Southern Sudanese MPs are once again united
Editorial, The Khartoum Monitor
Sept 30, 2005 — Southern Sudanese MPs are once again united under one roof as Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly opened its first and historic session yesterday in Juba, ending political fragmentation and disintegration of the people of South Sudan for the past 22 years.
In 1983, the then Sudanese military dictator, Jaafar Numayri, in coordinated collaboration with disillusioned and egocentric southern politicians, connived to dismantle the Addis Ababa Accord and segmented the south into three autonomous states to be ruled from Khartoum.
The abrogation of the Addis Ababa Accord was received by southern masses as a deadly stab by the north on their back. Since then, the people of south Sudan have been set to bleed in agony and frustration.
Successive northern rulers were full of pride and determination for maintaining and sustaining the dagger they thrust deep into the nervous system of south Sudan to cripple its people and paralyse their efforts for development.
The war fought by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) for the past 21 years was indeed representative of the determination of southerners to plug off that deadly dagger.
With the opening of Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly yesterday in Juba, freedom, liberty and, above all, dignity of the southern people are restored.
The legislative body in southern Sudan represents the pulse of the people. It is the umbrella under which the people of southern Sudan collectively find political solace and hope for economic rejuvenation. The legislative body should take as its motto the old adage, “united we stand divided we fall”.
The unity required of them is that of purpose and their ultimate goal should be free and prosperous south Sudan governed by rule of law, respect to fundamental human rights, transparency and good governance.
Anything short of this will lead to disappointment and frustration of the people they represent.
The people of South Sudan should now put the past 21 years of the human misery and collective despair behind them. They should look into the future of the next generations to come.
The people of southern Sudan have stood their ground firmly for 21 years of destitution in the face of tyranny, brutality and heartless abuses of their human, women and child rights at the hands of ruthless, brutal merciless dictators of no match in the world.
Now, southerners have their own assembly house and they can speak up their minds without ethnic intimidation or religious petrifaction.
It is indeed freedom and liberty at last in South Sudan.