People of Darfur deserve SPLM moral support
By Chol Ajongo*
August 4, 2006 — It is known fact that national congress party accepted peace deal with sudan people liberation army for number of reasons. And for the sake of this article i will focus on the Darfur war as one of the reasons that forced the national congress to accept peace deal with south.
National congress party from day one knew inpracticality of waging war in South and West fronts at the same time.It accepted peace deal with south to enable it military machine to deal with West.To great extent,the national congress party successed in old Sudan strategy of playing off one marginlaized area against against the other.
A policy that paid off jalaba institution in is unjust war against the southern sudanese first revolution which started in the southern historical town of Torit.Shouldn’t be allow to do us harm after it has been diagnosised by the new vision.
The African people of Darfur and old lion and monkey story.
When ever i read the sad stories of death and suffering of our African population in Darfur particularly after CPA. I, immediately recall the story of old lion and monkey.
I will kindly ask our valueable and dear readers to take little time and read the following story,for that will help them understand the point i’m trying to present by narrating this traditional Luo story.
One upon a time in Achana village an old lion continued to pose a threat to the whole neibhourhood for over a decades. In one of the hottest summer,fox ,in effort to get rid of the old lion that have turned their live into hell.
Suggested to those whose presence is being threaten by an old lion to lure him to near village with slipery water well entrance .Fox managed to convinced the old lion that people from the surrounding villages converage with their cattles,goats and cheep for water every after noon .
Monkey who was not immune from the old lion threat and who will eventually pay the price, opted to disagree with the rest of the animals who felt the neccessity to get rid of this old lion.As the majority the rest of the animals with exclusion of Monkey ( abuoro in Luo language) went ahead with the plan.
Fox was assigned to convey this good news to lion. Lion, driven by greed accepted the idea without question.To avoid old lion anger and its severe reprecussion, fox, advice lion to go at 9:00 am and cool down his over heated lungs before people of the villages could spot him and go back to vantage point from which he should charge against the selected prey.
The old lion started the mission that could have cost him his life had monkey not risk his own life. At 9:00 am the lion was only few seconds away from the well. While approaching well entrance, lion slipped into well, He remained in the well for three good days.
To confirm his death ,fox came to the well and in his desperate attempts to survive, Lion beged fox in tears to help him out of this dilemma.
Fox told the lion that to get you out of this,one of us have to lower his tail into the well and you grab the tale and then the person pulls you up. Unforntuately my back bone is so fragile, therefore i can’t do that. But i think monkey will be be he right perosn for this kind of jobs,because he have very strong back bone and stiff long tail.
Fox went to the village and called for an emergency meeting ,he opened the meeting by informing the attendance of the news that the reason why some of them didn’t see their best friend and the king of jungles for the last three and therefore had peacful sleep is that
The king of the jungle as all of you know very well, is led by his intrinisic diregard to other people safety and uncurb desire for fatty meat into the well. But mentioned king ?s bad part doesn’t necessarily means that we should not help him out of this tragdy on humantrian basis.
For, this reason I suggest my self and brother monkey to lead king of the jungle rescue mission team
Fox,’s suggestion was endorse by the attendance with misgivings except monkey .The following day fox and monkey set out to the scene .Upon arrival fox suggested to Monkey because of his strong back bone to lower tail for lion grab,monkey agreed.
After long struggle with heavy weight lion and slipery surface, Monkey was able to pull up the lion from the well .But out off the well, something unexpected happened,old lion kept on holding on’s monkey tail.
Monkey in frustration asked the king of the jungles, by addressing him as uncle you are already out can you let me go. King answer was deafening and heart-breaking to monkey.
The king replied ,nephew i have been in the well for three consective days, hence i can afford charging agile deer ,and for me to do that i will have to fix myself with you first.
Upon hearing that,Fox who was aware of the consequences of their mission, started to retreat looking into monkey eyes as if he is saying this is the prices always paid by those who passively or actively help unjust systems to do injustice to others. (Darfur)
It is worth mentioning that the most notorious units that were especilized in lynching southern intelligensia,executions,parties massacres such as the one of Wau in 1965, Juba and Dinka Bor Chiefs masscres were always from Darfur region.
As mentioned above,This article shouldn’t be read out of it context to mean that recalling this historical fact means sadisticism. Rather its is to alert other marginlized regions of the sudan that. Empty sloagns such as Muslems brotherhood, islam is the solution,or accepting fake Arabism won’t shield those marginlized regions from the jalaba’s army air bombardment,rape and indiscriminate killing of suspected rebel sympathizers when time comes.
It important to note that the call for the new sudan ,sudan of equality,justiy wouldn’t have taken almost half a century and deplorable human causalities,had brothers in other marginalized regions of the sudan and Darfur in particular considered southern sudanese earilier warning.
That the only viable way to soften khartoum arrogancy and recovery of looted property is through collective head on engagement of the people of the marginalized regions with jalaba institutions.
A move could have spare Darfur precious three hundreds thousands lives that perished, thousands of unreported cases of rapes in two year old conflict if they were to act and response positively to the revolutionary and comardery call from the people of the south .As a one of the young men who firmly believe in the new sudan vision i still believe that people of Darfur needs SPLM moral support and guidance.
However,it important for the new sudan focres to give comardery advise to people of Darfur ,that it is politically unhealthy to the just cause of people of Darfur to start their arm struggle with two movements with tribal base and two paralle ideologies.
Therefore,it important for the African people of Darfur have to understand that, Islam and Arabism were in play for many decades but couldn’t provided meangingful answers to grass root’s day-to-day life problems.
* Chol Ajongo is Resettlement counsellor at Catholic immigration, Ottawa,canada. He can be reach at [email protected].