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 

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 

 

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 

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. 

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.