SPLM must reconcile itself
By Isaiah Abraham
June 9, 2009 — Let’s say on the onset here that the move by brother Dr. Lam AkoL Ajawin to formed his own breakaway SPAM party is an extreme and untimely given our fragile society that is embedded in tribal galore. However let it be assured that the split is going to turn out to be a blessing in another name or form. Let the politicians fight it out, it healthy for our own good and believe its going be alright! Dr. Akol knows how difficult it was to have several voices against Khartoum and trust that he remains true to free his people through the course that has been charted out in the CPA.
Before we hypothesise further, let’s us look at the following questions; Is history at play again at our watch and if yes what do we make out of it as individuals with thoughts and reasoning? Second, is Dr. Akol who to you as far Southern politics is concerned? In another word, what do think this man is, a villi ant, a fool, a victim of his conscience, a bewitched or a hero? Third question: is Mr. Deng Aloor right/wrong in his choices of words when he piece together what had happened within his party? The same path was followed by some members in Home and Away yesterday here in Juba over a cup of drinks; I thought Dr. Akol was unequivocal on specific matters, issues that has something to do with you and me, not personal in form and character. Forth, what if Dr. Akol was ahead of others in their drive to wrested the SPLM from Gen. Kiir?
How about the party apathy towards their party internal crisis? None of the senior members of that party seems to care; exactly that is what they did in 1990 but turn out ugly in 1991. Many are quick to demonised Dr. Akol giving him raw dismissal as they could make assuming that the issues he has raised will go away with that whimsical indifference and dismissive tone. Shush! They got to rethink again! A crisis is a crisis particularly politics, and a solution therefore must be sought and sought urgently. The six question is this: is the SPLM Chairman anywhere in control and if yes, then why did he get to the bottom of the problem two months ago when the matter was muted?
So, we are at the centre of crisis, how do we come out of it? Well, its important that our people take no side especially the Chollo community; Dr. Akol differences with his colleagues must end up there within his group or party and our people in Malakal area and elsewhere must stay away. Let’s wait for the SPLM Chairman and his team to react. There are gentlemen and ladies there who are real and believe we shall all navigate to 2011.
But the forum under the so-called Executive Body of the party or Bureau is part of the problem, they won’t bring out the desired reconciliation among the historical party of our people. The SPLM is our ‘baba’ and ‘mama’ and should be guarded from disintegrating into periphery. Looking at our heroes in uniform today from across our communities, you really feel good and no mad man shall dream of throwing fire among them to finish each other unnecessarily.
There is an urged need then to slow down our belligerent approach and try to made sense of our ‘home made’ crisis. Home and Away forum isn’t enough, it should be enlarged. That means that the extension for invitation that cut across including the grass root levels should be taken into consideration. If it means reconvening the entire body of the National Convention so be it! The routine of issuing not-so-caring statements that are often an art of one or two individuals must not allowed in this case within the party.
Nothing is cheap and argue that we must try to do everything to avoid the second split that will make our enemies in Khartoum to laugh chit out of themselves; we can and we should! The issues has something to do with critically examine our past and see where do we want to go as a party in as far as matters of governance (accountability, justice, equality, transparency, rule of the law etc), democracy and peace are concerned. Peace means the CPA and by it we mean our relationship with our partners the National Congress Party (NCP). This relationship is critical whether we like it or not. Few members of the SPLM party have become literally a stumbling block to this relationship and something ought to be made.
The national election is around the corner and the party is slow to move and organise itself as to who should go where and on what flat form. Currently we have one man show system where the Chairman has an absolute say everywhere, whether in Parliament, Judiciary, the army and his own government. The constitution basks him those powers, but in the current state of affairs, he’s overboard. No checks and has since grown dictatorial and autocratic. Do we have a case here to go on Dr. Akol and start blaming him,when its his own right to refuse to lie low? I don’t think so!
I must also say that the current Vice President isn’t satisfied because there is already a team that design matters and then pass them to the Vice Chairman for validation or rubber stamp and this is another matter where it is necessary for the system to cracks so to get heal. People who spoil our good leader with their faulty ideology of “akulbarau” by excluding others are also part of this crisis. This habit was not known before to Dinka community, if you would allow me to go general.
But Dr. Machar shouldn’t think of abandoning the people of Southern Sudan in their hour of need; he has to to spoil everything from within and ensures that his boss changes or go home next year. Dr. Machar needs to spearhead the reconciliation drive, not Mr. Amum; he might botched it! At least if there could be an arrangement to keep the two SPLM parties in a political cooperation or something to an alliance, once its becomes unattainable to have Dr. Akol return to the party.
But clearly the time is running out for everyone. A wind of change has knocked and something concrete must be done and done extraordinarily. This will reduce major fall outs at an eleven hour when we would be in dire need of unity among ourselves. We have serious matters at hand and its prudent that we make use of each others talents such as that of Dr. Akol. Don’t give a damn to hardliners whose purpose of politicking is to show off and nothing more. Its critical therefore to look at Dr. Lam Akol move as an opportunity to put our house in order before the next year general election.
A single element in a system counts as the the Good Book says, “the divided house” never stands. May be we should stop raking up issues that will only serve devil and Khartoum when we splintered into groups, then clans and sections. A challenge is on your shoulders SPLM leaders to show leadership. Khartoum invisible hands will be visible if you chose to behave maturely and responsibly.
Isaiah Ara ham is a Southern Sudanese who lives in Juba; he is on [email protected]
William Okuch
SPLM must reconcile itself
To all my dearest Southerners in particular and to all Sudanese in general, kindly allow me to express my profound heartfelt about the nature of the Sudanese personality. We are honorable nation in the world and this is being confirmed by our unconditionally moral attitude, behavior, respect, hospitality, benevolent, gentleness, honorability and generosity bestowed in our consciences. We proof our humanity through these beatitudes. But evil has its own teaching which it had began right away after God had given His instructions to our ancestral father and mother (Adam & Eve) in Eden garden. That was the beginning of war between GOOD and BAD.
To destroy our happiness, evil war was imposed upon the Sudanese that had uprooted our communal settings and created chronic grievances to this honorable Sudanese people. Tangibly our people experienced destitution, poverty, division, disorganization, dispute, tribalism, hatred, vandalism, extermination, backwardness, confiscation and degrading. These cultures are evil fruits cultivated to erode our spiritual values which are more valuable than materialistic wealth. Nevertheless, our moral vocation has steadfastly prevailed in the face of evil destructions. I will not detail how good we are because all of you know how you individually invest these sacred values toward strangers whether in Sudan or outside Sudan.
Let give one example. The inhuman grievances mentioned above influence many people to commit crimes such as stealing or robbing result of demonizing their human quality. But we, the Sudanese do not rob or steal rather than harming ourselves.
I was one time with the Sudanese Consulate in Beirut arranging the travelling documents for hundreds of the Sudanese prisoners in Lebanese prison who accepted repatriation. I said to the Consulate that we the Sudanese leaders do not rationalize our important personality because we are badly addicted by wrong concept toward ourselves. I said to him that Lebanon is a racist state which does not recognize the black people like Sudanese. However, our values have overweighted our skin color that Lebanese people preferred Sudanese illegal workers than other legal workers from Arab and Asian countries. I said our detainees (prisoners) are in prison in Lebanon because of their illegal status which is a breach to Lebanese immigration law. But other prisoners from other states commit crimes for which they are imprisoned. I said if you want to proof me, please get out a name list of detainees from your drawer and read it to find out what are the charges against our prisoners. Indeed, the consulate read it and found out hundreds of Sudanese prisoners were all convicted for illegal penetration into the Lebanese territory. Sudanese despite of their denied color and their illegal status, they were the most wanted nation in Lebanon because our great nation offer much from their own more than they receiving from others.
My dearest fellow Sudanese, it is our weakness to allow evil defeat goodness in our beloved community. Continuity of denying ourselves to coexist is not because of religious, tribal, ethnic and cultural diversities. No, multiculturalism is wealth. But confusion of our moral knowledge to perceive the important of the equality among ourselves is the main source of enmity.
Nelson Mandela said, brave man is not a man who is not afraid, but he is a man who conquers the fear. In American, black people had suffered in the hand of white people. Every street, school, neighborhood, bus and working places were full of fears. One day, a black lady was asked to give her seat to a standing white person in a bus, but that lady had disdained a derogative request and she was imprisoned for refusing to give her seat for which she had paid for.
Rev. Martin King Luther had afterward received the news and came to ride a bus to inspect such thing occurs. He revealing such discrimination happened, he had thought of the right away to conquer such fear. All of you know the result of his redemptive intervening in our current US and whole world.
Let me quote from our holy book (Bible) James 1:2-4 TRIALS and TEMPTATION:
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that testing of your faith develops ‘PERSEVERANCE’. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
How much a new born baby suffers before he got on his feet to walk? Europe, America, Japan, Canada, Australia, South Africa were once turned into HELL. But the perseverance of those nations had finished itself as Bible put it and that why those nations have better understandings, competitive management, sound conflict resolution and better life. To me, baby and those nations had conquered the fears by eradicating evil fruits.
We Sudanese must conquer the fear that degrades us.
Let me continue quoting Bible. We all admit that problem is part of human culture on one hand and on another hand; we believe that to conquer that problem is our moral responsibility. I pledge to discipline my tongue to produce healing and corrective words that could help in building decent nation that could help in making world better place for life.
“Do not ask what your country will offer you, but ask what you will do to give your country.” “Together, we stand, divide, we fall.” Lovers of Sudan must put these words into practice. We must come together to defeat enemy of justice and equality that divide God children.
Bible Matthew 18:12-13 “If a man owns a hundred sheep and lost one of them, he will leave the ninety-nine on hills and go to look for the wandered off. When he finds it, he is happier about it than ninety-nine that did not wander off.”
The reason for the happiness is because owner of sheep feel the completion of his property.
Other example of how important of togetherness is, is about a boy who lost his butterfly. The boy crazily cried and his teacher asked him why he was crying. The boy replied, “I had lost my butterfly.” Teacher went and caught one for him and the boy was extremely happy. But shortly the boy paused and began to cry again. Teacher asked him, “why are you crying again”? The boy said, “I’m crying because of my butterfly.” Teacher said, “But I had given you another one.” The boy replied, “But if my first butterfly did not fly away I could now have two.”
We are Sudanese and each one among us is not there coincidently, but God knows that person very well by his/her name. We must struggle to enrich our unity and completion. Each one among us has something to offer and our joint or individual contributions is huge and complete and it benefit ourselves and forthcoming generation. Let us seek for any person who wandered away rather than curing him/her. Let our tongues be blessing tongues not cursing ones. Peace must begin within our heart.
Today, I William Okuch responsibly denounced a language of generalization specially generalizing a tribe. I admitted that such language happened temporarily because of frustration result of what is taking place in our beloved Sudan. I assure all of you that it is part of my personal liberation from the way we wrongly treat ourselves as enemy. Likewise, I urge each one of you to stop talking about Dr. Lam Akol, Dr. Riek Machar or Dr. John Garang. Let us forgive each other for their pass actions so that we could push forward in new way.
Long live SPLM-DC and all Sudanese.
God graces be upon you.
inurfaze
SPLM must reconcile itself
Greetings, all brothers and sisters of this beautiful southern Sudan nation. It’s with agony I observe the hunger of power fight among our leaders, let’s not blame and criticize those who try to practise democracy, so what is a new party going to hurt? If we are suppose to be promoting freedom of speech, right of freedom of expression and practise of political independence.
We have to commit ourselves to a better future whether it is through SPLM or any other new party, let’s just focus for the best outcome and better life, for the sake of those who sacrificed their lives in this several decades of war in the name of FREEDOM, JUSTICE and EQUALITY for ALL.
And it’s the right of any southerner to declare dissatisfaction with the present administration managing our nation of the South, without facing any repercussion. A dialogue needs to take place among those in power to understand that a commitment to free speech is a fundamental precept of all liberal democracies.
As SPLA/SPLM former soldier and presently a member, I have to protect what we project and proclaim regarding democracy and what we fought for and still fight for. And stop the bigotry, we need not to be afraid of criticism, but empower that very ideology we stood for and vehemently still stand for.
Martin D Ajhak
SPLM must reconcile itself
Thank Isaiah,
This is the right time that we Southerners should make decision based on the past experiences. Dr Akol has every right if there is any to form another party but not this time , as we southerners are aware of previous divisions in SPLA/M.
It mean that many parties will face unprecedented challenges before the could reach a stage of constitutional opposition. Let Dr Akol have a go but my worry is that it would spark another confusion again.
The only and uppermost thing to consider is reconcilation in which all those former foes could give up their own interests and whole-hearted agree on merits that will not deviate southerners vision in 2011 referendum.
dutmadit
SPLM must reconcile itself
Most of Splm members wish to follow Lam, are waiting for refrendum. this is simply because splm is controlled and run by certain group of people headed by “rebecca”. in south sudan since this government came and took charge. no decission is made without the ok of rebecca and her politcal bearue which is made of late garang orphans. splm p.b. was formed to keep watch over the president and his decissions.
so in my opinion i do’t blame akol for leaving the party. because splm is not welcoming sons and daughters of southern sudans including Lam. splm should have imbraced lam and used his talents for thier advantage, but instead kicked him out for arab to use. and splm will die a quite death if this continues to happen after refarendum.