A reply to my suspension and subsequent appointment of others to replace me in the dockets I was holding.
By Dr. Sunday de John,
Sep 25, 2020(Nyamilepedia) — I am writing this piece as a response to what has transpired in the South Sudan United Front/Army in the recent weeks. The members of South Sudan United Front/Army including leaders within the National Executive Committee and all the Chapters should note that I am also going to address them in the media together with the public because there is no any other platform on which we can discuss this due to refusal by the Chairman and Commander-In-Chief to accept any discussion on the said matter.
At the outset, I would like to refer the readership of this piece to read a gospel according to Matthew 27:15-26, the said Chapter is telling about the story of Jesus and Barabbas. What I want you to take from the story is that, Pontius Pilate asked the crowd that was already persuaded by the Chief Priests and the Elders about what Jesus has done deserving of their shout for him to be crucified, but the crowd instead persisted and shouted louder; “crucify him, nail him on the cross, nail him on the cross” and without stating what Jesus did wrong. In actual sense, Jesus was innocent but had to be nailed on the cross anyway and the guilty barabbas released according to the customs. This expression doesn’t mean that I am Jesus of any sort but that the events that led to my expulsion were all made up by a small group that I will name when necessary and given to Gen. Paul Malong Awan to execute. He did it anyway.
I was suspended on September 21st, 2020 when one of the three people that are currently my replacements was appointed and later on September 22, the other two were appointed. This is telling of what has transpired and those who were in connivance celebrated a way back from the time I was struggling against their schemes. The schemers were many.
For your information, in the last three weeks, I was called by Gen. Paul Malong to discuss with him on why I withdrew from coming to his house, that is our working site. I told him in response that it was because they house was becoming a center for gossiping and that I didn’t want to be part of any small talks that are being hatched against each other given the fact that the magnitude of what we are doing is bigger than chinwags and thus, I had to concentrate on other important personal matters until when there is something of value to be discussed. I told him that I don’t know how to play cards and therefore the area is boring to me and I expressed health concerns with crowding having been too outlawed by the laws of Kenya as a measure against the COVID-19 Pandemic.
On hearing this, he grew furious and owned up the statements that I told him were made against me by a group headed by one Makuach Lual and that are being championed by the Bishop or Pastor in waiting, the Secretary General Stephen Jodich Malual. Gen. Paul then staged a long debate with me on the matter with a lot of utterances including his personal grievances that are not associated with the SSUF/A in anyway.
I outrightly told him that he shouldn’t own the matter by talking on behalf of the said group (big group in fact) and that instead he should call them so that I can defend myself from their false gossips against me but he persisted talking to me in their defense and that compelled me to tell him that he was being nepotistic in that he was making things up on behalf of a group that is made up by majority of elements from his clan and in fact close relatives and further made justifications with several other examples that I may narrate when necessary.
That silenced him and then asked me to bring witnesses if I had any for the talk on the the following day. I accepted that and the talk happened two days later. I disagreed with the idea of him chairing the meeting because I accused him factually that he was nepotistic in deeds and favors relatives inside SSUF/A at the expense of others.
This is true in that the South Sudan United Front/Army has had several Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with different parties including the one of General Philip Okuot from Pachalla, Col. Dickson Gatluak Jock, Brigadier Kawai Babuoth, Col. Nhial Tot from Upper Nile and Hon. Thomas Peter Obach from Chollo Community and several other individuals of upright morality who joined independently.
Most of the said MoU were arrived at through my negotiation and I had to shoulder the responsibility of the implementation of what we agreed with them. The said groups have never been repesented in any structures of SSUF/A as they were only left to speculate at the peripheries. Instead, they also got schemed and divided like what happened recently among the group of Col. Dickson where commanders are defecting with forces and Kawai is now stranded in a certain city having been accused falsely of going to Juba, equatorians were let go as Gen. Paul Malong scaled down his interest to fulfill the desires of people from his backyard and now the interest is diminished with desire to go to Juba at all costs.
Back to the details of the meeting; it actually proceeded as planned but now, Mualana Malek Mathiang Malek (a man with integrity) was the chair directing the meeting.
Malong was the appellant on behalf of the group, he narrated stories as narrated by the group to him, I responded adequately and the gossipers admitted to their fault as presence of witnesses was a threat enough that they cannot aggravate their faults by delving further into matter in avoidance of deeper narration and they ended up uttering insensible words.
The witnesses were four but only one (Emmanuel Majur) was enough to end their game. The talk was concluded with messages of forgiveness and brotherhood although after Gen. Paul Malong talked in length defending himself from accusations levied against him by me and he had to utter derogatory statements in the name of one elder from my Community that he worked with during the liberation days He pompously narrated that he gave the said person (name withhled) everything from cows, money, cars, wives, girlfriend and even sent his son to a piloting school. That hurted me too because my boss can’t just insult my relative that bad if he didn’t have ulterior motives against me.
That was demeaning enough to my elder that is himself an accomplished General with unmatched wisdom and military successes in the battlefield among many of his other great qualities. I swallowed that as a bitter pill although I didn’t like it and the boss was talking in a manner so much demeaning for me by declaring the same as one of his betrayers. While he talked, I wondered as to why I would be punished for crimes I have not committed and he eventually told me that he will accuse me one day and this wasn’t wispered but was spoken outloud.
From that meeting, I had to sleep in peace for few more days with hope that the nags and unnecessary fightings in my name would now be arrested by the talk. Travelling to Europe and particularly to Rome was one such big factor and the selection of those to be coopted to the CTSAMVM as per Rome Resolution on the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement was quite another reason for directing hatred at me because everybody want to go to Rome and I was considered as a blockade.
I however, narrated that I didn’t block anyobody from going there and I went on further to explain that SSUF/A is a partner to the rest of SSOMA parties and that we only have two slots as per our agreement in SSOMA and the decision of who should go is always by the Chairman and I have no influence. I was one time removed from the list and replaced with one Angelo Koon but I was later asked to go anyway because a leader cannot travel alone and I too have a role to play in the negotations as one of the members of brilliant SSOMA Secretariat. All these made the team to plot scheming of me and sold it to my boss who took it wholesomely without analysing it.
Few days later, I was pressurized to add to our database the newly commissioned officers and those that were promoted to new ranks and generate a list to be released together with the Chairman and Commander-In-Chief’s order. This I did decisively with other team members (Makuach, Malang and, Dickson and Akoon). The work was finished and Makuach told me to make adjustment including putting his name above everyone else as the most senior Major General. I made adjustments and then printed the list in batches and thereafter took the printed documents to the Chairman and Commander-In-Chief for his signature and he requested for presence of the team in the following morning.
When I returned to my residence I read the Order and I found that there was a spelling mistake which I had to correct and reprint and I did the same to the list of batch of Lietenant Colonels since six more names were added to it on recommendation of the Commanders and with acceptance from the Committee. I waked up early on the following day as per request of the Chairman and was on my way to his residence were we worked but he called me and told me that he was having other things to do and so I should not come. I had to return to my residence to do other things.
Two days later, he called me but didn’t talk to me about the said lists, despite that I had to hand over the corrected order and the adjusted list of lieutenant Colonels to him and that is after he called me through Makoi Majak’s phone and instructed me to come with my computer the following day. I came with my computer and he gave me USB memory Stick with instructions to transfer all SSUF/A documents to it. I told him that I will do that on the next day because I needed other documents from emails that I couldn’t access immediately except where there is good internet connectivity. I went back to my residence and did as instructed although I knew instinctively and from his actions that Gen. Paul had sinister motives against me because that is how he acts when he want to put people in troubles.
The following day he called others (Majur, Makoi, Malek Mathiang, Dickson and Deng Kwan) and we waited for him until after lunch hour as he was playing cards and chess. After that, we took the chairs and sat where we usually had meetings in his compound. He then went to his room and brought the envelope, the one I exactly gave him few days with the adjusted list of Lt. Colonels and other letters from SSOMA and Sant’Egidio.
He sat on his chair and then opened the meeting by saying that nobody was anybody’s property and then narrated few more stories and went on to say that the list that he eventually removed from the envelope (Lt. Colonels list) was sent to him from Juba and that I was the one who sent it and his informants sent it back. He asked me whether the list was shared with anybody else but I could not lie because by the time of adjusting the list per new instruction, nobody had that copy except him and I.
On hearing this, he became furious even before anybody talked and walked away eventually, I asked him to hear me but he refused and the rest tried but he as well rejected their pleas. He left us but I insisted that I should say something to the colleagues around, I knew the envelope was brought by me and there was no way those he assumed to have sent the list in Juba could put it in the same envelope I gave Gen. Paul Malong.
I told colleagues that Gen. Paul was only making stories up in my name. Those colleagues that know my character reacted outright that it wasn’t true that I sent the list and that investigation into the matter was necessary and so a committee was to be set up for that matter. We agreed that he should be called back to where we were meeting and this position be shared with him.
He however returned after we resolved that Mualana Malek was to go and call him and was furious this time than he was before with utterances so disdainful that he will not talk and if he were to talk then I shouldn’t be there. The group told me to leave as an act of obedience to the instructions of Gen. Paul Malong but I told them that I was the accused so I shouldn’t be discussed in my absence and I further uttered that Gen. Paul is only effecting his plan that he early stated that he will accuse me one day. I told the team that he actually took the list on his table and used it as a tool for harrassment but in essence nobody sent it to or fro Juba. I was then persuaded to leave and after that he came to discuss in my absence, HE REJECTED THE IDEA OF FORMATION OF COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE MATTER STATING THAT HE ENVOKED DICTATORSHIP AS A LEADER IN HIS OWN WORDS.
On the following afternoon, he again called me through Makoi but I declined to go because he was violent the other day and I didn’t want to go to his house when I was cognizant that his violent conduct wouldn’t have changed overnight. That was the evening of September 21st, 2020 and that is the day my suspension letter was released to the social media by brother Deng Chapath on behalf of the leadership and with subsequent appointments of the duo.
However, I can say without hesitation that Gen. Paul Malong acted injudiciously and dictatorially and anyway that is how he has been. He rejected that Constitution of SSUF/A shouldn’t be used as he operates as the law, leader and the Organs of SSUF/A.
My suspension was unilaterally made by the Chairman through influence of the cliques that hang around him in the interest of playing cards, advancing nepotism and gossiping and without consultation with any of the SSUF/A structures including the top Organs, the National Executive Committee and all the Chapters across the continent, Europe, Americas, Australia and the New Zealand.
This happened because Gen. Paul is afraid of the fact that he made up the story and would be found out and thus to his dismay like what happened in the meetings preceding the then new one. Suggestions that the number with which the Juba informant sent it should be taken to experts for further investigation were subjected to futility. The chairman had his mind locked and the whole thing was, I must not be part of SSUF/A.
Following my suspension, he called another meeting to discuss me and my dismissal again in my absentia, despite projecting me in bad light, I could only say that the pertinent point to take from that meeting was that the boss erred once again by rejecting the formation of the committee to investigate us (Paul and Sunday) on the matter in question and the rescue according to the attendees of the said meeting was that I shouldn’t be dismissed.
All processes that led to my suspension were illigal and unprocedural due to the fact that I was not given any fair hearing and everything including my replacement were done in a matter of two days as indicated by the letters, namely of suspension and appointments of the duo and those who tried to call him after having surprised them with social media communicate were not heard too and some were told stories irrelevant from the true story as a matter of INCRIMINATION.
HE REMOVED ME AS ALTERNATIVE LEADER OF THE SSOMA LEADERSHIP COUNCIL, SSOMA SECRETARIAT AND AS A DELEGATE TO THE ROME PEACE PROCESS EVEN WITHOUT CONSULTING THE LEADERSHIP COUNCIL OF SSOMA ON ASSUMPTION THAT HE WAS TOO A BOSS THERE.
Gen. Paul Malong was incriminating me as he was wrongly fed by his detractors that he called relatives. He succumbed to their negative pressures without giving himself time to analyse the consequences of the decision he was to make.
My take on this:
Gen. Paul knows that I did nothing wrong but to please his boys he has to humiliate me anyway, this same accusers of mine made him chase away his son because they advised him that his own son was going to kill him or was going to go to Juba. What is it that would make his son kill him when relatives are not doing it?
He assumed that he owns SSUF/A and thus had to treat people as he pleases. Appoinment of my colleagues into my former positions is not a problem, however, incriminating me on false allegations, refusal to effect investiagtion or give me fair hearing or even asking at least the members of the National Executive Committee and Chapters to deliberate on my case are the problem and will always be costly.
He has forgotten with ease that his survival was as a consquence of the good heart of my constituency and more so my immediate family members who are today in the cold for that reason despite their positive contribution to the liberation cause. Victims of his recue and that he is rewarding with insults among others.
He treated me as if I only came to SSUF/A yesterday when in essence, I have built SSUF/A with my energies in the expense of my Medical Career as I no longer go to any hospital for practice for now two and half years. He forgot that I had to be in the field with soldiers when his commanders of today were hidding in Nairobi and I made it to deploy a force in strategic location and has to look for arms that were hard to buy unless one had cows because the owners didn’t want cash, courtesy of my able officers (names withheld) and while on this duty I lost my beloved daughter subsequent to trauma that affected by beloved wife while preganant.
Gen. Paul Malong must know that the same lamentation he had on Kiir on claims of humiliation are too mine and that I was a partner in the party and not a servant and that my energies are not his so he can use them and discard me like a condom. I will be forced to act.
Despite your mentality of murdering those who raise their point as you and Makuach did to Brigadier Gen. Dut Yai Anyaar in Khartoum, attempting to take his life upon payment of cash to some goons and that he evaded through his good relationships, I cannot be deterred by that because living under oppression is to die daily and thus, I must make my point without fear!
All South Sudanese and the international Community Should watch this space. I am going to act now before the disrespect is enhanced.
Dr. Sunday de John (MBChB, MBA-University of Nairobi)
Founding Member and Member of the National Executive Committee (NEC)
Alternate Member, SSOMA-LC.
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