We have not sold any teak in Yei River State

By Matata Frank

Opinion

October 16th 2018 (Nyamilepedia) – It has come to my notice that, one John Alan Namu who identified himself to me as John Kiarie a business man from Kenya has eventually turned out to be an investigation journalist working for a Kenyan based media outlet Africa uncensored.

John contacted me in July asking to come and buy teaks from Yei River State. I told him that what we have there are ordinary tree logs not teak because teak is in a government control areas. The teak that are in our control areas at that time were in a place called Kejiko but there is no road to the place. He would only get the ordinary logs which were donated to us by the community.

I finally meet Mr John in Kampala in August because he wanted guarantee that if he goes to our territories he may not get killed or fall in to problems. In our meeting in Kampala, I told John not to worry because we don’t have the culture of killing people.

In that same meeting, he asked me about how safe he will get those logs through Uganda to Kenya to which, I told him that there will be some Clarence that he will have to make and that includes costs. Mr. John then told me that he has a budget of $ 60,000. I told him that, that money is too much maybe let him put something like half to be spent gradually as he shifts his goods.

Mr. John then asked me of how he can send that money to me or who ever I may trust or if he can send it to my bank account. I told him categorically clear that I don’t have a bank account to which I keep money because I don’t even have the money to be kept. He was surprised. He then asked me of how much he should give me if he is now going to spent like half of what he had budgeted for to take his goods to Kenya.

I told him clearly that first of all I don’t handle those logs directly myself coz they are of the community. because of that I don’t have to tell him to give me anything for myself to which he insisted. Finally because of his insistence to give me something to appreciate me I told him that what he will give me should come from the bottom of his heart to which I can’t decide for him. I also told him that, in our culture you don’t condition appreciation it must be the will of the person because its not a must that I must get something for myself from somebody like him coming to buy something of my community.

1- I was surprised to see in the documentary that the ordinary logs we talked about, he has turned them into teaks.

2) I was also surprised to see that, the money he told me that was his budget for all the Clarence of the logs he was to buy from the community has turned out to be bribes for myself.

3-  it is an open knowledge in Yei River that Teak is in Lainya, Kergulu and Kejiko. The teak in Lainya and Kergulu are being exploited by the government except for the ones in Kergulu which we had to stop their exploitation by the government using the power of the Gun. Up to now, even the ones that they had cut down there were still there coz of no road to take them to the market.

I should therefore clarify to the public the following.

A) we have not sold any teak in Yei River State. What the boys on the ground sold for them to survive are ordinary logs donated to them by the community elders especially in Kajokeji, Lainya and Morobo. Any talk of teak should be directed to the government and this is open knowledge that any interested party can confirm either by coming directly on the ground or by using any means suitable to you.

B) that Mr. John twisted my discussion with him to suggests that we were dwelling on teak which is not correct.

C) the logs he John recorded on his documentary are from the logs depot in Kampala in bweyogerere handling logs from allover Uganda not only Yei River State.

D) the sale of logs to fight a liberation war in the case of South Sudan is not a new thing. John Garang did it with the teaks of Yei and Lainya. I wish we get a good investor that can get for us good deal from the resources of South Sudan to liberate the country.

E) most of the documentary is aimed at equating us to those who we are actually fighting or were fighting like Malek Ruben and Malong Awan to which we are by far different in both ambition and objectives in life.

However, we are aware that there are those who believed that, in Equatoria if they have not yet done with some of us, their work is not yet done. That’s why there is all these huge propaganda on some of us.

This is just a simple wave that does not impact negatively on some of us. We will continue the struggle until genuine liberation is achieved by our people. This documentary of Mr John is therefore just a piece of an I’ll intended propaganda that does not need to be given any credibility as the facts on the ground speaks for itself.

 

The author is the SPLM-IO governor of Yei River state