Opinion,
By Kuong Ruach Jany,
May 7, 2020(Nyamilepedia) — The information I saw published by the Sixty 4 tribes press as a breaking news on May 4th 2020 that “the defence minister Angelina Teny Deploys Heavy Troops to Central Equatoria in Search of NAS Commander” that they said, according to the “eye witness” that Angelina ordered troops to capture General Kenyi Loburon dead or alive is a fake news.
Of course this is a mare propaganda campaign against IO movement by those Kokora movement propagandists. This was no “eyewitness” rather a propaganda against the minister of defence Angelina Teny. She just sit in the ministry of defence, Angelina, is yet to know and acquaint herself with the work of the ministry of defence. This is to say before she starts to execute the war by ordering troops to fight the rebel movement NAS. Another things is that Angelina as part and a prominent member of IO leadership who believe in peace-making as her appointment part of the peace cannot be easily be said to have interest fighting the war. After all there is a ceasefire between the government and IO. And IO had been on records calling for inclusion of NAS to be part of the ceasefire and peace negations, only NAS rejected for their own reasons.
Another issue is an uncategorised voice coming from Sister Dr Alma Etore of Manchester. I have known Manchester for one of the best football leagues in the world, The English Premier League(EPL) and hardly did I expect a fellow South Sudanese who lives in Manchester to be so outrage over a false news to an extend that she speaks very unintelligibly. Is it political or civic desire for Alma to address her superiors with no respect as such. It is a shame that a woman tries to drag down her fellow woman over nonsense, just because of jealousy, and tomorrow the same women will blame men if no woman is appointed into the higher office. Is that the culture Alma calls the culture of Equatorians?
I don’t know if a married woman should insult husbands of women she might be angry with but this is not African culture. Alma may have her own personal grievances with Anjelina Teny but she should never have insulted Dr Riek Machar just because she thinks she has a case against the Minister of Defence. This shows that Alma has no self respect and has lost touch with realities. Why couldn’t she verify the source of her fake news first and if she had any issue, she could have addressed it respectfully and to Angelina Teny without generalizing the whole family or tribe of Angelina Teny? This is a very strange culture from the Sudanese culture in general.
Secondly, Dr Riek taken out of Juba by brave South Sudanese nationals, not only Equatorians, but also other tribes of South Sudanese including Nuer. There are known generals she could not have missed to have heard. Dr Alma needs to be guided and advised by her husband. Anyway Dr Riek and Angelina are becoming political figures and should be addressed of their political program and Dr Alma Etore will have all rights to attack their policies but not their personalities, families or tribes. For her to question Dr. Riek’s education, shows that she is jealous of Dr Riek credentials, otherwise, Dr Riek is a well known professor who has taught in London and also at the University of Khartoum. Dr. Riek was always the first of the first of his class from primary school to his PhD in Bradford.
Dr Alma needs to be politically oriented and should know who to attack and when to attack her political antagonists. We must advice ourselves, Alma you should know what is going on in South Sudan but I will spare you because at the end you said you are a Dinka although that does not qualify you to insult Dr Riek Machar, The “PhD holder”, the former field commander of SPLM/A of the western Upper Nile front and the father of liberation of South Sudan. If you are proud to be a South Sudanese today, it must be because of this charismatic leader, Dr Riek Machar. If Dr. Riek did not campaign for the call for Self Determination, which he did single handedly from 1991 to 2002, you would not be making filthy videos today in the name of South Sudan. So shame on you!
What is NAS Fighting For?
Regarding your late comers, who are being misled by Thomas Cirillo, what are they [NAS] fighting for? Why is NAS fighting the SPLM/A-IO in Equatoria? The answer is simple, NAS is not a national movement. It is an Equatorian movement fighting for Equatorianism. Let me referred you to article written by Professor David de Chan dated Oct 8, 2017, p 12, Nyamilepedia,
“The defection of General Sawaka from Juba could have been pre-arranged by Phil Heilberg who has adorned himself as a counter-intelligence guru and expert by making General Sawaka appealing on 21 September 2017 to the people of Equatoria that “they must unite their ranks and files to push out the Dinka and the Nuer from Equatoria region in order to have an independent Federal Republic of Equatoria State or Emerge Equatoria region with Uganda as an alternative.” We are fighting in unionism to create a Federal Republic of South Sudan that its constitution would be the mirror of the US Constitution and Liberia Africa’s First Republic (1847) on the West Coast of Africa formed by the freed Slaves from the US and those captured in the High Seas from the Congo by the British Royal Navy and returned to be settled in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Port Harcourt, Nigeria, to admixed with the natives in such regions”.
There is no difference between NAS and the JCE tribal regime of Salva Kiir Mayardit. There is nothing wrong with movement that may work for Equatorian unity, serving Equatorian regional interest, but it should be within the national bond of South Sudan, calling for a separate region or a dominated tribal control in South Sudan will not be cheap because the South Sudan will not listen to that and will fight against it. The independence of South Sudan was not cheap, many heroes died. The JCE has failed because it killed people for their tribal interest. We must aspire for a national, free, just, equal and independence country with a clear federal policies where there are equal distributions of resources and political powers are shared by all South Sudanese.
Here is where things went wrong. When we heard Gen. Thomas Cirilo sneaked out of Juba and went to Addis Ababa and announced his resignation against the government at the time. The SPLM/A-IO was surprised because there was some work in progress and Gen. Thomas Cirillo was expected to declare himself to join the IO. His declaration disappointed the leadership of the IO because when he sneaked out of Juba with only 30 soldiers, if it was not because of the SPLM/A(IO), he would have been hunted down like a rat by the government. Luckily, SPLA-IO Gen. Mabieh Gar came to his rescue and gave him protection. Gen. Mabieh briefed his chairman on the situation of Gen. Cirillo and he was advised to acoomodate them. At first Thomas Cirilo agreed to join the people movement but later on he decided to announce something else.
The declaration by Gen. Cirilo was not independent. He was influenced by a few Equatorians whose political ambition was to resurrect the Kokora movement of 1980s, whose policies were to mobilized and divide the southern Sudan to three regions. It was also revealed that Gen. Thomas Cirilo did not want to defect to establish his own movement but he was instructed to create a proxy movement that would act an agent for the regime of Kiir and Jieng Council of Elders JCE. That make sense a lot because when the Nuer people were massacred by the regime, Gen. Cirilo was part of the government, to him there was nothing wrong, he remained in his office as a part and parcel of the regime. Not only that, he was holding a very sensitive position as in control of logistics of the army of the regime, guns and ammunitions. Thomas Cirillo is the one who signed and smuggled in heavy weapons for the regime thinking that they would be used to fight the SPLM/A(IO) but the weapons he signed are now being used on it..
Gen. Cirillo is repeating the same mistakes of those Equatorian who declared Kokora in early 1980s and held the Equatorians from joining the SPLM/A under Dr John Garang de Mabior until later when the government of Sudan massacred the Equatoriansin in huge numbers in Juba in 1992. I was told that Gen. Thomas Cirillo and Gen. Augustine Gadalla were junior officers inside Juba itself at that time. I was not surprised when the Nuer were massacred in Juba Dec. 15, 2013 because this place has become a killing zone for the Nuer by people like Cirillo. 2013 is not the first time the Nuer were killed in Juba they also got killed in 1991-1992.
Between 2013 and 2015 many Equatorians including Thomas Cirillo sat back and enjoyed watching the Nuer and Dinka fight themselves. They said those “the same people”, “let them kill and finished themselves and Equatorians will come after and take control of the situation”. This was the same reasoning that prevented them from joining the SPLM/A in 1980S.
There will always be a problem with thoughts of tribalists like the JCE and the Kokora groups or the regionalists that might appear in other regions of Bar El Gazel or Upper Nile. The Arabs of northern Sudan used to say the Junubien cannot govern themselves because they were more strongly affiliated to tribes than to a nation, the Islamic ideology Hassan Al Turabi used to say.
When I was in Juba, the South Sudanese Political Parties were strongly organising themselves to vote for the independence of South Sudan. I took interest and planned to meet Gen. Thomas Cirillo, I was told he was very close to equatorians Youth and I heard of many conspiracies against him by agencies of the government, that Thomas survived under a very strong protection of equatorians Youth. I took interest and had wanted to meet him but then the incident of Dec. 15th, 2013 broke the hell in Juba. I don’t know but if I insisted to meet him, maybe he would have killed me!
Another thing is that Equatorian regional and tribal petty politics will always take us backward and weaken us not to build our nation because Equatoria and Equatorian people are very important to South Sudan nation. But similar tribal and regional politics in South Sudan, equally the same way like the JCE tribal politics, will weaken us, because I had a chance to speak in one of the meetings organised by Equatorian around 2009 in Manchester. I assured the meeting that South Sudan will become independent, I told the meeting that we were working uniting the fronts where all south Sudanese will vote for the independent, I went on to tell them that the South Sudan we want is the South Sudan where there will be no dominant, tribes or groups, there will be no elephants and rats, no small or big, no marginalised nor dominant elites. At the same night, a conversation with one of my friends from Equatorian said to me that she was not happy with what I said. What did I say, I asked? I realised she is married to a Dinka, so she was not happy of what I was not aware of, but she was aware of JCE policy perhaps and knew better of the so-called Dinka domination of South Sudan.
I was surprised to hear this from her. Few days later she and her other friend who happened to be from Eqauatoria but married to another mini tribe as well organised a meeting in Birmingham and they made sure that I and others of like minded in the Hall should never have a word in that meeting. The main speaker happened to be her Dinka husband of course, a member of JCE. Her friend had a word for women representation. I was surprised to hear her husband talking in parable, he said that “we must not allow those animals to control us but we must control them”. I knew those he was talking about, he was talking about the Nuer people and referring to my speech at Manchester. I should have noticed that that was a prophecy which later became the 2013 Nuer massacre where Nuer were Killed in large numbers by the “Dot Ku Bany”, by that husband of my friend, the member of JCE. I believe she reported and interpreted my statements to her husband.
I wish you will agree with me that Hassan Al Turabi must be proven wrong, South Sudan is an independent country now that is recognised by the whole world. But is not difficult to see it running stateless if is not united because I have never seen this kind of politics where your enemy of your enemy is your enemy like what NAS is doing fighting the rebellion against the government. Cirillo is not supposed to fight against other rebells. To make the situation worse, Thomas Cirillo instead of creating alliances with the IO, he created alliance with another loser, Gen. Paul Malong who was part of the root causes of the December 2013 massacres and the subsequence killing of Equatorians later during the war when he was the chief of general staff. Such confusion and immature politics will cost us dearly. We have achieved the objective of our independence and we want to build one people, one country; however, how do we do it when some equatorians doing exactly the opposite? This is what our nationalism should promote. Let me refer you to another quotes by professor David de Chan…on the same article I quoted above…
” The Nuer led SSIM/A applied Positive discrimination or Affirmative Action in promoting Equatorians of junior ranks to higher ranks in the commands because we wanted to have equity in the SSIM/A because we fell that they were really done gross social injustice that must and ought to be corrected. SSIM/A also did that to the Shilluk (Chollo), Murle, Anuak, Mban cadres to achieve equity. Thirdly, the call for the Federal Republic of Equatoria would not be a problem because we are all fighting now for the establishment of a shared federal system of government similar to the United States of America, Canada, Australia, Belgium, and United Arab Emirates (UAE). In South Sudan, we would go through a federal system of government that creates three (3) regions, namely, Greater Equatoria, Greater Bahr-el-Ghazal and Greater Upper Nile regions. Every region would govern itself without any interference from the central government. In my capacity as a political scientist, I would not object the proposal by General Sawaka appealing on 21 September 2017 to the people of Equatoria that “they must unite their rank and files to push out the Nuer and the Dinka from Equatoria region in order to have an independent Federal Republic of Equatoria State or Emerge Equatoria region with Uganda as an alternative.”
My appeal to all the 64 tribes of South Sudan, including the Dinka nationalists, is that we must not allow our country to be run by few tribal, regional and sectarians. SOUTH SUDAN IS OUT AND INDEPENDENT AMONG THE WORLD NATIONS ANDSHE WILL NEVER GO BACK TO SUCH IMMATURE POLITICS OF THE OLD SUDAN:
STRUGGLE CONTINUES!
You can reach the author for more on this article through his email at penjoktong@hotmail.com
The statements, comments, or opinions published by Nyamilepedia are solely those of their respective authors, which do not necessarily represent the views held by the moderators of Nyamilepedia. The veracity of any claims made are the responsibility of the writer(s), and not the staff and the management of Nyamilepedia.
Nyamilepdeia reserves the right to moderate, publish or delete a post without warning or consultation with the author(s). To publish your article, contact our editorial team at info@nyamile.com or at nyamileeditors@gmail.com
