By Ali el Ali, Khartoum, Sudan,
May 17th, 2019(Nyamilepedia) — In South Sudan, the name of National Security is synonymous with the National Insecurity. Citizens are not at ease with them as the way they conduct themselves is something strange and intimidating. It is something strange in South Sudan to find the member of National Security or National Insecurity in plain clothes.
It is not hard to identify the members of National Security as they have a distinguished uniform and a distinguished everything. They carry guns openly as if they are national army which in most cases leaves us with one major question of the day: how truly are the members of national security of South Sudan?
Moreover, the members of National Security have now begum misusing the powers of the state to sufferings of the ordinary citizens. The account of the history of killings in South Sudan I am going to give herein after is going to convince you after reading through this article. The person responsible for the killings carried out by the National Security is Bol Madut Chol.
Bol Madut Chol is a major in the National Service working under Thomas Duoth who heads the Directorate of External Intelligent. Bol is currently working with the following— Akol Ayii and Wani Mattia who always go around with him to kill those who are perceived to be against the government of South Sudan.
Bol Madut Chol and his members are the ones responsible for the killing the following people– Bol Miyen, Samuel Dong Luak and Aggrey Idris; Isaiah Diing Abraham Chan Awol and Peter Julius Moi. Also, Bol Madut Chol is working in close connection with those inside J1 and in particular, Atueny Wek Ateny. It has been reported that the death of Valentino Kur or Matthew Deng Mathiang and Mawal. All the killings and kidnappings which always take place inside South Sudan against South Sudanese youth and in the neighboring countries is by unknown gunmen are under the responsibility of Bol Madut Chol and his group.
What the government of South Sudan should know is that the killing of the people in South Sudan outside the law is what is called extrajudicial killing or extrajudicial execution. Extrajudicial killing is the killing of a person by governmental authorities or individuals without the sanction of any judicial proceeding or legal process.
Extrajudicial punishments are mostly seen by humanity to be unethical, since they bypass the due process of the legal jurisdiction in which they occur. This type of killing often targets leading political, trade union, dissident, religious, and social figures and are only those carried out by the State government or other state authorities like the armed forces or police, as extra-legal fulfillment of their prescribed role.
Extrajudicial killing is against the right to life. The right to life is protected by a number of international treaties which among others include—the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966, the Geneva Conventions, 1949, the European Convention on Human Rights, 1950, the American Convention on Human Rights, 1969 and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, 1981.
The above laws protect the right to life, which is corollary right to be free from the arbitrary deprivation of life which constitutes the defining human right. Indeed, the right to life norm has been characterized “as the supreme human right, since without effective guarantee of this right, all other rights of the human being would be devoid of meaning.”
The prohibition of extrajudicial killing is an extension of the right to life norm and represents a manifestation of the right to be free from the arbitrary deprivation of life. Its status is evidenced in both human rights law and international humanitarian law, including in an overwhelming number of multilateral and regional sources.
On extrajudicial, the Special Rapporteurs highlighted the State obligation to adequately protect the right to life, and hold non-State actors to account, in situations of widespread killings or violence against a particular portion of the population or a particular group of people as it is the case in South Sudan. Under the international law, the State responsibility to protect the population (and individuals) from violence motivated by discriminatory prejudice, both directly and by taking steps to remedy the prejudice is highly recognized. State general obligation to address systematic patterns of violence through precautionary and accountability measures is emphasized.
Thus, the state responsibilities inter alia cover inter-communal killings, killings by vigilante, militias and mob justice, killings by bandits, killings by corporations, social cleansing killings, honor killings, witchcraft killings, “femicide,” gender-based violence by vigilante groups, killings on the basis of gender or sexual identity.
In additional, non-State actors bear human rights obligations not only during the armed conflict but also at all times and the same thing applies to an armed groups during armed conflict who have their own direct legal responsibilities for any killings they commit in violation of international humanitarian law. For instance, it has been observed that where a group exercises significant territorial and population control, and has an identifiable political structure, it has a duty to respect human rights and humanitarian law norms.
As a matter of law, human rights obligations for killings perpetrated by, or involving, non-State actors may also include killings by State actors, thus directly engaging the State responsibility to respect, in addition to its responsibilities to protect, human rights. In situations where the responsibilities of non-State actors are triggered, those of state actors are also engaged.
The State of South Sudan therefore has the duty to ensure the effective protection of the right to life of all persons, to conduct, when required by obligations under international law, prompt, exhaustive and impartial investigations into all killings, including those targeted at specific groups of persons, such as politically and criminally motivated violence leading to the death of the victim, killings of persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities.
Above all, South Sudan should know that it has a duty to ensure that those who kill people for reasons related to their activities as human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists or demonstrators, killings committed for discriminatory reasons on any basis are brought to justice before a competent, independent and impartial judiciary at the national or, where appropriate, international level and to ensure that such killings, including those committed by security forces, police and law enforcement agents, paramilitary groups or private forces, are neither condoned nor sanctioned by State officials or personnel;”
In summary, Bol Madut Chol, the member of National Security working under the Directorate of External Security Service of South Sudan is the man with his group responsible for the kidnapping and killings of South Sudanese activists and oppositions. As I have already explained above, Bol Madut Chol with his group is the one responsible for the killing of Isaiah Abraham or Ding Chan Awuol, Bol Miyen, Samuel Dong Luak and Aggrey Idris.
In addition, there is evidence to the effect that they were involved in the killing of Valentino Kur or Matthew Deng Mathiang who was killed and thrown down from the building in order to mislead the public that he committed suicide, which was not the case. The fact is that he was murdered.
The above mentioned are prominent members of South Sudan but there are many people with low profiles whom they have killed or kidnapped and killed in unknown area. In other words, there are many war crimes committed by National Security, Military Intelligence and Counter Military Intelligence, our office is investigating.
It is our recommendation to the President of South Sudan that he should appoint and forms a credible committee to investigate all the killings of all South Sudanese that took place from 2012 to date. We also strong recommend that those whose names appear in this article headed by Bol Madut Chol must be suspended and investigated taken to Court of law to face the wrath of justice.
If the President is not willing to accept these recommendations, then he himself must be held accountable under the principle of law of Command Responsibility since he is the Commander-In-Chief (C-I-C). We have all the evidence to provide during the court process that will lead to the conviction of Bol Madut Chol and his group plus any other persons that will be found to have been involved in the killings of innocent South Sudanese as our investigation is still continuing.
We have sent some of our findings or evidence to the African Union Commission on Human Rights and to the UN Security Council for appropriate actions to be taken and if the no action is taken then we recommend that the President be held accountable for his failure to protect human rights.
The insider, Ali el Ali, is a prominent human rights activist, lawyer and private investigator.
