Doesn’t the Land and SPLA deserve to be cared for?

By Achier Deng Akol

Oct 25, 2005 — Not long ago did we have a serious dispute over two ministries of Energy/Mining and Finance and before we can even get over that another one is already brewing between what are supposed to be mutual partners in Sudan Government according to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). If it is true that President Omer El Bashir and his National Congress Party are refusing to allow creation of Ministries to take care of the Land of South Sudan and SPLA Affairs, this will be an even more serious development. Furthermore, it is not also clear whether the trimming of the Ministry International and Regional Corporation to only Regional Corporation was influenced by President El Bashir in order to deprive GOSS from direct international access.

Both the Land and SPLA deserve fully to be taken care of to the extent that creating ministries for them in the Government of South Sudan (GOSS) is absolutely warranted. All life on it depends on the land and that is why millions of people die for it as it has happened in South Sudan. To refuse to allow a ministry to take care of a land is to say that it is not an important part of a nation. To also object to have SPLA taken care of while allowing animals to have a ministry is to send a direct signal that SPLA Soldiers are less important than animals. Furthermore, the same national Congress that blocked any agreement to allow SPLA to be paid by Sudan Government during the peace negotiations in Naivasha, insisting that SPLA is to be the responsibility of GOSS cannot now again prevent GOSS from exercising that responsibility. How will GOSS take full care of SPLA and the Land on which it rules without assigning people to do so? When things that are absolutely and obviously necessary are rejected, doesn’t that genuinely raise suspicion about some hidden negative and adverse malicious hidden objectives?

In the struggle that has gone for ages between us, we can easily read our minds. It may well be the fact that President Omer El Bashir does not consider the land of South Sudan to be either important to be taken care of or to belong to Southern Sudanese. It may also be concluded that it is his wish together with his National Congress Party for SPLA to be neglected in order to remain a weak force that can easily be wiped away or to die a natural death. If these are wrong assumptions or misreading, this new dispute will be a little smoke that shall soon be blown away by the wind and the Ministry of Housing, Lands and Public Utilities plus Ministry of SPLA Affairs shall be announced soon without any change in their titles.

Analysts of CPA assert correctly that it does not give President of Sudan any right to object to creation of essential Ministries of GOSS. If that is the case, GOSS should not allow President Omer El Bashir to take advantage of a merely polite and honorary approach (for him to glance at the list of GOSS Ministries) to interfere with it.

I would like to draw attention to the fact that this new dispute may even be more serious than the previous one on Ministries of Oil/Mining and Finance that we had lost. We cannot afford to loose this one either lest our dream for South Sudan Freedom or for a Secular United Sudan! may remain in our minds only as a dream for ever. In deed, unless it is resolved quickly, this is an issue that shall warrant another petition like the one South Sudanese World-Wide sent recently to US and UN or more.

* Achier Deng Akol is a Sudanese from London.