SPLA Air Force: Hope for South Sudan independence

By James Okuk

June 26, 2008 — The White Paper on Defense, which established South Sudan Air Force (SSAF) under the historic name of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) heightened my spirit and gave me the necessary motivations for the future of South Sudan; the awaited richest African State in the heart of the continent. This is the best Bill that has been ever passed by the Interim Southern Sudan Assembly (ISSA) since its inception in 2005.

Congratulations to our unforgettable hero, Oyay Deng Ajak and his team in the SPLA Affairs for drafting the White Paper and presenting it to the Parliament of Southern Sudan in the right time. Congratulations to the MPs of Southern Sudan for passing this Paper as a Bill without any delay. Thanks to the MPs for authorizing the GoSS Ministry of Finance to fund the implementation of this Bill as stipulated in the CPA. Though very highly expensive to pursue, this Bill is a great step forward for protecting the territory of Southern Sudan from the invaders and internal colonialists who have been envying the Greenness, the Wetness and the Oil Lucrativity of this beloved land of African people.

Dear SPLA heroes and the People of South Sudan do not worry about unhappiness of the National Congress Party (NCP) and their Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) about the establishment of the Air Force of South Sudan. After all, the NCP were opposed to the idea of independent status of the SPLA during the negotiations in Machakos, Nairobi, Nanyuki and Naivasha from 2002 – 2004. Even when they accepted at the end that the SPLA can be independent but only in the South, they denied it any budget from the national coffers. They thought that by this denial the SPLA will automatically run into troubles of how to pay its files and ranks, and then weather away with time. They got it incorrect totally!

The NCP and their SAF were wrong in their evil wish for the South. They forgot that the Southerners are known for endurance, given the history of their continuous struggles with both the external and internal colonialists in the Sudan without regretting of not being rewarded with money. Though most of this history is unrecorded by the biased historians of Northern Sudan who have been writing on the history of the Sudan with exclusion of the South, the people who lived it value the meaning of Southern struggle very much.

During the struggle, Southerners were ready to eat, drink, wear, sleep and use all kinds of dirty substances that can make them survive and defeat the paid and well-fed enemies of independence. The freedom fighters of South Sudan saw their reward to be in their dignity and pride as a liberated and a free people who cannot accept to be treated as second or third class citizens on their own black soil. You can feel the dignity, pride and courage in their liberation songs and dances even when bombs dropped on them from the sky and from the long-range missiles used by Jellaba’s recurring Regimes in Khartoum.

Even if the coffers of the GoSS get dried up for the sake of rightly implementing the White Paper on Defense, let it be. The South needs a strengthened and well-organized armed protection capacity to ensure that the development is secured from the looters. After all what is the use of building schools, hospitals, roads and other infrastructure if they are not protected in the first place.

Southerners have witnessed during the time of war how SAF used to drive heavy tanks on the tarmac roads in the towns of Southern Sudan and making round turns on these roads, leaving them to look like dry rivers with grabbles and sand. The Southerners have also witnesses how the SAF and their militias carried away windows, doors, zincs, timbers, breaks, and iron poles of the buildings of Southern Sudan; leaving the infrastructure as ruins that cannot be described as any human work. Not to forget, many buildings in the towns of Northern Sudan were constructed from the carried-away materials of the ruined Southern infrastructure. All these looting happened because there was no regular military protection for the development projects and infrastructure in Southern Sudan. But this time, Southerners have rightly learned from the past. They have seen the need for providing proper military protection before development projects like schools, hospitals, government offices, shops, and roads could be constructed.
With South Sudan Air Force in place, no looter will carry away (unchallenged) any construction material from the infrastructure of the South to be used in developing the North. Even the armed Arabs nomads will be careful and respectful when they come to South for green and watery pasture, for they and their cattle will risk terrible deaths if they temper with the people of the land.

Let the SPLA go ahead to train the bright and courageous South Sudan young men and women in the Air Force techniques and management. Let the SPLA go a head to buy Antinovs, Fighter Jets, and Fighter Choppers – even with loans from abroad – to deter the enemies of the independence of the South Sudan and make them cooperate in the implementation of the CPA to its logical end. This is the only guaranteed protection the GoSS can have for its people and their properties. It is a known fact that the Less Developed Countries are never fair in democratic process (including the referenda) because the ruling parties are so often seen to be good at rigging the results using the threats of military apparatus of the State. It is highly probable that the South Sudan Air Force will guarantee the independence of South Sudan, comes 2011.

If the South wants a lasting peace, it has to get prepared for war, a serious one this time. The best war to prepare for will be the war from the sky with bombs dropping on tall buildings of the enemies (if need be). No more jokes of cat and mouse tricks around the CPA implementation. The Jellaba should become serious (even if they are SPLM members like Dr. Monsour Khalid and Yassir Arman) on how the South should become independent peacefully in 2011 so that good neighborhood can be possible. No Southerner is dreaming to go back to Bilpam for AK 47 guerrilla training this time if war break out again. If the South is re-disappointed, missiles will just fly from RamChiel followed by Jets, Antinovs and Choppers from anywhere around South Sudan to smoke the enemy targets in the North. Those who use to watch warfare in the action movies will have the rare dangerous chance to see and smell it live in their midst. Saudi Arabia shall become very far to reach by the rich traders who have been funding the destruction of the South Sudan during the time of struggle.

Not only the Jellaba, but also the LRA in Equatoria should get warned that the SPLA does not joke around with those who temper with the Security and Stability in the South. The bandit Joseph Kony (with is his wrong vision of ruling Uganda with Moses’ Ten Commandments) will be advised to come out from the bush hidings in any spot within Southern Sudan and sign the Peace Agreement with Uganda Government before he can hate the day he was born, and before his mother could shed tears of sorrow. Long Live SPLA and long Live Southern Sudan on its way to untouchable independence!

James Okuk is a PhD student in the University of Nairobi. He can be reached at [email protected]