Passports and marketable education are immediate needs of the republic of South Sudan

By Atok Dan Baguoot 

 Juba, 22nd October: 

 A normal human psychic is telling anyone in South Sudan that something is terribly going on wrong especially in dealing with national issues of great concern, namely the issue of Passport and secondary school examinations. After the Speaker of the National Legislative Assembly Rt. Hon James Wani Igga declared the positions of Parliamentary Specialized Committee vacant on technical grounds, another MP also raised an issue of concern in relation to the use of Arabic language besides the English language in the August House. The said MP urged the House to provide a table-translated Arabic version of every agenda discussed for those MPs who don’t read or write English. 

 Hon John Luk Jok, the Minister of Justice became hot on the matter telling the house that any translation made in any other language apart from English which is the constitutional official language would contravene the wording of the Transitional constitution of the republic. He mentioned that Arabic is an unrecognized language in this nation; therefore any translation made in Arabic would amount to a violation of the constitution. The minister was actually telling anyone who has not touched Constitution that there are constitutional clauses that should not be tampered with whether it means the sunset in the midday. 

Minister Jok was in the spirit of respect for the supreme law of a sovereign land which is the Constitution, our pride as a nation. On the contrary, the Minister of Education, Hon Joseph Ukel was recently quoted by media saying that South Sudanese students with Arabic background education are allowed to still be sitting for Sudan secondary examinations in the North for a period of three years, meaning continuing with Arabic as a medium of communication of course. 

Meanwhile, the government of South Sudan is spending a hell of money on capacity building for government employees who don’t read and write in English. In these two statements, the application of logic and commonsense have all gone defeated not rightly but due to a lack of coordinated efforts from senior government of officials. Sometimes it can be referred to as ignorant of the application of law I doubt if there are parents ready to sacrifice the future of their children on the expenses of maintaining a cordial relationship with the republic of Sudan in the shallow pretext of continuing sitting for examinations whose papers will not earn them living at the end of the end. The reality on the market in South Sudan today is that holders of English certificates are on the safer side, and what if you give it another two more years? 

 To me, continuing with the examinations from the republic of Sudan is just going to be deliberately spoiled chances because the Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan is very clear in white and black. Who is that to violate it in favor of unrecognized language?

 If at all there is a language to recommend your child to sit, for now, it should be constitutional recognized South Sudanese national languages. We are done with Arabic business after all use of two official languages promotes inefficiency in public offices and it is documented in the last six years of the CPA. Second, to that, the public has been promised a new passport as soon as the flag of the new republic is hoisted up on the 9th of July, and as if we had known the goal post was shifted to September and again to October. 

The communication from the new occupants of the office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs now is that December is the deadline for receipt of the document. A great amount of time consumed preaching an equivalent of lies would literally be translated into a lack of initiative especially when the public comes to digest the presidential 100 days timeframe. 

 Indeed lack of passport and Sudan examinations could be seen as of less interest to policymakers because they are busy moving up and down running their side businesses, while their kids are attending prestigious schools that would enable them to compete for all kinds of jobs. 

 Conclusively, the lack of passports and continuation of Sudan’s examinations are altogether executive dumping strategies meant to keep the majority of citizens away from the realities of the competitive dynamic world of today. A passport is a constitutional right even if it means curving wood, melting metal, or solidifying water into papers passport, we need it with marketable quality education. The writer is a journalist working in South Sudan, and he can be reached

Faded love

By Atok D Baguoot

It is it that people go for, 

they need it most 

It is lavish love, 

expensive and painful when not cared for 

It binds the loose bonds of nature 

We all say in unison, 

I love you but do we really mean it 

Its two facets are either commercialized or idealized 

Bond by forces of nature, straights go for the opposite sex 

Bisexuals go for both, 

they roam well in between the two sexes 

They still called it love 

Even lesbians and gays trim their hips with caressing hands in bed at night 

They also termed it, lavish love 

Straights called it outcast by nature 

Both the pedigree and offspring live lovely in love 

They called it parental love endowed by nature the giver of love, 

and the creator of jealousy and hatred

It is it that we go searching to perfect our union as wife and husband 

when impaired, it goes off through windows 

When cheated, 

It falters and fades away naturally,

Where it goes is where it rejuvenates itself by nature, 

It is a Greek myth called the phoenix

It rejuvenates itself at someone else door 

it is a chance knock but not received

It is it that when not taken care of delivers unfaithfulness,

the grandchild of adultery 

the fruit of family discords 

some called it divorce, parties are issued a certificate of divorce

This is when love is not well taken care of by the former lovers 

We both need it to flourish healthily in the world of suspicions 

Lust for sex but learn to love lovely 

For your offspring will pick it from you 

I will pick not the way you said it but like your dos 

Yes mum, onto the hills of colgotta of Dinka culture

By Atok D Baguoot 

Yes, mum, 

I"m ever with you 

With tears rolling down your cheeks, like the waters of equatorial torrential rains 

I"m there to face the last ferocious battle together with you 

Yes, mum, 

I'm ever with you

How much worst the swords of torture could be

I'm ever together with you in pains and agonies 

know that somebody somewhere felt touched by your sufferings 

Yes, queen of the universe, 

I'm ever with you deep down the corridors of dark and hatred 

I'm ever there to witness the scares of tortures that tear your smooth melanin apart

Your smooth beautiful African skin

To smoothen your skin with my oily tears

Love last is yours

Yes, mum, 

My love and caressing touches would one time mend your broken skins

It would sweep clean all the salty tears that had trickled down your shiny cheeks,

the veins and arteries of your heart are overworked will one time relax in true affection 

Yes queen of the holy palace

for if you persistently tolerate the burden inflicted upon you

by the bondage of culture

your happiness shall one time supersede other forms of human happiness

your reward shall be a complete love and affection full of remorseful memories

Yes, mum, 

I know the weighty of an unreligious cross that has tormented your hope

 Yes, mum, onto the hills of colgotta of Dinka culture, 

you are still who you are,

with their minds and hearts kneeled on the wealth of the planet,

you will still surface resiliently, 

you never succumbed to their mediocre 

your true long-lasting love never waned 

Yes, mum, 

for you never faltered your word of love towards me 

Am ready to face the negative fatal attitudes of the culture 

You and I are there to alter and witness the true joy of love 

The fruits of patience and tolerance 

We will rejoice once again in oneness 

Yes, mum, 

could you remember the fallacy of now 

With its freak pains that almost swallow the zeal of truth 

Yes, mum, 

your last say would be the ultimate judgment 

You are not Jesus but Jesus in this judgment 

Slay the dragon of injustice and impunity

By Atok Dan Baguoot 

Slay a monster of injustice 

slay it with its putrid and malodorous roots

Put it to rest 

Let it be in the dustbin of history 

Put a killer to its knee, 

For it will remind us of the bitter past 

Slay the dragon of impunity and social vices, 

for it cuts artery of national union, 

of cohesion and patriotism 

Slay it to a perfect death, 

Cut its heads with a neck,

for it will germinate 

Slay the vice that turns public entities into the tribal shrine, 

It generates hatred that pilfers public coffers 

Slay it that our national values shall be restored 

Slay it so that loosen national bonds shall be restored

Slay it so that our footprints shall be traceable 

to a generation and posterity 

Slay the culture of impunity and corruption, 

For they brought us unforgettable memories, 

For they brought chronics wars that decayed the national bonds, 

South and north, east and west 

Slay the dragon to death  

In the Jungle of despair

By Atok Dan Baguoot 

Rains, sun heat and hunger, 

all wrinkle my face 

Freckle my shiny dark smooth melanin contours 

The gentleness of the African Queen 

The land of all odds 

That lessens protruded pot bellies

The dangerous human tribe 

 Classes of social and economic inequality   

The black jacket tribe 

That wears a thread-like piece of cloth 

For the show disguised dishonesty 

For theft and nepotism

All darken their concept of lust for stolen wealth

A well-framed ideology

A generation of distress and despair 

Sunken us into a jungle of despair 

The jungle of wars, weariness, and doubts 

Deep down in the jungle of corruption, 

where we see no more stars 

But stare in desperation and hollowness  

A jungle that abhors reasonableness

But a jungle of lawlessness

Where anarchy, chaos, and injustice flourishes  

In this jungle of hopelessness, 

Seated on benches tribal lords

To rob, a nation of its treasure and character

 Of her nationalism and oneness in noble duty 

 To live a destitute live, hatred, jealousy,  and lust for ill-gotten riches

Media’s genocidal language in South Sudan

By Atok Dan Baguoot

Since the opening of doors of all kinds of freedoms including freedom of expression as a necessity to have freedom reigns in our hearts and huts, pen-holding colleagues called journalists or public writers started exploiting the market with their abilities. We were able to be informed and inform others about what taking place within and in our nearby vicinities. 

In this new market, both trained and untrained writers are writing but what puzzles people a lot is the quality of their writings. Some are truly unethical. They don’t adhere to the principles and good practices of a career called journalism. Indeed, journalism is very sweet but sometimes becomes a bitter career depending on how you approach it. 

It is in fact an undeniable fact that most of our guys writing today in both the print and electronic media really go beyond the ethics of media in the sense that they use language that can plunge this young nation into genocide. There are several areas in which our instincts really tell us that whatever we don’t meet the standard of freedom of expression because we normally overdo it. 

In earlier 2008, the market started flooded with stories of Dinka grabbing lands in Juba, stories of certain ethnic communities rapping women at gunpoint, and many other nuisance stories of the kinds whose motives were none other than intentionally meant to portray them as negative. 

They are not true stories meant for news but destruction to achieve the aims under the cover of freedom of expression. I remember a story carried by one of the English newspapers of an SPLA Dinka soldier who raped an Acholi Woman in Magwi County in Eastern Equatoria. 

Another story was written by a colleague of mine describing the rebel General George Athor soldiers as people from one clan or tribe as indicated by the language they used in a video cassette which was captured from Athor after SPLA overran one of their hideouts in September last year. 

Literally, the meaning of such descriptions is not meant to relay news but to inflict direct harm on certain groups of people including innocent persons. This in fact adds to none but a genocidal language crafted by the media. There are several occasions in which such unprofessional descriptions have been used by the media. 

In the recent unfortunate incident of Pangak in Jonglei State in which forces loyal to General George Athor attacked the SPLA target, and overran the civilian settlements, usage of the same language is found almost in all newspapers and popular websites, use commonly by South Sudanese both inside in and the diasporas. A lot of helpless, bogus, and destructive releases were in circulation and of which almost none really meant to quell the already worst situation. 

While attending to a media training on conflict-sensitive reporting in Kenya’s capital Nairobi in 2010, a certain friend of mine asked a trainer if there was a single journalist whose name appeared in the yellow envelop brought to Kenya by the ICC Chief Prosecutor in the Hague, Luis Moreno Ocampo. It was a laughable question before the real names were made publicly. Indeed, the training was mainly to tell journalists from conflict-prone zones of South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Burundi, and Rwanda that whatever language they use while reporting can be more worse than utterances made by loose-tongue politicians. 

Later after the revelation of names by the ICC, a presenter was named among the politicians suspected by the ICC to bear the greatest part of the crimes committed after Kenya’s post-election violence in which more than one thousand people lost their lives and several scores were wounded in addition to large numbers displaced. The 1994 genocide in Rwanda was aggravated by poor handling by the media. Radio stations, TV, and other media presented ethnic lines of reporting news stories. Hates and biased stories dominated Rwanda’s public media and as a result, the magnitude of death took the shape that any of us knows very well. 

The worst part of our media houses in South Sudan is that they never bother to take their reporters to refresher courses or training to prepare them for daily changes in the media field. Journalism is not only knowing a language or being able to craft your message in English language or whatever language you use. it is a career full of don’ts than dos like religious books. In my wider reading of stories of conflicts in South Sudan, my colleagues especially the young writers are doing more harm than good to our population. 

Most of the stories they write are imbalanced, biased, and represent a position of a certain partner whose story suits. They are full of emotions and never carried authentic facts proven. Some reporters are even public relations officers representing their senior relatives yet they claim to be writing for the public when in fact they poised different stance. Of course, readers have to believe in media regardless of the sources and quality of pieces presented to them for consumption, therefore it is upon the media practitioners to learn how to sieve off agitating particles contained by the information they intend to give out to the public. 

The only area in which our media shows maturity is in writing defamatory stories. There are no complainants aggrieved by the writing of journalists and I think this could be the connection with the cultures of South Sudanese people which preach respect for elders and different age groups. Fellow writers, let us desist from using dangerous descriptions which can plunge our beloved country into a state of anarchy without intention. 

 

Rains in our village Akot

By Atok Dan Baguoot

Far south at the leeward of greater Nuba mountains 

Our village Akot is situated North

At the confluent of the greater Nile River

Akot is the village we called home 

Far east to the noisy Heglig oil fields near Parieng town

The sunset there every day

Beneath Akot soil 

Situated in a fertile semi-arid desert 

A black cotton soil

Pan-Akot in Unity State 

It is a village short of a modern settlement

But an upgraded traditional settlement 

A decent natural African village 

Children don’t go to schools

Never do they attend to regulated vaccinations 

Talk not of hospitals where mothers deliver

Mothers die in labor

Babies die of preventable diseases  too

Children born in breach delivery are called Aluong

It is my childhood name 

They come by their legs

In towns, mothers are operated to deliver

In the scattered settlement of our village 

Passes a snake-like footpath seldom used by vehicles 

Children are always scared of passing vehicle 

Whenever a child cries 

Parents frighten him of being donated to a passing vehicle

Children are tricked into being eaten by vehicle

Frighten that those carried by vehicles are surrendered to be eaten

In our village 

The vehicle is the most feared monster ever by children 

Its breakfast is disturbing child, 

It dins on the least disturbing ones

Docile ones can be spared by this monster

Vehicles are next to Agaar Dinka known for cannibalism 

Whom we believed to eat even adults not only children 

In our village Akot

Elders jealously rear for from beasts 

In Akot village

We could roam among well artistic grass thatched huts 

Evenings are our best moments in Akot 

We could gather

To watch spices of birds migrating to the Nile 

We could labor counting the countless varieties of birds 

We could quarrel over the ownership of migrating beautiful birds 

We could fight

Wrestle and keep fighting to the next day

We could divide moving birds to avoid fights 

We could divide the flying flock based on colors 

Each and everyone could own his/hers 

They are beautiful 

In our village Akot

We could gather to smile

Touch and glare at the blossom shrubs 

Flowers are rare but beautiful at the buds

In our seasonally dried village 

April rains always come with a cold breeze

We could sing and sing in a quest for rains 

Rain of our grandfather 

Come quickly so that we go to chew frogs (junks) in Panaruuda

rain comes with blossom  

Signs of rains in Akot come from the south with hot breezing 

Elders called it Padhuap-Deng

It is where rains never stopped 

When humid starts

First rains in Akot are always stormy, noisy

It brings hailstones 

It knocks down improperly erected huts

Even Luaks of cows 

Children dance in the rains while collecting slippery hailstones

Children do wrestle over hailstones

They easily diffuse in their hands

Hailstones could be loose ice particles 

Children love chewing these hard particles, 

Ambiguity of lands issues in Juba

By Atok Dan Baguoot 

“Liberty sets the mind free, fosters independence and unorthodox thinking and ideas, but it does not offer instant prosperity or happiness and wealth to everyone.” Boris Yeltsin.  

History of wars and civil unrests had pitfall development of South Sudan to the extent that not even a single place is ever identified as the common ground where people can assemble without utterances of land grabbing. Contests on land rights and land usage are never alien, nor it is an endemic condition to South Sudanese nationalities. It is a global phenomenon in the sense that when the concept of state and nation-state cropped up in the minds of philosophers, centralism of administration also found its way into nascent states. 

After the invention of nation-states, centers started to develop rapidly, replacing ethnic territories or traditional forms of administration centers which were based on social and cultural affiliation and lineages. There used to be no inter-ethnic common centers unifying different nationalities, meaning ethnicities were politically far apart. Each and every ethnic community had its own head center for both social, political, and ritual gatherings. 

Most of the current European countries were founded on this basis, unlike in our case on the continent of Africa where nation states are heterogeneous in nature. The US moved its assembling point from Philadelphia in Pennsylvania state to Washington DC to serve the interest of the unified states of America. In our case here, when the British disbanded the traditional administration system, Khartoum became the center for all the Sudanese regardless of their geographical localities, and Juba identified as a center for the then semi-autonomous Southern region of Greater Bahr El Ghazal, Equatoria, and Upper Nile until former president Jaffar Mohammed Nimeiry administration divided the South into three mini provinces. Juba acted as the capital until North’s sponsored agenda (Kokora) through greater Equatoria came to light. 

Subsequently, came the 1983 Bor Mutiny which gave birth to the current South ruling party the SPLM. SPLM succeeded in capturing major towns from the government of Khartoum in South Sudan in the late 1980s and established its headquarters in several towns, first Kapoeta, Torit, Yei to Rumbek until the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement CPA which brought us to Juba again for the second time after Any-Anya. The second coming to Juba as an interim capital of Southern Sudan for the lifetime of the CPA was actually an influent both internally and externally. 

The SPLM/A leader, late Dr. John Garang De Mabior was not of the idea, although he succumbed to those influences and accepted the idea while knowing that Juba would never be an ideal place because of several experiences. You all know them. He made a personal proposal for Ramciel to be the future capital of South Sudan, regardless of the outcome of the recent referendum. 

The current Vice President of the Government of Southern Sudan, Dr. Riek Machar Teny was to engineer it. In the Interim Constitution of the government of Southern Sudan, Juba would remain the Interim Capital. After the cancellation of famous Ramciel project, Juba became the most preference to the SPLM leadership because of existing infrastructures. They were built by Nimeiry’s regime to lure the former Anya-Nya politicians that development had become a reality in Southern Sudan and to accommodate their government of the time. 

 The size and the number of people in Juba then were almost four times less than the current one, so land grabbing by certain communities was still not much compared to today. The ambiguity of land issues in Juba as an interim capital has depicted certain communities in South Sudan in a state of second-class citizens in their own country. Lands grabbers today in Juba are either known as Nuer or Dinka, why because of their natural large numbers. 

The majority of them in Juba are either serving in the army forces, GoSS, NGOs, or doing private businesses because Juba as capital has attracted the outside world. Few others who might follow are other ethnicities from other states apart from the Central Equatoria States. Because of the ambiguity of these land policies, certain people are seen as a second class who had never had decent life or those who have never had lands to settle on. 

The intra-cultural respect amongst Southern Communities is fading off because of that. Coupled with ambiguous policies, there are no clear procedures for acquiring lands, especially among the low-income earners who form the majority of our population. Even the SPLA soldiers who labored the whole of their lifetime, fighting in bushes to liberate the same costly lands from real grabbers are subject to the same description of being lands grabbers on the same lands they liberated.

Well, I’m not saying we have to settle anywhere in any empty space but there have to be some criteria guarding the tenancy of the land if we are to stay permanently in Juba as the capital of Independent South Sudan. Expecting an SPLA soldier who earns 300 SDG per month to buy a piece of plot that cost 15,000 SDG is equal to regrets over the 20 years he spent fighting without family. Stay renting a house that cost him the same 300 SDG every month tantamount to minus eating, let alone other social amenities a normal human being undergo. 

If we are to stay in Juba as the capital of an independent South Sudan, as nobody in the government talks of the issue of a permanent capital city where all of us would be equal or subject to the same rights, not privileges this time, there is a need of serious laws protecting all of us equally without being discriminated on the basis of ethnicities when asking for a house to rent. Renowned writer, Dr. Francis M Deng said that “what divides is what remains unsaid”. As a person from the caliber of low-income earners is asked of my tribe on several occasions whenever going around asking for a house to rent. 

The end result is obviously rejection because I can’t hide my identity as a Dinka. Because our lawmakers earn the lion's share of their monthly incomes, they are never bothered by what affects individuals of their constituencies residing in the national capital. They are able to acquire lands at whatever price given by the landlord. 

As now Ramciel Project is dead with Late, Dr. John Garang, we the constituencies outside Juba need a well thought laws that would guide us in the future capital Juba but not the former interim capital Juba whose policies were ambiguous to even lawmakers. 

Personally, I need a national capital where my identity would not be used as a basis of awarding me land, where the guilt of a crime committed by my tribe mate is not used as soft ground of judging me wrong and where certain tribes would not be known for land grabbing if so. Laws are made out of logic and realities affecting people based on scientific advancement. We are never excepted from those natural facts. 

The lawmakers have to ensure that they are lawmakers not just to adore speeches made by leaders. In order not to inherit the legacy of tribal resentments and prejudices towards each other in the Independent Republic of South Sudan, the recent formed Constitutional Review Committee decreed by the President of the Government of Southern Sudan, H.E. Gen Salva Kiir Mayardit has to devote its energy in the formation of a rapid constitutional commission that would oversee the nature of laws suiting the dynamic society. 

The majority of people spent the whole interim period in Juba in a disgruntled mood, however, the timeliness of the CPA kept every sort of argument related to the lack of lands at a low profile. Now onward, Pandora's box is held high opened in the air for all sources of doubts and questions. 

In all the bitterness incurred over lands in Juba, none is held accountable this time until we see our lawmakers either making or failing to make laws protecting us in the near future. We need to write off the legacy of big man/woman owning everything of the land. In the law of nature, “every size is proportional to its size” unless that particular size wants to be happier than the others which is the natural source of all discords. 

Me and my mistaken identity

By Atok Dan Baguoot 

I and my mistaken identity are altogether wrong 

With me is me on this wrongful planet

Others think and feel right 

Did anybody dare to consult me even the creator himself? 

If he were courageous enough 

Did he think to consult me 

He felt that he did his best to have me like me 

I was rightful inside me until they told me my identity

Am I literally wrong because of me 

I’m an African of confused culture

That is why I was wrongful enough 

I’m a black Sudanese by origin 

A second quality of me being mistaken 

I’m a Dinka, a hateful identity

To them, Sudan, my home is ever on fire  because of me 

They think If I were well colored

I was a good boy 

They think 

They think if all other black soil-natured Africans were different 

They would have conquered

They would have recreated Sudan 

They think that way 

I and my mistaken identity was never consulted 

Before nature molded me into me 

Before nature placed me in the savannah valleys of the Nile 

Before nature placed me on expensive fossils fats 

I hate it because it brought me pains

it brought to me a curse and suffering 

If my cows could drink from oil 

I hate an engine

Because it leads to engineering

it leads to the discovery of oil 

Never would I have dared to face the creator 

In the refusal me being myself 

For being at the bleeding age of a troubled country 

People called it the North-South border 

It is where Parieng town is situated 

Where nobody is there to say somebody is there 

Where if am represented

Where government imports automobiles 

That outnumbered the innocent population 

Where metals exchange with fossils fat

Where it is barter trade