What difference will SPLM-DC make?

By Kuer Dau Ding

December 9, 2009 — Dr. Lam Akol Ajawin, a self proclaimed political leader, announced the birth of a new political party on 6th June 2009 known as the Sudan people’s Liberation Movement for Democratic Change(SPLM-DC) in Khartoum. The name given to the new party reminds observers and Southern Sudanese at large about another defection of Dr. Lam Akol from the SPLM, a repeat of 1991 defection eighteen years ago.

The SPLM/A United veteran categorized the principle reason for his defection and sole basis for the new party’s constitution as a consequence of the failure of SPLM. The SPLM/A-DC was therefore, born to save SPLM from collapsing. The SPLM has lost the support of the masses with no direction and fails to present a coherent programmer for both the GOSS and the GoNU. It is the opinion of Dr. Akol that the SPLM is incompetent, corrupt, tribalism, and are to be blamed for the insecurity and absence of basic policies in the South.

In the aftermath of Dr. Lam’s comments, the SPLM has ceased all political discourses with his new party and branded him as an opportunist who lacks a political base and is a deliberate agent of NIF/NCP, whose aim is to implement a proxy war in Southern Communities, characterized by escalating inter-tribal conflicts which is now occurring in the region. This affirms what the GOSS President and Chairman of SPLM, H.E First Lt. General Salva Kiir Mayardit says. A veteran of both wars, the Anaya 1 and SPLA/M ,he has reiterated time and time again the hypocrisy of this ”unholy” alliance of certain Southern Sudan political Parties as the work of , “hyenas in sheep’s clothing whose words and deeds are determined by their masters from Khartoum.” These are the very parties that fought SPLA/M tooth and nail in support of the Khartoum Government of the Arabs for 21 years. Kiir made this statement during the period when certain Southern Sudan parties, together with the NCP, boycotted a National Consensus Conference being held in Juba and they were accusing the SPLM of renegotiating the CPA with Northern opposition parties. It is only a naïve southern Sudanese who would take this attitude about any northern political party! None of the northern political parties was a signatory of the CPA and what SPLM was doing was to let them agree with their brothers of the NCP with whom the SPLM did sign the CPA.

But whether Dr. Lam is right or wrong with his accusations towards the SPLM is not what I am interested in discussing here. My interest lies in what the SPLM-DC and its’ party leader, Dr. Akol, is going to change in the geo-political landscape of Southern Sudan and Sudan as a whole? And when will Dr. Akol desist from his habit of defecting and re-defecting and forming new political organizations?

In my humble attempt to answer the above two questions, there are many more questions to be answered first. Before doing this, I would like to shed some more light on this man who is as talented as a fish swimming in water and like a bird flying in the air or as an animal in the jungle. He is a whimsical Mr. Know-It-All, living in a fantasy world, with a deep disdain for others and terrible lack in depth of thought. He holds a PhD in chemical engineering and so worthy of our respect because of his academic achievements! But Southerners also deserve a reciprocal respect from his Lordship! It is deeply concerning to the Southern Sudanese public who feel sorry for a man whom they have tried to rely upon at such a crucial moments in the history of the South, when the green light for our freedom is within our reach but Dr. Akol instead sinks like the Titanic ship!

His political image, though beyond repair, he could still repent and make another U- turn to the centre of Southern Sudan politics and join the list of compatriots and perhaps adjust himself and become a leader of people to be proud of. He needs to turn out a bit from his self-centered interests to public interests, from fantasy world into realistic world and from illusive thinking of being a super brain, which has no mistake to be accused of but humble himself and become courageous enough to say sorry even to a child.

I respect Dr. Lam as a southern Sudanese good citizen; I have no personal benefit to gain by my present attitude to him or defending any one from him. If I am seen to be hash on him then does blame my temperature on the Southern Sudan for we are not able to accommodate any nonsense of this kind!!!!

Dr. Lam defected from SPLM despite the good that has been accorded to him by this Great Party. As soon as the CPA was signed in 2005, our late Hero, Dr.John Garang de Mabior appointed him the Interim Governor of Western Bahr el Ghazal. This was an appointment done by the late Chairman to a few SPLM leaders for the ten southern states .Dr.Lam was not left out for he was regarded as a senior SPLM person! Of the ten Interim Governors at that time, all are loyal to their party till today. It is Dr.Lam who has become the “Odd” person out-again, when our present leader, First Lt.General, Salva Kiir Mayardit formed his first administration of both governments i.e. GoNU and GOSS, he made Dr.Lam the first ever southern Sudanese foreign minister. He managed the ministry like his own property. He clearly showed overt tribalism and favoritism.

Despite all these facilities the SPLM gave him and the niceties that he found in the job, he was not grateful to the party at all; instead, he showed more disloyalty, and disobedience, a characteristic he is known for. Obviously the SPLM could not continue forever to shut its eyes for such an ungrateful fellow, and so he was removed. His removal became necessary mainly over policies. He became more loyal to the NIF/NCP than the party that put him in that place in the first place. The Dr. did not use the wisdom of the “hyena”, i.e. my lord let me into the zone of the enemy to get my food, but as for exiting, leave it to me.However, this is a paradox; there is no wisdom of this kind! Dr.Lam, the hyena got caught in the enemy’s zone.

This is perhaps why Dr.Lam formed his counter party.SPLM-DC. But if the Reestablished his party as a reaction, then he is wrong. Dr. Lam must realize that he has been doing the wrong things for quite a long time. He deliberately stood against the position of his party on Darfur and contradicted its policies over it all the time. We can all sympathies with Beshir over the indictment by the International Criminal Court ICC, but what about the poor people of Darfur who are dead and displaced by the Janjawid? Should you not compare them with us in the southern Sudan and what we also experienced in the hands of the same NIF/NCP?

Have you forgotten so soon that you were in the same situation as the people of Darfur before the CPA of 2005? In any case the indictment is there everlasting. The only escape from it is “Death”. This is the only way The Serbian Milosevic escaped it! Actually, it is time now to think about the indictment of the two doctors, Lam and Riek. People cannot talk of the indictment of Beshir and leave out the two doctors. What they did after their defection in 1991, massacring thousands of innocent people in Bor, cannot be swept under the carpet. The two doctors must accompany Beshir to The ICC in Hague. The crimes of the three are similar. So the two doctors have to realize that their crime will follow them just as the crime of Beshir will never leave him what so ever.

Dr.Lam has based his party in Khartoum because he has no where to go in the south. However, he is fond of poisoning the minds of university students and with Malakal being his tribal base, one wonders what will happen in the volatile Malakal? If anything goes wrong Lam is to blame. The NCP are trying to hand over the governorship of Upper Nile State to one of the Drs. associate in place of Major General Gatluak Deng, another NCP, but the reason for doing this is to give Lam a base in the south for his propaganda for the presidency of GOSS elections in April 2010.There could be no overt reason for appointing a governor than this. I hope President Salva should rescind his recent decree of replacing Gatluak with William. This will work well for Lam!!!

Actually, Lam should have kept any of his all names, SPLM/ Nasir Faction or SPLM/A United or Fashoda Movement. This is history repeating itself. A defector will remain defector. This is therefore, a continuation of the LONG AGO defection of 1991.”Aluta continua” in Lam’s way! So Bob Marley was right,” You can fool some people for sometime, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” Lam is a chameleon who changes his political colors per se.

A lot can be said about Lam Akol Ajawin.This is a man that has caused untold damage to southern Sudan. In the 1990s, aside from their defection to join the enemy, he and his collaborators introduced a new agenda into southern politics, namely, hate, dishonesty, unpatriotic, murder, massacre and betrayal and more. He is a man who will never be contented with anything. Those who cooperate with him soon realize how awkward he is and so my advice to his new SPLM-DC secretary general, Dr.Charles Kisanga, is watch your back! Soon you will find a big arrow on your back. Never blame yourself, but call it your lesson ONE with Dr.Lam in our politics. You are a novice in the wrong place with the wrong man .Do not be surprised if Mr. Defector and Re-defector leaves you more confused than amused in the very near future. He is no General Paulino Matip, a man of one resolution at a time. General Matip decided enough was enough in working against his own kith and kin and so he joined the SPLM/A.

Sometimes it is nauseating to hear the self determination our present SPLM Chairman, First Lt.Gen.Salva Kiir Mayardit, negotiated at Machkos and enshrined as the DOPs. That led finally to the CPA, being claimed by the doctors as their contribution to southern Sudan. Since 1947, when the ruthless Arab learned, lawyer, Shingeti started negotiating with our uneducated chiefs, to the time of Anaya nya1-Aggrey Jaden, William Deng, Fr.Saturlino etc., self- determination has always been the call.

So Dr.Lam with his associates sounds senseless to call it their acquisition for the people of southern Sudan. Southern Sudanese politicians have called for self-determination to independence for a very long time. When the traitors ran to Khartoum in 1997 and signed their surrendering agreement with the NIF, they cannot deceive themselves that they signed anything important for the south. All of them who sold themselves to the enemy were nothing other than surrenders and traitors. They went and exposed the secrets of the movements to the enemy and not only that, the wealth of the south we are now sharing with the north was handed over to the NIF. So Dr.Lam, please stop decorating yourself alone, wait for the southern Sudan to give it to you if you will ever deserve it!

SPLM-DC was born in June this year and immediately went into coma. It is still in coma but some parts have recovered. Mr.Hassan Chuol Met, Malek Cook and Jiech Chol have jumped out of the comatose body. It is advisable for other parts of the dying SPLM-DC to jump out before the body reaches the state of “rigor mortis” The three wise nationalists who jumped out because they confirmed one thing; Dr.Lam is no democrat as he has always proclaimed. This was the reason for the 1991 defection—DEMOCRACY. Everybody who works with Lam proves that Lam is no democrat .I will not name many people who have experienced this fact, but it is enough to add to the list of the three who have resigned from the SPLM-DC an important southern Sudanese who had to write a bitter letter to Dr.Lam resigning as deputy chairman of SPLA/M United in the 1990s, Mr. Peter Abdel Rhaman Sule, even goes on to tell the world that the tribalism with Lam Akol is unmatched anywhere in the southern Sudan. A simple example was that official meetings of the movement were conducted in Shilluk language.

In 1991, the southern people were about to get their freedom from the Arabs by cheer military strength. SPLA was preparing to attack Juba, the main town of the south. Suddenly, perhaps as a request from the NIF, the two doctors did not wait, but instead they stabbed the SPLA at the back by declaring the media the Defection of Nasir. They therefore, saved Juba and so the enemy was spared by the treacherous deed of Lam and his cronies. His hate for our Icon, and Hero, Dr.John Garang de Mabior blinded them to an extent that they “sold” the south to the enemy. So again, Dr.Lam continues even after the man he hated is dead. To this is to stab the back of the south again by destroying the CPA, another request for him by the enemies of the south. The enemy is very uncomfortable with the nearness of Sunday 9th.January, 2011.The referendum outcome is already predicted that the south will secede because the NIF did not make unity attractive to the southerners during the interim period, and for that mater Lam is to rescue them again. However, it is too late in the day now, the situation is irreversible, and Dr.Lam with his SPLM-DC will neither help him nor his Arab alliances.

To say little about this Arab alliance, one does not need to go very far. The millions of dollars Lam have for himself for not much will be received by Charles Kisanga, were given to him by the Arab friends of the NCP.As a proof, lets recall the list of those who attended his first convention in the “Friendship Hall” in Khartoum. Aside from the convention being addressed by the top founder, the NCP in the person of Dr.Nafie Ali Nafie, Arab terrorists e.g., Hamas and Hezbollah were the guests of honors. .So the question any southern Sudanese has to ask is: Is Dr.Lam’s party one that can safeguard his/her interests so as to guarantee freedom? My answer is No.

Dr. Lam is very unstable and paranoid character who can work with no one above or below him. He feels threatened at any time and so has lost confidence and finds it hard to work with people. This has led him to change political positions like shirts. He began in 1986, after the fall of Jaafar Mohammed Numeiry.He deserted from Sudan African Congress, SAC, leaving late Dr.Walter Kuonjok.He then ran and joined the SPLM under the late Dr.John Garang.This was short lived for in 1991, he defected with his friend Dr.Riek Machar when they founded the SPLM/A Nasir Faction. They soon renamed themselves again as SPLM/A United. From thence, he fell from one floor to the next, four times, thus:

1] NIF/NCP, National Congress Party—1997 to 2002.

2] Justice, Peace and Equality Party. —2003.

3] Re-defected to SPLM/A again with Dr.John Garang, when he saw CPA was eminent, 2003—2009.

4] And now, SPLM-DC.-2009.In total, Dr.Lam has changed from eight [8, political movements and parties since 1986 to 2009, i.e. in twenty three 23, years.

This is a record and indicates weakness and liability of the Drs. Personality. He has played Tom and Jerry with the lives of many people for too long. Perhaps if he cannot stop voluntarily, then he will have to be sectioned so as to cease and desist.

Kuer Dau Ding, lives in Juba Southern Sudan, can be accessed at: [email protected]