Nobody Liberates Anybody Else, and Nobody Liberates Themselves All Alone

“Nobody liberates anybody else, and nobody liberates themselves all alone. People liberate themselves in fellowship with each other”. Paulo Freire

Dhurjiok Nyang,

Feb 6, 2015(Nyamilepedia) — It will not take long for those who have been following events in South Sudan to guess where political events were heading to. After the death of Dr. Garang President Kiir embarked on a policy of revenge against those he perceived as “awlad Garang” and whom he accused of being responsible for his bad relations with his boss Dr. Garang.  President Kiir was determined to teach these “Garang’s orphans” a lesson they would never forget. The members of this group were not simple either. They knew that it was only a matter of time before President Kiir would oust them. In the event they gathered around them some American friends some of who had strong links with the White House. President Kiir felt insecure but wittingly established what can be considered as “good” working relationship with some of the prominent Garang’s group such as Pagan Amum, Deng Alor, Kuol Manyang, Kosti Manibe and others.  President Kiir’s intimate friends, ALew Ayieny and Telar Deng were not happy with this intimate relationship with their arch-enemies.  They felt out disastrously with President Kiir and both men lost their ministerial positions and their membership in the SPLM.

What Garang group did not know was that President Kiir was pulling them nearer to him where he can give a decisive blow. For some time President Kiir retained Garang group members in their political portfolios but gradually weeded them out one by one, some with scandalous and humiliating send-offs. He made this move after making sure that Garang’s group had no “teeth” left to resist his actions by first purging senior officers from the organized forces that hail from greater Bor. While President Kiir was waging this undeclared war on the great Bor, he was also tactfully and deceptively wooing the support of senior Nuer politicians and army officers by exploiting the differences between the two prominent communities of Jonglei state. President Kiir made use of the famous policy of “divide and rule” employed by the British during colonial rule over Sudan. In this current conflict Kiir has an insignificant number of Nuer politicians and army officers siding with him.

These are nicknamed in Juba as “Nuer Wew”, meaning Nuer blacklegs who refused to rebel with their brothers because President Kiir bought them with money.  But despite these few blacklegs infected by the pedagogy of the oppress syndrome, this conflict has attracted a lot of volunteers and it is important and necessary. It is legitimate because it mainly concerns with the struggle for the liberation against an oppressive and exploitative regime of Salva Kiir. The main objective is to liberate the whole South Sudanese society from domination, oppression and exploitation. We are forced to take this option because President Kiir was arrogant and intransigent when we wanted constructive reforms to his corrupt and murderous system. A violent struggle against his regime therefore became inevitable particularly when he went out of his mind and began to murder over ten thousand members of the Nuer people because Dr. Riek comes from them. This struggle is legitimate and even Kiir’s friend in crime, Museveni, confessed in 1997 that he had to accept the necessity for an armed struggle against what he considered as oppressive regime of Milton Obote by establishing the NRA.

Since 2005 after the CPA and establishment of the Government of South Sudan, Kiir has been using force to suppress the people and particularly certain ethnic groups in order to perpetuate his position of power for the advancement of his personal interest and that of his cohorts. As such he was adamant about establishing a robust politico-administrative system in the South informed by the principles of the rule of law. Neither did he care to initiate any development projects. Instead he squandered funds meant for development through awarding of contracts to bogus companies that he owned.. President Kiir current war propaganda against the SPLM/A IO is characterized by ethnic, tribal and regional antagonism. Alarmed by the speedy pace in which the struggle against his regime is spreading in Equatoria, President and his clown Vice President James Wani Igga are making desperate moves to contain the revolt by promising the position of VP to Wani and the Speaker of the National Assembly to an Equatorian. But Kiir’s desperate move has no support among the people of Equatoria except those who have eaten “Ogali” with him in Juba One, the official residence of the President.

For a long time President has taken the people of Equatoria for granted and on many occasions has abused and despised them as cowards who will never “go the forest” to join Dr. Riek. But these insults have proofs neither in past or recent history. Equatorians were the first to shoot the bullet that signaled the ANYA-NYA one Movement in Torit in 1955. During the SPLM/A Equatoria participated effectively and many of their sons and daughters are among our fallen heroes today. President Kiir might reached of “bany aci yuit” when he said all these nonsense. Had it not been for this situation of the “demagogy of the oppressed” among Equatorian leaders they would have been the first to rebel against President Kiir. Who in the South would deny the grabbing of Equatorian lands, the rape of Equatorian girls by senior government operatives including the president himself. The question is then; can the position of the Vice president and the Speaker of the National Assembly be a price to compensate for all the dirty things done to Equatorians?

We must remove Kiir and install a democratic, just government informed by the equitable distribution of the national cake, rule of law and where leaders are made accountable for their actions. Kiir’s divisive politics will not work.  His strattegy of trying to kill two birds with one stone by dealing with Greater Upper Nile while Equatoria waits on the guillotine line is exposed and will not succeed.

You can reach the author at dhur.jnyang@gmail.com