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Sudan Tribune

Plural news and views on Sudan

SPLM must respond to popular aspirations

By Majok Yak Majok *

January 30, 2008 — Reading the article of Mr Bona Malual on the future of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement has ignited an intense interest to let me pose some questions and make comments.

The advent of peace to the Sudan and signing of CPA has ushered in a new era of stability, socio- economic and cultural development. The road is long, tortuous and marred with uncertainties towards CPA implementation. Let me pause a bit here and define Nationalism. By simple English Dictionary definition, it is the desire by a group of people who share the same race, culture, language and others to form an independent country or simply the love and wishing of well-being to one’s country.

What shaped the southern Sudanese Nationalism during the pre- and post independence period; was their desire to rule themselves and their region but was denied. In August 1955, just a year before independence in 1956, southern soldiers mutinied in the town of Torit. They sacrificed their lives there and the rest fled to the bush. The seeds for the long struggle were sown. In the immediate post independence period, sudanization of the civil service posts after departure of the British, were dominated by Northerners even in Southern Sudan.This created great suspicion as to the intentions of North towards the South. Southern politicians began campaigning vigorously for federation.The few schools in the South at the time became restive. The Northern elite, realizing the situation would spin out of control, handed the then civilian government to the military in 1958, the Aboud’s Military Regime.

A dark dawn had set in for the people of Southern Sudan as the fascist regime began to institute repressive policies in the Sudan in general and in the South in particular. No dissenting voices were permitted. An Islamist, Arabist agenda was unleashed on Southern Sudan. The medium of learning was changed from English to Arabic, Koranic Schools cropped up all over South Sudan, with the dreaded northern merchants controlling trade in the South. The Missionaries, who were running the few schools in the south, were expelled in 1962, leaving a critical vacuum in education and evangelical work. In 1960, eight Southern Sudanese intellectuals, seven from Equatoria and one from Bahr El Ghazal, William Deng Nhial, deserted their positions and entered Uganda, the war of liberation had thus began.

I will not dwell much on details of this war, the Anyanya Movemnt, than to say it lifted the case of Southern Sudan even further.In 1972, the war came to an end after signing an agreement, called Addis Ababa agreement granting autonomy to people of Southern Sudan.It was a reasonable accord that gave the region a relative peace for ten years but it also had its weaknesses. President Numeiry who helped bring about the accord, set up a government in Juba but sat by its shadow. Political wrangling, party rivalries, the rising discontent at the time, and the domineering attitude of the North, essentially helped reduce the life span of that government. He [Numeiry] provided music to this government to which they danced and danced to his tune.He enjoyed it all. In the end, he abrogated the agreement.It died and the scavengers took the coffin to unknown destination.

The SPLA war and the concluded CPA is the pinnacle of Southern and the marginalized people struggle. Is it through bashing the North that qualifies Southerners as nationalists? Our people have fought, sacrificed their lives for their country in order to regain their rights, dignity and freedom. Taking bashing as one of the components of nationalist expressions, then the armed struggle is a stronger component of nationalist expression that renders bashing per se simplistic.

Concerning rocking of the boat, major wars that have been fought either ended in defeat or in victory or arrival at negotiated settlement.During the SPLA war, there was an internal, armed opposition of local forces, supported by the North and Northern onslaught on the Movement for 22 years. Natural laws taught to us indicate that a force equal to and opposite to the one above must have been exerted by the SPLA, thereby reaching a threshold enabling it to survive up to Naivasha. Suggesting mercy on the side of NCP or other internal, armed groups on the SPLA is an idea hard to entertain.

The SPLM Walk Out From GONU

Sensing the mood of the people here in Southern Sudan, it was the most popular move after signing of the CPA. It was a general concern about the slow pace of CPA implementation, delayed ministerial changes in GONU and SPLM performance and discipline of its members. The war in Darfur, and conduct of policies especially international politics, on Darfur, headed by Dr. Lam Akol, an SPLM member needed much to be desired. The SPLM, posing as championing the cause of the marginalized in Sudan, should be seen working towards that vision. The awes of Dr. Lam are not about his abilities and capabilities, but should be seen in the light of party adherence and keeping with its guidelines. The walk out from GONU signified a revisit to the grass root. The SPLM must work according to the aspirations of its base.Loss of touch will affect SPLM show in the upcoming polls in the year 2009 and that will have political consequences. The SPLM must keep its vision, provision of strategic plans, stewardship, guidance, unity, CPA implementation and democratic transformation.

The Abyei Problem

The area of Abyei, known as the area of nine Ngok Chieftainships, is very well known to its neighbours to the south and west. In the not too distant past, cattle herders from Aweil East area, some parts of Gogrial and Twic, used to migrate to Ngok, using its western corridor every year around October, avoiding seasonal flooding behind them. They roamed the whole length and breadth of Ngok, they had known the names of Ngok cattle camps, including the boundaries of their Chieftainships Their songs are rich with names of these cattle camps. When we used to go to schools in Khartoum, in late sixties and seventies, we knew where we came into contact with Messiria villages. Messiria nomads come to Ngok every year in search for pasture for their animals. The drought of the seventies and beyond made the area of Ngok even environmentally vulnerable and they extended their search of pasture further southwards into deeper swamps. Armed grazing by the Messiria, became the norm upsetting power balance in their favour vis-à-vis the peaceful, unarmed, local population. When did the Messiria have permanent interests in Ngok? The contemporary history of Ngok cannot be cheated. Any Sudanese has rights of citizenship anywhere in any part of the country. Expansionist drive cannot be defended to mean rights of citizenship. The Marahlin who used to come to Twic for grazing, marked trees and called places funny, expansionist names.

The Messiria and the Rezigat, who seasonally move to Southern Sudan for grazing, in the dry season, were asked by the SPLA to leave their guns behind and come for grazing. They refused to lay down their arms. They wanted to come with their guns and disturb the local population who are unarmed. They are now fighting the SPLA with government support.

The SPLM is not defending Ngok due to the presence of the so-called influential members of Ngok within it.The banner for emancipation of Ngok will still live on even when those members are gone. It is a collective responsibility of Southern Sudanese and the marginalized to see to it that expansionism is not rewarded. I failed to get the context of reference to Ngok as small in size geographically and in population.Is it so small that the NCP can be left to play games until elections of 2009 and eventually the referendum of 2011 and finally nothing happens and the pieces are swallowed in their entirety? Yes, the Abyei protocol is number five. This by no means makes it less important.It is important like other protocols and its non-implementation can likely take people back to war.Is history repeating itself? During negotiations in Naivasha, Mr. Bona Malual accused the SPLM, the underdog, of not negotiating in good faith. It is him now saying some protocols are less important and should not take people back to war.

What prevented the administration of Abyei not to take shape? Is SPLM not negotiating with NCP three years since signing of CPA?.What I see here is hatred and envy which one philosopher called, “unhappy admiration”, that can have the resultant effect of clouding sound judgement.

Performance of Government of Southern Sudan

Southern Sudan, a region of known underdevelopment and emerging from war, can face many development challenges. Institutional capacity building, identifying cadres that can be trained to undertake effective responsibilities of running government machinery, is quite a daunting task. Provision of services, health, education, roads, infrastructure, availing essential commodities and the list is long, are major challenges.

Systems development is a process and the process can be very long and requires a lot of patience. Southern Sudan cannot start like Uganda, Ruanda or Etghiopia, for example, for reasons of its underdevelopment by the past Sudanese regimes since independence in 1956. Inadequate financial resources, revenue incomes, yet to be streamlined are handicaps to quick realization of development outcomes.

The government of Southern is grappling with much talked of corruption. The president of the government Sudan has declared time and again, zero-tolerance to corruption. It ought to be arrested. For the government, it is a matter of prestige and application of rule of law. What are the development indicators Mr. Bona has developed to judge the performance of government Southern Sudan in the last three years of its tenure? Why is he so upbeat about the failures, knowing the immense difficulties the South is under? Who is calling the southern Sudanese displaced to Khartoum black Arabs? When the late hero, Dr. John Garang came to Khartoum for inauguration, masses of Sudanese people turned up estimated at six million people. Were these masses drawn from SPLA controlled areas? The SPLM will never forget that event and their deep love for the Movement.

They will never be betrayed. When again John Garang died, how many died in Khartoum and in Juba? The people of Southern Sudan will be the last arbitrators of their government performance. The social contract bestowed on SPLM by the masses, during the war still continues, as the factors that led to the war loom. Wedge-driving between the masses and their leaders is doomed to failure. The long march to lean freedom has begun.

Denial of Other Parties Political Compaigning

In June 2006, barely a year after signing the CPA, a big delegation led by Mr. Bona Malual, came to Akoc Payam, one of the six Payams of Twic county Warrap State. The delegation included Mayom Kuoc, a State Minister in GONU, who hails from Akoc like me. He introduced him as a member of his party and a strong supporter since the sixties thesixt especially in elections to the constituent Assembly in Khartoum. He talked about Dr. Justin Yac, as one of his supporters and is a minister in the government of Southern Sudan. He praised H. E. Salva Kiir Mayardit very highly and that he [Kiir ], could count on his support. I do not know if that included SPLM which Salva leads.

I will not enter into some sensitive issues he mentioned, as that is unnecessary now. Is that not political campaigning? To date, I have not seen any summon by SPLM on his political sermon.

SPLM is a mass movement. Fighters fought the war on nationalist appeal and other contributing, compelling factors. With peace, political leanings and persuasions, other than SPLM are emerging but prefer a subterranean posture. This position advantages and benefits them as it will manifest itself in the near future, especially in elections.

At one time, just before the start of SPLM campaigns to States, senior SPLM officers involved with the campaign, asked me to recommend a person who could be SPLM officer in Twic county Warrap State. I did in writing and the letter was taken to the head office in Juba. One so-called SPLM activist snatched the letter from the file at gun point, the activist claimed. What a poor SPLM? I mentioned in the letter that SPLM faces an uphill struggle in Twic. That is the crime. The document was photocopied and distributed to sympathizers by the so-called SPLM activists. We were branded as spoiling Twic.This became part of the campaign in Twic. In this scenario, are we all committed SPLM? Why are we opposed to one another?

That the letter was taken at gun point is smokescreen. It was accomplished through a “human gun” so to speak, implanted at strategic, sensitive position, exploiting structural and managerial weakness of the SPLM. I am relating this story just for the lessons to be learned. The SPLM as an organization is complacent. As the strength of any government is predicated on structural and managerial capabilities of the party, hierarchical accountability plays a role in ensuring success.

The walk out from GONU according to Mr. Bona Malual was a mistake which he condemned, that SPLM is not cooperating with NCP but threatens war, that SPLM supports foreign intervention and Abyei protocol should not take people back to war.This is clearly a pro NCP stance. For SPLM, the CPA is dear but pushing only for its implementation in order to prevent war.

The author is Under Secretary of the Ministry of Health in the Governmen of Southern Sudan. He can be reached at [email protected]

2 Comments

  • Deng
    Deng

    SPLM must respond to popular aspirations
    wow brothers where are our splm leaders now i don’t ever ever hear any thing this pass two months i think we are lossing our momentum in sudan. southerners pot is running out of cooking fire due to the recent reshuffling done by mr. president Kiir Mayardit. Ncp is gambling every where in neighboring countries. last month was kinyan crises in which sudan ncp hands were detected and now janjweed are conformed to have been mixed with chadian rebels in order to turn country upside down because chad government accepted darfur. and the world is slow to declare the lasting move that will ensure or save human lives. i don’t see the difference between people of kosovo and darfur why was un so quick to save them when the don’t quicken their effort to save darfur.i thik splm will loss the political battle-ground has it chooses to be silence at this early critical moment of the most needed solution in our sudanese history.

    Reply
  • Gatwech
    Gatwech

    Garang’s Boys Expose their Communist-oriented behaviours
    Wow, what a truth-telling,

    It seems that Garang’s boys have begun to expose their communist-oriented behaviour or system. Read the article below posted on Southsudan.net by the former Minister, Aleu Ayieny Aleu.


    Dear Cde Pagan Amoum Okiech

    SPLM Secretary General

    Jan. 26. 2008

    Khartoum

    SUBJECT: YOU REMINDED ME COMRADE PAGAN

    In 1986, I and you Comrade Pagan Amum and few other comrades that I will not mention here were sent to one of the most prestigious school for revolutionary studies in Latin America and the Caribbean . We studied Marxism-Leninism and several other isms that would make us political commissars that will go back and turn a simple SPLA soldier to a tenacious revolutionary of Viet Cong fervidity. To be able to do this, we were told that the spirit of Marxism-Leninism requires us to elevate one person who is either a Comrade Chairman or Comrade Secretary General and transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics akin to those of a god. Such a person supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do anything including firing you out of the party if you are lucky or fire squad you to death and you should not complain at all if you are a patriot!

    Such a belief was cultivated in to us for one year and then we were allowed to go back to the battle fields to spread the gospel except you Comrade Pagan who remained behind for three more years to enable you qualify for a Bishop in dialectical materialism. Few days after our arrival to the SPLA GHQ, Deputy Chairman and Chief of Staff by then Cde William Nyuon in connivance with Cde Arok Thon Arok taking advantage of the absence of the Chairman Dr John Garang ordered the arrest of known progressive officers (communists) including new communists who have just arrived from the school of revolutionary studies. Only those believed to be relatives or very close to Dr John and Cde Salva Kiir were spared. I was not arrested because both William and Arok thought I come from Gogrial and a relative to Cde Salva Kiir. This is the origin of what is now known as: (Garang Boys or Awalad John.)

    The cult of the person of a chairman and all the members of the High Command became at a certain specific stage a source of personal security and the only way to survive. You must be noticed singing louder the revolutionary songs praising a member of the High Command you have chosen to be your patron and a protector. This created a whole series of exceedingly serious and grave perversions of SPLM/A principles and the revolutionary legality. All members of High Command competed to be praised more in revolutionary songs composed by soldiers. We never realized fully the practical consequences resulting from the cult of these individuals and the accumulation of immense and limitless power in their hands until we witnessed several High Command internal intrigues.. Great harm was caused by the violation of the principle of collective direction of the movement which resulted into several attempts to depose the Chairman by his fellow members of the High Command and culminated into murder or lengthy imprisonment of several of our colleagues.

    Comrade Pagan, when I read your interview with the New Sudan Vision dated Dec.22.2007. You have insulted me, and I could not belief how power can change the haunted lamb of yesterday into a vicious wolf directing salvo of his vengeance guns against wrong comrades who have never done any harm to him.

    Comrade Pagan, you know who forced you to participate in the execution of your best friend and co-terrorist late Lakurnyang, you know who wanted to kill you when you were deployed to Jamus Battalion and how Dr John rescued you and exiled you to Bahr el Ghazal away from your enemies, you know very well who waylaid you between Gambella and Itang when you came back from Cuba and shot your vital parts into smithereens inflicting in to you a body damage belief to be responsible for your traumatic and erotic behaviors. Dr John had to send you back to Cuba for several years and you only had to come back after you were assured that all your enemies are either dead or have deserted the movement. How come you forgot all the injustice you suffered simply because you became the SPLM Secretary General? You should be the last person on earth to brand and conspire against others if you really have memories of injustice you suffered in the SPLM/A and how Dr John alone stood for you until you outlived him.

    You reminded me about the early cultish days of the SPLM/A and when I revised my notes on the course we took together about the history of the communist party of the Soviet Union , I was amazed to discover that you have re-introduced the personality cult to your person especially among the new arrivals in the SPLM. You have also revived the communist culture of disinformation and fabrication. Who told you that I was charged of the violation of the party laws and attempting to divide the party? If you do not know the charges against me then better shut up and keep your habitual lies among the new arrivals into SPLM who actually do not know what kind of a person you are. The general SPLM public concern is the way you are treating our unsuspecting SPLM Chairman. You are treating him the same way Secretary General, Comrade Stalin treated Comrade Chairman Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. When Comrade Lenin discovered too late the kind of monster he created, he wrote the following letter to the party congress: “After taking over the position of the Secretary General, Comrade Stalin accumulated in his hands immeasurable power and I am not certain whether he will be always able to use this power with the required care.”

    This letter, a political document of tremendous importance became known in the party history as Lenin’s “testament,” and a warning to all non suspecting chairmen that Secretary Generals could be very dangerous rivals in the party. Chairman Lenin immediately died of heart attack triggered by his disappointment to Cde Stalin the Secretary General. Cde Stalin was a former Banks robber like you Cde Pagan who is a former Buma Mountains terrorist (You took foreign tourists hostages in 1983 and demanded huge ransom and in the same year together with your friend late Lakurnyang you abducted the wife of Major Kerubino Kuanyin Bol by then the Government Forces commander in Pibor.) Stalin immediately started mass repression first against comrades falsely branded enemies of Leninism— the Trotskyites, Zinovievites, and the Bukharinites. He also turned against honest Communists and those party cadres who had born the heavy load of the civil war.

    Stalin originated the concept “enemy of the people” reminiscent to your branding of your adversaries as (Jalaba baaw or NCP sell out.) This branding automatically make it unnecessary for comrades accused to be proven guilty; this branding made possible the use of most cruel repression, violating all norms of party legality, against any one who in any way disagreed with Stalin, against those who were only suspected of hostile intent, against those thought to have bad reputation and indiscipline. In 1937-38, 70 per cent of the Central Committee were arrested and shot. The same fate also met the majority of the delegates to the seventeenth party congress. Of 1,966 delegates, 1,108 persons were arrested on charges of counter-revolutionary crimes.

    Stalin ordered the murder of Sergei M. Kirov and apportioned the blame to innocent comrades he wanted to liquidate. Several comrades were murdered and the rest were expelled from the party illegally through the brutal abuse of the party statute, because the questions of executions and expulsions were never reviewed at the Central Committee Plenum

    After the death of Stalin, the cases of the so called enemies of the people were examined and it was found that all their cases were fabricated.

    Comrade, there is no bitter misery than to be prosecuted by the Party or the Movement for which you have fought, sacrificed over half of your life, and shed your own blood for its principles.

    I do not want to bore you with the history of the rein of Stalin but to clarify to you the origin of the SPLM Chairman and you Secretary General’s justice in expelling me out of the Movement simply because I suspected foul play in the fateful death of our founding leader of the SPLM/A. That is not the reason Cde Pagan. You know very well that there is no any other SPLM cadre, highly trained in Marxism- Leninism and not a communist who is capable to see through you transparently and your Stalinist machinations other than myself. Cde Pagan, you would wish me dead as I am the only person who could expose you as a former terrorist (Hostage taker for ransom) and a communist who is hypocritically in bed with USA establishment. Cde Pagan, you also know that I am aware that Sudan Communist Party had recalled back all their card holding members in the SPLM/A including you. Of course no body knows other than me that you have been both running SPLM and Sudan Communist Party offices in Havanna –Cuba all the years you have been there after departure Gabriel Acuoth who is also a member of Central Committee of Sudan Communist Party. Beside the above, the most serious fundamental difference between me and you is that you believe in New Sudan and I am a simple Southern Sudanese Nationalist who fought hard and sacrificed my life for people of Southern Sudan to exercise the Right of Self Determination.

    In the last INC meeting, I proposed frankly to the INC in your presence the need to abolish the position of a Secretary General in the SPLM because I clearly detected Stalinism rapidly sprouting in you and must be nipped in the bud before it is too late. Cde Pagan, you positively identified the leadership inheritance syndrome in the Chairman and took advantage of it. My alleged permanent suspension together with Cde Talar Ring Deng is the beginning of your Stalinism and the rein of terror in the SPLM. Few days ago you again manipulated the Chairman to dismiss Cde Monoah Aligo the elected chairman of the SPLM Caucus in the National Assembly for no apparent reason. These engineered illegal dismissals of very senior members of the SPLM by the SPLM Chairman prompted Governor Samuel Abu John of Western Equatoria State to also summarily dismiss five legislators from the State Assembly! (God save SPLM.)

    Comrade, I have always known as a liberator that war of liberation is usually everything to a true revolutionary but the end is nothing. The fruits of the tree of freedom are usually eaten by cowards and opportunists. It is unfortunate that I am being detracted for in-house battles as if the war I have sacrificed so much in it is definitely over. I warn all of you the communists behind my unwarranted humiliation that I will not take this insult lying down nor do I have the intention to be exonerated, absolved and rehabilitated posthumously. Who ever is pushing people to the corner or to wrong camp which is not of their own choice is doing it at his own peril and the peril of the SPLM.

    My dear Bolsheviks, you have won your first battle with the assistance of the unsuspecting Chairman of the SPLM whom I belief is not immune to your conspiracies. You may not be lucky in your plan “B” other wise I have a strong premonition that your days are numbered thanks to Cde Malik Agar. His confederation scum is the tip of your communist grand conspiracy against the wishes of the people of Southern Sudan . ALL NATIONALISTS TO ARMS AGAINST THE BOLSHEVIK THUGS.

    Signed.

    Aleu Ayieny Aleu

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