Dr. MACHAR’S SYSTEMATIC GROSS DETENTIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN SPLA-I-O

By Professor David de Chand

“Nobody has been an Angel when it comes to human violations and so too Dr. Riek Machar.”  Professor David de Chand

Sept 30,2015(Nyamilepedia)—-Who says that Dr. Machar has been an Angel when it comes to human rights violations? For many people who do not know the guy called Dr. Riek Machar, he looks cool, straightforward, gentile, clean, charismatic and exhibits positive caricatured characterization of being a good leader and humble with good leadership. This is all wrong and presumptuous assumptions because he’s a real human rights violators, killer, murderer that has been no different from the late John Garang de Mabior and Salva Kiir Mayardit the child and woman killer, murderer or the “President of death” of hundreds of thousands targeted unarmed and helpless Nuer ethnicity or nationality for extermination as a “final solution” in whole or in part.

The SPLM internal split within the ruling party in mid-December 2013 produced the ongoing treacherous tribal warfare or as if a civil war has revealed many things that the outside world did not know about callousness and cruelty of South Sudanese leaders against their own people when it comes to the issue of human rights protection. Both Machar and Salva Kiir have killed so many South Sudanese within a so short period of time that even surpassed one-half of a century North-South war where civilians’ population did not die carelessly the way they did since the internal split within the ruling party in mid-December 2013 up to present.

The different between the North-South Sudan conflict was that civilians’ population and any unarmed and helpless persons were not shot left and right without any provocations against Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) compared to what the international community had witnessed in the ongoing South-South crisis or tribal warfare or as if a civil war. The Sudanese armed Forces (SAF) has been a Conventional Army that was always disciplined and mindful of the rules of war engagements, the military-civilian relations and the protection thereof of all unarmed and helpless folks or non-combatants subjects and respect of the Four (4) Geneva Conventions.

On the contrary, the SPLA of Juba and the rebel factions have been savages, inhumane, undisciplined, non-Conventional Armies, disrespected the rules of war engagements and the Four (4) Geneva Conventions and as a result, they shot civilians’ population left and right without regard to the inviolability of life. The Dinka killed the Nuer civilians’ population un-mercilessly and the Nuer did the same in the names of their leaders either both Dr. Riek Machar on the Nuer side or Salva Kiir on the Dinka side and vice versa. All these actions, the commanders who took orders from the above leaders would realize that they were wrong to have done what they have done, which they ought not to have done. Of course, it would become too late too soon to do anything at all. They could only ask God Almighty for forgiveness, but not to forget the past because if they do they would be bound to repeat it.

As far as we are concerned, the international community should thoroughly investigate human rights violations and human rights abuses in South Sudan and both either Dr. Machar and Salva Kiir should be held responsible and accountable for the death of many civilians’ population, rapping and burning of women after they have passed through such ordeals of rapes and sexual harassments and they burned them alive, the castration of young men, the kidnapping of young girls to be rapped and killed, the introduction of cannibalism-like acts by forcing people at gunpoint to eat a roasted human cadaver, sodomy, horrific, horrendous and other heinous crimes committed against humanity in South Sudan. Succinctly, all these crimes have been committed would make it imperatively impractical, if not impossible, for Africa’s youngest failed state in South Sudan to remain one country. How could its people co-habit remembering all of the above-mentioned atrocities have been committed against their own people? Could there be trust and confidence building measures to restore the old ways of living and doing things together as a people under one flag? Realistically, Sudanese Armed Forces were more civilized, disciplined as conventional forces and did not do bad things to the unarmed and helpless civilians’ population compared to what the SPLA forces and the rebel forces alike have done, which they ought to have done. Without the shadow of a doubt, SAF was well disciplined compared to both the undisciplined SPLA and the rebel forces alike in South Sudan during the ongoing despicable and treacherous tribal warfare or as if a civil war.

Whilst Dr. Riek Machar is really enjoying the political limelight at the United General Assembly (UNGA) in New York City (NYC), he should not less forget that he has left behind detained Officers, the NCOs and the Enlisted in prison in Pagak for no offenses that they have committed except that they have been mostly Officers in the Headquarters of General Peter Gatdet Yaka who narrowly escaped death from Dr. Machar, his closest henchmen and security forces in Gambela, Ethiopia. The above-mentioned have been arrested and detained because they have been falsely accused of being accomplices of the fallout or the raw or the rift that occurred between Dr. Riek Machar and the generals who are “leaders,” but not, per se “soldiers,” which led to their defection and the beginning of the crumbling down of Dr. Machar’s political empire that would not be the same again without any appropriate and meaningful Dialogue with the generals leading to complete and total reconciliation with them and other members of the Opposition. The peace agreement signed on 17 and 26 August 2015 could become imperatively impractical, if not impossible, to be implemented without the present of the generals and the other members of the non-SPLA-I-O Opposition that have already defected to join the generals in their classic action and the right thing to do against the first Nuer Dictator Dr. Rick Machar and his Machiavellian-Praetorian-Draconian-Napoleonic leadership style in the 21^st century. We would demand from the UNGA to impose individual sanctions on Dr. Machar and to unconditionally and without any quid-pro-quos to release all political detainees’ soldiers and civilians’ population alike before he leaves the podium at the UNGA Hall.

Most importantly, we would demand the UN organization to investigate Dr. Machar’s on human rights violations and individual sanctions should be superimposed on him and his brother-in-law Taban Deng Gai like the rest of their colleagues in the SPLA facing the same fate that China, Russia, Angola and Venezuela have been lobbied by the Government of South Sudan in the recent Moscow’s meeting between the two (2) Sudan states, namely, Sudan foreign minister Professor Dr. Ibrahim Ghandour and his counterpart Dr. Bernaba Marial Benjamin Biel, South Sudan foreign minister and international cooperation with their host the Russian Federation foreign minister, Sergei  Lavrov, to oppose the looming UN sanctions likely to be imposed on South Sudan by the United Nations Security Council to either utilize its veto power or to abstain on the vote of US sponsors sanctions resolution on top military commanders in South Sudan after the end of the UNGA scheduled for 29 September at the United Nation Security Council (UNSC). They further requested the roles of the Russian Federation “to oppose any other sanctions against the Republic of South Sudan and the Republic of Sudan, including sanctions targeting individuals.”

We, the citizens of South Sudan who have been caused pain, suffering and mental anguish by these selfish individuals in the Government of South Sudan (GOSS), we would urge and appeal to the international community, including the Sino-Russian powers not to block or to utilize veto or to abstain from voting on the US sponsors resolution to punish these human rights violators or abusers, killers or murders of unarmed and helpless innocent poor people in South Sudan. We would ask for a unanimous vote on sanctions amongst the 15 members states in the UNSC comprises of five (5) permanent members states (Britain, China, France, Russia, and the USA) and the ten (10) rotational member states in the UNSC.

The UN has drafted US-led sanctions to be imposed on party that will be seen to be against the implementation of the recent agreement signed on 17 and 26 August 2015 by the two warring parties. The meeting between Ghandour-Marial-Lavrov in Moscow would seem to be vying for what I may termed as the “state shifting paradigms and realignments” in the region. In other words, the Russian Federation is pretty much eager to spread its wings to have a sphere of influence, a foothold or a bridgehead in both Sudan and South Sudan like China has done so in the past decades of rift of fallout in the US-Sudanese relations or Washington-Khartoum soured foreign policy, scientific, educational, cultural and bilateral and multilateral economic relations due to sanctions superimposed against the African country and the outrageous charges of supporting international terrorism that permanently blacklisted it in the US State Department list of countries allegedly supporting international terrorism without any credible evidence to corroborate or to substantiate such allegations. We would also urge and appeal to the Obama Administration to revisit sanctions against the Republic of Sudan as the most vital bridge to Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. The sanctions did not work; therefore, they would become useless to maintain them in place for that.

Most importantly, in my capacity as a former diplomat in Sudan prior to the split of South Sudan from the Mother country-the Republic of Sudan-, given the current volatile Russian-US relations over Ukraine sanctions, Iraq and Syria the Russians are prepared to posing challenges against the US in Africa with emphasis in conflict areas to divert US attention and its focus on Ukraine sanctions against Russian Federation and to re-inject its sphere of influence in Sub-Saharan Africa like it had during the African nationalists armed struggle for the liberation of Sub-Saharan Africa from the Euro-imperial and colonial powers, the East-West ideological confrontation or the Cold War era prior to the emergence of perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness) as the legacy of the Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in Eastern Europe and the tumbling down of the Berlin Wall for the reunification of the two German states or the highly industrialized West Germany and the least industrialized East Germany in the late 1990s to early 2000s and beyond. Nevertheless, this could be the beginning of the rekindling of the neo-Cold War or the neo-East-West ideological confrontation Yellow Fever compared to the incurable Ebola-likes Virus Epidemic in West Africa and transporting or remitting it into the Horn of Africa, including Sudan, Egypt and the poor, the war-torn or the war-ravaged failed state in South Sudan into these new geo-political and geo-strategic arrangements that it lacks the capacity to handle or to coup with for that.

My hunch is that there’s beneath the ground an oozing probable emerging would-be new re-alignments in the region in question. So let us give it a wait-and-see situation. The Russians are doing whatsoever it takes to transfer Ukraine sanctions, Iraq and Syrian crises into the Horn of Africa, Sudan and South Sudan, including Uganda and Egypt as a new re-alignment with Russia and China as the big guys or the protectors or the guardians on the one hand and Ethiopia, Eritrea, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia would be under the wing of the US as their guardian or protector on the other and with Yemen remains hanging in the balance to be contested by Saudi Arabia, the USA and the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) to create a new military balance in the New Middle East and the New Horn of Africa(HOA) to become a new international hot spot. At the end of these new changes or geopolitical and geostrategic realignments, the real intention would be to create the New Middle East and the New Horn of Africa with Iran around the corner to chip in a new military and economic balance or equation, it would be about time for the tiny Jewish State to seek a new rapprochement and a new roadmap to the Arab-Israeli or the Palestinian-Israeli conflict resolution for permanent peace in the region.

Without the shadow of a doubt, there is growing newly emerging state shifting paradigms in the region that would be the reincarnation or the revival of the old East-West ideological confrontation or the Cold war in the Horn of Africa region, East Africa, including Sudan, South Sudan and Egypt. Both Egypt-Sudans vs. Ethiopia on the Renaissance Dam construction that the Arab Republic of Egypt (ARE) with the support from Russian Federation would like to destroy the Renaissance Dam in Ethiopia and could create pretty serious and dangerous consequences for the region and the geo-political and geo-strategic implications for the entire region as well. Furthermore, Egypt also has lured on carte balanche Salva Kiir’s illegitimate regime in Juba to complete the excavation of the unfinished Jonglei Canal that would be imperatively impractical, if not impossible, to attain at this point in time or in any foreseeable future. This could be the beginning of a war in South Sudan with any Egyptians or any other entities attempting to re-excavate the unfinished Jongeli Canal. We have no ways of disputing this theory as reducto ad absurdum.  

It would be one of the gravest and the greatest mistakes that China and Russia, including their African allies would have committed in Africa against the rag-tag dictators and human rights violators like Dr. Riek Machar and Salva Kiir and their top rank commanders in South Sudan. We urge and appeal for a unanimous vote to superimpose sanctions on top military brazes in South Sudan and individuals. Let us hypothetically assume that the Sino-Russian powers would utilize their veto power, we, the people of South Sudan through the people’s power, would not let them do it so. We could kick out China from the oilfields and gas fields in no time. In fact, they should be prepared to get the hell out of South Sudan ‘now’ before it’s too late for their assets to be nationalized or confiscated. The Chinese have no right to be in South Sudan because we do not like them because they have been only real treasure hunters to steal the African minerals and South Sudanese oil and gas and other critical strategic commodities for their own benefits rather than those of the African people and South Sudanese in particular.

We shall be moving westward people for the benefit of our local communities and socio-economic takeoff or development that we cannot attain from the Chinese. The Chinese neo-imperialism and neo-colonialism, racism and racialism and xenophobia are the worst of the third kind on the planet-Earth compared to the Western world that has been in Africa for generations. We would charge Dr. Riek Machar and Taban Deng Gai for having accepted a $100m bribes for favors from Beijing. This could become a “Grand Theft” or treason against the state and they could be subjected to prosecution and imprisonment, fines or both. It is interesting to know that the fallout or the raw that has occurred between Dr. Machar and the generals has been now being transformed to become Adok Nuer vs. Bull Nuer conflict or feud in Unity State. The man called Taban Deng Gai (alas Mohamed Hassan Al-Hajj) has been the focal point during his tenure as Salva Kiir’s appointed Governor of Unity State that fueled and ignited the confusion to occur in Western Nuer, rampant corruption, embezzlements and self-aggrandizement and all that jazz and so forth and so on.

When Dr. Riek Machar’s addresses the UNGA either in his capacity the VP of South Sudan or the rebel leader, I would be most delighted and grateful if at all, the US President Barack Obama, the UK PM David Cameroun, the UN Secretary-General Moon, the human rights watch groups and the UN High Commission on Human Rights (UNHCR), the journalists and other bodies empowered to deal with these matters by the UN Economic and Social Council (UN ECOSOC) to ask directly face-to-face Dr. Riek Machar’s about the conditions and the fate of the detainees and the fate of the twelve (12) Officers and a large numbers of civilians’ population that he arrested and detained in Pagak and many other places throughout the rebel controlled areas in South Sudan. He had already lied that the generals could not get the arms from anywhere because he as ‘closed’ all the doors off and had the keys in his pockets and that they have “no people.” These statements have been contradictory and have been the biggest lies ever told by a clean, straightforward and a cool leader. Well, the generals are humans with friends around the world and Africa and they would get the arms that they wanted and needed to continue the fight against Dr. Machar and Salva Kiir in Juba. The generals have only a little setback and they would soon have everything that they wanted to prove that Dr. Machar and his entourage have been liars of the third kind. Both Dr. Machar and Salva Kiir do not have the monopoly of the international arms marketplaces floating around the world. The generals could procure or buy anything that wanted in this open arena of international arms marketplaces.

According to reports and information given us by the individuals that came down from Pagak, the detainees have subjected to constant physical torture, beating and other abuses and denied adequate meals per orders by Dr. Machar and his-brother-in-law Taban Deng Gai. The detainees have been detained for so long without charges of any criminal offenses, but they have been made to suffer for the unjust. The only offense that they have committed has been that they belonged to the defected General Peter Gatdet Yaka from Dr. Machar’s outfit. We would like the international community to hold Dr. Machar truly responsible and accountable on human rights abuses and human violations in the SPLA-I-O that he has controlled like a personal plantation and like his personal financial empire.

To the Nuer folks in the United States of America who have travelled and rode long cross-country distances ridings to welcome a killer, a murder and a human rights violator of the man called Dr. Riek Machar and his entourage to New York City (NYC), I hope you would realize when you rewind back the clock, you would wish and realize that you have been wasting your precious time, energy and money to welcome a killer, a failure, and a man that would not lead the Nuer nation and its resilient people not to victory, but to defeat. Dr. Machar has got a hidden secret agenda that is specifically to weaken, to destroy the Nuer nationality and to make them become slaves (kuany) of the Dinka for his own personal benefit. We, the people who have known the politics, the sociological, the philosophical thinking and the neo-thinking of Dr. Machar, we shall not ever to become slaves of the Dinka in South Sudan. We shall and will defeat them. We urge and appeal to the Nuer folks in the liberal and democratic America to utilize the ways and means of thinking and of doing things in the USA that’s to say, they should vigorously pose challenges or to bombard their guest Dr. Machar’s and his entourage to tell them the truth, the whole truth, nothing, but the truth and so help us God as to where they are leading the Nuer nation and its people.

The legacy of Dr. Machar’s leadership has been doomed and gloomed. Nobody is with him in the motherland except the security men that Taban Deng bribed on the other side of the aisle (kuiec kekah) to murder anyone that writes against Dr. Machar that he wanted to superimposed on the Nuer people. In addition, Taban also has an agenda to destroy Dr. Machar’s political career.  We urge and appeal to you people to also ask Talban Deng Gai many questions because he has been the epicenter of the problems within SPLA-I-O should also be questioning Taban Deng Gai’s ambition to become the next leader after he has destroyed Dr. Machar political leadership. We should all be aware of the things that Taban Deng Gai has done when he was Salva Kiir’s appointed Governor of Unity State up to the internal split within the SPLM as the ruling political party. It would also be recalled that the same Taban Deng Gai had threatened the then VP Dr. Riek Machar during his visit to Bentiu in 2008 and had asked him to leave  Unity State within 24-48 hours because his physical security was not in his hands. Where on the planet-Earth could a governor give such a dangerous warning to the VP of the Republic of Sudan? Succinctly, although Taban Deng Gai walks and dines with Dr. Machar’s he’s a prima facie enemy from within and the would-be killer or murderer or betrayer like Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus Christ, the King of the Jews, with only 30 pieces of silver.

We should not brag about peace because there is no peace, but there is more bloody war, dying, genocide and more extermination like what happened in mid-December 2013 Juba Genocide because of the man called Dr. Riek Machar. Having worked with Dr. Machar for so many years in the Movement retrospect to 28 August 1991, I have studied, psychoanalyzed and scrutinized him thoroughly and I have come to know, to understand and to conclude firsthand as a political scientist or a social scientist the character of the man called Dr. Riek Machar in my capacity as one of the Nuer intellectuals, political scientist, political historian and expert in international relations/law, international negotiations, human rights experts, international crisis management, human resources management and conflict resolution.

Conclusively, the arbitrary arrests, detention, torture and beating of these Officers listed below have been based on the fact that they have been the Special Body Guards of General Peter Gatdet’s Headquarters. They have been treated as suspects and culprits without any offenses having been committed. It has been alleged that they have been caught with huge sum of money, but there is no credible evidence to substantiate or to corroborate such an allegation. Dr. Riek Machar and Taban Deng Gai have been envious and have conspired to kill General Peter Gatdet for so long and they have failed and they finally got his son 2Lt. Gatdet Yaka and murdered him on 11July 2015 four days before Dr. Machar had announced the relief of General Peter Gatdet Yaka who saved his life, Taban Deng Gai and Madam Angelina Machar when they were kicked out of Juba. Last, but not least, General Peter Gatdet would be alive and well, but Dr. Machar has been already a dead man walking that Yuri Museveni and Salva Kiir would cut off his throat and neck without the generals around him for protection and peace would be difficult and hard to implement in South Sudan.

The arrested Officers are as follows:-

1. Lt. Colonel Stephen Guet Thak
2. Major William Nyuon Ruzal
3. 3.1Lt. Peter Thai Kim
4. 4.2Lt. Kuot Wang Gai

5. 2Lt. Peter Yang Jock
6. 2Lt. Peter Tot Wieh
7. Sgt, Major Gordon Kaway Jiek
8. Sgt. Major Peter Nhial Chan
9. Sgt. Major Mai Jok Kuol
10. Sgt. Major Wich Gok Jal
11. Sgt. Peter Pur Rop2Lt.John Puok Jally

These men have been subjected to torture for no any offenses committed except that they are in the Headquarters of General Peter Gatdet that narrowly escaped death by firing squad conspired by Dr. Riek Machar and his brother-in-law Taban Deng Gai and the General Chief of Staff Command Major-General Daniel Gatwiec Dwal with a long history of having killed so many people, including eight (8) Senior Officers from the Lou Nuer in the 1990s in the then Southern Sudan Independence Movement/Army(SSIM/A) recently revived or resuscitated since it was unilaterally dissolved by Dr. Riek Machar after he unilaterally decided to re-defect to the SPLM/A Torit faction in which he declared that “Garang must go” under the terms of the so-called Nairobi Declaration on 7 January 2002. Without the shadow of a doubt, the re-defection of Dr. Machar had stunned, shocked, disappointed and disenchanted everyone and left the institution he created and its people “headless” for the sake of a position.

We urge and appeal to all Nuer nation and its resilient people inside South Sudan, in the warfronts, the IDPs Camps in the neighboring African countries of Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda and Sudan, the UNMISS Compounds and in the Diaspora, we must not allow the fallout or the administrative raw or rift between the generals who are “leaders” and not per se, “soldiers” to be transformed to become Adok Nuer of Dr. Machar section and the Bull Nuer of General Peter Gatdet section. We are all Nuer folks and let there be no Adok, Bull, Laak, Gawaar, Lou, Jikany, Gajak and Nuer-Ethiopia, including Naadth or Nath Sudanese in the Republic of Sudan. We must and ought to be United like a bundle of sticks, determined and motivated to discourage and to suppress such a would-be transformation of the fallout into Adok and the Bull Nuer feud and this is a negative caricatured characterization of the fallout or raw or rift because of interference into the domain of other people’s powers, duties and responsibilities thereunto. Last, but not least, we are all Nuer nation, homogeneous of one soul, blood and DNA, religion, language and culture, we could not afford to divide ourselves at this critical and crucial time or at any time in the future. We should remain a United front and undivided to face the onslaught against us by our archenemy and its foreign powers. We shall all remember that “United We stand, but Divided we fall.” Forward backward never!

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