Sudanese Priest recounts his ordeals encountered in Upper Nile

By Jervasio O.Okot

July 10, 2006 (MALAKAL) — A Catholic Priest who has performed pastoral work in Malakal and around the controversial oil-field areas has revealed his encounter with the former Government of Sudan militias and Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) Security organs for speaking against human rights abuses committed on the civil populations and against recruitment of children in military cadets.

Fr. John Mongi a diocesan Priest of the Diocese of Malakal narrated his ordeals to Jervasio O.Okot, the Correspondence of Mundo negro for Sudan Meridional. Mundo negro is a Spanish Magazine published in Spain, Madrid by Misioneros Combonianos.

Fr. Mongi recalled that he had numerous clashes with militias and SAF security organs because of his righteousness, sincerity and honesty in dealing with issues of human rights abuses for voiceless and poor people of Western Upper Nile. He said his boldness and sensitivity to human rights issues nearly took his life as ?Human Lions’ were for his throat in several occasions. But the priest was however grateful to God for having guided and protected him through out the period he had spent in this area at the time when the contempt of law was the order of the day in Western Upper Nile. The attempt for the life of the priest basically happened when the peace negotiation between the SPLM and GOS was at its peak in the Kenyan towns of Machakos and Naivasha respectively which later resulted to the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in Nairobi on January 9th 2005.

Fr. John Mongi had done his apostolate in Malakal town immediately when he left Kenya after his studies in Apostles of Jesus Major Seminary. He has been in the area since 1999 and was ordained as a priest in November 26th 2000. He took a leave immediately after his ordination and traveled to Juba, a Southern capital to celebrate his religious achievement with some of his family members, friends and next of kin. When he returned to Upper Nile, he served in Malakal town for two years and this armed him with knowledge to learn about the nature of the place in relation to the societal relationship with the Church and Government. He performed well in Malakal and in 2001 His Lordship, Bishop Vincent Majok entrusted him to celebrate Easter feast in Bentiu, a town of oil controversy in the modern Sudan’s political history. It was not easy to travel around the outskirts of Malakal without obtaining permit. Fr. John Mongi had to comply with the directives and obtained a permit from GOS security organs to travel to Bentiu for pastoral duty. This permit usually lasts for one month and if it exceeds an allocated period, the penalty at time is always harsh and even could lead to capital penalty just for a small offend which does not even seem to be an offend in actual sense because one travels within his own country under one administration. Fr. Mongi was booked to fly to Bentiu on a Talesman flight; a Canadian company which helped the GOS drilled numerous oil fields around Bentiu. He was in the company of two officials, thus, Mc Kelly and Mc Raga all from Talesman Oil Company who stationed in Richaid, the first oil well drilled during the regime of President Gafaar Numeiri in 1983 by an American Company believed to be owned by Bush family. Richaid is about 22Kms from Bentiu town. Fr. John was keen and observed that the runway was typically military airstrip where military activities were higher than civilian activities. The then Governor of Unity State named John Dor who was a good Christian however took the responsibility of sending a Land Cruiser to pick Fr. Mongi from the airport. As he was driven to Bentiu town, he met a number of Christians who lined up to receive him. Among these Christians there were also a good number of government officials who were good Christians. But military personnel were littered around the church as the celebrations went on. Fr. Mongi spent one week in Bentiu and traveled back to Malakal via Khartoum and submitted a comprehensive report to the Bishop of Malakal who entrusted and commissioned him to pray and encourage the Christians in Bentiu on Easter eve. However, the Father did not disclose what contained in the report and said it was typically confidential for the consumption of the Church and for the Bishop in particular.

The same year, Fr. Mongi was again requested to travel to Bentiu but this time around, he went as far as Pariang, a small town of about 98 Kms which lies North-East of Bentiu town. This town is mostly inhabited by the Dinka Community of Upper Nile. The priest had a good time with the Christians in Pariang and thereafter, he extended his pastoral hand to the people of Mayom, a town 92 Kms from Bentiu. Mayom town is mainly inhabited by the Nuers Community.

In 2002, the Bishop again requested Fr. Mongi to go to Bentiu and this time he was accompanied by Fr. Ambrose John. Their presence in Bentiu was facilitated by the state government. He managed to accomplish the assignment and wrote another comprehensive report to his Bishop. All these reports and pastoral accomplishments earned Fr. John Mongi an upward mobility in his priesthood. He was finally promoted and elevated to a position of Parish Priest of Bentiu. It was here when Fr. John Mongi began to fully identify himself with the people and learnt the positive and negative aspects of the militias and the SAF security. His elevation coincided with a serious fight between the SPLA and GOS Militias. The SPLA forces were commanded by Peter Gatdet and the GOS militias were commanded by Paulino Matip. This fight claimed a lot of lives and materials which was emanated from the same people who share one social set up, culture and religion. The contest could have been over supremacy on who commands the people of Nuers and who has the powers to sway the people on either side of political divides. Fr. Mongi was able to use his non-alliance approach to speak reconciliatory language for the two parties at war to come to term. The fight between the militias and the SPLA forces came at the wake of the visit of a UN Security council representative to Bentiu. Instead of meeting government officials, the UN representative decided to meet Fr. John Mongi at Rub Kona to discuss wide range of issues pertaining to human rights abuses posed to innocent and defenseless civilians by the militias and SAF. The meeting began at 8.00pm and went on up to 10.00pm. The commissioner of the area wanted to meet the UN representative but he (UN representative) declined meeting the commissioner. The UN refused to meet the government officials simply because the GOS had attempted to bar them flying to Bentiu on fact finding mission. This might have annoyed the UN representative who might have also concluded that the government was shielding some issues from them which they could best get from the priest. Fr. Mongi spent a night at Rub Kona but at 11.30pm the militias raided his parish residence and looted and ransacked all the valuables. Fr. Mongi was labeled by these militias as dangerous priest who was harboring children who had already attained suitable ages for military recruitment. But in crocodile act and tears, the government dispatched security organs to investigate and ascertain the damage and the looted items. The sending of the security personnel to investigate the case was widely believed to be a ploy to cover-up the wrong doing because the security was aware and even some of them participated in the raid of the Parish House. This case died and the life of the priest continued to be endangered for his no-nonsense approach to human rights abuses.

In 2003, another incident occurred on a Sunday in Rub Kona. The military personnel and militias surrounded the Church in the morning while the mass was on and this frightened the congregation to pray in panic. The priest sent a catechist to inform the armed men that their presence was not healthy to the norms of the church. They left and shortly, a contingent of armed militias returned with an aim to collect all the youths from the Church to be taken for military recruitment. This time, Fr. Mongi personally confronted and argued with them on the legality of their presence on the church premises. He asked one of their leaders to produce a request letter from the higher authority that had sent them for him to release the youths. They again left and returned once more with excessive force. Probably, this mission was empowered with excessive instructions from their ultimate head. The priest and the parish councilors had to face them and argued again on the legality of raiding the people of God. The father asked them again to produce a letter. He told them that the Church was like a military barrack with regulations and procedures where no one can just oversteps his powers to subdue the existing regulations. As the father was scoring these points, one soldier became bankrupt in ideas and decided to resort into coking his gun and ready to shoot the outspoken Fr. Mongi. Fortunately, one of the members of the Parish Council had an idea of a gun and decided to go close and removed the magazine from that AK 47 and paralyzed the effectiveness of the gun to fire bullet. The Priest therefore decided to go to the barracks and explained the scenario to the boss. For the soldiers to justify the coking of the gun, it was alleged that the priest wanted to graph one soldier from the neck. However, Fr. Mongi rubbished it and the boss threatened to lock up the assailant in jail. But the priest insisted and retorted that the junior soldier was not acting alone but acted from the orders on the top. He demanded that the senior officer had to answer this to clear the atmosphere surrounding the case.

Late 2003, the priest was to travel to the out station of his parish and upon hearing of this journey, the armed militias laid an ambush on the road side intended to kill the priest. Fortunately or unfortunately, the driver of the priest declined to travel that day and a different car which went ahead was mistakenly ambushed and a number of people in it were killed and some seriously injured. The armed militias were reported by those survivors that they were asking whether the priest was in the vehicle. At the end, they realized that the vehicle they ambushed was a wrong one and they vanished to the bush. When the priest heard this, he was not shaken at all but decided to travel at night. However, the journey was safe and nothing happened to the priest.

When the peace negotiation between the SPLM/A and the GOS was on its peak in the Kenyan town of Naivasha, the government militias were seriously used by the GOS to intimidate the civil population to score their political, religious and military goals. For instance, if one soldier is found to be misbehaving, deserting or decamping to the SPLA, the relatives and closest people are subjected to harsh punishment. In many occasion, innocent people had been killed and humiliated for a mistake which does not concern them.

In 2006, a certain boy decamped from the rank and file of the militia to join the SPLA, unfortunately his aged mother was humiliated and had to pay huge amount of money and cows as fine to secure her release from custody. Another painful situation was when a middle age man was accused of a minor case and kept in a broken minibus under a fierce sunshine for twenty one days (21). The priest had to report the case to the UN Verification Monitoring Team and the man was set free in three days (3). This scenario had been going on unabated.

Fr. John Mongi had also a tough encounter with the GOS intelligence forces that he described as “human lions” that were thirsty of innocent blood. One time, the priest had a function in Mayom but left without obtaining a permit to travel there. This brought a serious problem between him and the security organs. They questioned him why he came from Khartoum without reporting to them and also proceeding to Mayom without obtaining a pass from security office. The priest was furious and intern asked them who they were? The priest asked them who were they for him to report to and added that it was only the Bishop whom he would obey because he staged allegiant to the Church as per his ordination as a Roman priest but not to individuals like they. Fr. Mongi declared that they should understand that from that time on, he had nothing to do with them.

When a Kenyan Minister of Energy Honorable Simeon Nyachae visited Bentiu, the priest was given an opportunity to give a speech and this turned sour on the side of the government. He boldly told the Kenyan minister not to indulge into the affairs of the Sudanese because the oil revenue was not benefiting the common people in the Sudan but accelerate hatred among the people. The security and government officials tried to stop the priest from continuing but the priest was still on his feet. Even the Kenyan delegations were so eager to hear from the priest all the facts. This irked the Director of Security who decided to leave the podium and walked out of the function.

The militias were protecting civilian from the SAF but at the same time they were also doing more harm to the civilians. They were basically used to implement the policy of the GOS including the issue of islamization. Dawa el Islamia had been so much aggressive in the implementation of the GOS policy through construction of Mosques and Islamic centers for doctrines. This policy had been going on since NIF ascended to power in 1989. It has gone as far as Equatoria, Bahr el Ghazal, and Upper Nile. However, it has been reported that this policy hit a snag in some areas in Equatoria and successful in greater Upper Nile.

From 1999 to date, there are twenty (20) Mosques built in Malakal town contrary to two (2) main Churches, thus St. Joseph and Christ the King. Originally, before the NIF came to power, there were only two (2) Mosques in Malakal. They have confused the Community to even sell their plots and lands to Dawa Islamia for building Mosques and Islamic centers in the area. Most of the people who go to the Mosques are soldiers, traders and children who go there because of some handouts from the mosque.

In Bentiu, there was only one Mosque after the Addis Ababa Agreement in 1972 but when President Omer el Bashir visited Bentiu in 2003, a number of Mosques re-emerged. The market in Rub Kona was re-allocated because the space was needed for the construction of a Mosque and a Christian centre was forced to be moved farther 2000 meters away to pave ways for the construction of Islamic center.

After the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in Nairobi on January 2005, another new Mosque was erected and every time the president visits the area, a new mosque has to be built. The Priest said he hoped the President does not come there again for a new mosque not to be erected.

When the CPA was signed in Nairobi, the Late Chairman of SPLM and Commander in Chief of SPLA Dr. John Garang de Mabior appointed caretakers for all the states in Southern Sudan. But before the caretaker arrived, several incidences happened where the militias and their allies SAF took the law into their hands and looted civilians of their property and government furniture and stuff. This was because they wanted to get advantage of a new administration coming to take over offices without property. When Dr. Thiopelous Ochang who was assigned for Unity State arrived in the area, the ?human lions’ felt suspicious that somebody somewhere would report the incidences to him. The fingers were all pointing to the priest who had an opportunity to meet the caretaker and had a chat with him at length. They were also guilty conscious that the priest was unveiling issues of human rights abuses in the area. In response to the looting, the priest was wondering why the law went off-hand when there were six groups of different armed forces in Bentiu who could easily act and quell the situation.

The mood of peace in Bentiu changed drastically after the death of Dr. John Garang. Before that, it was a crime to raise the flag of SPLM, wearing SPLM T-shirts or any material containing SPLM/A. Many people were given capital punishment in the past for possessing SPLA materials. Immediately after the death of Dr. Garang in a Plane crash on July 31, 2005 the caretaker Dr. Ochang and a prominent politician and son of the area Dr. Riek Machar met the leader of the militias Paulino Matip and urged him to legalize the activities of SPLM to be conducted in the area. Eventually after the formation of the Government of South Sudan (GOSS) it entered into negotiation with Paulino Matip and gave him an olive leaf to join the system. The negotiation was fruitful and on January 9th 2006 Paulino was absorbed into the rank and file of the SPLM/A. He is now deputy commander in chief of SPLA. He currently stationed in Juba, the seat of the GOSS. With Matip entry to the SPLA, things began to change in Upper Nile. Everybody became SPLA supporter because of Paulino Matip shift of allegiant and change of alliance. Maybe, the people in the area were hiding their status because Paulino militias and SAF were so brutal to them.

Fr. John Mongi’s said before Paulino Matip decided to change guard, every time father paid a visit in his house Paulino was always wearing gloomy face. He could greet the priest in a cool hand because Fr. Mongi was ever there with complain when the militias misbehaved and mistreat civilian. It had never happened that Paulino posed him a smile but to the contrary, when he joined SPLA, the priest visited him where he was residing in Equatoria hotel and he rose up to his feet and embraced the priest. He told the priest while still holding his hand that the defeat of the Arabs has ended and the blood must not pour again in Bentiu. This was unusual and had not happened before since the priest began serving in the area. He used to greet the priest like a ?lion.’ However, there is a significant change in Bentiu because the DDR work is taking shape and people welcomed the disarmament program. There are still isolated problems usually emanated from the elements of the SAF. They are causing serious havoc to the civil population. As per the CPA, they are supposed to move upwards to parallel 13 but they are hesitant.

There is also new mode of violence which was said to be instigated and originated from the NCP. The sports had been organized between the armed forces and the civilian population but when it happen that SAF forces are defeated, it usually trigger random shooting.

In one occasion, the civilian defeated a team of armed forces; they ran and picked firearms and shot and wounded three innocent youths. The people should be careful because the SAF are looking for every reason to spark up another fight in the area so that the implementation of the CPA is hindered. This is an open policy that the peace loving Sudanese must shunt because people have suffered and need to stay in peace and harmony.

– The Author of this article is a Sudanese Journalist working for Relief Organization of Fazugli (ROOF) as Civic Education and Communications officer. He is also Managing Editor of the KAKAR Newspaper and a Correspondence for Mundo negro Magazine, Spain. Mr. Okot can be reached on the following contact: Email: [email protected] or [email protected] Cell Phone: +254 (0)721454527