was largely surrounded by men who came mainly from Darfur, Kordofan and the different parts of the south. This selected reference to the history of the Sudan has very much contributed in stratifying the Sudanese people and the way that the Sudan was governed thereafter unfairly gave much credit to the people of the north and al Mahdi and the al Mirghani families, eventually   sowing  the seeds of the modern day Sudanese political crisis.

Following the second world war, the Sudanese northern elites were quick to exploit their better education and proximity to Egypt, and they stood up as the only self proclaimed group and went on to assign themselves the sole right to the exclusion of others, and  decided for the rest of the country. 

Without the mandate from the rest of the inhabitants of the so-called 1 million square miles, and especially so the people of south Sudan, the riveran Arab elites chose to start the future of the Sudan on the wrong footing from the very moment they assumed the right to not only monopolize the negotiations with the colonial rulers on the future of two distinctive parts of the Sudan, but also by declaring themselves from there on to be the only rightful leaders of a united, Arab and Islamic Sudan.

Of importance is the fact that until the last days of the colonial rule in the Sudan, both the north and the south had existed as two separate entities and were run under two different administrative systems. The north by far had already evolved distinctively from the south as a part of Middle East, while the south  by  all standards  remain up to date an integral  part of East Africa both in the physical features of its people and their indigenous black African cultures.

When the Sudan earned its self-rule in 1954, the northern elites immediately declared themselves as the rightful replacers of the colonial administration. Why do we think they acted so? The answer is simple, for these supremacist northern elites found themselves in a more favoured position by both British and Egyptian authorities and as they were the ones who negotiated the Self Rule, they only felt it natural to marginalise the other Sudanese as people whose roles in achieving the Sudanese independence dream could be considered very secondary. Everything that followed from there was a direct out-come of the northern elites’ greed and today the country is more prepared to disintegrate into several states than in any other time as a consequence of their successive supremacists policies.

If the northern Sudanese riveran Arab elites missed the opportunity to forge a multi-cultural and multi-ethnical Sudan, for sure it offers an important lesson for the other African countries which are at the moment struggling with similar issues of national integration in their quest to survive as a viable post colonial state. This also applies very well, even to the people of south Sudan who are soon expected to vote for their own state in January 2011, if they are to go and establish a harmonious nation of their own.

The world community and in particular the other African countries which are scared by the possibility that the imminent secession of south Sudan may fuel similar sentiments in their own backyards must come to accept the reality on the ground as far as the Sudanese politics is concerned. The northern Arabs dominated the Sudanese central government in Khartoum and are not in any position ready to sacrifice their tight grips on the power in the centre in any bid to create a fair power sharing by accommodating the other Sudanese of black African origins be them from the south, the west or the eastern parts of the country. This being the case right now, then the dream to have a harmonious united Sudan is as illusive now as it was in the 1890s.

If similar bitter and drastic outcomes to national problems can be avoided in other African settlings, then those who are today monopolizing the decision making in their countries should learn a lesson or two from the Sudanese experience. Africans elsewhere can do better by applying inclusiveness in their governance system and to better work hard to keep at bay the widespread malignant tribal politics, nepotism, favouritism, and regionalism which is right now eating up the roots of our common destiny. Africa can only avoid what is happening today in the Sudan by adopting true democracy where the rights of the minorities are completely respected and protected by the law besides the establishment of institutions that can stand the test of time.

We in south Sudan are often ready to go mad at any one who talks negatively of our intentions to secede come the 2011 referendum. However as mentioned somewhere earlier in this article, we  are also more than invited to learn from our  bitter realities of history that pitted us against the north and where we are entrapped in an endless  wars of survival. The challenge that awaits us is how we as south Sudanese are aspiring to govern and run our new independent nation come 2011 so that we don’t fall yet into the same mistakes that we are now blaming on our northern fellows? 

The way to our salvation don’t end only by achieving independence, but we must be prepared fully to go an extra mile to sever any connections with all the evil politics and attitudes that some of us might have acquired from  the northern Arab’s. Marginalization and looking down on other countrymen as a people whose roles in the revolution don’t deserve recognition must never be allowed to be a part of our new nation.

By Daniel Abushery Daniel May 26, 2010 (SSNA) — We all know that South Sudan is a homogenous society: different tribes, cultures, traditions, ethnicities, religions and political affiliations. But above…

By Justin Ambago Ramba

May 25, 2010 (SSNA) — The long awaited speech from the re-instated south Sudan president Salva Kiir Mayardit failed to spark any brightness on the faces of the south Sudanese masses and the popular opinion remains highly influenced by the bitterness left behind as a legacy of SPLM’s role in the hijack of the polling process and all the other unpleasant events that tainted the picture of the April 2010 elections.

The President- elect (Kiir), speaking in a background of terribly flawed elections is no doubt conscious of the fact that the south Sudanese masses are a hundred percent aware of how much hypocrisy is loaded in his policy statement as he futilely attempts to present himself as a genuinely elected figure in an election only accredited by those who believe and propagate for a separate standard for African democracy. It is also now clear that in a world where the political will of the powerful nations and the international community are entirely reserved only to secure their narrow interests, the world is being categorically forced into buying the idea that there   exists a separate standard for morality, freedom, fairness and democracy for Africa, and is justifiable to be less than those in the rest of the world.

It cannot be over-emphasised any further that the historical colonizers who kept  Africa in bondage for many centuries are now successfully in enforcing their devilish views of double standards  where the very crucial human values that spring directly from our common humanity are to be   measured using different scales in  different racial settings and in this they have reached their verdicts on the Sudan, the moment they   recognised not only the flawed April 2010 elections, but their willingness  to embrace its outcomes wholly and  heartedly.

The inauguration of Salva Kiir Mayardit and the “cooked” SPLM majority in the South Sudan Legislative Assembly (SSLA) in Juba is but a preparation to approve yet another five years term in office for the indicted dictator Omer al Bashir who is a fugitive of international justice and   similarly a fraudulent mandate is being given to Sudan’s National Parliament in Khartoum, which stands tall as a reminder of anything that is bad in the country’s journey towards democratic transformation.

This is a democracy for you, where Africans are assumed to be too backwards to deserve anything better particularly in issues where credibility, freedom and fairness are concerned. But are we really that primitive to continuously suffer humiliations under our totalitarian regimes when these regimes in fact get their powers and legitimacy not from the people they claim to represent but rather from their friends in China, Malaysia, and Moscow or Washington?

But on the other hand, if we are being made to understand that the international community which clearly declared Sudan’s April 2010 elections as   neither free nor fair and lack all credibility, but has accepted it only as a step in ticking the CPA boxes, then once the referendum is over, there stands a strong case for an immediate re-elections regardless of the plebiscite’s out-come. Should this not be the case, then I am afraid that whatever adverse directions the events recourse to, it will be the   International Community to solely shoulder the responsibility. 

South Sudan may soon become an independent country in 2011 yet it suffers a widespread Insecurity, corruption and fraud all of which are   state sponsored crimes and as such the much talked about eradication rhetoric only works as a government Public Relationship campaign.

By Daniel Amum Odwel, Malakal 

May 25, 2010 (SSNA) — Every human being is grieved by the lost of their loved ones especially when it occurs in tragedy atmosphere like what happened to the chief Peter Oyath Odhok. According to close source these bandits who killed the chief cannot be alleged to any party, for they were reacted out bitterness for what chief has done to their community in recent days. The chief was on his way to Malakal to bring home those who were accused of having illegal arms, where he was ambushed by those bandits.

In recent unofficial disarmament made by SPLA forces in Collo Kingdom Oyath was alleged to be behind these activities. Many members of Panyikango communities were upset and anger with him, because their young ladies and wives were raped by SPLA soldiers before their eyes, especially people who are accused by chief suffered terrible consequences. Not only that their kids were forced to testified falsely against their fathers of having illegal arms by burning candles on their back, the wounds at the back of the children are true witness to what Oyath did to his own people.

Sadly, those ladies and women who were raped by SPLA soldiers are traumatized by ugly and crucial action, some of those soldiers may be HIV carriers, and they had already disseminated the virus into lives of many community members, in years to come majority of people will be wipe out by this killing disease as result of orchestrate plan made by the chief in collaboration with SPLA soldiers in the area. Leave alone the humiliation and abuses the children received. These bad images gave signal that SPLA soldiers are brutal arms used to terrorize people instead of protecting people.

Sincerely speaking I tried to interview some people to find out the motive behind this brutal killing, the responses were that Oyath deserved that kind of death and those who died together with him were regard as traitors also. Many people reiterated that they are ready to eliminate the traitors who associated themselves with enemy of Collo land. Those who support well destructive plan in Collo land will receive the same fate of paramount chief, for nobody who is immune of death, whatever their position.

By Dr. James Okuk May 24, 2010 (SSNA) — What is the use of freedom from one slavery so that you get enslaved by another master who pretend to have…

By Daniel Abushery Daniel “The French Republic no more needs recognition than the sun requires to be recognized,” Napoleon Bonaparte May 21, 2010 (SSNA) — Surely, home’s really a sweet…

By Dr. James Okuk

May 20, 2010 (SSNA) — Can a de facto referendum (whether for unity or separation) managed by an illegitimate government in the South be legitimate and durable if it is not recognized by the people and their other political forces in the context of genuine democratic transformation? I don’t think so because the people may not accept to go for any fake kind of referendum whose winners or losers shall be declared by the SPLM and NCP in the same way they did to last elections in defiance to the genuine votes of the people.

The IGAD and its partners and friends from the international community knew that it is only through genuine democratic transformation that the referendum could be seen as a success, both de jure and de facto. Referendum itself is part of democracy and there is no way you can subordinate democracy to save or rather serve the referendum.

When a confident political party or an individual goes for elections, they are supposed to avoid temptation of riggings and other irregularities. This did not happen, especially with the SPLM in Southern Sudan. As a consequence the legitimacy of the very so-called elected Kiir and other SPLM candidates remains contested.

That is why no single country from the known democratic entities within the international community congratulated Kiir for his fake victory. They only congratulated the people for going out to vote peacefully although their votes were not given a value to speak for who is chosen to be a leader with confidence and public mandate of representation. The votes of the very people got spoiled by the madness of riggings. This became bad news to germination of genuine seeds of democratic transformation in the country.

Thus, even if Kiir forms his government today without a final court ruling regarding the objection levied against his victory, his declared government shall still be considered illegitimate government. If such a government attempts to manage the referendum, that referendum may be considered illegitimate too.

Any legitimate government is supposed to be both de facto and de jure at the same time. A government that lacks legitimacy is not supposed to conduct the referendum because this shall be contradictory to democratic transformation.

So the real question for the public in Southern Sudan now is not "what to make and do about the de facto government in Juba in these circumstances?" because they have lived with this government and know how it behaves.

By Luk Kuth Dak May 19, 2010 (SSNA) — Lately, if you’ve been listening to Idris Debe strutting through the newspapers and television channels in Khartoum, you would simply assume,…

By Justin Ambago Ramba

May 17, 2010 (SSNA) — One thing for sure is that we in south Sudan will continue to suffer the consequences of having to put up with a government which at the end of the day never genuinely represents the aspirations of the people. It has never been the wish of our people to ever be under a system that made it to office through a rigged election, fraud, and intimidation. Now in spite of all the ascertains from the local, regional and international observes and officials alike, our people will still be served by a system that sprung from deceit, the worst of human vices.

Was it important to have had the past elections in the first place? The answer is simply “YES”. It is what was agreed upon in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), and went on to become part of our interim constitution. As some people high up in leadership talk about the importance of the referendum scheduled for January 2011, so also was the election an important provision in that agreement document and in that sequence.

If there is anything to gain from the CPA, it should have been the democratic transformation. Even the referendum on south’s self determination is a step within that transformation process, otherwise why would people of south Sudan want to move from one undemocratic system to yet another. Those who have today insulted the intellect of our people under the current status will never by all measurements be loyal to deliver even should south Sudan move into a different setting in the post referendum era. As the traditional African saying goes, “the leopards will never change their spots.”

We have spent many valuable times writing critical articles with the primary aim of empowering our masses so that they can see for themselves that they are being taken for a ride by a bunch of people who though claim to be representing them, yet their sinister intent to dominate, humiliate and thrive at the expense of the helpless and the voiceless can never be ignored as it reaches its climax.

Reflecting on some of the many empty promises made by the incumbent president Salva Kiir during his elections campaigns; one comes face to face with the hard fact that the chief and his crew never kept any of their words. All that was uttered during those long campaigns were not in fact ever meant to represent any genuine campaign and were neither deemed to see light.

Politicians only campaign if they are to convince the electorates for their votes, but they don’t really need one when they had already conspired with their cronies to exploit the state apparatus in order to rig, intimidate and remain in office. Under those circumstances that prevailed in south Sudan in the run for the elections, the SPLM politicians in fact didn’t need to have gone for any campaigns. And if they did, then they were just out there to fool the electorates into the false belief that their choices ever mattered. Unfortunately it didn’t.

Whatever the real elections trends were, today the dominant SPLM party is guilty conscious of forging the peoples will. The US, Britain, Norway, EU, and the Carter Foundation, all say that the entire election was fraudulent. And for sure you will genuinely risk being labelled a hypocrite if you are to come up in defence of the SPLM which claimed victories through fraud and intimidation in almost all the legislative constituencies in south Sudan in spite of the huge evidence presented by the observers. 

As a result of SPLM’s irresponsible behaviours that abused the basic code of conduct signed by all the political parties which called for neutrality of the state apparatus during the voting process in south Sudan, our people are now being forced to put up with the most impotent of all political status quos and that is a widely rigged legislative assemblies, who lack the genuine mandate to act on behave of the people. And one can even argue that the previously appointed institutions that existed immediately following the agreement were even more appealing as they were relevant to the circumstances that led to their formation and composition.

How shameful would it be for a politician who in fact made it to the public office through a massive fraud and a regrettable public intimidation, to turn around and preach for a free and fair referendum? Can such a politician ever be  taken to have a clear understanding of the true meaning of the words” Free and Fair”, leave alone if they actual believe in freedom and fairness in the first place, given the fact that they themselves violated  these very noble values just  a few weeks back?

No one at this stage in the history of our struggle should disillusion themselves into thinking that whoever are now in the leadership seats are really there at the wish of the people. Equally so, none should underestimate the political crisis that the fraudulent elections have already dragged us into. We are all aware that mood wise, south Sudan is back to square one.

Many foreign observers had noted on several occasions that even if south Sudan survives the uncertainties that are bent to surround the referendum, it still has to stand up tall to face issues as represented by the an unequal ethnic representations in the SPLA (the southern army), the security, the diplomatic mission, civil service and the political institutions. Points highlighted were meant to be taken on board by the so-called dominant ethnic groups so as to practice much wider inclusiveness if we are to avoid any likely tribal confrontations and possible genocides, issues both common in our  ‘Great Lakes Region’ of Africa.

Now at hand we already have a rebellion in the state of Jonglei, and it is led by a renegade Lieutenant General who as it is, surprisingly comes from the dominant ethnic group – a group generally viewed as the dominant in both the SPLM (party) and the SPLA (army). Was this what the observers were referring to? Maybe…… maybe not. Do we still stand to see similar violent and militarized expressions from the other ethnic groups should the status quo remain uncorrected? Both are difficult to tell at this stage, though everything is possible in south Sudan given our long histories of wars and civil unrest.

The mounting rebellion building up in the Jonglei state seems to have its immediate roots in the corruption that dominated the past elections. The leader of the new rebellion renegade, Lieutenant General George Athor Deng has become a major media personality in south Sudan politics given his recent past that links him to the SPLM AND SPLA (as he was the deputy chief of staff in south Sudan’s army) before running as an independent candidate against his rival and former comrade Kuol Manyang Juuk, to whom he lost. 

SPLM was much vocal in antagonizing its arch-rival, the splinter SPLM-DC of Dr. Lam Akol Ajawin which it accused of harbouring an armed militia. However SPLM’S claims were defeated at the constitutional court and reduced to mere party propaganda thus allowing Dr. Akol and his party to run in the general elections. But of interest remains the bitter hatred that the former rebels continue to display against their former senior official,  to the extent that there were initial futile attempts to link SPLM-DC with the 30^th April 2010 attacks at the military barracks at Doleib Hill, near Khorfulus.

SPLM-DC per the media have released press statements distancing itself from George Athor Deng and his followers, thus throwing the ball back to SPLA courtyard. General Athor himself has now come out openly to declare his opposition to the government of south Sudan GoSS, but no one can deny the sympathy that this renegade General continues to enjoy within the SPLM party, the SPLA and the Dinka community as evidenced in the countless articles which found their way to the media outlets.

General George Athor Deng like everybody else in south Sudan is fully aware of the sensitivity of the current situation especially so as related to the holding of the much anticipated referendum on the fate of south Sudan, scheduled for January 2011. On the other hand the renegade General is not the only SPLA General to have lost the past elections in the dubious way as they happened. But how would Athor want us to view him? Is he the only southern nationalist who can never tolerate any injustice as such and chose to confront the issue head long, as opposed to the other Generals and politicians who are currently seeking justice in the courts of law, though the chances of winning these cases remain very remote.

Can we now go out openly to accuse renegade George Athor Deng to have joined the Jallaba in an attempt to derail the CPA or is his ethnic background too strong to insulate him from being labelled as a NCP stooge unlike the massive and calculated degradation campaigns being continuously and selectively directed against people like Dr. Lam Akol Ajawin and Dr. Riek Machar Teny by particular tribal groups and other hostile elements.

With the divided views on this rebellion and similar developments in south Sudanese politics, southerners of all walks of life need to revisit their core values before demeaning others. Should we be the ones to start cheating, deceiving, corruption, nepotism, favouritism, vote grabbing …etc, we must be ready to face the consequences of our own deeds. 

However a massage for all to share is that, no one should assume themselves that they     care or are more concerned about the welfare of the people of south Sudan than others do, when they on the contrary have already shown that they are merely being driven by the intense greed to dominate and cling to power. The elections that were meant to bring about the peaceful transfer of power have been abused as a tool to illegally retain power. What a mockery to our collective intellectuality?

South Sudan is now officially a one party state, and it is run by a party that lacks any respect for democratic values, to the very extent that it cannot even appreciate its own pressure groups leave alone the official opposition parties. Many hidden elements in our political fabrics will become more evident in the very near future once the new cabinets are formed. And the reactions of these governments at all their levels, on how to accommodate, contain and deal with the ill effects of the ‘sham elections’, will remain critical to the success of the period ahead, which involves among many other crucial issues, the conduct of the referendum.