Is South Sudan at the Brink of Disintegration?

South Sudan opposition warns country at risk of disintegration

September 14, 2014 (JUBA) – A senior South Sudanese opposition politician has hinted at the possibility of the young nation disintegrating along ethnic lines should its current leadership ignore the strength and capabilities of those opposed to the Juba establishment.

Gen. Dau Aturjong told Sudan Tribune he was optimistic some parts of South Sudan would rejoin neighbouring Sudan, from which it seceded in 2011, or become part of Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“We urge our people to see the differences between Dr. Riek Machar, who has accepted to take the challenge to champion the cause of the movement and the propaganda of the government,” Gen. Aturjong said on Sunday.

“They have to make clear distinction and join the movement earnestly so that we all rescue the country from disintegrating into ethnic enclaves, South Sudanese rebel commander,” he added.

David de Chan, a renowned South Sudanese academic, recently criticised the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) protocol of agreed principles, instead recommending the breaking up of the country into smaller administrative units.

“I highly recommend that South Sudan should be disintegrated because it has already been disintegrated compared to the island nation state of Cyprus that has divided itself into two (2) vs. the Greco-Cypriots on the west side of the tiny island of Cyprus and the Turkish-Cypriots on the eastside of the island nation of Cyprus and the case of the former Yugoslavia federation that disintegrated into seven (7) nation states in the Balkans,” de Chan wrote on 29 August.

“The greater Upper Nile region would not return to Juba, but it would govern itself as an autonomous region like Kuristan-Iraq in northern Iraq and would eventually seek political divorce from South Sudan,” he said.

But Gen. Aturjong, a former South Sudan army division commander who joined the opposition in May, warned of growing sentiment in the country should the current conflict drag on for another year.

“I do not deny such possibilities and this is why the movement [SPLM in Opposition] appeals for mass defection of our officers in this ailing government to live up to the cause of liberation struggle. Our people did not sacrifice their lives in order for them to come and install the regime with similar tendencies to perpetuate the suffering,” he said.

According to the senior rebel commander, there is already a feeling in other parts of the country, apart from Upper Nile state, allegedly to break away from the country, if president Salva Kiir does not willingly accept democratic reforms and inclusivity in national affairs.

“There are voices calling for annexing the Upper Nile and Unity States to Sudan and parts of Equatoria States to Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Democratic of Republic of Congo and Central African Republic. Such voices are serious and they are actually inspired by the Russia-Ukraine case of Crimea,” Gen. Aturjong explained.

“And I think some countries with interests in the region can quickly support local initiative, like it happened in the case of Russia and Ukraine over Crimea,” he added.

Meanwhile, Peter Adwok Nyaba, a former South Sudanese education minister, now with the rebels, advocated for an increase in the level of struggle to cover other parts of the countries, saying it was the only way to bring change in the country.

He claimed president Kiir was “insensitive” to calls for peace in the young nation.

“SPLM in Opposition does not belong to Riek Machar and those who refused to join because of him are mistaken. The resistance to Salva’s regime is acquiring a national and democratic character,” Nyaba told Sudan Tribune.

“The contradiction now is between democrats’ revolutionary and liberal, social or Marxists and the dictatorial regime and other position or stand is fact support for the president,” he added.

President Kiir’s loyalists, however, say those opposed to the present leadership only became critics after they were removed during last year’s cabinet reshuffle, which also affected former vice-president Riek Machar.

Dangerous Politics and the Funerals Hunters: The Fake Mourners (Moirologists)!

By Kur Wel Kur,

Many communities in the world rinse their souls by shedding tears of sadness when they lost loved ones; however, other communities of different  cultures hire mourners (fake mourners-mirologists-) to mourn for their (communities) loved ones. Before, such communities existed in the Middle East and China; however, as the world globalised, some people practise this tradition in countries like United Kingdom!

I believe the pain experiences in the loss of a life, differs in these communities. Due to emotions, we shed tears for the vacuum left by the deceased, for the privileges and rights entitled to us from the late persons when they had lives, for the earthly separation.  Some mourn in a suicidal manners; they become hopeless; they reduce themselves to emotional and helpless beings.

For these reasons, some communities, Dinka community in particular, consider death a communal issue; family members and friends with the community behind them congregate in the house of the person who has lost someone.  Family friends and the community submerge in the responsibilities, which clothe and soothe the family members of the deceased.

Responsibilities such as burying the deceased, cooking for family members and other mourners, doing the laundry duties, caring for the children of that family, for instance, driving the children to and picking them up from school, paying for basic needs of the mourners and comforters, shaving the family members’ heads.

Shaving symbolises connection and value of the deceased to the family members who shave their heads. The relatives, especially women, take off their jewelleries and change into black clothes and they don’t wear make-up.

In Dinka community, family members surrender their feelings of partying or dancing. They give up their physical beauty for three/four months in honour and memory of the deceased, for example,  their hairs remain unkempt for this period.

The community blankets the family members and friends through their pain for three/four days, after which family members, friends and the community conduct the prayers of  ‘dispersal’ ; many family members and friends,  leave the deceased home, only one or two family member (s) and friend (s) may remain to keep doing the house duties.

Dinka community holds final prayers after three months for a man or after four months for a woman; Dinka people call this prayers as ‘prayers of disconnection’ or (puo kaar), that a person is disconnected from the livings, though the family members could occasionally invoke the names of the deceased, they would do this as a spirit but not as a physical living being.

In these prayers, family members shave (final shaving) their heads and change their mourning clothes; so after these prayers, family members resume their normal lives without their loved ones.

For the Dinka readers, the above background of the rituals involved in the death of our community member, acts as a reminder; however, for other surfers, the background will act as a spotlight or a guide because I will discuss how dangerous politics and funerals’ hunters are enemies within.

The technologies such as mobile phones, Internet, which have become information giants through blogs such as PaanLuel Wel, Gurtong, Borglobe and other sites with social websites such as Facebook (To South Sudanese), have made the world a global village!

A distance of thousands miles by airbus A380, a population on the side of the globe receives either good or bad news about relatives in minutes.  So a small misunderstanding can become big deals on other end, depending on the reporter.

The war in our country has shredded our relationships to a great extent; funerals become as normal as other occasions where we could just spray ourselves with bitter and dirty politics. In the old days and even now back at home (South Sudan), only the experienced seniors speak at the funerals.

They encourage the family members and friends with words full of hopes. They define the death to the whole community, that death is universal, that it takes children and adults; that all people will one day die, only that some people die before Others, that death  is  a process.

However, in diaspora (especially in Adelaide,Australia), young people oblige themselves with responsibilities of the seniors; they encourage themselves to stand in front of the mourners and community members in the funerals. Some young people have become inspirational to many, whereas  others proved their naivety, so instead of consoling the mourners, they discouraged them and indirectly verbalised insults.

Because of their  inexperiences, these young people can’t differiate victims’ words of bitterness and frustration from political articulated words. The inability of these young speakers fail them to understand that some relatives mourn their loved ones by throwing themselves on the graves of their loved ones, and if you come to their rescue, they slap you in the face but you dare not them slap back!

Dirty politics of segregation and  allegiances masked the truths: life and death.  Funerals’ hunters dress as  mourners,  only to push the relatives of the deceased to the lowest points and darkest corners of their emotions.  They feel good when they air venomous words to their target group; they spit in face of the coffin; they defile the cadaver by urinating on the coffin!

An Episcopal church pastor, David Bol Amol, at one time, asserted that the community must dedicate funerals  to prayers only! The man of God,  made this statement because he is worried about the direction our  community members are  steering the community.

In conclusion, as funerals are held for remembering,  celebrating and respecting the deceased, funerals  hunters disgrace  this sacred and last touch moment of the deceased.

The communities must identify funerals hunters and  restrict them from attending funerals; the communities must not allow them to spew their filth on the coffins of loved ones.

The tears of joy and those of sadness must not mingle in the funerals!

AMER, TEARZ, DAIDIT, ATONG: RESOURCEFUL MINDS INDULGING IN DIVISIVE DISCOURSES

RESOURCEFUL MINDS LURED IN DIVISIVE DISCOURSES

By Jurkuch Dengdit

It’s not the unsaid that divides us; it’s the said divisive words that divide us.

No one had seen this coming. From national politics to communal/clan minds-resourceful minds lured by egos. The egos that had cost South Sudan ten of thousand of people dead, millions displaced and fifty thousand children on the verge of starvation- a man made disaster is taking young innocent souls.

This war has created unprecedented level of hatreds amongst South Sudanese. South Sudan, a nation polarised by tribal affiliations! It doesn’t end tribal per se. A national political disagreement has found its new ‘palace’ in the hearts and minds of Bor and Twic East counties. Myopic political appointment perhaps is an apocalypse between these two sisterly communities of Bor and Twic.

The rants that had surfaced amongst Daidit Maa, Tearz Ayuen, Atong and Amer Mayen had further or somewhat have polarised the two communities of Twic and Bor. It’s creating animosity and division. It eerie! Pause and think. It’s bellowing. It smells-a disastrous putrid smell perhaps. Hate speeches that have given the government of South Sudan an absolute control over its citizens when it should be the citizens that dictate what the government does.

This is because we have abridged our intellects to debate trivial discourses that often compromise our shared values that overrun nation discourses. We are loosing the war to hold the government of South Sudan accountable to be wise and fugal government, which shall refrain men from injuring one another, shall leave their own pursuits of industry and improvement and shall not take from the mouth of labour the bread it has earned. This should be our absolute fight to anyone who wants to extend the hands of the former oppressors in our nascent country.

This rant is an epitome of anathema, and this shouldn’t whatsoever be use to polarised these communities who have fought in various wars side by side. They have witnessed and endured horrific and merciless massacres inflicted upon its people by another brother.

These communities together fought determinedly to see the people of South Sudan living in their own country in decency and in dignity. Their shared values are embroidered in paying an ultimate courtesy and respect for anyone regardless of one’s tribe, gender, social status or political affiliation.

Daidit Maa, Ayuen, Atong and Amer are great writers and thinkers. They can help these communities ‘elate’ their political frontiers through their acumens. They can always thunder the evils of nationalism. They can shun the vices of national developments. More importantly, they can engage our young and ‘learned’ generation of South Sudanese wherever they are on strategic and pertinent national discussions.

Or possibly if they know, they can help Kur Wel Kur rewriting the history of lost boys and redefining the diabolism in the history of the lost boys (twisted history to conquer impossible frontiers).

I must admit, you guys can write wonders. You can move the mountains of lies and institute the archive of the truths. Dust yourselves off from this petty and toxic debate and maybe leave it to less informed and ‘escapegoaters’ who think they can build a strong community base support.

You are tarnishing our shared image and sadly, you are unknowingly goading our friends/enemies-those who want to see Bor and Twic disintegrate to advance their political influence. Your language usage and creativity to craft words out of the existing community’s name, which am hesitant to exhume herein is disheartening and outrageous. Remember, it’s not the unsaid that divides us; it’s the said divisive words that divide us.

In time of crisis, anyone has rights to support any political paradigm, but that doesn’t guarantee one’s a license to names calling. Too, it’s equally true to say that names calling don’t degrade your community. Remember folks, a wise is superior to any insults that’s hurled upon him and the best reply to unseemly behaviour is patience and moderation. We must rise above insults and shame ourselves of evil that litters in us.

If we don’t change this, in my humble view, you are ultimately compromising our long shared and cherished social fabric that holds Bor and Twic people together for time immemorial

As I said above, our focus as this generation is to engage our politicians on the barbarism of caging our own people in an appalling situation in UN managed camps across the country. We must engage our politicians to avoid devouring media laws that compromise the lives of our journalists and writers.

We must shrug off these petty debates and fearlessly tell the president to stop ‘defiling’ our nation’s constitution as if it’s his own book that requires new editions. We must advocate for our girls education to be a nation agenda. We don’t need no education for our girls.

With the same token of determination, we must also echo the same voices for better health facilities that are well equipped with world class trained medical professionals so that the nation must curb the rampant child mortality during childbirth.

The youth must also advocate for the utlisation of untapped national sectors such agriculture to engross our young people in productive activities that will make them sustainable in long term.

This in turn, creates employments and magnanimously ceases idleness in our people. Profoundly, South Sudanese young people should indulge themselves with such debates rather than tribal or clannish debates.

In conclusion, tribal and communal/clan rants are disheartening and we must rise above communal tendencies. We must know that these two sisterly communities of Bor and Twic have co-existed before therefore, no myopic political interests of TODAY will ever compromise this long cherished and well-lived co-existence.

We must abjure the tendencies that drive us apart. We are one people, and no amount of hates speeches from few individuals will darken our ‘ceiling’ of understandings.

The success of Buor and Twic doesn’t lie in tiptoeing and envying on our own selves. No matter what circumstances we are in, we must always diligently and honestly guard our thoughts.

I am not seeking asylum

By Wenne Madyt Dengs

–

With my complexion and my birth certificate

I am not seeking asylum

By my tribe and clan

I am not seeking asylum

Born to do what Sabbath De Yacouba does

 –

I am not seeking asylum

With my ready pen like Pen Ngong and proud like Pow James

I am not seeking asylum

With my tears flowing for the torn like tearz Ayuen

 –

I am not seeking asylum

It is mine and it always will be

I am not seeking asylum

As a son of a willing victim

I am not seeking asylum

With a hard hatred heart

I am not seeking asylum

I am a patriot like Manyang David Mayaar

 –

I am not seeking asylum

Happy and peaceful like Pageer-Malith Ajang De Kur

I am not seeking asylum

Son of a woman like me deserves manhood

I am not seeking asylum

You are excellent but you will be exiled

 –

I am not seeking asylum

I will not step out of my senses

Because I am not seeking asylum

I am not yawning like Yau Yau

 –

Because I am not seeking asylum

I am a freedom fighter like Isaiah Abraham

Because I am not seeking asylum

I was born to live in my own habitat

That is what I will not do to seek asylum in my own home

 –

Wenne Madyt Dengs ©2013

Press Release from the SPLM-DC on Hon. Makwei Lueth

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Dr Lam Akol Prevented from Traveling to Addis Ababa for Peace Talks

Date: 13 September 2014

At about 2:30 pm today, the authorities in Juba prevented Dr Lam Akol, the Leader of Delegation of the Political Parties to the peace talks, from travel to Addis Ababa to take part in the peace talks. Four other members of the delegation, Ismail Suleiman Saeed, David William Tut, Albino John Lako and Sarah Nene Redento, also did not travel.

The delegation held a press conference at the airport describing the measure as a violation of the country’s constitution which guarantees freedom of movements to all citizens. Dr Lam Akol explained the background of the decision as the government’s intention to replace the delegation of the political parties with one comprising political parties represented in the current government. Such a scenario, he stressed, would mean that the government would practically have two delegations at the talks: the direct one and the proxy one under the guise of political parties. Dr Lam explained that from the moment the political parties published in July their position on the resolution of the armed conflict, the government has shown open hostility to the political parties. It had thought that they would have supported it blindly. Things came to a head in Addis Ababa on the 15^th of August when the same position paper was tabled before a plenary sitting of the stakeholders. Dr Lam reminded the press people of the defection then of four members of the political parties delegation who are in the government under threat from the government delegation in Addis Ababa.

Dr lam Akol told the press that back in Juba the four defectors were joined by the Minister of Cabinet Affairs and the Minister of Information in creating a rift between the political parties.  Due to the government’s sticks and carrots, the parties in the Political Parties Leadership Forum that are represented in the government broke away, declared that they have dismissed Dr Lam from the leadership of the delegation and formed a delegation of their own composed entirely of parties in the government including the SPLM. When the official delegation led by Dr Lam Akol was invited to Addis Ababa and their illegal delegation was not, this became too much to the government, hence the decision to prevent Dr Lam Akol from travelling to Addis Ababa.

Members of the delegation stressed that they will insist on the independence of the political parties and called upon IGAD and the international community to bring pressure to bear on the government to respect that independence. They wondered why political parties that are part of the government should look for representation outside the government’s delegation to the talks, asserting that the delegation of the political parties should exclusively represent the opposition parties.

TRIBUTE TO THON DAU MAYEN: LEST WE FORGET

By Amer Mayen Dhieu, Queensland, Australia

Tribute to Thon Dau Mayen who was killed in Koboko, Uganda, on the 11th of September, 2014. The conflict was sparked by an alleged photo of a girl taken by a boy.

“If Tears Could Build A Stairway, and memories were a lane, we would walk right up to heaven and bring you back again. No farewell words were ever spoken, no time to say goodbye, you were gone before we knew it and only God knows why. Our hearts still ache with sadness and secret tears still flow, what it meant to lose you, no one will ever know”

Today is Sunday, I am foolishly fooled by the white men dogma. The precept inculcate in me that Sunday is a day of repentance, a day of forgiveness and a day of prayers.

Out of all, I am not using this Sunday to forgive, I am not using this Sunday to repent or to forget. I am praying that your soul rest in peace.

I am mad, I am angry, I am heartbroken. You were attacked and hacked to death. We were attacked and left to bleed. Out of nowhere, the devil men slay and hammer you.

Out of nowhere the grief hit us with full force and slain our hearts into pieces. Sadly out of nowhere, behind our broken hearts was a party of words that I am faint-hearted to read, to listen to or extend my ears.

You have gone too soon, but not too soon that you did not witness what our world has turned into. How it perished from us. We might not fully understand why you have to go in that manner, for they say “do not judge what you cannot fully understand”.

No matter how confused our world is, we can claim it to heaven that we are fully aware of the evil force behind your death. Should your demise serves us a lesson as the world may wish, No! it shall forever serves as constant reminder.

We both know that there is always that tomorrow where we shall not be together, but we never thought “a girl related case” will bring the tomorrow we never see coming, tomorrow we never wanted to witness.

But because some “muppets basket case” people exists, your precious life has faded un-deservably.

The only healthy part of getting over your departure is knowing that: with such unkind behaviours, with such envious personalities, with such childish thinking, the Jerusalem will be strikes twice as much as it can be fully demolished into a barren palace that bear no more evil personalities.

Then with life after, the angels will rises and resume the thoughtful wishes of good coexistence.

They say “time heals all wounds” but I say as the time goes by, no wound shall be healed. I strongly reject the naive tenet that we will one day sit on the table in absolute nothing but joy with no memories of your departure.

I cannot lie that our mind will one day forget the insanity behind your death, the tragedy that robbed us in untimely way. Above all, we know you will forever stay with angels.

In your memory, this tear is just for you. I don’t called it a note but a droplet of my tears that are dribbling because my heart can no longer handle the pain.

They say “the most painful goodbyes are the ones that are never said and never explains” this “tear” explain my final goodbyes and say it all.

R.I.P my dearest Brother. Since “heaven has becomes your new home”, we will forever feel the missing “you” with deep sorrows and sadness, but in one morning, our pain will be reinvented to build and restores your soul-urged greatness.

You were one that we will never replaces. A loving son, a loving brother, a loving cousin and a loving uncle. I Love you! I miss you! R.I.P

IN LOVING MEMORY OF THON DAU MAYEN.

KILLED ON SEPTEMBER, 11, 2014.

KOBOKO, UGANDA.