For Immediate Release,
By Dak Buoth Riek-Gaak,
Sep 24, 2021 — Today, 24th September, 2021, we perused in Sudan tribune and other news outlets a statement authored by Dinka Council of Elders in which they aver that President Gen. Salva Kiir and First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar should step down from the top leadership echelon of our country without giving alternatives. They said they based their opinion on the report and the recommendation of the defunct National Dialogue. We carefully thought we should respond to such widely published utterances, because naturally, silence means acceptance.
We respect their opinion but disagree with it in totality, for we think they are misinformed and misguided Elders. They are ignorant of the efforts South Sudan has made as a result of President Kiir and First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar’s coming together after forming the Revitalized Transitional Government on National Unity (RTGoNU). If the Dinka Council of Elders have read, and are conversant with the provisions of the Agreement and the language of the drafters, they would have known that the positions of the President and the First Vice President had been personalized in the sense that it is only President Kiir who can occupy the seat of the President, and the First Vice President’s office can only be filled by Dr. Riek Machar. The Agreement is not crystal clear whether the first vice President can succeed the president in the event he is declared unfit to hold office for whatever reason. So, the premature call for stepping down of the former and the latter means the undesirable demise of the Agreement and the eventual return to war. The stay of President Kiir and Dr. Riek Machar in Power is the recipe for peace and stability in South Sudan, and if their long stay in power can bring peace well and good.
The Dinka council of Elders are better known as war mongers and war propagators, who often place their own interest before national interest. We believe the aim of their calling for an instance stepping down of President Salva Kiir and First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar is an attempt to pull and or push our country back to war for their selfish interest. Why didn’t they call for President Kiir to step down when Dr. Riek Machar was away in political detention in South Africa? In our view, they didn’t call for President Kiir to step down when Dr. Riek Machar was in detention because by then, the country was at war, and they were benefiting a lot. But now that the duo had reunited and peace had returned, they are unhappy because their means of survival has ceased to exist.
The Dinka council of Elders have no moral authority to speak about political power accorded to these leaders by the Agreement which they did not struggle for. We know from inception; the Dinka council of elders was established in 2014 to mobilize and incite the government to fight the Nuer people through misrepresentation and propaganda in the pretext that they are protecting Dinka’s interest. Dinka are our nomad cousins whose common interest is not war as propagated by these notorious folks. However, now that the government is not responsive to propaganda and incitements against its citizenry, they want its leaders removed prematurely contrary to the wishes of the drafters of the Agreement. Their call to have the two leaders step down is unpopular, uncouth and pure wishful thinking.
We know the Dinka council of Elders don’t speak for Dinka majority nor do they speak for other million South Sudanese citizenry, who had clamored for Peace that validated the current government which President Kiir and Dr. Riek Machar are serving in.
The Dinka council of elders called for both President Kiir and Dr. Riek Machar to step down from Power. But we believe real power is in the hand of President Kiir. Dr. Riek Machar is in government as a mere agent of peace without power. Hence, Dr. Riek Machar cannot step down from peace implementation or relinquish power which he does not have.
The report and the recommendation of the so-called national dialogue which they based their argument on is not binding to many South Sudanese simply because the timing and the manner in which the National dialogue was constituted by President Kiir was irregular and inconsistent with the Peace Agreement. This particular group of Dinka Council of Elders are short sighted unlike ordinary visionary Elders who see very far. They are out to divert the attention of the government from tackling the enormous challenges of flood and dire humanitarian situations in most parts of the country. In a nutshell, we can say they are only mocking the citizens who are yearning for the completion of security arrangements so as to redirect our country to the path of the rule of law and constitutionalism.
If at all the Dinka council of Elders want to earn our loyalty and respect for their views and opinions, they should rethink and advocate for the resolutions of the joint Nuer and Jieng council of Elders’ consultative meeting chaired by late Kenyan President, Daniel Arap Moi on 9th June 2015, under the auspice of Moi Africa Institute, in which the Elders agreed in resolution number seven that, one, ‘‘Compensation of victims who died during the crisis, and second, Address the presence of foreign forces in South Sudan and any other contentious issues that were agreed upon at IGAD peace talks.’’
In view of the foregoing, we hereby dismiss and denounce the statement of Dinka council of elders as divisive and antagonistic views of war mongers, who have no place in the current South Sudan that is in the path of regaining hope, recovery and reconciliation. Finally, President Gen Salva Kiir and First vice president Dr. Riek Machar should not step down from the leadership prior to the completion and Realization of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS). They will not be removed through political rhetoric peddled by an ungrateful clique that uses the good name of the Dinka community, but only through a civilian coup.
About the Liech Community Association in Kenya.
The Liech Community Association in Kenya was founded in 2010 to advance objectives that include but not limited to members’ welfare, Independence, Education, Peace and Unity of the Naath Nation, South Sudan and Africa as a whole. By law, it is a non-political and non-profit making organization that comprised the Nuer’s original clans namely Bul, Dok, Haak, Jagei, Jikany, Leek and Nyuong which inhabited seven constitutional counties of Unity State in Western Upper Nile region
Signed by;
Dak Buoth Riek-Gaak,
Chairman, Liech Community Association in Kenya, (LCAK)
Email: eligodakb@yahoo.com,
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