Wednesday, December 15, 2010

He who lost in the storm of lies, never see the shores of truths

By Atok Dan Baguoot 

Not really
Memories of war rekindle sad experiences 
Bored and past which lacked a piece of peace  

Not really
Bang of sky terrifies chicken and children 
Worried about what future is pregnancy with 

Nightmares with remorse of sad past
with death and suffering 
Tremble glimpse of hope 

Bangs and dime light
In the bunkers that remind me of war
Remind me of near death 
Born to carry AK47 but born in the 70s 
47 and 70s are sad moments never reversible 

 Is it where we rightfully are judged 
When skies begin to panic the earth 
Even tiny worms invisible in naked eyes panic 
When skies heat up and blow hot air with death particles 

We begin to hole down into the soil 
In a military drills-like comaflauge
Drill down like a driller drilling water on rocky grounds
Where do you think it comes from 

In a country robbed by love 
In one of the four cardinal points of Earth 
It is first initial begins with “No” 
But not 

It is a plane that goes in plain space 
Children are fond of funny airplane 
Cry when the sky stomach begins to regurgitate
Of death but not life 

It is life because God resides in the sky
You feel like taking a voluntary death of rope 
Hang yourself like a piece of abandoned cloth 
A quick visa that boycotts smelly faeces of airplane 

Men fight for God in Sudan
Soldiers of God 
Immortal God capable to manufacture its own soldiers
Compelled by the love of God 
A fallacy of pretense 

Of ungodly people in the name of God
I hate Jesus and Mohammed
Men kill for them 
Bad cousins whose innocent perish for them 
If bullets are toys
Kids would go for X-Mas without them 
If children of AK47 are beads

Children would never wear them 
He who lost in the storm of lies
Never see the shores of truths 
He is a man in the middle of a fallacy

Instructing his army to fight for God 
Fighting to conceal his mediocrity 
I love my father 
For he had never stepped at the church door 
For he had never touched down his forehead in Mosque 

 

Serfdom and slavery are dwarf of freedom and independence

By Atok Dan Baguoot 

The prey of a predator is out of its den 
The prey resists its predator 
In the long cold,
A human prey resists a human predator 

Out of the den of predators is out of the den of servitude 
Out of the den of predators is out of the den of slavery 
The sweet perfume of serfdom is the skunk of mastery 
Mastery in falsehood is a tentative to self-deceit
 
Deceit to a wise is a morning loud bell of a distant fool 
Bell them out 
They bell off to ill submissiveness 
Our naked weakness, 
Glowing light the naked fire for freedom 
Serfdom and slavery dwarf freedom and independence 
Cursing your birthday is a celebration of my birthday 
Curse, not your wrong limbo, rejoice forth of oppressed Raw hatred took thy forth pride, fresh hatred brings thee forth pride Coil up against flattery, coil up against thy weapons Sharp tip thy tongue in lies, blunt tip thy tongue in truths Friends of God are foes who meet at heavenly gate Heavenly gate is an avenue of disarming earthly foes off thy weapons If the heavens of two gods give freedom Heavens of two gods can give love for earthly foes As heaven is known for love and forgiveness Earth is known for hatred and jealousy Love not he who killed your ancestors Hate him who tortures you Part him he who mock you Flog them with your card, flog them with your ceramic ink thumb Vote off slavery, vote for your earthly rest before heavenly rest People called it freedom, I called it shed off dress of slavery It is also known as building monument of martyrs It is about building mountains one own burden 

 

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Let message go to them that is it made achievable

By Atok Dan Baguoot 

Let the message go to them that is it made achievable 
Let it go to them they who doubt 
Let it go to them that it is possible 
Let them know that it is no longer foreign but theirs 

Tell it to them over the mountains and hills for fear 
To them residing in the valleys and swamps known for deaths 
To them residing in the wheat fields and rice schemes but hungry 
To them residing along the dense forest and tall savannah grass in a hideout 
To them residing in the cattle camps and desert but starving 

To them residing in tattered towns and villages of despair and humiliation 
That it is no longer foreign but made yours on that day 
That your efforts had ransomed the prisoners 
That your long-suffering had pardoned their despair 

That the bereaved widows, orphans, and widowers shall rejoice 
To them who still yell desperately in Yei 
To them who still rumor negatively in Rumbek 
To them who are still in awesome wailing in Aweil
 
To man and woman who still rank low in Renk 
To them who still panic in perennial raids in Parieng 
Peace is to them in perennial abysmal in Abyei 
Rest is to those raged by border wars in Raja 
A fantastic future is too unfortunate for children in Fashoda 

In the human poaching zone of Pochalla is prosperity 
Economic boom to them who tolerated sky bombs in Buma 
Jubilation to the old man and woman living in boredom in Bor 
Justice to them last them they who were unjustly treated in Juba 

Merriness to them they who marched strongly in Maridi 
To the youth who tolerated terroristic acts in Torit is tour free 
To women who were robbed and raped in Warrap is restored glory 
The best is to those who were battered in Bentiu 

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Youth organizations advocating for separation are using wrong map

By Atok Dan 

 “Whatever spoken within a reach of a child tend to the formation of a character of that child” Juba 29th September: 

Pick it from the horse mouth that different youth organizations advocating for separation of the South from the North in a referendum next year are using a map that contradicts the wording in the CPA which says north-south borders shall be as defined in 1st 1 1956. Acting childishly or boyishly and girlishly, youth organizations spearheading the referendum campaigns for separation are too eager and obsessed to separate that they don’t mind whether lucrative villages situated along the north-south borders are annexed to the north, depicting the majority as being spoon-fed by a few who don’t care of the fate of those who might be affected by such harsh decision without close scrutiny. 

 Since the discovery of oil in the 1970s around Heglig in Unity State, successive regimes in Khartoum had been busy day and night redrawing, twisting, readjusting, and shifting the 1956 north-south borders with a calculation that that rich piece of land would either fall in north border to create an elusive impression of whereabouts of true maps of that locality. Such attempts were made around the Raja district at Kafia Kinga and around rich agricultural lands in Renk and Magenis, another triangle up the Shilluk Kingdom in Manya County; however, the prompt reaction from the regional assembly in Juba rendered it an unachieved project to greed Khartoum leadership. 

 Conceding to such unfounded drawings or maps, Southern youth organizations for separation whose aggregates majorly hail in areas far from the north-south borders have exactly pasted those wrong maps in their campaigns banners and slogans and harshly rushed to world media telling the world that what they have is exactly where borders of interest of the South are yet it is purely being ignorant of the reality on the ground. 

In fact, the map youth organizations are using for campaigns today was taken from the one drawn on CDF vehicles, which actually left away vast areas around Unity State like the Heglig Triangle where this money utilized in campaigns is generated. It is in fact a shared mistake by several bodies because youth organizations thought it that if such a map is proudly adapted by the assembly, then it should be right yet the real meaning is that we have given NCP land grabbers go ahead with their ill plans. 

It is also a shared mistake in the sense that Unity State governor Taban Deng Gai signed an internal pact in 2008 with his Southern Kordofan counterpart indicted Justice Ahmed Haroun annexing Karsana Payam to North yet there was no question in the leadership of the SPLM on what prompted such a dreadful move, only native of Parieng (Panaruu) whose land was officially given away complained although their complaint was immediately bashed by the presidency twisting it with then looming tension amongst the Nuer native which led to losing of Taban Deng as the Chairman of the SPLM in the State. Panaruu Dinka was severely fragmented by the decision taken by Governor Taban Deng to sign such a harmful pact yet he is not a land commissioner whose lands issued are within his prerogatives.

 SPLM which was then for its 2nd Convention paid deaf ear to such and nobody wish to hear of such, while a message from the office of the president to Panaruu community was that “if Panaruu is ready to fight for Heglig, it is upon them to do so. It is also a shared mistake because during the negotiations of the CPA in Naivasha Kenya, natives of Abyei who were privileged to have been around the negotiating table and closer to the leadership of the SPLM then delineated Abyei borders annexing Heglig to Abyei Map and when dissenting voices started rising in Unity State, especially among the Panaruu natives, a delegation of expert went to Parieng meeting with chiefs and elders convincing them that they only take it from NCP and it would later be given back to Unity State. 

Panaruu youth who were in Khartoum complained to the leadership of the SPLM of such but were later asked to apologize to Abyei peace elders but now is that apology duly. Having been mesmerized by the euphoria of peace, coupled with a lack of even-handedness amongst the table round sitters, Abyei expert of course exceeded their borders, curving in Heglig oil fields which has today given toothache to SPLM, whereas it is tooth well fixed for NCP lands’ grabbers. 

If the leadership of the SPLM had then keenly guided the Abyei team not to overhaul their maps, Heglig fields would have remained a known party of Unity State but since the claim was dismissed by the PCA, several arguments shall be the torturous hills to either win or defeat in the battle besides, it is fuelled by SPLA evacuation at military strategic deployment points backward to plain flat lands south of Parieng town. 

The majority of misled Southerners came to surprise by the Permanent Court of Arbitration PCA on Abyei that the borders of Abyei to the East and West were too large while assessing the reasonableness of the ABC Experts' interpretations of the formula. 

 By contrast, the western and eastern boundaries of the Abyei Area were not drawn by the ABC Experts in compliance with their mandate. Thus, in fulfillment of its own mandate, the Tribunal proceeded to “define (i.e. delimit) on the map” the eastern and western boundaries in accordance with Article 2(c) of the Arbitration Agreement. 

In fact, this ruling left Heglig oil fields as a land of no man until it is confirmed in the North-South boundary demarcation. It would also continue to be a shared mistake if such a map is responsibly still used without being questioned by the authority because our partner will later use it as a point of strength referential to the fact that we had been operating on it while advocating for separation. It is would actually be a hereditary mistake to pass down the lineage. 

 The stability of the North-South ecological relationship and chemistry along these common borders would now be determined by how committed parties behave during this referendum otherwise, gravity of the problems would still be shouldered by border communities as before. 

In fact, majority of these youth who pleasantly advocating for separation without questioning the origin of this map are entirely those relatives and communities have never sensed border disputes. To rest the deadlock, youth need not portray the reality of being known as politically neophytes by repeating the previous unlearned mistakes of doing things for the sake to be known as a champion as people are nowadays struggling to fix into history yet the quality of your work is worse than undone, otherwise, scrambling over the position in history with hidden motives hamper the lives of other Southerners living at the bleeding edges of the region. 

 Finally, seek first before you make these painful irreversible historical mistakes if we cannot learn from previous mistakes when bird in the hand is worth too than in a bush. As we talk, SAF is massed up around Parieng in military radar defense to Heglig in case of an eventuality, and guess how risky the Southern citizens there are. 

Monday, September 13, 2010

Laptop ladies for happiness in Juba town

By Atok Dan Baguoot 

“Drunkenness is temporary suicide; the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness” Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970).

As the world advances technologically, laptop computers are becoming mini fashion dominant in the private lifestyle of most business-minded professions likewise in government perimeters as it eases tedious paper work of compiling and perusing over thousand hundreds heap of files stored in order to come up with only a piece of information needed to make the ends meet in business. 

Apart from being an instrument of work, laptop computer also helps entertains owners as some contained built-in game data and refreshing videos besides files installed which suit the market demand of the dot com generation as well as generation past the era. 

In the lap of luxury, there is a frequent rise in the number of the writer referred to as laptop ladies, deriving the concept from the word laptop which means a small portable computer that can be placed on the lap while doing work. In the luxury industry, social scientists have thoroughly researched the causes of human beings' susceptibility to stress and depression as ingredients that accompanied prolonged unhappiness experienced over the duration of time with the sole aim of achieving happiness in life. 

Of course, after all the sole human mission in life is to have attainable happiness before one could desert life’s football pitch called earth for another world of ever happiness as mentioned in the holy religious books. Philosopher and scholar Aristotle talked of attainment of happiness through the exercise of reason over human faculties. (Greek Schools of Ethics, Western Philosophy) “Believe in order to understand and understand in order to believe.” 

Like the Neo-Platonist, he considered the soul a higher form of existence than the body and taught that knowledge consists in the contemplation of Platonic ideas as abstract notions apart from sensory experience and anything physical or material. Epicurus taught of happiness as the serenity resulting from the conquest of the fear of the gods, of death, and of the afterlife. The ultimate aim of all Epicurean speculation about nature is to rid people of such fears. 

Southern Sudan which had just emerged out of the protracted unhappy civil war of achieving total world happiness is day and night struggling to peer and pair equally with those who are some thousand miles or kilometers ahead of it in happiness thus, scrutinizing the quality and quantity of imported items whether be it cultures or consumer goods is just done hastily and haphazardly in order to have a quick catch up. 

It was one time rumored that a quantity of beer supposedly consumed in a period of ten years in the tiny republic of Uganda is consumed in less than a decade or even two years time in Southern Sudan moreover the population of Uganda triples ours if not half as we were unconvinced by the Khartoum 2008 doctored and politicized Sudan Fifth Household Census results which estimated the South differently from what UN and other world bodies predicted. 

In those places frequent by nocturnal human beings, imported ladies from neighboring countries have instantly robbed the computers from occupying laps in night bars. In fact, the rise in the number of foreign ladies in juba has actually added paraffin to already worsen polygamy practice in Southern Sudan as a majority of young ladies in the South are fed up and ill mad with shared husbands. Instead of a laptop computer which is indeed very light compared to the weight of a well-fed human being whose weight ranges from 60 and above their porters find them lighter than even the weight of a bag of feathers probably because happiness makes their spongy bodies just duty-bound affair which ought full devotion as the day would be nostalgic to both. 

However, the weight is always felt in pocket drainage since these fortunate fellows never let your pocket go back swollen like the way it came before. It is their untaught philosophy that the depth of men's pocket warrants the intimacy of this temporarily parasitic relationship which normally leaves a lot of shame, and disgrace and betrays the dealers back in their really known affairs. No one always wishes to talk of it openly as it affects the normalcy of existing relationships. 

While accruing to such agreements, couples feel unbothered by the use of adult education English language in constructing marathon laughable agreements which do not need the presence of mediators like what is normally done in faulty political agreements. In the last bit of this, our local ladies also feel substituted by these exotic female colleagues because even the usual known committed man-friends are no longer to their casual role in happiness since they have circum to these new active detractors on the markets. 

Monday, August 23, 2010

"The military don’t start wars but politicians start it."

By Atok Dan Baguoot

With a referendum of self determination for the people of Southern Sudan and Abyei likely to vote for independence of South Sudan just less than 140 days away from now, the Central Bank of Sudan (CBoS) whose mandate and role is to regulate the economy of the greatest African country has taken a dreadful and worrying decision for the people of autonomous South by putting a twist in supplying the government of Southern Sudan with its money of oil share in Sudanese Pounds, something seen and received with a lot of questions on the sincerity of the ruling National Congress Party in this marriage of convenience and national cake sharing. 

Under the wording of Comprehensive Peace Agreement CPA, the government of Southern Sudan is supposed to be paid by the Central Bank of Sudan its 50% oil money in hard currency into account managed by the sub Bank known as Bank of South Sudan (BoSS). 

However, there has been a bitter experience between the principal parties to peace pact in transparency, marketing and equitable sharing of oil revenues. According to Global Witness international, the South has not been getting the correct share of the oil revenues as NCP had played some tactical strategies in auditing. It is a fact supported by the reality that the ruling National Congress Party was too adamant about in equal division of two key ministries of Finance and that of Energy with its partner the SPLM to create an atmosphere of a fair grand collision in ushering a new political dispensation and reconciliation between the two former enemies bound together by peace.

On 23rd July this year, the Central Bank of Sudan took a lonely stance to terminate payment of South in hard currency as spelled out in Wealth Sharing Protocol and took an uninformed turn by giving the South Sudanese Pounds SDG, a currency that has no wider international recognition like other regional currencies circulating amongst the member countries of Common Market for South and Eastern African (COMESA), a region where the South almost depend entirely for its livelihood. 

The CPA opens South Sudan to Eastern African communities as a new virgin land that ought exploration for a possible trade with the aim that hard currency would be used besides local one within. In addition to that former guerilla army, Sudan People Liberation Army SPLA does its military procurement in hard currency because nobody can accept a fair trade exchange deal worth a billion in SDG except in dollars. 

The National Congress Party has been accusing the SPLA procurement department of purchasing heavy weapons since the formation of the government of Southern Sudan, saying that it is a direct violation of the CPA from the side of the SPLM South ruling party, however, both the SPLM and SPLA had been vocal enough in denying such baseless allegations. 

This move is deemed by analysts as a strategy to disarm the SPLA and GoSS from their ambitious military buildup for possible war in case the worse comes to worst and to threaten the dream of an independent nation SPLM is advocating for. Give them SDG and we will see where they will go with it. Two partners have been trading several accusations of each other massing up troops along the north-south border now pending demarcation. 

Recently the National Congress Party also echoed it on wider media that SPLA has purchased warplanes and other sophisticated military hardware and SPLA department of information consistently reiterated their position that the NCP is day dreaming because SPLA or government of Southern Sudan has no enough money to do such procurement. 

Secondly, this Thomas money gotten from oil share goes for salaries and other developmental projects of health, education and water as South Sudan had no any single functioning institution which was spared by 20 years war. Food, Roads and other infrastructures are not tackled as money is indeed insufficient given the level of poverty and destitute in this war devastated region of the country. 

This action by the Central Bank of Sudan has seriously maimed the economy of Bank of Southern Sudan to sustain and supply other local foreign bureaus operating, besides GoSS catering for its imports as South Sudan depends on imported commodities. In a press conference held by the GoSS Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr. David Deng Athorbei, he said the decision by the Central Bank of Sudan has caused a sharp fall in Sudanese Pounds against the dollar from 2.42 to 3.10 SDG per dollar in the recent days and it is likely to persist unless the bank reverses its decision. 

The move to paid BoSS in local currency is not the first of its kind because in June 2008 the bank had paid in SDG but through political intervention and other external pressure the case was put to rest and payment resumes normalcy as agreed in the CPA. With three states of Darfur on frying pan in which different rebel factions talking differing voices of either possible self determination of the black African region forming their own separate administration units, the South Sudan here also threatening in support of other two contested states of Southern Kordofan and South Blue Nile in their popular consultations where they would also determine their fates like what other Africans are doing in this large politically rotten nation. 

As common talks could be amongst northern politicians and laymen that the South is unable to manage its own affairs, Sudan is a first failed entity in managing its affairs and this is symbolizes by rampant wars and sufferings anywhere in the Sudan. According to me, failure in the South was a result of failure in the center of Sudan. Ruling cliques if not political forces which have governed in the Sudan failed the Sudan resulting into a failed everybody in the country. 

In fact, isn’t the South that has failed but Sudan, in the sense that after politicians in north failed shortage of diagnosing the problem of country, it was called problem of the South until when the late SPLM/A founder and chairman Dr. John Garang De Mabior came and made it clear that it is not the problem of the South but north because it is the north which is adamant on divisive Islamic Sharia laws. 

Today foreign exchange situation is in comma in sick bed in South Sudan given that the region depends on imports through private and international banks. This ailing economy would jeopardize the successful conduct of the referendum, the last phase of the CPA which is deemed most important of all the other chapters that were troublesomely put to rest. 

Indeed this move by the Central Bank of the Sudan has two facets of which the first one is to deny both SPLA and GoSS security control of the South by creating economic worrying scenarios of likely civil unrest apart from military logistics that would possibly be used against them in case things fuck at the last minute of the referendum. In fact, SPLA and Sudan Arm Forces SAF are at equal arm show thus, last-minute procurement would either alter or determine the last victory of the dreamed second war between the two ancient and traditional enemies. 

 Lastly, the move is meant to aggress the South to quickly call for unilateral declaration of the South without waiting the final click of the clock so that NCP uses it as a ticket of invading the South this time because SAF military think tanks believed that the next war would only last for 21 days unlike the previous war which took 21 years and apart from it being a clever strategy of causing mayhems before or amidst the conduct and after the referendum in order to discredit the outcome leading to a lack of international recognition. 

This last NCP strategy is also realistic if it combines with the current unrest in some parts in the South like the one in Jonglei and Unity state. Another accelerator to these could be heightening cattle rustling among the Dinkas and Nuers plus other micro natural chaos from ill-wishers whose motives and mission is to see no birth of a new nation on the map of Africa. 

Monday, August 9, 2010

Will South Sudan be a corruption free state?

By Atok Dan Baguoot 

“True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else”, Clarence Darrow. Since the establishment of the modern state, the fight against corruption after liberation wars was a subsequent monster whose war almost defeated human beings in a quest for a just and fair system where resources could trickle down to projects meant for national prosperity and progress. 

It has turned three years now since the president of the government of Southern Sudan General Salva Kiir Mayardit made a public announcement declaring Southern Sudan as a corruption-free region with the hope that since Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and Army SPLM/A is a mass movement born amongst the oppressed to address national odds which had rocked the Sudanese state immediately after independence from British. 

His Excellence as the president of the government of Southern Sudan General Mayardit was never wrong because he had wanted to tell the marginalized Sudanese and other rivaling political forces that SPLM had a just cause and would live to the core values that let it champion a costly war without resources. Oppressed masses responded to SPLM’s calls for liberation war without hints. Citizens of great importance perished on the battlefields to have a free state free from all odds including corruption because not even a single person is ever taken to answer for mismanagement of the national treasury but SPLM wanted to bring it into the record. 

Corruption, according to its meaning is a very tough enemy that has no definite shape or front where we can send in the well trained and professional army to combat and after that, we summon the Chief of General Staff (COGS) to tell us how far he progresses with the war. It is a war of intuition and self-confidence. It is supposed to start in our houses before the front is transcended to neighborhoods and finally to national theatres. 

Probably the best and most talented military man in uniform can lose to such a fight despite the fact that he/she had credible military excellences because forces of such an enemy are within your ranks and files. Fine, one could probably ask what corruption “Free State” means in accordance with its application in our daily today situation. 

Since the president made this rare and bold public declaration, members of the public who don’t have access to avenues of corruption have put on their titanic glass lenses watching to see if some of the big fishes would be trapped by this presidential message. It is still none. 

It is yet unrealized that mountains of money were recovered from ghost names in the fight by the only ministry whose head and deputy are women and that is the Ministry of Labour nurse by Madam Awut Deng Acuil and Rebecca Joshua Okwachi. These two great women first won the gold model in the fight and another winner could be the Mr. David Athorbei of finance and planning who rescued our money it was tempered in the Dura saga. He has won himself a twin’s model. 

A magnitude of war is normally remembered well when it has claimed senior commanders of the battle likewise, the war against corruption would one time reach its climax after it shifted gears from small fish to a big one. Free corruption state is sometimes ambiguous in the sense that some analysts can interpret it either positively or negatively depending on how one wishes because of the literal meaning of the text. 

Interpretations like free to be corrupt or free from corruption could possibly be all exploited unless the impact is critically realized through the arrest, detention, and trial of suspects otherwise, stereotype of rare occurrence like when the first CPA Minister of Finance and Planning in the government of Southern Sudan was removed from the cell. After payroll cleansing, another competent avenue of corruption is the house rent allowance which was approved by the office of the president after it had seen the deplorable condition under which government employees were undergoing. 

Of course, few houses were occupied by senior directors and few other subordinates leaving huge chunks roaming about given that Juba lacks accommodation of all sorts. As a matter of sympathy from our president, a certain amount of money was allocated to those affected by the housing problem apart from the group that occupied government houses. A tough war that requires a tough mediator emerges from those directors who occupied public houses that they should be part of that money when indeed it was intended for those who were renting on their own. If such a request is given a go through then they automatically become double beneficiaries. 

In plain language, it is corruption in administrative uniform. Tolerate it or be intolerant. Some ministries are now battling with their directors who formerly occupied those houses and wanted to be given such money on top in the name that they machine the government hence, anything to do with government is to be decided by them. The government needs to watch out for such opportunists otherwise they would wish to do their best through a tactical means of corruption coated with the sugar of privilege. 

 

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Response to Response by Emmanuel Gai on Greater Crimes committed by Gen George Athor Deng

By Atok Dan Baguoot

While responding to Brother Emmanuel Gai on this crucial national issue, I would always wish to remain decent in language use so that this topic remains within the kingdom of discussion. Whereas my friend Gai, I would like you to harmonize your senses to the reality that the recent bitter concluded elections are part and parcel of human rights that we fought for with successive Khartoum’s regimes tantamount to societal rights and transcended to individuals rights whose aggregates form a nation thus, if individual rights are brushed aside, we end up protecting none other than the vicious cycle of the human slavery. Without impeding the free passage of truth, we are as free as we say and wish but a hindrance to these free choices of the people amounts to what is exactly taking place in Jonglei today.

 Abraham Lincoln said people who are free to choose, always choose peace. This is what was tempered in the Jonglei state, therefore, judging individuals wrong in this case to me shouldn’t just be the top priority like those who are now high on rooftops echoing or apportioning blames to personalities because they don’t equal access to instruments passing information. 

 Taking you from your own statement where you said “assumption of an effect than the cause itself “in reference to what Chuei Mareng wrote on heinous crimes unfolding in Pigi County in the hand of SPLA forces who are searching for Gen Athor. Perfectly and without even a single doubt, you are right. 

The cause is rigging elections and this is what I called the initial point of the event, there you are. While resting digesting the facts of a robbed victory according to him George Athor in his house, a platoon of SPLA soldiers composed not only native of Jonglei assembled in the backyard of Gen Athor implementing a warrant issued against him. Gen Athor only preempted the incident of arrest and the whole issue remained at the level of the Army. 

The incident change the course when indiscipline SPLA soldiers deviated off the radar taking it as revenge on relatives or clans of Gen George Athor by raping even male human beings leaving alone women because raping women could probably be a practice adorn by some communities in Southern Sudan. Brother Gai, I reiterated the fear of your language by offering an alternative explanation that the magnitude of a crime committed by Athor would be handled but how do you deal with crimes committed by a system in the name of searching denounced culprit? 

President Bashir has never been to the frontline since he left Mayom in Unity State in the late 1980s after he incurred injury from SPLA zonal commander then Dr. Riek Machar Teny but he is charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity besides that genocide not because he attacked outlawed but none party to conflicts the civilians. I fear your language because if the culprit Gen Athor could be smart enough not to attack any civilian base, why not SPLA forces commanded by a system? 

 I thought it here that Gen Athor might be cautious enough not to lose single support from the population of Jonglei by maintaining decency in his war of greed of power to only where the problem came and that is the army. He attacked them because they were oriented to arrest him because he lost elections probably. Brother Gai, feeding you with the first-hand information direct from Governor Kuol Manyang Juuk that Gen Athor even conceded defeat and issued a press statement pertaining to elections. 

 Here what might have indeed offended him surely is the move of the arrest. So, sir Gai, I don’t fear the statement written by Chuei Mareng because innocent civilians who had never shown adherence to Gen Athor are being tortured with impunity by a system that claims to protect them because the Gen hails from that locality, making it difficult to comprehend the motive of judging him wrong. 

 Mr. Gai, a system is never right when it tortures its citizens in the name of sovereignty or protecting the rule of law unless you wish to tell the me that rule of law is meant for ruling persons instead of its wider perspectives. I fear your language because it has elements of even genocidal motives if up to now you need Mr. Chuei to offer you legal justifications for horrible crimes committed to citizens of Pigi County yet we are failing to apprehend the culprit. We might probably be failing to apprehend the rebel Gen because he should either be having the support of the Jonglei people but this does not substantiate the fact of torturing his relative unless you want to tell me that Southerners are people of short memories to have forgotten what they fought for in the last five decades. 

I feared your language in the lands of thousands of miles away because great wars fought under the sun were just through rumors. Not only a single North Korean had crossed the Pacific Ocean to come and slap an American in the face in the United States of America during the Koreans war but the US partially became a party to the conflict. 

 Welcoming me to the world of bias is welcomed given the fact that not even a mad person is none partisan/unbiased in this world even God himself was biased proven that He lifted his only begotten son to heaven yet tens of prophets were persecuted preaching the word of God and He never dared to resurrect one of them. But in my case, am a diehard of truth. “I am a firm believer in the people. 

If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, said Abraham Lincoln. Your bias with confirmation would make an attractive headline if you had acknowledged the abuse of the people of Pigi County because I know Gen Athor will be brought to justice if not justice brought to him at any time and culprits in Pigi County will go with systematic impunity. 

 Otherwise, turning my weapon in a common know direction is somewhat ambiguous in the sense that oppression as an abstract has no known direction but personal in its application, meaning what you deemed just to you could be unjust to me though for contemporary situation in the Sudan Khartoum oppressors qualified but would not always be enemies until they prove so. It is a matter of common sense which Late Dr. John Garang De Mabior (RIP) used to dispute as not common. 

 For Southern Sudan to be where it is and where it would be in the future is mechanically not attributed to few as those who tortured others in the name of protecting the interest of the South missed. By the way brother, I know we will develop friendship later if we persist in sharing ideas, otherwise, I wish to say something somewhere is hijacked by an unknown direction or if our paralleled views are meandering around truth overshadowed by interest. 

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Let’s keep Juba clean slogan transcends in our daily lives

By Atok Dan Baguoot

“Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it”, Thomas Jefferson. With rise in plastic bags importation to Southern Sudan, “Keeping Juba Clean” through do not litter slogan will emerge as one of the most frustrating tasks to execute all over towns in the entire Southern Sudan but until it is virtually owned by the populaces, the fight against health hazards would remain a tough war to achieve after corruption. 

It takes personal efforts to keep the vicinity of your compound clean, something regarded as a prerogative of family hygiene. By doing so, one distance away mosquitoes whereas, air ventilating through your compound becomes as fresh as day time breeze in the valleys. 

It is a commonly known fact that most of our imported packed foods are sealed in either polyethylene plastic containers or canned/bottled an instrument which is more hazardous to our health than even quality nutrients provided by those foods because the end life of these materials in our reach tends to contaminate efficiency of nutrients in our body systems. 

The vicious cycle poses upon us by the environment we live in is tentatively equal to threats posed by weapons of mass destruction. A clean environment means living friendly with a healthy mind and body as a healthy city is an asset to his/her nation. For us to be as productive as we can, we need to treat our ecosystem with a lot of respect and care so that it in return provides us with friendly products for our daily bread. It is in the environment that these already baked bread emerged first in different forms.

Children can never know how bread and milk come in their present forms. If there is where we have really perfected since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was inked on paper in 2005, it is in littering and dirtying our environment with different kinds of non-degradable polythene plastic papers and cans/bottled to the extent that our surround looks incompatible with our natural senses. 

Today if one is to use a small piece of land for cultivating simple vegetables, one has to remove thousands of plastic papers before you do that job before considering the direct infertility effect caused by these materials on the soil. Plastic papers defined as none degradable burn up the micro living organisms that catalyze fertility of the soil hence, resulting in poor yield or no yield at all. 

One upon a time while walking in Juba town, my eyes came into unexpected contact with mountains of garbage almost everywhere in the whole town, so I had to ask myself what if such a situation persists for some more years while waiting for a referendum of the South, the answer in mind was that Juba like any other city in South Sudan would produce people whose senses can operate well in a dirty environment because overstay in our wrong made environment would acclimatize us as enemies of clean environment and the likelihood of us becoming like bushy animals is there. 

In recognizing our positive deeds to the environment, the governor of Jonglei State, Kuol Manyang Juuk had earlier on issued a policy of keeping Bor town clean with a slogan “per every empty bottle dropped”, you go around collecting ten more empty and take them to their rightful places since we don’t reuse them nor do we have a policy of recycle and reduce which is called the 3Rs, Reuse, Reduce and Recycle. 

Due to that attempt, the death of cattle having swallowed plastic papers has tremendously reduced thus, cattle keepers are no longer reporting rampant death of animals around town, besides improvement in the general environment of the town. Another town with a concrete policy of keeping the environment clean is Unity State in which governor Taban Deng Gai issued a decree that banned the sale of plastic bags in town. 

Portable goods are sold in grey paper envelope in Bentiu town, making it almost the cleanest city in Southern Sudan, though other towns have not imitated that policy of keeping Bentiu clean. Thanks to the two governors for having shown spirit in protecting unfortunate environment. By the way, clean beer needs a clean environment so that it does a clean and excellent job of confusing our minds well. Besides impeding crop farming, animals’ husbandry becomes the worst hit by rampant plastic bags everywhere in Southern Sudan, and given the high demands for meat in our society, if cattle continue dying on daily basis, there would be a decline in meat supply to the markets causing a situation of us becoming man-eaters. 

Therefore, this workable slogan of keeping Juba clean is tantamount to keeping our health clean from attacks by tropical diseases which are directly associated with an ill health environment. It is a healthy call to all responsible citizens who mine their hygiene as we all boastfully swagger in our clean attires along freedom corridors. Being clean also deserves special attention like the referendum because diseases would never have time to negotiate another referendum with us unless we do it wholeheartedly. 

 

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Plights of Southern Sudanese languishing in detention centres in northern Sudan

By Atok Dan Baguoot 

 Immediately after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement CPA in 2005 in Kenya’s capital Nairobi, Southern Sudanese who had fled to northern Sudan started coming back to a place they called home. Of course, the 20 years civil war fought in the South affected their social life thus, communities bent low against their cultural ethos and norms in the process of adapting to a new way of life especially in towns. 

 Young men and women became preys of those unavoidable circumstances in foreign places for the whole periods of war on crimes that are less punishable or even pardonable in courts of law. In northern Sudan, no Muslims were subject to trial in sharia courts despite the fact that they don’t profess Islamic as their creed. Cases of women caught brewing local distil in northern cities before the signing of peace were among the rampant legal issues pending trial and up to now culprits of such are still languishing behind bars in the north. 

A handful of robust youth caught after rioted in major cities in the north when an incident of that ill-fated plane which crashed with the first vice president, the founding father of the SPLM/A, late Dr. John Garang De Mabior (RIP) occurred, victims are still held hostage without due cause of law. Other pending cases in the Sudanese judiciary chambers in the north are war-related suspects famously known as the fifth column. 

 Less punishable crimes when committed by Southerners in the north were considered repugnance against Islamic republic not because of severity of the crime itself but due to the fact that the culprit doesn’t profess Islamic as a belief, besides the crime committed. Such a crime is committed by a Muslim, there is always room for pardon depending on how the court handles it. 

 Statistically, exact numbers of Southerners serving their jail sentences in the north are not known even to our government let alone crimes such culprits were accused of. I happened to had a talked with one of the inmates serving his twenty years term in famous Kobar Prison in Khartoum whose name is withheld for the case of the sensitivity of the matter. The convict was a former SPLA soldier and later shifted to UNMIS as a security agent after peace in 2005. 

It is actually a tear-stimulating event if narrated but the fact he said, number of Southern Sudanese in that cell is over five hundred inmates of different crimes. Majority of those jailed were arrested in 2005 after they staged that bitter protest when that incident of ill fated plane that killed Dr. John Garang crash among the hills in New Site. 

Those arrested were charged with crimes tantamount to either treason or an equivalent in the judiciary desks. If over five hundred inmates are serving in Kobar alone, what of other cells in different parts of the north yet Khartoum is the city where everything is supposed to go smoothly including even legal issues due to its closeness to world media besides strong opposition waves of checks and balances. According to the gentleman unmentioned, he said the condition in Kobar could be described as deplorable and horrific. 

Because of that he appealed to the administration of the cell so that his file is transferred to Juba where he can come and complete his terms of the sentence, something supposed to take place after the concerned ministry here in the South assents the signature, however, he complained of Juba being too slow in handing the issue. The rest of his inmates wish for the same move, he said. Southern Sudanese in world prisons.

While not forgetting millions of other Southerners who had fled to neighboring countries for refuge earlier1980s. Among those countries which hosted huge numbers are Ethiopia, Kenya, Egypt, and Uganda while Congo, Chad with Central Africa Republic (CAR) also had recommendable numbers especially those in Western Equatoria and Western Bahr el Ghazal states. 

 In Ethiopia, remnants of SPLA soldiers captured during the fall of Mengistu Haile Mariam regime with refugees detent on personal crimes motivated by hardship they were exposed to are still in that country. In hallways of East African countries, many refugees caught roaming without official documents along the international borders while searching for green pastures after frustration in war fit in this definition.

 In the case of Chad and Egypt, most of those jailed in these countries were direct victims of politics or victims of Afro-Arab conflicts like the one in which those who tolerated war inside underwent in the last twenty years, although Chad held aggregates of SPLA soldiers who were scattered in 1991 when SPLA extended its military offensive in the region. 

 On the pathway to South Africa, some of the lost boys who escaped from Kakuma concentration camps heading for South Africa ended up in jails in countries of Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, however, Zimbabwe had a special place for Southern Sudanese because of heavy influence SPLM/A had in the region. Current GoSS Minister of Information, Dr. Barnaba Marial Benjamin played a pivotal role during his time in that region. He was a focal person consulted whenever a Southern Sudanese is caught without a document or on the wrong side of the law. 

 In spite of hardship refugees were undergoing in Kenya, UNHCR reported rise in crimes amongst the refugees in camps which attracted jail as a remedy to quell violent and thefts. Those elements accused of masterminding anarchy in the camps were sent to prisons. As a journalist who could possibly come in contact with even a devil, I came across a young man from my native town of Parieng who was sentenced to seven years in Kamiti Maximum Prison in Kenya on allegation of social crime. His full name is Andrew Buga Kiir. Mr. Kiir was arrested in mid April of 2004 and charge of a crime he did not commit. After serving his full term in that foreign horrible jail, Kiir said he is being transformed into a professor of law. 

According to him, he heard of CPA being signed in September of 2005 after one of the inmates told him of the death of Dr. John Garang De Mabior in that month. He was told that peace is already in Sudan and that Sudanese who were living in Kenya were taken home. He should probably be the only one left in that country, something he came to confirm after release. He said that many Southern Sudanese are still languishing in foreign cells without knowledge of the government of Southern Sudan. As the referendum is just a few months away with the possibility of Southerners going to vote for secession, the fate of these detainees in northern cells remains questionable as most of them are victims of political abuse or abuse of power by the ruling NCP clique in Khartoum with other preceded regimes that had succeeded in ruling Sudan against the oppressed. 

 It is worth mentioning that marginalized Sudanese emerged as the leading class in detention centers in Sudan not because of social class but due to the wrong political grouping which Southern Sudanese had instrumented to put to an end through costly and painful means of wars and popular uprisings since the beginning of this century. 

Undeniably, embassies of Sudan in different countries then could never come to rescue of a Southerner arrested in any country instead they spearheaded the push for more arrest and detention, thus Southerners could first ask for the presence of the Sudanese embassy whenever they arrive in a country not to report arrival but to distance from it to avoid arrest with the exception of those who acted in betraying manner. 

 Yes, it could be beyond the legal jurisdiction of the government of Southern Sudan to go knocking on doors of foreign cells asking about the presence of its citizens but then, those in charge in those countries could provide statistical facts about such victims if there is an initiative especially heavily inhibited by refugees during the war. Before referendum’s voting could kick off we need to know who are those going to cast their votes including our prisoners whose rights is also of paramount because this exercise is greatly different from that of general elections in the sense that there would be no more referendum on the same agendum. Our prisoners like anybody have equal rights in determining our destiny. 

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Re,GoSS: SPLA Commits Atrocities against Shilluk Civilians

Atok Dan Baguoot

In response to an article written by Jwothab Wanh Othow, a valiant Southern Sudanese living in the USA, I would like to tell the world including Othow who seemed to have been overtaken by emotion according to his presentation that he is actually right as dictated by literal information he had gotten back home. Yes, atrocities are being done on the peaceful Shilluk community by elements of SPLA soldiers under the pretext of disarmament but Othow needs to know that disarmament is a national project which deserves full execution by all means to pave way for development. 

Remember underdevelopment was one of the reasons why Southerners opted for death. Mr. Othow, be rest assured that Padang Dinka and Shilluk in Southern Sudan lived and shared a cordial relationship more than any other communities in Southern Sudan, something which is older than contemporary history itself, and if there is anyone closer to either Shilluk or Padang Dinka, it is the two communities. Padang Dinka is closer to Shilluk than other Dinka communities in the South, likewise Shilluk. 

What is happening in between Padang Dinka and Shilluk today never is an isolated event but part of policies of SPLM/A, though the perpetrators involved in these crimes are seen as Padang Dinka elements within SPLM. SPLA never uses the arms search in the Shilluk Kingdom as a pretext to humiliate the Shilluk people as you have described it. 

Well, somewhat you can be seen as right especially if the reader is unfamiliar with the whole saga but reality of matter is that your ideas are deeply swayed by emotions and partisanship. I agree with you that crimes committed in Shilluk homestead and areas adjacent to indeed amount to gross violation of basic fundamental human rights, punishable by law if justice is to rival consistently with peace but what do we do as people aggressed by this unfortunate calculation? 

We need to substitute tribal attires with national dresses so that a unanimous solution is found. “Evidently President Salva Kiir has proven to be tribalist leader who is only concerned with Dinka domination of other tribes in South Sudan,” holding you accountable by your own words are quoted above, indeed Salva Kiir is a Dinka by birth but where did you expect him to have come from apart from being from a certain tribe in the South. 

Well, you talked of his behaviors as a Dinka instead of a national leader but I think Mr. Kiir is fair this way because he has marginalized the Padang Dinka more than even Shilluk, so where you got those powerful Padang Dinka elements in the SPLA or if not SPLM to capitalize on division within Chollo remains unknown. You are right here that those who labeled Chollo as SPLM-DC are wronged likewise those who labeled Salva Kiir as Dinka president are because is a member of the Dinka community to favor them. 

If Salva Kiir was to make this government for Dinka as a whole, we would have shouldered the blames as Dinkas collectively. The writer borders Chollo in the west and I doubt if there is anything wrong in between Panaruu and Shilluk apart from circumstances of normal neighborhoods even within Shilluk alone they exist. So Salva Kiir can’t be behind Padang Dinka to occupy Shilluk lands when we ourselves are suspect within the leadership of the SPLM because of Georg Athor Deng who felt unconvinced by the results of the election in Jonglei. 

Young men are languishing in between their houses and bush in Parieng trying to escape arrest because of that unfortunate Jongeli incident. For the case where you talked of Salva being misguided as quoted above “He, President Kiir, has allowed himself to be misguided by opportunists people like Luka Biong, Deng Alor, and Gier Chuang Aluong, just to name a few”. 

Indeed, it is what we are saying, he is not only being misguided to destroy Shilluk but to destroy our political set of Padang Dinka as a community. Sincerely speaking they are for themselves not for Padang, so it would be upon us the aggressed to find means of resuming usual normalcy. 

Six years ago before his death, the Padang Dinka wrote a letter to the late Dr. John Garang claiming ownership of Malakal town and many Shilluk areas as their place. Late Dr. John Garang rejected their request because it is known and well documented that those places belong to the Shilluk people. 

While reacting to your above sentences, yes there were elements from East Ngok Dinka of rural Baliet Council who wrote to Dr. Garang. I like to tell you that those didn’t write as Padang Dinka members but people with the named locality in italic sharing having border dispute with you. 

Remember that Padang Dinka runs from Abyei, Parieng, and Biemnom in Unity state up to Renk and Melut and rest, and the said letter was written by only one section without consulting the rest knowing that those not informed don’t have involvement. 

Please learn to give Caesar what is his and God what belongs to him. So call those the East Ngok Dinka to exclude me. Besides that East Dinka was wronged because Dr. John Garang was never chairman of the Land Commission but SPLM hence, he could not annex somebody's property (Malakal) to others using his powers likewise Salva is not in charge of the Lands Commission to do the same. 

The only body entrusted with such is the border committees who normally use historical evidence with the help of experts to pass such a crucial judgment, so Late Dr. Garang was also wrong if he had ruled out Malakal as for Chollo without following due procedures. “The idea to take Shilluk land is to unify all these Padang Dinka sections into one Padang Dinka state which extends from Abyei to Renk as compensation for the loss of their dream home in Southern Kordofan.” 

But one thing Padang Dinka should know is that Shilluk would rather have Padang Dinka take their ancestral land on their dead bodies, Said Dr. Adwok Nyaba. Dr. Nyaba who is a renowned professor might have overstepped his professorship duties by writing like any other ordinary obsessed Chollo in the village, so those writings never deserved quote because there is nothing wise about it, however, Dr. Nyaba remains respected for his personal abilities that have benefitted Southerners. Or for the case of the Shilluk Kingdom as the only survived amongst other kingdoms that were in the Sudan, isn’t much problem because those extinct Kingdoms were not destroyed by Dinka or Padang Dinka nor did Dinka or Padang Dinka ever had one before but the fact is that the Chollo Kingdom survived in awkward circumstances. 

It is a historical fact that Shilluk made it survive yes. It is never a source to threaten those never gifted and privileged by nature to have such a political setup. Besides those, all your writing is good however; much is still needed to incorporate your ideas into national healing, and cohesion through distance should either be a misleading factor which diluted your writing. Otherwise, those that you articulated are of national concern. If I had ever known you before, I would have told you what I normally tell those whom I know. 


 

Monday, June 28, 2010

Customary laws and the dynamic societies

By Atok Dan Baguoot 

As the world is becoming closer technologically and socially, coupled with the rapid influx of foreign cultures and so many others, our society is also dancing in the same tone in forging uniform existence with outside forces, our laws and cultures are becoming more and more obsolete not gradually but rapidly. 

This factual dynamism is being catalyzed by technological advancement and inevitable situational changes like the wars plus other related factors which ought legal adjustment. As a society governed by customary laws for centuries and still holding on with deep belief in the same statutory, we are obliged to make a turn within a legal orbit in order to comply with the global direction. 

The world around us of course doesn’t have legal jurisdiction to urge us to revisit our norms and ethos in favor of either Western or Eastern world interests but we as people whose economic might is partially independently numbed, our ancient laws are deemed shortage of standard. 

It is a known fact that Southerners have scattered almost in all countries around the world and come back with motives of doing the undone in societies while how they do it almost contravenes with laws of the land. In the earlier 1970s, three greater regions of Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile, and Equatoria had assembled in three different places to enact laws governing marriage among those communities whose cattle are paid as dowry. 

In Bahr el Ghazal, WethAlel was the assembling point whereas, in Greater Upper Nile, they converged in Fangak. Laws were enacted and promulgated in accordance with various cultures and customs in those places. In the case of cattle keepers, cattle were considered as bride prices and also became useful in areas of blood compensation. For a young man in those communities to take somebody's daughter, you pay cows to buy that pretty human being whose ownership is vested upon you the buyer after the required number is met upon agreement by the two families. 

 A certain figure of cows was agreed upon in the case of adultery while pregnancy and child/ren born outside wedlock and brought up in their maternal families had an upper column in those unwritten or oral laws. For the case of Dinka in Upper Nile, six cows were agreed as equivalents of confirmed adultery while that of a lady was two cows and a bull. 

With these rare and unique laws, societal rights were more valued than individuals' rights within those societies hence, human rights were never a known vocabulary, and women as mere assets subject to men's laws. Women's rights were almost next to a taboo if not sinister to society’s progress to the extent that a mature girl or even an underage girl can find herself flat on a men’s bed without knowing where these arrangements were attended to. 

Regardless of age so long the person in the description is a lady, of course, there is no unisex marriage, she is to adhere to elders’ demands after all the bridegroom is considered to be from a high family. Not even my mother can dare tell me that she made her mind independently. Women lawyers of the time read different legal books otherwise; they won’t have accepted such laws to be passed in the elders’ assembly because women were so much victimized. 

Things like forced marriage were nothing but part of obedience that parents impose on their daughters to accept men of choice to parents. Children considered central to conflicts had no right also. A child is surrendered to a regrettable decision without being asked or given time to be able to think independently of his/her family of choice in the future. 

With these laws also there were no definite avenues where defaulters could be punished or held accountable for their crimes especially those from well-off families whose parents at zero hours are able to raise blood prices or compensation without difficulties. 

To them, murder is just a murder without being analyzed why it happened and in such a situation, blood compensation for resumption of normalcy was ultimate. People kill when they are able to compensate the aggrieved and bereaved families. Despite legal hurdles surrounding these undocumented laws, merits and demerits are only visible to those with a background in in-laws themselves or a person liberal enough to comprehend legal logic besides being a fan of the western lifestyle. 

Of course, it was only in the American constitution that the first bill of rights was introduced and this made it so far the best human-made constitution. Bible and holy Quran don’t have verses that talk clearly on individuals’ rights other than t don’ts which almost formed the whole pagination however, adultery and fornication are well spelled clearly as not individuals’ rights, something that is considered as almost a choice in statutory laws. 

In Uganda and Kenya, it is less punishable because it is considered done within the context of choice. My wife can still love after all it is her will to disown me at any time she feels like it. Back to the topic, our laws are totally obsolete because when we compare them with other world’s laws, they don’t have equivalent not because they are better but because they violate fundamental human rights and there is nowhere such law can exist in this global village called earth. For example, women who conditionally parted with their couples during the war and made new settlements after their first husbands today are still being asked to go back to those men they left decades back because those had then paid prices yet they have lived a new life completely. 

Grown-up children fathered by different fathers are also compelled to go to men who had married their mothers before despite the fact that these men have no birthright ownership of these children but because their adopted father had paid for their mother the other time. Refugee families who had resettled overseas got it rough to quell their wives who had anciently lived in the world of denial for a long time thus, divorce became the order of the day because after these women became known for women's rights, kicking started in their houses. 

A number of single mothers is on the rise in places like the US, Canada, and Australia after they became defiant of negative laws. Ok, the only available merit of this law is how it keeps our culture intact while the world around us is losing their cultures rapidly, whereas ours is gradual though demerits still outweigh merits logically. 

In demerits, high bride prices of cattle are one of the hidden reasons why our society isn’t able to make a full complete enjoyment of peace because able young men who had no formal education during twenty years of war with the north are busy with cattle rustling in different villages in the whole of Southern Sudan to raise the required numbers. 

Here, our laws are part and parcel of the promotion of chaos than promoting peace in communities improvised by war. Besides cattle rustling, urban migration is on the rise as more youth are becoming redundant in villages following a drastic reduction of the number of cattle due to adverse conditions known better to animal scientists in addition to fading of the art of traditional keeping of cattle. 

As most youths aren’t able to raise a huge number of cattle as dowries, it provides room for cross-cultural intermarriages leaving a huge number of villages’ ladies roaming in between towns and rural areas to find men that are able to raise what is needed. 

The then-protected adultery and fornication are becoming louder and louder as young men run away from taking care of ladies for fear of being asked to bring a huge herd of cattle while HIV/AIDS has never signed an agreement with laws. Let should lawmakers review our laws otherwise; they don’t have clauses that talk about the internet, video, audio, and condom usage. 

 

Friday, June 4, 2010

Panaruu-Dinka historical, political naivety and leniency towards the SPLM

Atok Dan Baguoot

It would sound naïve and surprising for somebody to start asserting across political predictions of a certain organized ethnic community based on their historical and political adherence to an ideology that they perceived rewarding but ended up disgracing their contributions as things are awarded on how noisy and chaotic one is instead of loyalty. 

 Panaruu-Dinka is one of the Dinka clans situated in the oil-rich Unity state dominated by the Nuer ethnicity and it shares some cultural ties and beliefs with other Dinkas across Southern Sudan. It is a section under greater Padang Dinka historically described as the North Eastern frontier Dinka of Abyei, Alor commonly known as Ruweng in Unity state, Paweny of Atar, Luach, Rut, Thoi, in Jonglei state and other groups of Eastern Ngok of Balliet, Dongjol, Abialiang, Nyiel and Ageer in Upper Nile state. In this context, Panaruu shares common features with other Dinkas more likely with those Dinkas in greater Bor, Lakes, and Warrap and Northern Bahr el Ghazal states apart from the groups in the description. 

 The kind of Dinka dialect spoken in Panaruu phonetically sounds like that of Twic East and West though they share some noun similarities with the Agar Dinka of lakes, however, pronunciation differentiates their accent in one way or the other. Panaruu hardly pronounces “R” at the end of a word like in Koor (lion), they say koo which distinguishes them from the rest of the Dinkas even their Padang class. Their historical disadvantage of being less educated came about during the colonial era when the British government declared all the Nuer lands and areas adjacent to them ungovernable and up to now level of formal education is still less among these Padang communities in Greater Upper Nile minus Padang section of Abyei whose Southern Kordofan administration had an influence over their political status. 

As of now, getting educated old men in their 70s in the Panaruu community is an uncommon thing to talk about. Back to their political and social organization where the emphasis is, their historical contributions to the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army SPLM/A dated back to earlier hours of the inception of the Movement in 1983 when thousands of young men from the community flocked to Ethiopia after armed Murahaleen (Misseriya) raided the Panaruu-Dinka homestead and went away with the millions head of cattle living around thousand people dead in defense of their cattle, an economic and cultural prestige of the Dinka people. 

 The first wave of the Movement they attended in large numbers was Koryom Division followed by other subsequent divisions and battalions. Thousands of them fall in Jekou around Gatjaak territories when SPLA launched offensive attacks on areas controlled by the Sudan Armed Forces SAF to open up routes to Bilpam for new recruits from all over the South and other marginalized areas of Abyei, Southern Kordofan, and the Blue Nile. Their foodstuffs were not spared as it was the daily ration for SPLA new recruits and foot soldiers to Greater Barh el Ghazal, Bentiu areas, and Nuba Mountains.

Where their historical political naivety makes sense came in 1991 during the political split of the Movement along the Nasir group and the mainstream headed by late, Dr. John Garang De Mabior. Panaruu as an area bordering Misseriya northwest and the Nuer whose aggregates formed the Nasir faction in the southern part, waged a series of attacks and raids on Panaruu after they showed adherence to the SPLM/A. As the word naïve implies, their stance was not a politically motivated move but on the fact that they are Dinkas hence, identifying themselves as Dinkas and objecting to what the Nuer whom they inhabited the state proposed. Since they were encircled in, they became bullet porters from Greater Barh el Ghazal to reinforce the area up to the late 1990s. 

 In defense of the SPLM/A political ideology, the area suffered a lot of war consequences from their neighbors of the Nuer and Shilluk whereas; Misseriya on the other hand got something to revenge. In the Dinka power class, they had no representation at the highest organ of the Movement to make them feel a direct stakeholder of the concept up to the current GoSS not even a senior director heading the department is from this politically naive community. 

 This is where the equation and question of political naivety work because you cannot be a diehard of a system that does not recognize your contributions yet the basis of rewarding benefits is on the basis of what one did even former detractors of the Movement got their shares unopposed. Sometimes people say that those who opposed the system were the ones awarded much more than those who defended the system. In the same context of political naivety, Panaruu still defended the SPLM/A against the amalgamation of different militia forces after the signing of the comprehensive peace accord in 2005.

When forces were joined and GoSS was to be formed, they stood with one of the commanders to become the first governor of the oil-rich state of Unity, comrade Taban Deng Gai as SPLM proposed governor and Gai succeeded and eventually formed the government. In the first Gai’s government where he was the chairman of the SPLM and other Nuer tribesmen as deputy and secretary of the party in the state, Panaruu felt marginalized in the party they protected in absentia of the group which they saw to have hijacked the system. 

The state government was also formed in the same nature without putting into consideration the mathematical proposal brought about by the CPA of ethnicity, region, and geographical representation. In that state, nutritional positions in the government were awarded to Taban loyalists whom they saw as Nuer kin. 

But until in 2008 when the SPLM launched grassroots primaries, Governor Gai made a political about turn to seek support from this political unfortunate community which indeed supported him to teeth though he lost the chairmanship of the party to current GoSS Caretaker Minister of Health, Dr. Joseph Monytuil. On the eve of those grassroots elections, a lucrative border checkpoint town of Karsana in Panaruu territory in the northern frontier was annexed to Southern Kordofan under an agreement signed by Mr. Gai which almost detracted most of Panaruu intellectuals from supporting him, however, they connived and voted for him. Subsequently, most of Panaruu deemed that another reason for not supporting governor Deng was his encroachment into Panaruu territory of Mango, another busy inland port without their prior consent and up to now it is being inhabited by Mr. Deng. 

 In the same name of the SPLM and in regard to their political marginalization both within the state and at the Southern level, Panaruu still registered their adherence to the SPLM unknowingly that whatever one does in politics, rewards politically, economically, and prestigiously. Have they benefitted no why because of their political naivety? As it wasn’t enough, the same political adherence was transcended to recently concluded elections in which they supported the SPLM nominated candidate for the post of governor, Mr. Taban Deng Gai. 74,000 was alleged to have voted for Mr. Taban, a vote that springboarded him back to the post which he almost lost to his immediate rival Independent candidate, Mrs. Angelina Jany Teny, wife of GoSS Vice president and deputy chairperson of the SPLM, Dr. Riek Machar Teny. 

The area of contention was the fact that Parieng County had more than 82,000 as a population recorded in the Sudan Fifth Household Population Census an exercise which was later disputed by the SPLM. Southern Sudan went to elections without knowing the exact numbers in constituencies. 

 The area recorded 89,000 voters’ registration, something that dismayed NEC officials in Khartoum. Demographic statisticians estimated the area population to be around 100,000 which probably places the suffrage age at 45,000 if correctly asserted because there is no logical viewpoint where registered voters can exceed the population how much that fact is distorted. 

However, supporting evidence was there that 89,000 voters were recorded and that also justifies the means although logic remains in dispute with that timely fact and falsehood based on the outcome from the court. There is strong evidence versus weak evidence in all directions. 

Parieng County emerged to be the only county out of 79 counties in Southern Sudan whose elections results were negatively questioned. Allegations were aired on media that Panaruu/Parieng county voting was flawed as agents who belonged to other political parties were intimidated and dismissed from polls. National Elections Commission NEC suspended Parieng votes temporarily but later revoked and Taban Deng was declared as a winner of that highly contested post. 

If there was anyone with a justifiable reason for not voting for Brig. Taban Deng as a candidate of the SPLM, it was a Panaruu-Dinka whom he marginalized in both the party and in the state government, and if there could be also a reason for rejecting an SPLM proposed candidate then Panaruu would have had a reason. Their political leniency towards the SPLM and naivety come when one questions why this community always opted in support of the SPLM yet they don’t form the nucleus of the party nor are they found in any set of the SPLM or government of Southern Sudan to show that they are protecting an interest in return. This community is doing empty political work. 

 As they are they always proud to be Padang Dinka or Dinka for that matter, another political calculation is that states' political structure system outweighed either tribal or cultural ties which they always wish to rely on as an alternative if things become tough as Southern politics still an ethnical tribal showcase. Because they are really political neophytes in the electoral systems, the extemporized elections results extrapolated the political survival of this community as extinct among their Nuer community whom they have shown immature political mobility by supporting one candidate without calculating future political repercussions if any of them wish to stand as a governor later let alone another highly contested seat where one would wish to resort home first. 

It is a weak move because their neighboring Dinkas will never come and support them in their political bid despite the fact that Dinka formed the lion's share of the Southern population. You have to try it first in the house before reaching out as an English old adage says, “Charity begins at home and it ends where it started”. 

 Identifying themselves as more loyal citizens of state than branding themselves as tribal political instruments of pleasing far Dinka never have been a preferred option as most Nuers do see Mr. Taban Deng as a Dinka candidate imposed on them. Frankly speaking, the recent voting initiative taken by Panaruu if indeed they voted that way, would have a long negative political effect on them as their Nuer state mates are never happy with the way they portrayed themselves yet they are a minority in the state. A political move and survival of a minority in a democratic society should not always be seen as spearheading or overriding the majority because you might never know what that strong muscle political class would think about you. 

It is it to determine your political happiness. Mark the word happiness. Their political submissiveness and docility led to that rigid one-way choice without proper evaluation of political seasonality and objectivity, thus resulting in that questionable behavior, however, as a new wave of generation is emerging, that political tooled community would either choose to cease being used as political propellers or remain quake to foreign ideas without defining their destiny. 

The issue is not the SPLM but to have a cordial political relationship with your elder brother so that next time he feels lenient on you like the way they liaise with the seasonal political parties. Political parties go but communities remain as what God molded them so it is upon you to determine the kind of relationship you wish to have with your neighbors and this is where political philosophies meander around. It is none other than a game of preserved interest. 

This is actually what kills tribal politics in any given society. People don’t strive to kill tribal politics but associations in the realization of who your next voter does it automatically. Any political miscalculation normally results in political miscarriage, thus creating euphoria of envy along tribal lines without giving notice to why it happened and this is where politicians fail to define the root cause of a situation. When the current GoSS president-elect, H.E. General Salva Kiir Mayardit visited Parieng County the home county of Panaruu for the first time, he made some promises after personally accessing the deplorable conditions in which that isolated Dinka community was and none of the pledges materialized but persistently they continue voting for the SPLM without questioning the authenticity of messages given to them knowing very well that heavy pregnant promises could still be ahead, especially when one talks of the referendum.

I hope H.E. president Kiir will remember his long-awaited promises. Lastly, in any political makeup, there is always an interest that defines why somebody or a certain element supports an ideology to either death or life depending on the chance or possibility but if it is somewhere violated by one of the partners, this is where you see political divorce taking place in regard to its doctrines of allegiance. 

It is only he/she who is politically immature that paid a blind allegiance to a political system without defining what belongs to him and the other party. This was where Southern Sudanese and the rest of the oppressed Sudanese felt cheated by their northern brothers on an account that they fought the colonial government together and after half independence was granted to all, Arabs came and started grinding an ax on Africans to further neo-colonialism. 

That was due to a lack of fulfillment of political allegiance which I think is probably happening in a unity state as soon as the well-informed Panaruu group is assuming political headway of the community This long historical political naivety towards the SPLM is being forged by a certain class of people in the community to foster their self ambitions without rewarding the community for their tough stand in protecting their interest. It would be upon this community to rise against this ill-inculcated selfish message by telling themselves enough is enough as their deeds tend to defame the cultural integrity without a return benefit. 

Where are the SPLA veterans?

By Atok Dan 

“A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people,” John F. Kennedy. 

There is always a need to travel a thousand miles beyond our simple perceptions and to meditate beyond our seeing in order to discover somewhere, where our objectives of the revolution went missing and to rediscover why we are so naïve and myopic to the course of our struggles as a nation endowed with greatness not discovered. 

In this defining moment, there is a need for massive support for our government whenever possible and there is a need for a massive uprising to uproot all possible sources which contravene with original objectives of the Movement we wholeheartedly nursed during those nasty and nostalgic hours of isolation and boredom. And there is a need to redefine ourselves in this trying moment in order to rejuvenate our worn-out ideas for the sake of generation and generations. 

Having gone to a bush at a younger age, am an ambassador of Liberation more than most politicians think of who am I. In fact, what the marginalized Sudanese in all the peripherals of the country need is more than negative political rhetoric normally made in rallies in the name of winning support. 

In fact, the two years which preceded the uprising of 1983 were so symbolic and noticeable in such a way that body communication was enough to rely on the magnitude of the flaming fire in most Southerners including people from the three areas. 

What I would want us to remember is that we are not that race with short memories to have forgotten the recent past whom we are still nursing from the wounds incurred, who are indeed myopic to have proved scrambling over the little slide-piece of breed given by the enemy. “Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures, said John F. Kennedy.” 

If that very spirit was persistent in us, corruption, the grandfather of nepotism, tribalism, and an uncle to rampant insecurity over this tiny piece of land won’t exist but I think it could be because our memories are too short to recall the yesterdays which brought us to today of remorse and regrets. 

I’m intending to talk to my uncles, elder brothers, and sisters heading the train driving the marginalized to the promised land that this very government we brought from the land of deceits is too corrupt, naïve to accommodate us, too weak to foster hope in the hopeless orphans, widows and the crippled heroes and heroines maimed during the struggle and that you are obliged to adapt some reformations which I know your are potential to achieve but only that you might have been not told. 

That’s your greatness to drive this nation out of danger is inevitable given that the population is behind you. my next take to the disgruntled masses is that there‘s never existed corruption, tribalism, nepotism and many other vices in the government but the few seen are the results of your contributions. Nobody has ever dared to criticize his/her relative because of making the government officials their family dynasty in the name of fairness and patriotism. Judge me wrong if all office managers, drivers of officials, and other crucial positions are not occupied by sons/daughters or immediate family members. 

It is very simple to be corrupt than to be fair. Although there is one mechanism that if employed can seal off all possible avenues of corruption and its relatives in a country brought about through just wish. This mechanism is through democratic means by electing leaders mandated in the name of serving people not themselves anymore. 

Lastly, we need not commit mistakes by postcolonial Sudan that people had much trust in their leaders yet only a few of those leaders honored the trust paid to them. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Prof Wangari Maathai said, “Africa needs a revolution in leadership not only from the politicians who govern but from an active citizenry that places the country above the narrow needs of its own ethnic group or community through collective responsibility over individual gains and common feeling of the continent.” 

We need our politicians to be active in advocating for positive change not only supporting transparency but must be reflected in their behaviors. Please SPLA veterans, the ball is still rolling on the firearms front as the LRA and other organized gangs still active. Where are you and your gallant spirit to rescue, stand tall against the hijackers of the movement the enemies of your work?

What is this vague unity all about?

By Atok Dan Baguoot 

“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts”.

Having learned a lot from all unbelievable cruel deeds done to us in the last 50 years of Sudan’s Independence and count back to historical backdates in those dark hours of colonial periods when South and other areas inhabited by black Africans were still under the Closed District Ordinance administration to Juba 1947 two days conference where the South forged a marriage of convenience with the North. 

Those were years of learning from the nursery, primary to secondary schools, and university in analyzing what is all funny with vague unity or forced marriage in which the kids born by the couples are too old to attend to themselves. It is always a mind bothering question if one is to go the normal vertical thinking trends in relation to the current looming political rationale of this mismanaged vast piece of land on the face of the continent of Africa. 

This is a country that will never agree to itself beyond normal human thinking even if our smooth tongue politicians are trying to buy time by persuading the masses to deface their present sights of viewing the whole matter in its current ruinous state. There are people beyond our lifetime who never knew that peace is exact but not only found on paper as the case here in Sudan. 

These are those to whom the future belongs but not the politicians who have failed this country for almost a century yet none is admittance to the mistakes done to ourselves. For those of you who are Christians, God never got angry with those of Adam and Eve on the fact that they ate that fictitious Biblical tree but on the fact that none of them admitted to having eaten the fruit. 

When God asked Adam if he has eaten the fruit, he never answered yes but weighed the whole issue on the woman God himself provided likewise, Eve went on blaming God for Serpent he has placed in the Garden until the serpent didn’t exchange blame to anyone but I think if there was a fourth party he would have done it also. What I’m trying to tell you and I is that, our Northern colleagues whom the whole issue rested upon their shoulders are ever in defensive moods; wanted even to add more weight to the existing messes they have created. 

 As a person familiar with this old existing game of deceits from a certain direction, we better go for another option because we had been deceived for so long that enough can emerge as the best term to describe it by saying enough is either too enough. An English language adage says if a man deceives once, shame on him if twice shame on me because it is a sham on me I who is able to be deceived twice. So our deception by the Northern brothers is too enough. 

As people with distinctive cultures, distinctive languages, norms, values, beliefs, colors, and even distinctive physiques as well as a wizard that represents our political ideologies, we can better suffer on our own instead of always crying faults while pointing accusatory fingers at their praying direction. It is better to be cheated by our own political wizards than to be always prey to an individual whose terms thereto are unique in the name of forging this natural unstable parasitic existence in a very vast ecosystem where any of us can stay without bothering each other. 

Due to all these political inconveniences, entrusting our affairs to those whose political allegiances are questionable was and is a deadly decision ever taken by anyone on this planet unless that person who opted for such a decision is naturally half like us in Southern Sudan and other marginalized peripherals in Sudan. We are half because we refused to identify ourselves and even refused to forge our own economic stand simply because there are people somewhere who wanted to be consulted first before you can name your child born tonight. 

This actually falls within the description of the enemy and total slavery as defined by the SPLM in its manifesto of July 1984. Books and big volumes have been written by many scholars on the relationship between the North, South, and marginalized areas in the plain language of calling spade a spade but not a big spoon, yet our numbed senses couldn’t tolerate interpreting why all these foreign scholars see things within us far away when we cannot see them. 

Dinkas say what a child cannot see while standing can be seen by an elder seated. Even our elders don’t see things while standing today because they would have seen all tricks of NCP and advised young ones to be cautious of foreign intruders. Arabs and Africans are foreigners to themselves and there is no way you can make them become one and not even the best scientists of the modern era have succeeded in doing it. Unless when we want to abuse nature, Arabisation and Islamisation philosophy can become realities in Sudan. with traditional and primitive weapons, Anya Nya 1 succeeded in defending the territorial integrity of the South until the historical Addis Ababa 1972 peace agreement was signed when the Sudan Army with sophisticated weapons could annihilate disorganized and unprofessional Anya Nya soldiers. 

Not we to be either Arabised or Islamized with equivalent weapons. SPLM with meager resources also ventured through until the CPA we are enjoying today came to what most redundant northern politicians confused us on in its implementations. Not even a single old mum or dad in the villages of Southern Sudan has to awaken up, asking for compensation for his/her lost son in the battle yet our learned colleagues are going here and there confusing people in the name of voting for NCP. I thought we would be talking the tongue of the vote for the SPLM so that we obtain what had been denied us for centuries. 

Qualitatively, I doubt the kind of education given by Arabs to Southern Sudanese and other marginalized black Africans in their northern universities. One time I told a friend of mind in a casual discussion that if Dr. Garang graduated from Khartoum University, he would have retreated in the battle like the rest of his graduate colleagues who deserted the battlefields for Khartoum. I refused to go to Juba University in Khartoum when Southern Students from East Africa were granted that privileged. In fact, it is not the education acquired in the North which is the problem but the way Arabs subdued Southerners is what I didn’t like because I was ideologically different given my background. 

“Whatever spoken within a reach of a child turn to the formation of a character of that child”, I refused Khartoum-Juba University until is brought home. Be aware that any political destiny determined in the north in our names in the South here, is worth none of the support in the South and that’s why SPLM-DC is just like a shoe brushed in the eyes and minds of normal Southerners. 

If there are people to sue in the court of law because of our wasted youth and childhood happiness, it is those Southern politicians who opted to affiliate with the north in determining our political fate. If there is anyone outside there who still holds on to those Arab's fallacy of Southerners being unable to manage their affairs, tonight is your answer to evacuate from that well-calculated negative statement of subduing your senses to their control. 

Since none of us can reverse his/her past but all of us are able to change our future, tonight is your turn to reverse your fixed thinking of yourself because you had been in the den of lions and that you can be a completely independent being for you were created to as independent without cost. These elections whose process is rigged are soon coming to pass therefore, your target is the referendum in which you will determine your political destiny. Late Dr. John Garang De Mabior said if you opted to continue as second class in your own country, it is absolutely yours. Enough is enough, so let SPLM runs by our own brothers and sisters be the one to do those bad things to us if we really liked to be mistreated forever and ever. 

 Otherwise, the time has come for the old to listen to the young because the old is too old to be listened to. Both history and contemporary events have taught us that we hardly are deceived. Northern-born SPLM-DC of renowned politician Dr. Lam Akol is one of those ancient north-sponsored programs of set the South in disarray. Indeed, events that took place in the government of Southern Sudan after its inception was really unexpected because these were actually characteristics of Old Sudan hence, deserve transformation but they don’t need someone to be sponsored in the North. If Dr. Lam had stayed in the South after he lost his Foreign Ministry portfolio and form SPLM-DC in the South, he would have been the right option to correct them but when he extended his tentacles to the North for blessings, Southerners see Bashir in the big picture of Lam. 

Beyond that, Dr. Akol remains a great thinker and a liberator who only missed taking the child to its rightful and supposed birthplace. Not even a stupid politician can form a political party as an option for the purpose of the South in the North and thinks of garnering huge support when you know very well that our traditional minds set towards the north is so negative that even blinds and deaf can see and hear. What happened to Dr. Akol can be compared to adding table salt to acid as a solution to stomach ulcers and sitting back expecting your patient to cope with the treatment. 

Because of the North, Sudan Africa Closed District Union (SACDU), Sudan African National Union SANU, Nile Provincial Government NPG, and SPLM/A, and many other splinter groups that did not work were formed. Of cause, the Nasir group, SPLM United, SSIM and so many others are living examples of war against the north. 

Children were orphaned and widows plus many malfunctioning incidences have occurred in between the Arab North-South political relationship and that’s why somebody like me can have a lot to say. Any outcast politician in the South is the one that is affiliated with the north whereas; the best politician is the one who stood pressuring their ground while advocating for the South in the South despite his intellect. 

If Dr. Lam had done that, disgruntled masses in the SPLM like the Independents, plus many others who felt rigged off in the recent Political Bureau nominations including me would have flocked to the SPLM-DC camp for a political settlement.