By
Atok Baguoot
The political
mileage of the Dinka minority in Unity state has recently undergone an idyllic
experience chronicled by repeated events following the sudden relief of a few
dominant faces in leadership. The governor of Unity state Gen Taban Deng made
a sudden change to the status quo in the political setup of the Panaruu Dinka in a swift time, leaving his longtime friends and associates puzzled in political cold
temperatures. He undressed them naked as a reward for their defiance behaviors.
Col Stephen
Miabek Lang, the former Parieng County Commissioner, and a chairman of the SPLM
party in the county had planted his fame in the area during the years when
Movement experienced a split. Parieng County was given the special status of a
brigade called the 20th SPLA Infantry Independent Brigade. Lang was instrumental under Captain John
Mayik Jau whom they together arrested some senior officers who had shown favor
with the Nassir faction. While he was still none commission officer (NCO), Lang
fought vigorously to ensure the survival of the SPLM.
As a great-grandson of Panaruu Dinka paramount
chief Bilkuei, Col Lang had shown a face of a scion. He was seen by most of his
competitors as a political barracuda. He had been in comfort support of a few
elite’ hoi polloi to continue cannibalizing rag-tag challengers who dare to
face him. The zeitgeist of Nilotic traditional politics was centered on chiefs
and their direct lineages, a leverage Lang had equally capitalized on for a long.
His
influence in the area almost caused him fight with another prominent figure,
Brig Gen Benjamin Mijak Dau, former MP to Juba regional Assembly and another
face of a scion in Beny-Kur Miakuach lineage. The two had one time rubbed shoulders over
what outsiders saw as a fight for supremacy in the area. While reflecting on the political organization
and cultural setup of the Panaruu Dinka, Col Lang hails from the Kwel section, whereas
Brig Gen Dau is from the Awet section. The two sets were administered by their
grandfathers as chiefs, so any rift between the two gentlemen could almost
invite sensible arguments along that historical background.
Politics of who brought who
The
innocents in battle with Mr. Lang are people that he nursed into something. Mr.
Them Michar Kuol, the former state minister of Education and a former SPLM
County Secretary was brought to the realities of politics by Mr. Lang himself. Mr.
William Mach Juach, former occupant of the state Youth, Culture and Sports
portfolio was another element Lang also lifted from nowhere to head County
Council as its speaker and later to ministry. Chief Mialual Minyiel Ayuel is
another factor trailing in the scene of the fight yet he has forgotten that he is
Lang’s appointee. He had on many occasions, insinuated himself into many
arguments in the area, trying to equate his given fortune with constitutional
potholders. Chief is just a mere appointee of the incumbent commissioner. His life
is barely in the hand of a commissioner. He has no equal to challenge a
commissioner in any case, unlike former chiefs elected by clans. Lang had
failed to exercise his powers to show him the exit door.
Governor
Deng approached his chessboard, tackling a dreadful game with pawns in favor of
rooks and other superiors of the game and he remained a winner before his
Panaruu electorates. Under Stephen Mabek Lang as a commissioner since 2005,
Parieng had partially become an autocratic entity, with affairs being dominated
by one man-the alpha and omega. If no
blessing from him, anything proposed agenda whether in the interest of the proposer
or the whole community was doomed to failure.
Chiefs
and few opportunists were central in his administration in a manner of
disordered anarchy, meant to serve the interest of governing class. The dim
view of such invented-well coined theory was daily and frequent squabbling
amongst people. The people Mr. Lang brought closer around him did him the worst
which has ousted him in power today. Amongst all the colleagues who had served
and still serving the position of county commissionership in Unity state, Lang
could still rate the best in handling issues whether internal and external,
given that Parieng where he hails edges the North-South volatile border in the
oil-rich Unity state, where Panthou/Heglig.
The current volatile Southern Kordofan state is afoot to struggle far back to the earlier inception of the Sudan People’s
Liberation Movement SPLM/A there too. Parieng was the stepping stone for the
Nuba people, like the way it is still hosting refugees in Yida. Mr. Lang is a
true peace mobilizer, capable of arbitrating in times of great need.
Those
who technically helped bring him down are his ill-trusted and fair-weather
friends whom he wrongly thought were truly conditional friends one can
associate with circumstantially. In a matter of failing to give Caesar what is
his and God what is Godly, Mr. Lang preferred Khartoumers to his former SPLA
soldiers, including those educated in SPLA-controlled areas.
As a
matter being against principle, Mr. Lang might have opted for pragmatism. Few
could see him as a person short of a theorized struggle. He favored working with those
who were in northern Sudan during those nasty hours of struggle. Former
comrades who inhibited trenches with him went to cold, forced to accept the realities
of continuing with hunger when those who fattened CVs with war stories while
far away were well placed to guide affairs of the county, a place where there
is something to lick hands hereafter.
As it
says, a person who inherited a deceased brother's wife can never tell how
weird it was to have brought that woman to the house. The majority of those Mr.
Lang opted to work with setting his house ablaze. Logically, they did it because
they had never known how dark and pungent the smell was in the bunkers to
soldiers in the struggle. The bond of Yester years amongst the Khartoumers Lang
has stretched hand to work with was how people roamed displaced camps of the
rump state of Sudan’s city. Lang lacks that bond with them. He would have
had more nostalgic stories with his former soldiers he fought rifle battles
with and used experiences of the bush to usher in a new political dispensation. After
all, the rural setup of Parieng County were people that Mr. Lang had served
during their difficult time, so forging a meaningful remedy for resolving problems
would have been a natural phenomenon less laborious.
Instead
of appreciating Mr. Lang to have wholeheartedly accommodated them, they pitched
into a situation of waging an internal struggle to oust him. The applicable
theory here is that the parasite has killed the host, Mr. Lang is removed but
they have also removed themselves, meaning they killed themselves unknowingly
with the host.
Mr. Lang
might have been foolhardy because he had allowed the formation of powerbase clique
in his administration by opportunists who had nothing to offer other than
serving themselves on the expenses of people who had tolerated wars and
sufferings long enough. Second, to that, he had allowed his generosity to have
been tampered by those he had single-handedly helped ascended into leadership
despite the strain opposition the community had toward them. If eight out of ten
members of parliament representing Parieng in the national assembly in Juba and
state assemblies were all from the north during the war, common sense can question
such imbalance. Mr. Lang did it out of
favor. It is a generosity gone unrecognized. The end justifies the means.
Agents of change in Parieng
County
Like his
predecessor, Angelo Mijok Gatdet Deng, the new County Commissioner was a former
SPLA Red Army child soldier who has the concept of struggle at chest. Deng went to Bush as an immature boy and
ascended in both military and education to the rank of military captain and a
graduate of University in Uganda. Deng was also wounded in the late 1990s in the
SPLA Kurmuk offensive while commanding forces.
Unlike Commissioner Deng, Thon Miabek Deng,
minister of Youth, Sports and Culture was amongst the students who left
universities in Khartoum on the eve of peace negotiations in 20002-2003,
joining the SPLA military camps in Nuba Mountains and New Sudan Brigade-NDA in
Eastern Sudan. Deng is a trained SPLA disciplined soldier though he has never
had his baptism of fire. Whereas the person of Angelo Chol Dengwei, the new
occupant of the state Education portfolio is an educationist who professed SPLM
membership. The commonest in newly lifted trio leaders is the age and
education. Three of them are young men in their thirties of birthdate if
they are to celebrate birthdays like kids.
Now the
ball is rolling in their court whether the change will be effected or they will let
all the brouhaha of the event goes to dogs and Panaruu goes back to bickering.
The political evolution of Panaruu
People in Unity state; SPLA struggle
Practically,
Dinka formed a minority in two counties of Biem-nom and Parieng. Panaruu Dinka always features dominant,
overshadowing another colleague of Ruweng Dinka, their next of kin. In fact, Panaruu Dinka took the central stage of Unity state politics after the 1991 SPLM
split of Torit and Nassir factions.
Parieng had vehemently stood their ground in support of the SPLM John Garang
Torit mainstream despite the fact that it lacks the numerical influence to turn
things either way. During those years, mentioning the name of Dr. John Garang and
his SPLM in Unity state was something of a shame. Few who could do it in other
Nuer counties in Unity state were out of courage and one is always ready to lose
life. Parieng was the only place SPLM was alive. It had leeward off the Nuba
Mountains from direct attack by SPLM opposing groups in Bentiu. All these
fateful events didn’t come from blue, Col Lang and a few other officers in
Parieng devoted energies to letting them happen.
This is
precisely the cycle that Gen Deng has broken. Anybody familiar with the politics of
the Panaruu Dinka would be forced to term it as daybreak and the end of a new
beginning of forming another clique if there was nothing learned from the
former. It is this politics of glory
seeking and sycophancy that they had intended to drag Gen Deng into so that
they continue with the immunity of leadership.
