By Wesley Kosa,
March 4, 2021(Nyamilepedia) — The Anya-Nya Movement began in the Equatoria Region, and later on people from the other two regions of Southern Sudan joined. People from every tribe and all walks of life in Southern Sudan contributed during the Anya-Nya Movement. Though it was founded in Equatoria, the people of Equatoria never claimed the sole ownership of the movement or ownership of the Southern Region after the Addis-Ababa Agreement. This was purely displaying the spirit of unity among the people of Southern Sudan and this spirit was witnessed during the time of the Southern Region which triggered the Khartoum government to divide Southern Sudan into three regions subsequently into ten States. After the Khartoum government dishonored the Addis-Ababa Agreement, the people of southern Sudan launched the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army/Movement under the leadership of Dr. John Garang De Mabior. The SPLM initially fought for a democratic secular Sudan. The core founders of SPLA/M were Dinkas and non-Dinkas as well namely: William Nyuan Bany, Salva Kiir, Arok Thon Arok, Dr. John Garang, John Kulang Puot, Daniel Awet Akot, Kerubino Kuanyin and earlier in the beginning of the movement they were joined by Dr. Lam Akol, James Wani Igga, Dr. Riek Machar,Yousif Kuwa, Kuol Manyang Juuk and Gordon Kong. These became the first Political Military high command of the movement. Each of the three Regions in southern Sudan was represented to reflect national unity.
As Khartoum government continued to press on with its divisive policies of Arab-Islamic Sudan, it forced many southern political figures to join the movement, that included Eliaba Sururu, Joseph Oduho, Alfred Lado Gore, Samuel Abu John, Dr. Richard K. Mulla to mention but a few. In 1992 Thomas Cirillo Swaka and Augustino Jadala mutinied in Juba military headquarters, which resulted in the Juba massacre. This atrocity forced many youths from Equatoria to join SPLA. Both the divisive policies of the Khartoum government and the national platform of the SPLM/A encouraged many Southern Sudanese from all walks of life to join the struggle to fight for freedom. The SPLM/A national agenda also attracted people mostly from marginalized areas in northern Sudan; this made the movement to become one of the most powerful Revolutionary movements that the World has ever witnessed. It was one of the brutal and the longest conflicts of this Century. As a result, not a single person will claim he/she has not lost a dear one during this struggle and it’s unfortunate to dishonor those who paid the ultimate price with their own blood by promoting the misinformation that Dinkas liberated South Sudan. Such a divisive and derogatory statement not only dishonors our martyrs but undermines our unity and endangers the very existence of South Sudan.
Dr. John Garang witnessed the brutality and destruction caused by the division amongst Southern Sudanese during the re-division of Southern Sudan and he clearly understood that for Southern Sudan to attain freedom and move forward the unity of Southern Sudanese people is paramount and must remain central in achieving the vision of the people of Southern Sudan which is the independence of South Sudan. Therefore, he made sure that at every level of the organizational structure of the Movement, there was national representation such as in the SPLM Liberation Council, SPLM Political Bureau even his inner circle came all from different ethnic backgrounds who were later labeled by JCE as Awoladi Garang. Garang also came with a brilliant structure for the SPLA forces. He divided them according to Zones and Areas to encourage the participation of every Southern Sudanese in particular and Sudanese in general. These policies made the SPLA/M to be a vibrant Revolutionary force which caused very huge disturbance amongst Khartoum elites. They perceived Dr.Garang and SPLA/M as detrimental to their socio-economic and political grip on Sudan and believed that this might lead to the separation of Southern Sudan. However, during those years of struggle, Dr. Garang kept a certain distance with some of those who later on formed the JCE. Perhaps he knew how dangerous they were for the unity of the Southern Sudanese people. Unfortunately the untimely death of Dr. Garang presented a new opportunity to the Khartoum regime, and those whom he kept out from participating in his system and a new challenge to both SPLA/M and the people of Southern Sudan.
Right after Dr. Garang’s death, the members of JCE with coordination of the elites in Khartoum managed to dishonor the CPA during the allocation of the national portfolios, which according to the Agreement if the Ministry of Petroleum is taken by the Northerners, the Ministry of finance must be taken by the Southern Sudanese (SPLM) vice-versa. Khartoum decided to allocate these Ministries to Northern Sudanese. When this was brought to the attention of the SPLM Political Bureau, they stood up with one voice to reject the Khartoum’s intention. Unfortunately to their surprise, President Kiir after consultations with the detrimental, self-glorifying members of JCE decided to endorse the Khartoum motion as a result the Northerners occupied these Ministries. When the members of the SPLM Political Bureau requested an explanation from President Kiir, he told them that he is a peace lover and wanted to save the Country from sliding back to war.
This brought a huge rift amongst the SPLA/M, and it was a clear indication and manifestation of the infiltration of Khartoum deep in SPLA/M and it resulted in a major fracture within the Movement. This was the beginning of the down-fall of South Sudan to this day.
The fracture within the SPLA/M were celebrated by the political forces in Khartoum and they were awaiting to hear the total collapse of the National Liberation Council meeting which was intended to select and determine the SPLM candidate for the Presidential election. This coincided with the new political development of which some prominent SPLM members had openly declared their intentions of challenging President Kiir’s Leadership in both SPLM and Southern Sudan. This development was worrying to the majority of Southern Political parties believing that if SPLM is allowed to disintegrate totally then it will serve the purpose of the political elites in Khartoum of keeping the unity of the Sudan and this will be a huge disgrace for the blood of millions. Before the commencement of the National Liberation Council Meeting, Hon. (Elder) Joseph Lagu with some few Southern Sudanese elders consulted amongst themselves and decided to pursue a quick fix before the National Liberation Council Meeting. This approach materialized and surprisingly to the Khartoum regime, the National Liberation Council meeting went successful without the complete breakdown of the SPLM thus the SPLM emerged from the meeting with one candidate that is President Kiir. This National intervention from Elder Joseph Lagu served Southern Sudan from the brutal hands of the Northerners and it resulted into the Independence of South Sudan.
This unexpected development and turn of events have prompted JCE to rethink their evil calculations which resulted in staging attempted coup d’état to generate a Countrywide conflict and promote a state of lawlessness. As a result, a 2013 conflict was staged which made South Sudan to slide to lawlessness and chaos to this day. JCE has gained significantly in creating the state of lawlessness by mal-practices in every level of government and by unleashing the brutal killing machinery to intimidate and silence every voice of reasoning.
President Kiir could have learned a great lesson from this development and established a united national elder team of South Sudan, with representation of diversity. Unfortunately, he continued to entertain the JCE because of the influence of the infiltrators and his superficial belief that his sole interest lies with the JCE. President Kiir knew his natural weaknesses and allowed the JCE to run the affairs of the country’s affairs. The fracture within the SPLM and its ability to challenge President Kiir was not taken lightly by the JCE members. They knew for them to have total control over South Sudan is to dismantle every single institutional structure by suppressing their development and rendering them useless so that JCE will be the only voice that President Kiir will listen to. This includes the total destruction of SPLM, replacing SPLA with Mathiang Anyor militiamen who are ethnically oriented to perceive any other political voices as dangerous to Dinka prosperity and detrimental to their very survival. To silence any other voices of reasoning, they unleashed the brutal killing machinery under the theme of unknown gunmen to intimidate and silence the voices of reasoning.JCE security apparatus were given total freedom to carry on unwarranted arrests, detention, forced disappearance, torture and eliminate those who might possibly challenge their ill-motives.
The JCE quickly took control of the finance of the country by encouraging corruption and suppressed the restructuring of the financial system to enable them have unchecked access to the national revenue in order to accumulate wealth for themselves and sponsor their ethnic agenda of destroying the nationhood of South Sudan by promoting and encouraging tribalism and state of lawlessness.
In this process, the ordinary Dinkas are made to believe that they were the only single ethnic group that liberated South Sudan and they have all the rights to claim South Sudan to be a Dinka nation. Because of this, the JCE established the invading strategy of land grabbing by allowing the heavily armed Dinka pastoralists to forcefully occupy other communities’ ancestry land backed by government machinery. Today, the Dinka pastoralists are everywhere in South Sudan invading and grabbing the lands of other communities and abandoning their own land. JCE’s greediness coupled with lack of nationhood spirit and shallow ethnic oriented vision have led to the destruction of South Sudan because the JCE is born to ruin.
For more information, you can reached the author, Wesley Kosa, through his email at wbkosa@hotmail.com,
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