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. 

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. 

 

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. 

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.