WES Press Release Juba- 20th January 2015. WES Government Denies Statement attributed to Governor Bakosoro in Mundri Peace Conference The Western Equatoria State Government (WESG) would like to deny and condemn in the strongest terms as premeditated and undermining fabrication, a statement being circulated to the net as being made by Governor Col Bangasi Joseph Bakosoro at a recent Peace Conference in Mundri; when a peace conference was held in order to seek solutions to the insecurity issues between IDPS pastoralists and resident framers in the area. However as soon as the conference was over a statement from an unknown source began to circulate in the nets claiming that Governor Bangasi Joseph Bakosoro said something about Dinka leadership being a failure to our country. The quoted statement went like this: “Dinka leaders and their community have failed our country, South Sudan. What’s wrong with you people, wherever you go, problems and havocs follow? You ran from danger in your areas and only to come and cause havoc in our state. You don’t like peaceful coexistence of people. Your leaders need to look themselves in the eye and find out why you are not welcomed by anyone anywhere in South Sudan” This quotation is a complete fabrication which is designed to undermine the WES Government and the Governor in our quest for finding a lasting peaceful solution to the issues. The Governor never made such a statement and the Governor statement during the meeting was just on three points. First the WES Governor said that: “The Lakes and Bor Community leaders should try to reign over their Youth when they try to go to a neighbouring state from insecurity and find peace or pasture in the neighbouring state like WES so that they know how to come with peace and observing cultural norms of the local people especially where where agriculture is backbone of the society like in WES and especially the Mundri areas”. If your youth go and cause havoc to other people whom do you blame ? Are not the community leaders to control their people? But here the fabricator decide to twist the fact so that it is aimed at Dinka leaders, by which he wants to include the Juba leadership, so that political leadership feel insulted and take action against the Governor. But the intended address was the community leaders at the meeting and had nothing to do with Political leadership of the country or an intention to attack based on tribe. A second appoint added y the WES Governor was that the animal keepers- our IDPs pastoralists, can learn how to look after their cattle without letting them to interfere with the livelihood of the host community and Governor went to give examples of some tribes like Karamojong in Uganda and Kalenjin in Kenya who are able to control their cows so well that even agriculture fields can exit side by side with keeping animals. For the proverb of the snake in the house it was also not like that. The Governor mentioned the fact that some political leaders from Mundri failed to turn up from Juba while he has to come a long way from Yambio and political leaders’ role is to help their people to solve their problems especially like when there is a snake in your house. There was no single occasion where the Governor advised the youth via snake proverb to turn against the pastoralists or the IDPS. Also another Mvolo local chief referred to the snake in the house. The traditional chief of Mvolo was speaking in his capacity as a local chief who had more good example of dealing with tribes of Lakes State because of previous experiences in interacting with the nearby Dinka community /youth members and he went to relate a story of how he raised even abandoned Dinka boy who later even perished in the incursions being wrought by some Youth from Lakes State. Hence he mentioned them as letting them into your house is like letting a snake in. The other point to notice about the claims on the statement is that there is a response immediately from the Dinka Council of Elders. The question is who among the Dinka Council of elders attended the meeting then and was immediately able to respond to such statement at the same time without even meeting his fellow other elders first? As far as we know there was no one from the Dinka council of Elders that we know because the highest ranking Government official from Juba was from the National Security as Director. Hence even if there was indeed such a statement form Governor it should have been reported first by journalists in the media and then once it is in the media then the reaction will come after Dinka Council of Elders when they meet to discuss the statement. But the statement plus reaction was also broadcast by the same source immediately which shows that it lacks an authenticity. This clearly shows fabrication by someone whose interest is to tarnish the image of the Governor to implicate him and WES Government especially when an election is being announced around the corner and the enemies want to have an Upper hand. All the speeches of WES Government delegates at the Conference were reconciliatory while harsh words only came from those representing Lakes state. From Lakes State, an Advisor of the Government there stated that some of their Youth /pastoralists were collaborating with LRA in search of arms whereby they were crossing over to Cong to buy arms from remnants of LRA . This statement saw many eyes brows raised as LRA was number one enemy of the WES and whole of South Sudan . Anode harsh statement came from Lakes State youth league chairman. He claimed, “If they, Equatorians, play with them they will come and occupy the whole of Equatoria and chase the people here to neighbouring countries where they fit.” So instead of reporting harsh words from those of Lakes the fabricator decided to have a go at WES Government with lies rather than true speeches from the Conference. With such statement form Lakes State, being intransigent rather than seeking peaceful co-existence, delegates from the communities of WES have now resolved that since the pastoralists come with aggression and threats they are not going to be welcoming them; pastoralists anymore with their cattle into their area there, because leadership from Lakes was not interested in talking peace and listening to pleas for orientation of their youth so that they can co-exist temporarily withier animals in WES areas without undermining the farmers and local communities or causing them insecurity. Hence I would like to assure the public at large of South Sudan, that these fabrications/allegations are no more than numerous ones which have gone on the net since the start of the crisis in December 2013. People fabricate lies in order to blackmail or undermine their foes before an audience and this time it is about leadership and quest for changing leadership. After failing in many other ways of dislodging current WES Government some elements in Juba had decided to launch dirty politics over their sworn enemy in WES and we are sure the current fabrication is aimed at compelling our leader for regime change. However let them be assured that leaders see things further than a cheap propaganda fabricated for the Internet. How many leaders are there, who are not victims of internet virus news? WES Government reassures all, that WES Government is an integral part of the Government of South Sudan with a mandate to protect lives and property of all the citizens of in the country and applies the rule of law in seeking solution to problems and never advocating violence as a way of solving issues. Our advice for solving present South Sudan crisis has been dialogue and peaceful coexistence is instead of adapting militarism as a way to solving issues of our differences. So same advise applies o the issues of clashes between pastoralists/IDPS and local communities and agriculturists in WES. Signed Hon Eng. Charles Barnaba Kisanga State Minister of Information and Communications and the spokesperson of WES Government Yambio.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 10:56:48 +0000