March 8, 2012: What is unfolding at the Kamiru sub-location of Muniki Payam in Juba County indirectly impacts the then regional government of Mr. Joseph Lagu and Abel Alier, the former presidents of the regional governments. Their weaknesses and shortsightedness as founding leaders of South Sudan directly gave Arabs leverage to plant seeds of discord and hatred amongst different ethnicities in the South.
When former President Jaffer Mohammed Nimeiry succeeded in dividing up South Sudan into mini provinces, dissolving the unified Southern regional government in Juba, Kokora became an immediate subsequent of that well-calculated ploy of the policy of divide and rule. Tribes whose provincial governments were relocated to Wau and Malakal became immediate victims. The majority of town dwellers who joined SPLA/M in the earlier 1980s, especially in Southern towns were victims of Kokora and that’s why the first waves of SPLA soldiers to reach Equatoria were seen suspiciously. They literally represented forces of revenge on Kokora in the eyes of the urban population in greater Equatoria, although the presence of senior sons of Equatoria in the persons of late Hon Joseph Oduoh, Gen Alfred Lado Gore, Rt Hon James Wani Igga, and many others defused the situation and depicted a different picture of the new Movement SPLA/M.
People were forcefully uprooted from their huts and left Juba with bitter tribal resentment. No reparations were given to those displaced by indigenous tribes in Greater Equatoria. Other communities in the two provinces of Bahr el Ghazal and Upper Nile took it as an ill motive against them by their colleagues, after all, Arabs were not affected by the Kokora. It became the African tribes in the South versus each other in the war planned by a cunning person somewhere. The above two great leaders mentioned with the help of other leaders were all still at their youthful ages to exert their energies to prevent Nimeiry’s deliberate inculcation of hatred amongst their flocks.
Unfortunately, these two great statesmen are live and could still be seen as instrumental in resolving such a crisis. Indeed both had something to avenge. Hon Abel Alier whose government then negotiated the deceitful historical Addis Ababa peace agreement with Hon Joseph Anyanya Movement immediate roll back their sleeves in the fight over superiority of the Southern region. Alier acting in favor of his boss Nimeiry in Khartoum was indirectly seen by the Anyanya elements of Lagu as a key person in the abrogation of the peace agreement.
Alier using his Dinka numerical strength plus Khartoum behind him easily dislodged Lagu and ascended into the highest seat of the High Executive Council, something which sent a shocking wave to the nerves of Lagu and his Anyanya diehards including late Dr. John Garang De Mabior. However, Lagu resiliently recuperated from that shock, his influence amongst the Anyanya senior Dinka elements gave him thrust back to power.
The elements behind these two leaders were worse of tribalism, but the sole beneficiary of the ploy was, of course, the master in Khartoum Mr. Nimeiry, and his Arab cronies whose aim was to Arabize and Islamize the whole Country using blue eyes boys and bad boys. Their failure to have addressed the Kokora incident when we were at the helm of power resulted in these unfortunate deaths. Nothing just comes from the Blue. Current deaths in South Sudan have a lot to do with historical mistakes leaders failed to find its root causes.
To paint a clear picture of how Kamiru's death is related to Kokora and a direct failure of former leaders, late SPLM/A chairman Dr. John Garang De Mabior on the eve of the final Naivasha Peace Accord, called all the chiefs across South Sudan to his popular New Site base in eastern Equatoria and delivered to them the message of peace and above all, he told them how the government which they brought shall be looked like and where it is going to be based. Dr. Garang as a master of his own, he formally delivered his long overdue decision of Ramciel as the new headquarter of his government.
This decision was at first popularized within the leadership of the SPLM whose temporary headquarters were based in Rumbek. Dr. John Garang was well aware of the presence of infrastructures of the defunct regional government but he had in mind the Kokora incident. Collective decisions from both chiefs and other independent thinkers coupled with peace euphoria bound his decision to failure. Juba opted as an interim capital subject to alteration after the six years of the CPA.
Somebody might say Late Garang proposed Ramciel as a way of implementing his decision of moving towns to people instead of people to towns where they end up as slum dwellers. He didn’t want to repeat unresolved mistakes of the past, besides that he didn’t like to have a single broken brick of the past in building a foundation of his new government. Now, what is the difference between the defunct regional governments and the current SPLM/A-led government given that tribalism is tearing us apart, yet SPLM/A which was unanimously deemed to have diagnosed and prescribed the right doses for the chronic problem of governance in Sudan as well and as South Sudan? Kamiru deaths are just a beginning of a bigger modern resentment amongst the tribes in South Sudan besides Jonglei’s endemic tribal butchering.
Alas, the Kamiru incident has its historical roots anchored in Kokora, and it is a fresh stimulus to looming tribal killings in our states unfortunately the government truly seems to be doing little to come clear on issues of land if Juba has to be a timely capital for another period past the one stipulated in the CPA. Bari as a community was vocal and clear in rejecting the capital even before the draft of the Transitional Constitution. Souls of those killed in that Kamiru skirmish could appeal to the Constitutional court because of what has killed their lack of clarity on the land issue in the document. Those elements wrongfully described with their tribal names don’t represent their respective communities but direct victims of legal lapse. The constitutional right to own property with its other subsequent clauses of right to acquire its and interference into private life, home, and correspondence are herein rendered inviolable. Those whose lands are interfered, with and those whose private property is demolished with no proper reparations, and others who lack to put up all fall under clear infringement of basic human rights. The government that robs Paul to pay Peter has to compensate. Victims need the government to come open.
The land saga in Juba is another litmus test for the ruling party to be bold enough. The entire middle and lower class income earners live on the mercy of God in Juba without clean drinking water habitual human settlement yet the government is too numb to sense the grave feelings of its population. Handfuls of people have died in tribal clashes but the government has never come clear in sharing condolences with the bereaved ones. It could really be a young government as described. Retired Gen Lagu and Hon Abel Alier have all gone down with their shares of failures, what about SPLM of Gen Salva Kiir Mayardit whose nation-building policies are still in the chest? History is meant to reshape the crooked past. We must not continue praying to a God we have angered with and expect forgiveness. The coded land grabbers will continue grabbing lands and self-branded land owners will continue to cry fault so long their government remains ambiguous in the settlement of urban migrants not in Juba alone but in other towns in South Sudan. SPLM government has never learned from the mistakes of those governments, hence it is bound to repeat the same mistakes. It was Abel and Lagu but now Gen Kiir and Dr. Riek have fallen into that dark den of history. Kamiru and Kokora are historically intertwined.
The views expressed here in any way don’t reflect that of the institution Atok might have paid allegiance to. They are solely personal; hence he is answerable to pay any price or burden associated with as a result of dissatisfaction. Atok Dan is a media specialist based in Juba and is reachable at atokbaguot@gmail.com
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