SPLM/A and SSDF provokes skirmishes in Central Upper Nile
Jan 27, 2006 — On 27 January 2006, an SPLM/A FORCE of 1000 man strong commanded by Commander Gony Gai launched a preemptive attack on Yuai killing 30 civilian people accounted for 16 children and 14 women. The SSDF and locals who are well armed killed two SPLM/A commanders and captured one alive. The Headquarters of the commanding officer captured, including a military radio and uniforms. The whereabouts of the commanding officer is unknown and feared dead. More SPLM/A forces killed, captured, surrendered and scattered throughout Central Upper Nile. SSDF continued to pursue mobbing up the scattered and demoralized SPLA soldiers throughout the area. (We wonder why the international press fails not to cover these atrocities)
The SPLM/A leadership should know that any further incursions by its forces into the SSDF controlled oil fields could have serious consequences. Nevertheless, we stand for peace and southern unity based on democracy and the rule of law. We will not stand up with our hands cross on our chests. We shall remain on the defensive. All SSDF military forces remain on maximum alert and ready to respond any further incursions by the SPLM/A. The ball is now rolling on the on the SPLM/A court. Mr. Kiir and Dr. Machar and other SPLM/A leaders should bear full responsibility for any outbreak of a full-scale military confrontation in South Sudan. The root causes of the SPLM/A has been motivated by major internal split and contradictions within the SPLM/A between Madam Rebecca Garang and Mr. Salva Kiir factions.
This is not the first military skirmishes in the South between SPLA and SSDF forces during the past month. SPLM/A seeks access to the oil fields which are not under its control. However, heavy fighting has now broken out in Jonglei as SPLA forces violate the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and attack SSDF forces. We have also learned that the notorious criminal, child /women killer and most wanted criminal Commander George Ator has been order by Dr. Machar to reinforce SPLM/A forces in Central Upper Nile. It has been no secret that the SPLA, which controls very little of the South wants the oil territories.
The SSDF forces responded successfully to the attacks. The fighting may spread to other regions including Northern Bahr el Ghazal and maybe even Juba and Rumbek and other strategic SPLM/A controlled areas in Western Equatoria. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA remains in jeopardy as long as the highly corrupt and blood tainted SPLA provokes situations that it does not have the guts and gusto to win. If it thinks that the US or the UN would send military forces to assist in its war of attrition against the opposition in the south, the odds are not in favor of the SPLA. We urge and appeals to the Bush’s administration to revisit its foreign policy in Sudan and South Sudan in particular. The people of South Sudan should not accept any dictatorial rule superimposed by external powers.
The people of South Sudan will confront international oil company supported by any foreign powers to siphon our resources at our own expense. We shall not be like Ogoni people in the oil rich Delta State of Nigeria. We have the capacity and the tenacity to fight back. If any oil company thinks that it will take the people’s rights for a ride, let them think twice and consult the ex-imperial Britain and its colonial and imperial experiences in South and the oil rich Greater Upper Nile region during the scramble for Africa in the1900s. Nevertheless, today is different bold game. The people have been enlightened and have become much wiser and sophisticated. We shall warn in advance those forces that have offered their services to become surrogates that we know who you are and we remain vigilante. The SPLM/A leadership have urged some agitators to start a fight in Khartoum. This would be political and military suicide if fighting were to break out in Khartoum itself.
It is ironic as Madam Rebecca Garang is now in Washington, D.C., as the guest of the State Department and the White House for the State of the Union address this week. No doubt, the administration will praise its own efforts in the fragile peace agreement signed one year ago; however, the US forced a flawed agreement, which was anything but comprehensive. As such, the US enabled the SPLA forces to attack other Southerners. The USAID that is the arm length of the US Department of State gives money only to the SPLM/A not the other Southerners in the Sudan. This act resembles the old Jim Crow Law in the antebellum southern US of separate but equal.
We urge and appeal to the US Congress and the Secretary of State Dr. Rice to investigate the ongoing USAID corrupt and anti-American activities in South Sudan. They do not promote the American ideals and the White House calls for exporting democracy throughout the world. In fact, Madam Rebecca Garang, now the richest women in South Sudan is responsible now for atrocities committed against other Southerners, against the second largest tribe in the South. The world should know that when persecuted sneeze the south will catch cold. In other words, when the Jongeli State sneezes, the South and Sudan as a whole catches cold. They also contradict the President Bush’s words during his Second Term Inaugural Speech on 20 January 2005 that
“We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation: The moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right. America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies.
We will encourage reform in other governments by making clear that success in our relations will require the decent treatment of their own people. America’s belief in human dignity will guide our policies, yet rights must be more than the grudging concessions of dictators; these rights secured through free dissent and the participation of the governed. In the end, there is no justice without freedom, and there can be no human rights without human liberty.”
Based on the above democratic and the rule of law vision by the President, it would be wise to inform the Marxist-Leninist SPLM/A to undergo democratic transformation. South Sudan needs transformation and openness. It must and ought to give the people a choice both democracy and the rule of law or dictatorship and tyranny.
Most importantly, the President in Second Term inaugural speech on 20 January 2005, made it clear to the peoples of the world:
“All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you”.
“Democratic reformers facing repression, prison, or exile can know: America sees you for who you are: the future leaders of your free country”.
“The rulers of outlaw regimes can know that we still believe as Abraham Lincoln did: “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.”
“The leaders of governments with long habits of control need to know: To serve your people you must learn to trust them. Start on this journey of progress and justice, and America will walk at your side.”
“And all the allies of the United States can know: we honor your friendship, we rely on your counsel, and we depend on your help. Division among free nations is a primary goal of freedom’s enemies. The concerted effort of free nations to promote democracy is a prelude to our enemies’ defeat”.
We believe that the SPLM/A as a de facto rather than a de jure outfit should be included in all the points outlined in the President’s speech. We believe that the White House and those in the US Congress known to be the diehards of the SPLM/A to behalf in accordance with democratic ideals. We urge and call on the US to work equally with all south Sudanese including the opposition against the SPLM/A. Failure on the US to adhere to his peaceful and democratic calls, the peace brokered a year ago could become an endangered spices. The current behavior of the SPLM/A leadership supported by the some USAID officials will not accommodate the SPLM/A, the SSDF and the Other Armed Groups (OAG) in South Sudan for the duration of the interim period. Sociologically, changes of moves of behavior and conduct are necessary in the South.
It is like giving money to only one state in the US and forgetting the rest. Mrs. Rebecca Garang is responsible for the latest outbreak as she finances the bribery and extortions and other conspiracies against certain southern nationalists and armed forces. It is Ironic that the US will portray her (Mrs. Rebecca Garang) as a woman of peace. Check her overseas bank accounts in Nairobi and other places and you will know where a lot of that money went. Recently, the SPLA received more than US$400m from the GOS and millions more from the USAID and the Arab Development Fund (ADF) for the post war reconstruction in the war-ravaged South. Where is this money? It is only Madam Rebecca and her late Dr. Garang to account for this public coffer.
The late Dr. Garang died as the third highest Guerilla leader trailing Yasser Arafat and Johannes Savimbi of UNITA. He was also one of the highly insured individual in the world by Aetna Insurance as a “high risk person” in the world. Did any one in Washington know this? The people of South Sudan know by names those who lobbied, and did public relations for the late Garang in Washington. However, today some of them are lingering within the Bush’s Administration. If the goal of the White House is to preserve peace and tranquility in Sudan, it should not invest so much on the SPLA that has lived on manipulations, lies, deceptions and bribery and extortions. The truth will prevail and lies will whither away and gone with the wind. The Sudan and the Horn of Africa are on the crossroad. They are hanging on a thin blue line. The region, including Sudan could become another nightmare similar to Somalia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Angola and Kosovo combined.
In addition, oil companies that signed contracts with the North have begun shipping equipment to Sudan. Again, we state that no company except our contracted company will explore and exploit oil in the South. Take notice as trespassers will be shot or taken captive. Most importantly, as long as the SPLM/A is mesmerizing the South, the unlikelihood of democracy that a big agenda of Washington’s foreign policy, would flourish in South Sudan. Many of the current SPLM/A leaders have committed crimes against humanity in the South. Hence, they have should been indicted to stand trails for such crimes. It is a contradiction of Sudan Peace Act [The Act] that Washington’s rewards criminals in South Sudan whilst pursuing them for them crimes committed against humanity elsewhere in the world.
The SPLM/A leaders from the late Dr. Garang to Mr. Salva who was then the “Minister of death” should indictment by the International Criminal Court for crimes and terrorism against humanity. Failure of democracy in the Sudan and South Sudan in particular and could revert the region to a bloody war. Whereas the UN International Criminal Court (ICC) has indicted some GOS officials for crimes against humanity in the Western Sudan’s Darfur region, has failed to indict the notorious SPLM/A leaders that have committed similar crimes against humanity in South Sudan for the pat 22 years or so. We urge and appeal to the international community to investigate war crimes, genocide, ethnic cleansing, ethnocidization, slavery…etc., committed by the SPLM/A leadership. They people may take the laws into their hands to avenge such crimes.
Finally, only today, Dr. Rice admitted that the State Department underestimated Hamas in the Palestinian territories. This is an understatement at best. In fact, the USAID, part of the State Department, gives about US$400 million in aid every year. If the US State Department was so wrong on a small area then maybe they should address their information and intelligence on other areas. Maybe their information and policies are completely wrong in South Sudan. We know that they are. We know that the SPLA/M has deceived the American administration for personal gain. We know that the USAID operation for more than decade now have been corrupted in South Sudan. Maybe the State Department and the donors’ international community will start seeking the truth rather than recycling information that they are given.
– Sign David de Chand,
SSUDA/SSDF Spokesman/Director for External Affairs