Bor citizens disappointed by minister’s unity remarks – SPLA deputy spokesperson
September 5, 2010 (JUBA) – The head of Information and Public Relations
department in the southern Sudan army, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA)
has publicly criticized the recent remarks by the minister of oil in the
national government, saying it has disappointed his community.
Colonel Malaak Ayuen in an interview on Southern Sudan Television (SSTV) on
Sunday said his people of Dinka Bor community, from which Dr. Lual Achuek also
hails, were disappointed over the minister’s remarks which urged the people of
Southern Sudan to vote for unity of Sudan during the referendum.
Ayuen said he was surprised that despite the fact that the people of Southern
Sudan may not all support separation by 100% he did not expect Lual Achuek to be
among those supporting unity, adding that Achuek could have been affected by his
presence in Khartoum.
Most observers expect an overwhelming vote in favor of independence after two
decades of bitter civil war that claimed an estimated 2 million lives. Since
independence in 1956 the south has complained that mainly Arab-Muslim north has
marginalized the region.
Despite this, the oil minister who is from Bor community in Jonglei state said
the former SPLM leader, late John Garang, who is also from Twic East of Greater
Bor, said that unity is a better option for the southern Sudanese. Achuek is the
first senior leader from the South who voiced out his liking for the current
unity of Sudan.
“I’m a unionist in the footsteps of a unitary leader [late SPLM leader] John
Garang de Mabior. We studied for PhD together at the University of Iowa. But I
consider myself his disciple. The reason for this was that I was, initially, a
separatist. But Garang convinced me on the virtues of one Sudan,” Deng said in
an interview with the London based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper during a private
visit to Washington.
The remarks by the minister have angered both politicians and ordinary people in
southern Sudan. A member of the SPLM in the Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly
in Juba, Arop Madut, this week criticized the remarks made by Lual Deng
[Achuek], describing him as somebody who behaved as if he did not eat three
meals a day in his life time until he became the minister of oil in Khartoum.
The SPLA deputy spokesman, Malaak Ayuen and Joseph Abuk, a writer, both of whom
were hosts at the SSTV programme, also presented some of their views and
stressed the importance of the preparations by the Government of Southern Sudan
(GoSS) to come up with a national anthem and the name of the would-be
independent country ahead of the upcoming referendum in 2011.
Ayuen, who seemed to be reacting to public criticisms on his parallel
participation in the process of national anthem while an active army officer,
said as citizens the soldiers also had the same right as civilians to contribute
to the process.
He and Abuk supported the choice of separation which they both said was the
expected political freedom that deserved the sacrifices of the people of
Southern Sudan since the colonial period by foreign colonial administrators.
(ST)