SOUTH SUDAN: THE PRICE OF CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE By Deng Vanang South Sudan has been on the throes of latent conflict which recently busted into an overt one since the formation of self - government in 2005. The said government came as a result of the diffused South – North conflict following a peace deal popularly referred to as Comprehensive Peace Agreement, CPA. With North – South more than five decades old feud becomes a thing of the past when South Sudan attained its independence from the North in July 2011, on and off internal conflict persists as fallen confidence remains all time low between the two traditional protagonists, the Nuer and the Dinka. For ever since September 1983 violent split between SPLM/A and Anya – Nya Two down to August 1991 split in the SPLM/A, peaceful settlements that followed such as Kuanylou, Nairobi and Juba unity agreements/declarations of 1988, 2002 and 2006 respectively, turned out to be nothing but temporary truces. The pompously dubbed National Reconciliations and Healings became nothing short of tactical political ploys as engineered by ethnic chauvinists to deceive the patriotic nationalists. While patriotic nationalists looked ahead for an independent South Sudan and ignored resurging internal conflicts as petty, ethnic chauvinists focused much of their energy consolidating tribal bigotry and economic dominance. And whereas the same diehard patriotic nationalists engrossed in the belief of political emancipation doctrine akin to Biblical saying that thou shall seek kingdom of heaven first so that everything be added unto you later, the unrelented ethnic chauvinists viewed the patriotic nationalists’ faith as naivety to be exploited as God - send opportunity to perpetuate building ethnic empire. Before the formation of Government of Southern Sudan, GOSS in 2005, allegedly a group of Dinka and Equatoria politico - military hardliners gathered in Yei in late 2004 and promulgated the infamous 39 laws. Such draconian laws likened to that of fascist Germany against the ethnic Jews in the beginning of Second World War were meant among others to deny Nuer strategic positions as well as gradually phase out top military officers and politicians of the same community from the government once it was established. The previously dismissed 39 laws as wild rumors came into realization when Kiir ensured more than 65% positions in politics, military, civil and foreign services in which leading Embassies in world and regional powers are included are headed by members of Dinka ethnic group which is less than 20% of South Sudan total population. Dinka is among 62 tribes that make South Sudan a nation state. The same vice replicates itself in the economy where real estate businesses such as foreign company partnerships with the locals, all banks including Central, Commercial and forex bureaus are dominated by Dinka. Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning plus that of Petroleum have been under stranglehold of the Dinka elite. Which is why, so much money from national coffer meant to deliver vital social services in health, education, water, electricity, roads and security countrywide is every year’s end in eight solid years diverted to one ethnic group to build private businesses and property. Employment in oil companies under Ministry of petroleum, posh cars including V- 8s the Dinka fondly refer to as ‘’meth a’pols’’ and Hammers in addition to skyscrapers have become the monopoly of a few from one ethnic Dinka group. On top of that economic monopoly, President Kiir manipulated cabinet decision in 2009 to relocate building of Bentiu oil refinery in his home Payam of Akon, Warrap State. So that it would benefit Warrap state in the sales of byproducts and employment. But the decision was shot down through home - grown sabotage. It is this sabotage that eventually soared once cordially blossoming relation between Kiir and former state Governor, Taban Deng Gai. Both local and foreign scholarships under service ministry of Education, Sciences and Technology every year on end have been awarded to mostly incompetent Dinka students as others salivate in agony. The fourth state whose sole mission is mass indoctrination and imposition of Dinka ways of life to become popular culture with resultant introduction of Dinka dialect as official working language in South Sudan has been spearheaded by Malak Ayuen in public media, Philip Aguer Panyang and Ateny Wek Ateny in the military and private press respectively since most interested individuals from other ethnic nationalities do not have enough cash and neither could they acquire loan from the government to establish their own. Some who managed to do so continue on shoe string budget as progress of their media firms is stifled through denial of government advertisements that traditionally keep media outlets in business. The Military Back in 2006, post war disarmament was planned by Dinka SPLA dominated top military brass against members of one ethnic group, the Lou Nuer while their well armed neighbors and perennial archenemies, namely the Dinka Bor and Murle were left untouched only to pounce on them and their cattle defenselessly. Complaint by Nuer Parliamentary caucus in an interim Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly felt in deaf ears. While Kuol Manyang Juuk was busy knocking heads of Lou Nuer and Murle at the time he was Governor of South Sudan biggest State of Jonglei, his fellow Bor tribesmen Malak Ayuen and Philip Aguer Panyang took it up on themselves in preaching ethnic hatred against the Nuer. Malak as Director of SPLA Information & Public Relations screens revolutionary songs sang in Dinka dialect by Dinka units of SPLA on SSTV as a means to idolize them as South Sudan immortal liberators. The same Malak lectures about Dinka top military officers and politicians as the only heroes while vilifying others, especially the Nuer, as the betrayers of South Sudanese legitimate struggle for freedom and justice. Philip Aguer as the spokesman in the SPLA refers to the Dinka dominated units in the army as SPLA proper while the rest, particularly the Nuer, as members of integrated militia or armed group. These so called militias or ‘’Nyagats’’ [bandits] as Dinka ethnic nationalists derogatorily call the Nuer are ever since denied access to training opportunities, lucrative deployment and manning of artillery and tanks in the army except deployment to hardship areas as foot soldiers where bloody conflicts erupt. This has been followed with scotched - earth policy of demobilizing able bodied low - ranking Nuers known as ‘’non-confirmed’’ from the army besides sidelining senior Nuer army officers from deployment as well as retiring most of them from the army as Kiir has been indulged in promoting the Dinka officers over and above the heads of their Nuer colleagues. The Dinka military officers, who happened to be retired with Nuer, were redeployed to civil defense units like police, prisons, Wildlife and fire brigade which ever since 2005 till now are all headed by Dinka Inspector-Generals. Pieng Deng is the beneficiary of this group as Inspector – General of South Sudan Police Services in which nine out of ten Sates’ Inspectors of Police are Dinka before conflict erupted on 15th of December last year. A few others were and are still appointed to plumb political posts like Matur Chut Dhuol, the current Governor of Lakes State. Plan to sideline Machar from SPLM and government in order to eventually push him from mainstream politics so that he is painted as traitor with the view to relive the shilling memory of 1991 split in the minds of South Sudanese has been orchestrated for quite a long time. It began firstly with 2010 Presidential nomination in SPLM when Kiir decided to run for the position of Dr. Riek Machar as the President of Southern Sudan instead of the Republic of the Sudan consumurate with his party position as SPLM Chairman. It was followed by Kiir ‘s 15th December prophet of doom remarks at the conclusion of SPLM National Liberation Council sitting and his stage managed coup a day after as political maneuvers deliberately calculated to kick Machar out of the SPLM. Closely aligned behind these callous moves is Paul Malong Awan, current Governor of Northern Bahr el Ghazal State who recruited and trained thirteen thousand Dinka cattle herders as regular soldiers from States of Northern Bahr el Ghazal, Lakes and Warrap with the view to defend Kiir Presidency as well as entrench an ethnic dictatorship in the country. Some of these soldiers were absorbed into Presidential guards causing the fight on Sunday 15th December and perpetrating targeted killings of the innocent ethnic Nuer civilians in Juba. The same Malong more than one time has been saying all along in public gatherings that if someone thinks that being Vice President he shall also become President is deceiving himself, a veiled reference to Machar when he was still Vice President to Kiir. A statement echoed by Kiir himself recently in Rumbek, stirring up ethnic dissension by urging the Dinka to defend at all costs his presidency and the government since the two are their own preserve for the next hundred years. Kiir was replaying what his tribesman the late Justin Yac Arop said in Southern Sudan Peoples Legislative Assembly when Abel Alier’s government was under inevitable threat of removal in early 1980s that the Dinka are born to rule. Since the time such ethnic troops were graduated in late 2013, the sidelining of Chief of General Staff James Hoth Mai, a Nuer by Paul Malong Awan and Marial Chinuong, Presidential Guards Commander and defacto Chief of General Staff of the SPLA from the running of army administrative affairs, field operations and deployment of forces culminated. Security apparatus These security services have three wings all dominated by one ethnic group, the Dinka: Internal wing is headed by Major - General Akol Koor Kuc deputized by three or four other Dinka, Military intelligence Unit is headed by Major - General Mac Paul, also a Dinka while a third lackluster external wing is headed by Major - General Thomas Duoth Guet, a Nuer as a figurehead deputized by all Dinka members. James Hoth Mai and Thomas Duoth Guet who together dangerously teeter in the ethnic fault lines of the Dinka’s marginalization and the Nuer’s rejection have been spied on as well as accused of allowing Dr. Riek Machar to escape in the fateful night of Sunday 15th December 2013. Quite an interesting allegation in that the role to arrest somebody accused of treason inside the country normally falls within the internal and military intelligence dockets. Historical injustices Most Dinka elite among them those mentioned above have worked very hard to entrench historical injustices culminating in the ugly December 15th incident against other ethnic groups and in particular the Nuer in the following but not limited to the described ways: The country’s recognized public holidays are framed to honor leading Dinka political and military figures in South Sudanese opposition to former Arab colonial rule. The prominent cases in point are Bor mutiny of May 16th 1983 and the 30th July 2005 that marked the death of Dr. John Garang while August 18th1955 and March 1975 of Torit and Akobo mutiny respectively are all relegated to the periphery of history. In various national celebrations and commemorations, the heroes of South Sudanese struggle have been presented by the Dinka elite as the only Dinka in both politics and military. For an instance people who allegedly betrayed South Sudan struggle for independence such as William Deng Nhial, Abel Alier, Santino Deng and Bullen Alier have always been idolized as heroes at the expense of true heroes in the name of Both Diu, Renaldo Roleyla, Fr Saturinho, Aggrey Jaden, Joseph Oduho, Joseph Lagu Yanga and Samuel Gai Tut. Presentation of Dinka historical figures as only heroes and screening of SPLA Dinka unit singing revolutionary songs in Dinka language on SSTV as another way of trying to indoctrinate young children and those not well versed with history of liberation. All the South Sudan State’s ten national symbols as most people agreed are designed through Dinka ethnic lens such as flag, national anthem, constitution, coat of arms, Ramciel as the future capital city, international Airport soon to be renamed Garang international Airport, currency features, national football team named after John Garang’s former SPLA battalion the Bright Star campaign, passport and head of state
Posted on: Sun, 19 Jan 2014 17:40:03 +0000
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