By Dr. Jok Madut Jok,
Oct 25, 2016(Nyamilepedia) —— When you’re the leader of a country and the citizens of your country in Leer, Yei, Wau, Bor, Gogrial or wherever within the borders of the state you purport to run, cannot benefit from the protection of the state you rule, what in the world do you think failure looks like? Surely you don’t think it has to be on four legs, with horns and speaking human language in order for you to be shocked into recognizing it.
It is failure if your people die like flies and no mention comes from your office. It is failure if they drop dead from hunger and no state welfare to rescue them. It is failure if it’s easier for your people to find a gun than they can find a hospital bed for a woman in labor. If all your senior officials prefer to travel to India for medical check ups at the expense of the people than seek local healthcare, that’s failure. If a million souls of your citizens run across the border to seek safety, including going to Darfur, you know that is failure.
Imagine how tough things must be for anybody to seek refuge in Darfur, where the government bombs people with chemical weapons! You and your supporters and close aides and all of us who fail to point that out are failing the country further more. There is no explaining your way out of this, dear head of state, until you perhaps actually accept to explain to us all, why the state of South Sudan has so miserably failed in its basic functions.
Perhaps it might help you to allow us to shout at you and have a chance to respond to our questions, and in doing so, build a culture of dialogue, that together, we might find our salvation. But to burry our heads in the sand, pretend that our corrupt generals can fight all the South Sudanese, in all corners of the country, fight East Africa and the whole world, is to be disingenuous and uncaring of the people you say you’re defending. Let people talk Mr President, keep a leach on the hauling dogs and let people talk, or this ship is destined to a grinding ground, deep under.
All you’ve to do is look at our own recent past, our struggles with Sudanese history. Remember why the urban youth, the high school kids flocked to the SPLA in the 1980s? I was one of them, though I got discouraged along the way and chose to return and got to university instead and my elder brother, who pressed me that he was the one going to biplan, went in. Like millions of his comrades he never returned from the war, and we don’t even know where he was burried, if at all he was. His blood watered the tree of freedom of the country we are now burying. Perhaps you can hold against me the fact that i did not go with him at that time.
My day to fight was to come later. But these youth joined the SPLA primarily because Khartoum authorities and their SAF were violent, raping women and failing to give an iota of service. Khartoum called our ambitions اØلام لليقظة day dreams. But look where those dreams have taken Sudan now. Why do you think, now, with the actions of our army in Leer, Yei or Wonduruba, that these communities should love you and your government? As for those lunatics who go out and target innocent people as their form of protest against your government, they got it all wrong, their best bet is in working together with these people they kill to push your government to make South Sudan a better place than it is today.
As a Dinka, I know you’ll not be offended by straight talk, for that’s a Dinka way, speaking truth to power, unless of course, you think presidency cannot be held to the same standards. And oh, I know many people will say that “President is such a nice man and all the bad that’s happening in the country is done by people around him.” You know what, I agree you are a wonderful person, and I know this personally, but I’m sick and tired of that too, are you not the president? Act like one. And as for all the other power thirsty loons in IO, FDs and what have you, don’t think I’m routing for you. The destruction of this country started with you. Take responsibility for you greedy actions, if you mean well for South Sudan. Peace
