A REBUTTAL IN DEFENSE OF ALL THE JOURNALISTS IN THE WAR-RAVAGED SOUTH SUDAN

“When a government denies the right to freedom of expression, free speech, and denies journalists and the reporters to undertake the art of their profession, it is a pure dictatorship that must be removed from power by the governed any means necessary”. Professor D.de Chand

By Professor David de Chand,

Sept 10, 2014(Nyamilepedia) — I write this rebuttal in defense of the journalists based on the media statement warning uttered by the renegade, arrogant, infantile and stupid South Sudan Minister of Information Makuei Lueth on 8 September 2014 in Juba warning journalists and the media against what he termed as “pro-rebel reporting” on the more than nine months old civil war or as if a tribal warfare in a pre-born and a pre-failed state in South Sudan that is steadily moving from being chronically instable state to stateless and to statelessness like Somalia in the post-General Sayaid Bare regime downfalls in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1992.The self-proclaimed lawyer, who was a legal Office with no combat experience under the command of Dr. Lam Akol in the armed struggle, has no rights to band journalists from the right to interview anyone whether a pro-rebel or not reporting on this ongoing aggravating situation in South Sudan. There is nothing to hide because there is a war, genocide and the state could possibly disintegrate as that was the case in the Island nation of Cyrus that divided itself into the Greco-Cypriots on the Westside of the Island and the Turkish-Cypriots on the Eastside of the Island and recognized by the UN as sovereign de jure states. Secondly, another possible solution to the current aggravating situation in South Sudan would be like peaceful and political split of former Czechoslovakia into the Czech and Slovak Republics in Central Europe in the post-perestroika and glasnost era. Thirdly, the people of South Sudan could also envisage the case of former Yugoslavia split into seven new states in the Balkan (Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Serbia and Kosovo), Fourthly, feasible solutions to current crisis in South Sudan would be like in Somalia (Harragessa), Abkhazia and South Ostia and the small enclave of Nogornkharvak in Armenia.

As I see it, it would become imperatively impractical, if not impossible for South Sudan to be the same at the end of this civil war or as if a tribal warfare. The above-mentioned situations could occur in South Sudan and whether Southerners likes or not, the state disintegration is inevitable and greater than ever before. We cannot deny this political reality because long as we have genocide ourselves and with great emphasis on the Nuer Nationality or ethnicity or race targeted for extermination as a final solution in whole or in part by Salva Kiir’s has termed as his personal war to tame the Nuer nationality because of the past events retrospect to 1984 fighting between Anya-Anya II (A-2) and the 1991 Bor incident in the aftermath of the split of the once invincible Marxist-Leninist to Nasir faction and Torit faction and then followed by an inter-factional, inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic fighting that entrenched more hostilities.

Journalists from all school of thoughts and from all walks of life are freed to write, to interview, to talk to whom they wanted to interview and to show recorded videos on the war and should be freed to report as they wish without any hindrance or harassments from the weak, dying and the lame duck GOSS regime in Juba. Before I can proceed any further, I would be obliged to let the minister knows that GOSS is an illegitimate government because it has lost a great deal of territories to the rebel forces and would soon lose more to the rebels. So what on earth would prevent any journalists, reporters, television reporters not to become pro-rebels in their reporting?

Let’s assume that if the GOSS refuses or denies access to the journalists, reporters, television reporters into the territories that the GOSS controlled and administered for the time being, journalists could slip away from such not freed and inaccessible government control zones and would be granted greater freedom of movement and access to the rebels controlled and administered territories to move freely and to report freely as they wish to do so. This is what democracy is all about.

The statement uttered by the minister was not democratic and unfair because it’s absolutely denied freedom of information, it denies freedom of information gathering and reporting without anything to hide, freedom of speech, free speech without any hindrances or harassments and the true meaning of being journalists and reporters as the gatekeepers and to provide information to the masses of the world or on the planet-Earth to have the right to know what really goes on inside a pre-born and a pre-failed state in South Sudan. The South Sudan for minister of information does not have any rights to deny any journalists, reporters or for the sake of disseminating information whether they wish to become pro-rebels or pro-GOSS in the ongoing acutely and aggravating affair inside South Sudan.

I would like to let the journalists know that they would be granted freedom and the right to interview and to play videos of whom they have interviewed as freely as possible. The GOSS would not succeed in that stupid and undemocratic restriction and gag order at all. It would damage GOSS’ image around the world and in Africa and the GOSS by its very nature of construction has become a democratic legitimate government, but a pariah terrorist state. To proof or to authenticate this statement, the actions of the GOSS external Security Intelligence Chief Thomas Duoth Guet and his colleagues from Uganda and Rwanda strategic plans to cowardly assassinate Dr. Riek Machar, the leader of the SPLM-in-Opposition (SPLM/-in-OP) in Pretoria, South Africa, has been indicative that the entire GOSS system has been nothing, but a bunch of terrorists in Juba.

Presently, we know that they have been blood thirsty to assassinate Dr. Machar in the same pattern or fashion that they assassinated the late Lt.-General George Ator Deng of the SPLA in Kampala, Uganda, in May 2013. The people of South Sudan should unite their ranks and files in unionism to remove these bunch of terrorists and gangsters in their midst as the only way to end the ongoing critical and aggravating situation in South Sudan. Every South Sudanese should know that as long as Salva Kiir remains in power and does not want to step down for the cause of peace and the vital strategic national security interest, the immediate and the unconditional withdrawal of Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF), mercenaries and soldiers of Fortune affiliated to it, the JEM of Jibril Khalil, SRF of Abdul Aziz El-Hilo, and the SPLM/A-N of Malik Aggar, lack of adequate explanation on genocide against that targeted Nuer nationality or ethnicity or a race mostly women and children for extermination as a “final solution” in whole or in part on 16 & 17 December 2013 Juba Genocide, respectively, Peace and for peace sake, remains to a bridge too far to cross in South Sudan. Moreover, any eternal intervention would as that is now the case would escalate the war rather than de-escalating it. Furthermore, the proposed Transitional Government of National Unity (TGNU) could not take off as long as Salva Kiir wishes to remain as its head. These preceded conditions are red lines and non-negotiable positions unless these demands have been implemented by the IGAD mediators. We would not relent from continuing the war and there would be no cease fire with GOSS in Juba until all the aforesaid re-requites or preconditions have been successfully implemented by the GOSS.

Perhaps, this gag order refers to and restricts only the South Sudan journalists and their colleagues from the overseas. I say to the minister that let’s give all journalist the right to freedom of information because denying them such basic fundamental rights that they have studied and practiced in various Schools of Journalism and Mass Communications, reflected that any states like South Sudan that is anti-democratic, anti-liberal political system or democracy, anti-statist paradigm shifts to liberal political systems and non-benevolence dictatorship of the third kind on the planet.

The South Sudanese Journalists Union (SSJU) should not be played scared crow tactics by the dying or the limping or the lame duck dictatorship in Juba. They should be as Nelson Mandela said it that “Courageous people do not fear forgiving for the sake of peace”. The arrogant and infantile minister of information, Mr. Makuei Lueth, should know as Abraham Lincoln said that “No man is good enough to govern another without that other’s consent and as the Latin Proverbs, goes that “It is absurd that a man should rule others, who cannot rule himself”. The GOSS lacks extremely leadership; therefore, it must and ought to go one way or the other.

I write this rebuttal in defense of all journalists, reporters to interview, to talk to anyone that they would like to talk freely whether are pro-rebels or no pro-rebels freely and democratically as they wish to do so and not to listen to the bunch of crabs, empty nest warnings or big mouths warnings being uttered by the dumped, arrogant and semiliterate self-proclaimed lawyers that lack competent and respectable leadership quality and as John Maxwell puts it loud and clear that “leadership must be close enough to relate to other, but far enough ahead to motivate them”. I think that the GOSS cannot any longer motivate anyone at this state of affair.

It’s too late and too soon for the people in the GOSS from the President down to the man that cleans the streets to motivate anyone except to kill as many of them like Salva Kiir been the “minister of death” and the most recent Graduate with a PhD from the Graduate School of Killings of the innocent South Sudanese and the targeted Nuer nationality or ethnicity or a race for extermination as a “final solution” in whole or in part. The Nuer people as courageous people don’t fear forgiving for the sake of societal harmony and for the sake of peace, but there would be first a price tag to pay by those who perpetrated this genocidal and the intractable civil war or as if a tribal warfare in South Sudan. We shall not relent to induce the process of democratic change in South Sudan until Salva and his cronies, sycophants, security henchmen and his tribalist chauvinists’ pigs or machismos have been defeated and gone with the wind. South Sudanese shall and will overcome Killer Slava Kiir’s tyranny and social injustice in south Sudan. It is only a matter of time that Salva Kiir and his cronies would face the political reality and social justice in South Sudan. In conclusion, there could be neither a government without the Nuer nor a government without the Dinka in South Sudan. Therefore, the ongoing problem in South Sudan is not a problem between the Nuer and Dinka as if a tribal warfare, but it is a problem between Salva Kiir and the people of South Sudan. All south Sudanese should unite against Salva Kiir to step aside for peace and unity in South Sudan to return. I urge and appeal to all South Sudanese to unite their ranks and files against Salva and Yuri Museveni genocidal warfare and the division that they have created between and amongst South Sudanese.