Opinion: Cattle Keepers Committing Ethnic Cleansing in Magwi County

By David Aju Kanyara,

May 29, 2022 — The Dinka Bor cattle keepers since their invasion have been living in Mugali, Magwi County Eastern Equatoria State, causing low-grade abuses of forceful marriages, unlawful killings, land grabbing, and destruction of farms and the land in general.

Of late, the county has, in Abara and Agoro to a large scale witnessed the influx of cattle herders and cattle arriving in trucks. This has brought about a higher level of atrocities in the land in the form of burning down houses and burning innocent women inside those houses, shooting and killing the Indigenous people of the land to scare them to leave the land for occupation by the new arrivals.

All these in the name of a natural disaster – flooding and insecurity in Jonglei State. The Dinka Bor went further to twist and interpret the constitution of the nation, claiming any South Sudanese can live anywhere they choose – a piece of the constitution that only suits the Dinka people! Why, because they seem to be the only ones who have that fallacy, to live all over South Sudan. Yet they don’t allow others mere work in their parts of the country! The misinterpretation of the part of the 2011 interim constitution which says the land belongs to the community but should be regulated by the government and also part of the wordings within the constitution which stated South Sudanese can stay anywhere they hose doesn’t mean the entire village must migrant from their village of origin to other people’s village to occupy their land by force. 

The clear interpretation of that constitutional part is to allow civil servants and businesspersons to station themselves anywhere in the country to do business but not to move as colonies.

There is no doubt that the motive of the Dinka is to settle in Equatoria by force if peaceful means cannot get them there. They have a planned agenda to grab and occupy the land of others, especially Nimule and other border towns where they can control the revenue at the border and have access to the neighboring nations for both economic and political sanctuary. 

Having divided among themselves which Dinka section should take which part of Equatoria, the Dinka Bor, seeing themselves as the chosen ones of Garang, is braced to take the lead in championing this occupation project.

The Ma’di’s calling for the repatriation of herders and their cattle has fallen on the deaf ears of both the Bor community and the government. These herders in Magwi have become the law and placed themselves above the law of the land. The presidential decree asking the cattle to be removed from the land was never carried because these people are the executive, legislative, and judiciary. 

On the 12/05/22 host community and the ‘imposing settlers’ both woke up to (according to media outlets) the loss of about 10,000 cows driven out of the county, a few dead cows, and the unfortunate loss of 20 human lives including women and children.

This escalated the killing of innocent people in Ma’di by the cattle herders in addition to the ongoing killings that have been happening on the land since the invasion of the herders. 

Now, the hard reality is that cattle rustling is not new to these Dinka Bor, why have they not done what is expected of them by following the event?

Rather than look for their lost cattle in the places they are likely to find them, the Dinka have decided to soft target:

1. Eastern Equatoria Governor Louis Lojore Lobong who they falsely accused of having colluded with the raiders. Lobong has only rightly sent law enforcement officers to keep peace in the land. Two officers ended up losing their lives in the hands of these herders, murdered in cold blood.
2. The National Salvation Army. If logic were to be employed here, what is the NAS going to do with 10,000 liberated heads of cows?
3. The implication of the NAS is a propaganda of the highest level to solicit involvement of the government to fight unarmed people to achieve their objective – suppression, and oppression of the indigenous people to occupy their land. In a broader term a call for genocide against the Ma’di people.
4. The Ma’di people – are they targeted for having hosted cows (first on the claims of humanitarian bases and later forceful occupation strategy implementation) for all these years or is it because they are a soft spot?
5. Blaming the entire Eastern Equatoria – yet the authority to kill is in the hands of the herders and they are killing unarmed persons in Magwi county without discrimination or caution in the watchful eyes of the government! Cattle herders parading about armed to teeth and calling the government at will to use the army resources to back them in cattle raids!

Cattle rustling is not a cultural norm of the Ma’di. I urge the Dinka Bor to have balls enough to face whoever took their cows and recover them and after doing so, take them to JONGLEI since the safe haven they have run from has been discovered, rustlers. The real men are waiting to receive you.

In a separate event in Torit, another cattle rustling activity was combated by a senior SSPDF officer who in the transaction lost his life. The question the public needs to ask is, why was an army officer, with absolutely no knowledge of the cattle rustling culture sent after some cattle rustling transaction? This kind of activity only draws the conclusion of the following:

1. That the cattle that are loitering in EES belong to the big sharks in the persons of 
2. a) Kuol Manyang Juuk Minister for Defense
3. b) Rebecca Nyandeng Vice President
4. c) Michael Makuei Minister of Information 
5. D) The chairman of the Bor Community, Dr. Angok Gordon Kuol. He must be investigated and tried in a competent court for instigating Dinka to commit crimes against the Madi people.

Just to mention a few of the highly-placed government elite fueling the ongoing unlawful killing, human rights abuse, land grabbing, and all the associated atrocities.

2. The fact that military hardware is being used to combat is evident of who is behind the cattle in EES, especially those in Magwi county.
3. The command of military equipment to be used to rustle cattle goes to show that law is in the hands of the Dinka Bor who do as they wish, even to a legitimate government of the people which is supposed to be a government for all.
4. The threat posed to the governor of EES, and the silence of the Government goes to say it all! That the Dinka Bor has not only waged war against the people of EES of Magwi county but the whole of Equatoria and has reduced the government to become onlookers.

The Dinka Bor are not fooling any of us. They have a hidden agenda to establish their existence in Magwi and several other parts of Equatoria in large numbers. This plot has been their promised reward, aiming to live in the promised land of Equatoria once the war of liberation has been won. These Dinka Bor (DB) thought they could use the rest of the Southerners to win the war for them to establish a kingdom of DB supremacy. If Dinka Bor or any Dinka sector for that matter think they can win wars without the rest of the Southerners, why did they not liberate themselves from Khartoum, their original God-given land? Why did they run away leaving the land for Arabs to occupy the land? To the extent to date, the name of that city is in their language, Khartoum! And now in a foreign land, they want to claim they are men, what hypocrisy!

Let the entire world know that cows have priorities over humans and the welfare of the rest of the South Sudanese in this country.

Because these cows are owned by high-ranking officials, government resources are used to protect and recover stolen cows as witnessed in Torit.

When the live burning of the Abara and Agoro people in Magwi happened, and all the previous atrocities in Ma’di land took place, no government official was sent to rescue the situation. As recently as 2 days ago an elderly woman and her daughter were murdered in Luri, Central Equatoria State, and a boy was abducted by the same ‘cowboys’ and no one dared say anything for fear of direct consequences.

Year in, year out, crops and farmland were destroyed on large scales in Magwi county, yet blind eyes and deaf ears were turned to the cries of the people. It took the disappearance of 10,000 cattle and 20 humans for the special government delegate to respond, and direct command of the president.

For those that lost their lives in the cattle rustling, rest in peace knowing that your value is second to the cows because had it not been the great loss of the cows of the big bosses you are protecting, your deaths would not have been brought to light!

The Dinka Bor have always thought they will live in Ma’di land, a land promised to them by John Garang for liberating the country. What liberation if I may ask?

When the Dinka ran out of cowardice from their land during the SPLA/SPLM movement, the Ma’di welcomed them in their land, which was a haven on earth. This was possible simply because the Ma’di had a militia, a force the Sudan army had to reckon with and so they managed to safeguard their land.

For the second time from 2016 onwards when the Dinka were running like women firstly from the Nuer after the 2013 atrocities they carried out on the Nuer and secondly from the fear of their Murle neighbors, they were welcomed temporarily on humanitarian grounds; and more so to avoid more blood shade since peace agreement by the warring parties were signed. Unfortunately, the motive of these people running with their tails between their legs from fellow men was different and deeply rooted to the extinction of the Ma’di in the long run.

My fellow Dinka Bor, the floods that chased you have subsided, take your belongings and go back to your state. If you think the cows you lost were yours and not that which you stole to hide in Equatoria, go, follow your cattle, and take back what belongs to you. You have the means.

To the rest of the Dinka, let us not condone the wrongs of the Dinka Bor and show good examples and if by any chance, you too have been practicing what the Bor have been doing in Eastern Equatoria, please it is a high time that you go back to the drawing tables and redefine how best each one of us can live happily in their own region.

Take the cities and the cows to the village. In the meantime, claim your royalties from Sudan for the use of Khartoum, that is more dollars than the petrodollar!

David Aju Kanyara is a concerned Madi Citizen. For more information, he can be reached at davidkaju@gmail.com