Twic East Community Open Letter To Hon. Philip Aguer Panyang, Governor Of Jonglei State

From: Twic East Community Representatives

To: Hon. Philip Aguer Panyang, Governor of Jonglei State

Subject: The Position Of Twic East County In The Ongoing Crisis In The State Of Jonglei Is Declaration Of Pull Out From Jonglei State Legislative Assembly

Dear Hon. Governor Philip Aguer,

March 09, 2016(Nyamilepedia) —- On behalf of Twic East Community in South Sudan, East Africa, USA, Canada, Australia, Europe, and across the globe, we are here to declare the pull out of Twic East County from the Government of Jonglei State. All civil servants from Twic East County serving in the Government of Jonglei State, including the newly appointed Minister of Local Government, Hon. Dut Achuek Lual, Advisor on Economic Affairs, Hon. Diing Akol Diing, Technical Advisor on Land and Survey, Hon. John Amuor Kuol, and all State MPs from Twic East County are asked by Twic East citizens to resign immediately. This decision was triggered by the unfair distribution of Jonglei State MPs and cabinet ministers and many other grievances.

As you know, Twic East County is a peace loving community. We believe that people of South Sudan are bound by principles and not by blood. Therefore, fairness and equality shall be the basis of our strength and togetherness in respect to nationality, culture, religions, tribes, beliefs, gender, age, disability, and political ideals. These principles are core values of the SPLM and they are your vision as the new Governor of Jonglei State. They are also shared values amongst South Sudanese people. They fall within the boundary of the Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan. Based on these principles, we, the people of Twic East are and will always continue to support the SPLM vision under the leadership of His Excellency, the President of the Republic of South Sudan, Lt. Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit.

The rationale behind the establishment of 28 states as articulated in the Presidential Decree No. 36/ 2015 is clear. It is intended as the basis of taking the town closer to the people, jump start development and promote equal fair sharing amongst South Sudanese people. This includes balance of power, justice and equality in order to execute nation-building objectives.

Despite all these, Bor County Community or Greater Bor Community failed to understand and abide by the codes of good governance. They view the new Jonglei State as an opportunity to dominant majority Dinka Twic and Duk communities in all public sectors in the form of a fictionally disputed 2008 census that gave Bor County a population of 221,000. Out of Bor County’s population, 106, 000 was from Bor Town and the other estimated 30, 000 troops were from Pariak and Panpandiar. These areas were densely populated by Nuer, Murle, Twic, Duk, Pigi, Anyuak, Jie, and Kachipo communities. Bor, Twic and Duk are the only remaining communities in the new Jonglei State. In this scenario, the estimated population of 136,000 does not belong to Bor County. Therefore, it is unfair and unjustified for Bor County to claim the disputed 2008 census as the best model for allocation of the State seats.

The repercussion of failure to preserve the principles of good governance in the State of Jonglei enforced by Bor County Community has resulted in Twic East Community consensus to pull out from your administration. This letter is a response of the Twic East Community against this injustice and inequality. The letter is presented in four major categories. This includes topics related to unfair distribution of State MPs and Cabinet ministers, population, Greater Bor, and resolutions. These topics are analyzed in a case-by-case narrative explaining why Twic East Community is distancing itself from the crisis of Jonglei State.

The Unfair Distribution of State MPs and Cabinet Ministers: The unfair distribution of State MPs and Cabinet ministers was one of the first injustice and inequality that became instantly visible in the new Government of Jonglei State. When His Excellency, President Salva Kiir Mayardit dissolved the nation’s 10 regional states and created 28 new states in October of 2015, the egotistical self-appointed Greater Bor Community (GBC) leader and the South Sudan’s Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Hon. Michael Makuei Lueth wasted no time in calling all the GBC members to discuss the gubernatorial nomination process. The meeting took place in the country’s capital, Juba.

In that meeting, it was decided that the Governor of new Jonglei State will come from Twic East County as Duk and Bor counties have had their fair share of governing in the previous administration. Hon. Makuei, in an interview on state-owned SSTV, said “we have told the people of Twic East community to go and sit, discuss and come up with the list of nominees to be vetted by the community of the state.” As prescribed by Hon. Makuei, community leaders and members from Twic East County met and agreed that each Payam shall bring an electable candidate that will contest for the state highest chair. Four out of five Payams of Twic East County except Kongor expressed interest in the position.

The race for the governorship set off right away with Ajuong Payam primaries. The then SPLA Spokesman (you), won the hearts of Ajuong community members over Peter Dut Kezekiah, Machar Akech, and the Twic East MP, Hon. Deng Dau Deng. Your win in your own Payam was a feather in the hat that gave you the momentum to compete with other contenders. You went on to compete and also won over candidates from Nyuak Payam, Hon. Dut Achuek Lual, Pakeer Payam, Hon. Ateng Amos Agok and Lith Payam, Hon. Dr. Dau Aleer Abit. The Twic East Community leadership then presented their best three candidates, Col. Aguer, Mr. Ateng Amos and Mr. Dut Achuek Lual to the GBC leadership for scrutiny before their names could be forwarded to the President to appoint the best candidate. When the news broke confirming you as the new Governor of Jonglei State, the citizens were all walking on air. The celebration first started in the country’s capital, Juba and the phenomenon metastasized all over Jonglei State. The feeling was nothing short of God’s grace flowing through one’s veins. You received the red-carpet treatment from celebrants in Juba and in the state capital, Bor Town. It’s worth mentioning is that you had the blessing of having Hon. Gen. Kuol Manyang and Hon. Makuei Lueth danced for you during your inauguration celebration. Hon. Kuol and Makuei never dance for anybody, not even for their boss, his Excellency Lt. Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit when he was elected president of the Republic of South Sudan let alone during CPA and when South Sudan was recognized the world’s youngest nation.

Your nomination to governorship has resuscitated hope among Jonglei citizens. Many people were hoping that your prior store of lifetime experiences and your level of education would make you a good leader compare to your predecessors. Unfortunately, this hope was crushed by your formation of an imbalanced cabinet and unfair distribution of State MPs. Honorable Governor, without a reticent bone in your body, awarded seven (7) out of thirteen (13) cabinet seats to Bor County. These key positions include, Deputy Governor, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Minister for Physical Infrastructure, Minister for Education and Gender, Minister for Health, Political Affairs Advisor, and Revenue Authority Commission Chairperson. The remainders of the seats were divided in the ratio 4:2 between Twic East and Duk counties respectively. For Bor County to be the majority in the cabinet was not a surprise as they have been the majority in previous administration of Hon. Philip Thon Leek and Hon. Gen. Kuol Manyang.

While it is the Governor’s liberty to nominate any capable talent to his cabinet irrespective of their numbers and where they come from, it is also equally important that the cabinet reflects diversity and not a one-county cabinet as it has been the case with previous Governments and the current one. It is ironic for you as a Governor who is highly revered mostly for your fairness and whose campaign mantra has been about fair distribution of resources, peaceful co-existence, security and road building to form a cabinet that is in the likeness of your predecessors. It is also completely unfathomable how you, a Governor who promised change during his quest for governorship could re-appoint the same people who have been in the State Government since CPA implementation and yet hope to build roads, health clinics, schools, and generate revenues. What specific skills do these people have that make them indispensable that you cannot risk trying new blood, new faces or give the cabinet majority to another county besides Bor? The sad reality is that these people have no skills at all and nobody will ever know what cowed you, the highly respected leader to do this.

After the creation of 28 states, 7 additional MPs were added, making a total of 21 MPs in new Jonglei State. In the former Jonglei State, Bor County had eight (8) MPs, Twic East with four (4) MPs and Duk with 2 MPs. Using the inaccurate disputed 2008 census as a guide to distribute the additional State MPs, GBC leadership and you divided them in the ratio of 4:2:1 among Bor, Twic and Duk counties in that order. The total number of State MPs for Bor County has now become 12, Twic East with 6 MPs and Duk with 3 MPs. It is beyond imagination what made you, the knowledgeable Governor to fail simple arithmetic of dividing Parliamentary Seats in a fair manner.

Instead of striking a happy medium by dividing the additional MPs between Twic and Duk counties in the ratio of 3:4 respectively since they were under represented in the previous Parliament, you went on to give Bor County 4 more MPs that they do not need. Had you divided the additional MPs as suggested above, Bor County would have 8 MPs, Twic East with 7 MPs and Duk with 6 MPs, and nobody would have complained. Another solution to this issue would have been to give each county 7 MPs until a credible census is collected.

The number of Ministers and State MPs given to Bor County are out of all proportion to what can be justified as being fair and impartial. There has never been a time in the history of Sudan and South Sudan that the population of Bor (current Bor County) was more than the people of Twic (current Twic East County). There is no clear explanation as why Bor has been and currently is the majority in the State cabinet and the State Legislative Assembly other than greed and egocentricity. The way things stand with Bor County having 12 MPs in the State Parliament and in control of the cabinet, it is fair to say that Bor will be governing in all but name in Jonglei, which will likely put the already troubled relationship of the three counties more on the fritz.

Honorable Governor, you are not a new face to public service. You worked with displaced people mostly from Jonglei in the mid-late 1990s. People you worked for described you as a homely man of towering intellect and the integrity of a Christian saint, the unmistakable largeness in your character, your innocence of a dove, fair and open mindedness, and hardworking were amongst your other great qualities that caught your former boss, Dr. John Garang’s attention to appoint you to work with displaced civilians. You have also been described as dependable and straight in times of testing. You are credited for serving many lives in the 90’s through your fair food distribution.

Your humanitarian work experiences carried you to your current rank in the army and to being the SPLA spokesman. With all these experiences, why do you allow injustice and inequality in the State of Jonglei Government? In this token, people of Twic East would like to reiterate to you that we are extremely disappointed in your lack of diversity in distribution of State MPs and Cabinet ministers. We will not be part of the Jonglei State Government until justice and equality is served. We have counted the cost of the steps that we have taken as well as the fearsome price of those we are about to take and we are prepared to bear without hesitation. In dissolving the newly formed cabinet and State Parliament and form a Government that reflects fair distribution of power among the three counties of Jonglei State, the people of Twic East will accept this as a material representation of your apology and gesture of summoning back your wisdom and compassion to resolve this matter.

Population: The disputed 2008 population census of Bor County is also one of the many challenges facing the people of Jonglei State. It is constantly cited by Bor County Community as a model for the State Seats allocation. This population has become a source of problem in which the Bor County Community based their argument to secure more Seats in the Jonglei State Legislative Assembly to dominate state policy making in order to fulfill their community interest and intimidate other communities. Bor County is interested to take advantage of this population census that undermines the Twic and Duk communities. They claim that they are the majority in this fictionally disputed census that gave Bor County a population of 221,106, Twic East County with 85,349, and Duk County with 65,588. The fact is that the census being used by the new Government of Jonglei State in compliance with Bor County interest does not serve justice and equality. First, it has no legal base in the Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan as the President of the Republic and the South Sudan National Legislative Assembly nullified this census in its entirety (Fick, 2009).

Second, the population of Bor Town, Pariak, Panpandiar and other military bases were included in the Bor County population. In this population census, Bor Town was 106,000 and the other towns were approximately 30, 000 military personnel. If you add these two numbers and subtract them from 221,000, you will find that the estimated accurate population of Bor County is 85,000. These areas were largely occupied by Nuer, Anyuak, Murlei, Jie, Kachipo, Twic, Duk, and Pigi. All communities in this population census except Twic, Bor and Duk are no longer part of the new Jonglei. Therefore, the disputed 2008 population census must not be used by Bor County to dominate the State decision. This also explains that Bor County has fraudulent tactics to divert the State resources into their own pockets. As a victim of this fraudulence intention, it is our recommendation to investigate the ring leaders pushing this agenda of division and use the law to hold them accountable for their actions.

In another perspective, it is unfair and an insult to the entire residents of old Jonglei state to hear that Bor County brought down the new Jonglei State to its knees because of consistent use of relocated population to deceive the other two communities in the allocation of resources.

Twic East community strongly disagrees and condemns the use of the disputed 2008 census as a model for the State Seats allocation. It is totally unfair and unjustified to use the population of Bor Town, Pariak, Panpandiar and other military bases to inflate and elevate the total population of Bor County. This is like giving Bari the whole population of Juba just because it is their town. The 2008 census was rejected by the Government of South Sudan and it should not be used to allocate resources whatsoever in South Sudan. According to the takeaways from the 2008 census, there were general consensuses that the major urban centers (cities) that were hosting capital were more populated then the rest of the towns in the country. This was a fact documented and using shrew tactics to get the lion share of the state resources is totally unacceptable.

As the people of Jonglei, we believe that fairness can take us far and have the potential of unifying us to advance the work of developing our State in unison. However, if focus is solely on who needs to get the lion’s share as the basis of taking the town closer to the people, we might as well declare that Twic East is the majority in the disputed 2008 census and it should receive the lion’s share in this perspective. The Figure 1 below illustrates the disputed population census of 2008.

Population: 2008 Disputed Census: Bor County 18%, Twic East County 23%, Duk County 59%

Source: South Sudan National Bureau of Statistics [Bor County: 221,106; Twic East County: 85,349; Duk County: 65,588]

 In the above disputed population census of 2008, Bor County was 221,106 or 59% of the total population of the three counties. Twic East County was 85,349 or 23% and Duk County was 65,588 or 18%. The total population of these three counties was 372,043. Bor County was leading in population. However, in contrast, this does not mean Bor has reproduced more people and therefore, they are more in number than Twic or Twic and Duk combined. History can anchor this. It is Twic that is the largest Dinka community in Jonglei State. Based on our community database where Twic reside, the accurate estimated total population of Twic is 200,000. Over 58% of this population lives in Equatoria, East Africa, Bor Town, U.S.A, Canada, Australia and Europe. According to the Upper Nile Province Handbook (1931), the population of Twic Dinka (East) was 17,728, whereas the population of Bor was 16,846 and Duk was over 6000 in the 1930s. The disputed 2008 census is the only single census that Bor leads over the Twic population.

In a perspective view of accuracy, if the above population of three counties in 2008 is adjusted based on county, then the population of Bor County shrinks significantly and Twic East County slightly takes the lead. One must account for the military bases in and around Bor County which according to estimates stands at around 30,000 plus the census of Bor Town at 106,000 equating to 136,000. Let’s not forget that Bor Town is the capital city of Jonglei and hence other tribes within old Jonglei were living there and were counted during the census. The Figure 2 below illustrates how we come into this conclusion.

Population: 2008 Disputed Census Adjustment: Duk County 28%, Bor County 36%

Twic East County [PERCENTAG E]

Figure 2. Adjusted estimated population: [Bor County: 85,000; Twic East County: 85,349; Duk County: 65,588]

In this scenarios, accounting for the adjustment of Bor Town and the military bases population of 136000, the total percentage to the whole population of Bor County changed by 62%. The adjusted population of the 3 counties constitutes 85,106 or 36% for Bor County, Twic East County for 85,349 or 36.2%, and Duk County for 65,588 or 27.8%. Therefore, if the distribution of resources is based on the disputed 2008 census, then Bor County is not qualified to take more Seats than Twic East County in the Jonglei State Legislative Assembly. It should be the Twic East community that should be allocated more Seats in the Parliament of Jonglei in this perspective because of its population in the diagram. Bor Town must stand alone as its population census comprises of everyone from all the remaining three counties. In this case, Bor Town must have a lion’s share in the Jonglei State Legislative Assembly and all seats allocated to Bor Town should be shared equally among the residents in respect to these three counties.

In another view, if Bor County still insists on this adjusted population that their population is still bigger than the Twic East County population, then add the population of Twic East County of 85,349 and Duk population of 65,588, and you will find a sum of 150,937. In this sense, the population of Bor County is less than a sum of two counties of Twic East County and Duk County. Therefore, Twic East County and Duk County population should have the lion’s share in the Jonglei State Legislative Assembly. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Bor County included the population of Bor Town in its jurisdiction, took 12 MPs and 54% of ministerial positions, divided them by its five Payams, and gave Bor Town no seats. Logically, that is morally wrong. This proves that Bor County has an unpredictable intention against the State of Jonglei, and Twic East County must stay out of that mess by pulling out from Jonglei.

Government until justice and equality in distribution of resources is prevailed. The following formula was used to arrive at this conclusion.

Disputed Bor County Population = DP Adjusted Bor County Population = AP Bor Town Population plus other military bases = BT Bor County = Adjusted Bor County Population Bor County (AP) = DP – BT

• Bor County: [221,106 – (106,000 + 30,000)] adjust to 85,106 which translate to [85,106/236,043]*100% equal 36%
• Twic East County: [85,349/236,043]*100% equal 36.2%
• Duk County: [65,588/236,043]*100% equal 27.8%

In order to resolve the current impasse in the State of Jonglei, we believed that creating a fair formula to distribute power can solve this issue of population and disregard the mudslinging of any county. You, the Hon. Governor of Jonglei State and your new found elite that are not interested in developing the state could have thought about the distribution of MPs and cabinet better than what has been advanced so far. All this would do is introducing of mistrust and hatred among our people and we cannot afford to travel on this kind of road.

The summary of Twic East’s proposed equitable distribution is depicted in Table 1.

Table 1 Twic East’s Proposed Equitable Distribution

Current County Payam MP Cabinet Bor County 5 7 2 Twic East County 5 7 2 Duk County 6 7 2 Grand Total 16 21 6 Greater Bor

It becomes clear that Greater Bor has played a major drawback in the current crisis in Jonglei State. It has been proven to be a tool used by Bor community to confuse the entire population of Twic East and Duk Counties with the purpose to achieve their domination agenda. To make matters worse, the leader of this unrecognized organization of Greater Bor put himself in the decision making process between the Jonglei State Government and the Central Government in Juba. He and many other Bor community leaders confused you, the new Governor of Jonglei State who hailed from Twic East with the expression, “atom a wen Athouda”, meaning yes indeed, our daughter, Athou gave birth to him. Therefore, your ability to make your own decision on how to run the state affairs is constantly being overshadowed by leaders of Greater Bor or Bor County. This unknown organization has recently emerged from the middle of nowhere and hijacked the history of Jonglei Dinka and destroyed it in its entirety.

This organization that you associated yourself with and report to instead of reporting to the President of the Republic, has dramatically failed your Government. Greater Bor is a controversial name that does not unify the three counties of Jonglei State. It must not be used as a model to allocate political posts. Unfortunately, in this case, it was secretly used by the new Government of Jonglei State as one of the models to allocate State MP seats and Cabinet. Bor County and you, the Governor may deny the use of this model, but the application of it is seen in giving Twic an equal number of seats as Athoc or Gok. In fair distribution, Twic East County should have more or equal number of seats to Bor County; not just one section of Bor. Twic East Community in South Sudan and around the world is angered by these unethical behaviors and reject and denounce this unknown organization for the following reasons:

First, Greater Bor is not officially recognized by Twic East Community because nobody clearly understands how it comes to its existence and what its mission is. It is not a political party, state, constituency, tribe or region. It is also not a county as Jonglei State only has three counties, namely Twic East, Bor and Duk. There is no Greater Bor payam or boma either. It has no legal jurisdiction in the Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan to meddle in the affairs of Jonglei State.

According to the Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan, a Governor reports to the President. Unfortunately, we have learned that you first report to Greater Bor Chairman and then Greater Bor Chairman reports to the President of South Sudan. That structure undermines the power of the Governor vested in the Constitution. Like previous Governors such as Gov. Philip Thon Leek, Gov. Kuol Manyang and Gov. John Kong, it is our recommendation for you to consult all three county community leaders in decision making process and report directly to the President of the Republic of South Sudan, His Excellency Salva Kiir Mayardit; not the Chairman of Great Bor. Great Bor is just a very divisive entity that was introduced by interest groups in 2010 as an ad hoc strategy to marginalize and promote a domination agenda of Bor County against Twic and Duk.

Since the formation of this divisive organization, all three counties were left in a state of confusion. They were not involved to create a unify name for three counties. Many people from Twic East wonder what the Greater Bor is and who authorized them to represent Twic East in the Government of South Sudan. Precisely, the intention of Greater Bor is to change Twic East and Duk counties’ administrative names and replace them with unwanted names of Bor County such as Bor Central and Bor North. This is seen by Twic East as an absurd idea and an unacceptable. Twic East Community position is crystal clear. Any implementation of this idea has severe consequences.

Second, Greater Bor does not represent all three counties of Jonglei. It is the name of Bor community that is not accepted by Twic East Community. In other words, Twic East and Duk have nothing to do with this divisive name. We believe in co-existence as Jieng De Jonglei or Jonglei Dinka in three counties with their respective names in their geographical areas. In this sense, we are Dinka Twic; not Dinka Bor as miscommunicated by Bor County. Bor belongs to Athoc and Gok in Bor County, whereas Twic belongs to Lith, Ajuong and Pakeer in Twic East County. Duk County belongs to Nyarweng and Hol. The book of The Upper Nile Province HandBook: A report on peoples and Government in the Southern Sudan by Willis (1931) provedthis case. According to Willis (1931), the Dinka sections in current Jonglei State were: Bor, Twic, and Duk.

These sections were further divided into seven major sub-sections. Bor was divided into Athoc and Gok. Twic was divided into Pakeer, Ajuong and Lith, and Duk was comprised of Nyarweng and Hol (Willis, 1931). These seven major sub-sections of these three Dinka communities are still existed today in Jonglei State. These people are collectively called Dinka of Jonglei. However, Greater Bor has its own definition of these communities. Without the knowledge of Twic East Community, it included Twic in its campus and then it regrouped these seven sections into five sections of Athoc, Gok, Twic, Nyarweng, and Hol and named them the Greater Bor or Bor. In this grouping, Greater Bor has reduced the three sections of Twic East to only one section. In this scenario, Twic East is the minority in Greater Bor representation, whereas it is the majority in population and sections. If Greater Bor was the agreed representational institution, then it should have all seven sections of three counties presented and promote an equal share of public resources. This is not the case. We understand that this was intentionally done by Bor politicians to retain power of their county over the other counties, with the reason to remain as an overall dominant in decision making and intimidation. It is an insult to Twic East Community to remain under an organization that undermines its future.

Furthermore, the application of Greater Bor and its negative consequences were seen in the allocation of State MPs and Cabinet ministers. We have seen and learned greatly about the negative impact of Greater Bor or Bor County through the formation of this new Government of Jonglei State. As mentioned earlier, we discovered that Bor County and you, the Governor used this marginalization strategy by giving Athoc six MPs, Gok with six MPs, Twic with six MPs, and Duk with 3 MPs, whereas you and Bor are using population census as the means of convincing the general public that Bor people has a larger population than Twic and Duk combined. In fact, you and Bor brought Twic to the level of the Athoc or Gok mini-section.

This also explains why Bor County claims to have the lion’s share in the Jonglei State Legislative Assembly. It increases the number of Bor sections’ representatives to 12 MPs and makes them the majority in the Parliamentarian seats. Twic East Community was and is aware of Greater Bor’s direction. We were aware that there will be suppression of the relationship within these three communities because of the hidden agenda by Bor County that are now surfacing. Twic East Community denounced Greater Bor as one of the most divisive organizations that no one in Twic or Duk should associate him or herself with. As Dr. Martin Luther King stated, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” This intentional domination of Bor County is a threat to justice among the Twic and Duk people in Jonglei State.

With this mistrust in mind, if Bor law makers are the majority in the Parliament of Jonglei State, one can predict that they can introduce any controversial bill that can be against the other communities, but interested to them and passed into law without challenge. That serves no justice to Twic East and Duk and must be rejected at all cost. Without fair representation in the Government of Jonglei State, the union of Bor, Twic and Duk has no substance. It shall be dissolved once and for all and restructured. There is much at stake at this junction to bear with. Aggressive Bor County domination in the State Parliament and the looming lack of trust among the people of Jonglei State explained it all and we, the people of Twic East cannot afford to deal with these shameful behaviors. This is why Twic East is pulling out from your Government.

Twic East Community’s Final Resolutions: Unborn children will read our history in the State of Jonglei and will realize that too much had been at stake and that generations fought hard too long in order to breakdown imaginary walls, lay a strong foundation for a fair and just society and the stake could not be any higher than presently. Inscribed in the South Sudan coat of arms is Justice, Liberty and Prosperity in the presidential seal yet those words are being tamper with by the newly shaped State of Jonglei.

Few people around Juba and in Bor Town from Bor County Community are out to reintroduce marginalization in the form of the unfair distribution of state resources, unfair distribution of MPs in the Jonglei State Legislative Assembly and Cabinet ministers, and unapproved use of a disputed 2008 census and meddling of unrecognized organization of Greater Bor as a shrewd tactic to undermine and justified the unjustifiable. The writings on the wall are very clear to the counties of Twic East and Duk. Our very own son Dr. John Garang and the generation before him had to deal with this constantly and that is why Garang allowed the creation of Bor, Twic East and Duk counties respectively to put to rest the overreach and attempt to dismantle the very existence of Twic East. Even those of late Akuot Atem, late Elijah Malok Aleng, late Mading Garang and all other past politicians can attest to this if they were alive. The constant wrangling and now resorting to unhealthy tactics to use you, our son and the Governor of Jonglei State to execute the desires of belittling and marginalizing using false pretense to set a precedence is just illogical at its best and does nothing but elevate the longstanding political discontent among our people. All these does is uncover the disease of history and encourage division, undermining hope and the promises of tomorrow.

Across South Sudan and indeed in the state of Jonglei, future generations to come will not remember us for how we killed each other and not even by how we divided ourselves along tribal lines but they will remember us by the foundation we built together as people of one land guided by the principle theme of One People, One Nation. With that in mind, thoughtless actions take people back to the old instead of forward and at this juncture our people need hope and we can make choices and decisions to not sit idly by and do nothing as negative forces mindset inherit the promises. We, the people of Twic East County have reached a global consensus and resolutions on our ways forward to provide more feasible solutions in resolving this nightmare.

First Resolution: If there is no fair distribution of State MPs and cabinet ministers, Twic East County will not be part of the Government of Jonglei State. However, in dissolving the newly formed cabinet and State Parliament and form a Government that reflects fair distribution of power among the three counties of Jonglei State, the people of Twic East will accept this as a material representation of your apology and gesture of summoning back your wisdom and compassion to resolve this matter.

Second Resolution: Twic East County’s administration must not report to Jonglei’s Administration until this crisis is addressed. In the meantime, the Twic East Community will ask for a decision and direction from the President of the Republic of South Sudan, His Excellency, Lt. Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit to where Twic East County should be administered.

Third Resolution: We are calling all recent appointed State MPs to the Jonglei State Legislative Assembly, and Cabinet ministers and advisors, including civil servants from Twic East County to pull out and resign immediately.

Fourth Resolution: Instructing all Twic East Community leaders in Greater Bor to dissolve their structures.

Fifth Resolution: Recommending that you should ask for help from the Government of South Sudan to investigate the current crisis in Jonglei State.

Sixth Resolution: If your gut tells you that you are not capable to make your own decision on how to run the state affairs by promoting equal share distribution of State resources and your decision can be overshadowed by leaders of Bor or Greater Bor, it is worth meaning that you should resign.

In summary, the purpose of this letter is to bring equality and fairness in the State of Jonglei. People of Twic East proposed that each of the three counties should have 7 MPs and 2 Ministers regardless of their population size. Bor community and your actions are against this unity proposal. Bor County community leaders and you brought this State to its knees. The unfair distribution of State MPs and cabinet ministers, use of the disputed 2008 census as a model for allocation of political seats, and misclassification of Twic identity as Bor and misrepresentation of Twic in the egotistical self-appointed Greater Bor Community are great sources of why Twic East decided to pull out from your Government. In this event of no equality and many dysfunctional behaviors committed by Bor against Twic and Duk, the union of these three counties must be dissolved. The people of Twic East County have rejected and distanced themselves from the Government of Jonglei State and Bor’s intention to dominate Twic and Duk.

Sincerely,

Signed:

Twic East Community, South Sudan

Twic East Community, Kenya

Twic East Community, Uganda

Twic East Community, Ethiopia

Twic East Community, USA

Twic East Community, Canada

Twic East Community, Australia

Twic East Community Women Associations (South Sudan, East Africa, and Diaspora)

Twic East Community Coordination Committee

Contact: dinkatwi@yahoo.com

CC: Hon. Dau Koi Jurkuch, Commissioner of Twic East County

CC: Hon. Michael Malual Wuor, Commissioner of Duk County

CC: Hon. Isaac Mamer Ruk, Commissioner of Bor County

CC: Hon. Deng Aguer, Speaker of Jonglei Legislative Assembly

CC: Hon. Deng Dau Deng, Twic East National Member of Parliament

CC: Hon. Philip Thon Leek, Duk County National Member of Parliament

CC: Hon. Deng-Tiel Ayuen, Bor County National Member of Parliament

CC: Hon. Michael Makuei Lueth, Chairman of Greater Bor

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