Missed fact about the Nasir boats story

By Stephen Pouch Gai Nilony

June 20, 2009 –For any public issue which is subject for media handling and individual wrong interpretations, there are good and many bad sides in regards to any body’s handling misinterpretations, especially when those who deal with that specific issue are not the eye-witnesses or may have something to add for their own benefit.

For the case of the Nasir river boats incident, many news agencies and some so called now a day, political leaders who may not in many circumstances have a full knowledge about what took place in the real sense. The media and those who are late in knowing the reality may create their own different stories about the incidence according to their wimps and political agendas.

The false stories whether from the general media or individuals, cannot change the actual reality of what actually happened. Concerning the Nasir incident between the civilians and the government troops, (SPLA) which is the soul protector of all the citizens of south Sudan and the CPA. The incident occurred because of unintended misunderstanding. As mentioned in the various media sources, the number of boats was thirty. Twenty seven of them belong to the WFP heading to Okobo; three boats were accompanying the twenty seven and are not having the way bill for the WFP food aid operation. What was the main reason for whether or not is that, the civilians suspected the additional three boats and asked the county authorities for official inspection. The local authorities of the Nasir County for one reason or another, allowed the boats to proceed to the same final destination of the WFP operation of food aid without inspection.

Again the WFP did not confirm its ownership to the three additional boats to make the total for the whole food aid operation to thirty. So there is a big question mark here to which these three boats belong? And why they are not subjected to inspection by the local authorities? Why they choose to hide themselves behind the food aid operation?

To those who do not know the reason which was the course of Nasir confrontation, is nothing aside from the suspected three boats which intruded into the WFP operation for food aid to Akobo. The local citizens do not have anything to do with load of the boats. They were having something to do only with the boats they suspected to be loaded with arms.

The whole issue of the confrontation between our forces and the civilians is because of these three additional boats which accompanied the boats which belong to the WFP. The citizens mistakenly took the responsibility of inspecting the boats to themselves. So things unfortunately went wrong when the local citizens stopped (outside Nasir town) the whole convoy which was headed by the suspected three boats.

As responsible people in any executive or political position, we should not deny the loyalty of our citizens to the GoSS and our protector the SPLA in any part of our region immediately due to a single isolated incident. We should not think and encourage that; the citizens may be against our arm forces in the south. They may oppose the government through the political parties and criticize it through a reasonable media, but no citizen can oppose the national army of the southern Sudan.

Concerning the latest incident in Nasir County, the Jekany Nuer is the SPLA itself and not traitors against GoSS and the SPLA. The eastern Nuer citizens are within these two entities working for the development and future of south Sudan in general.

The SPLA was born peacefully in the minds of our courageous liberators some where in the south and brought up to grow to the age of manhood in the eastern Nuer region. So we the citizens of the eastern Nuer region are part and partial to this great movement of the liberation in southern Sudan.

We cannot and will betray the cause of the southern Sudan, even if there is any sort of misunderstanding between the local citizens with any entity in the southern government.

Like other people in the south, we are participants in the whole emergence, formation and the bringing up of the SPLA. We cannot be named wrongly by any soldier, officer or any higher top ranking official in the SPLM, “ militias of the North” ( the SPLM partner), while we were obstructing the flow of weapons through the WFP operation. If we are telling the truth in all levels of responsibility in the south, we should thanks the citizens of the eastern Nuer region for helping the GoSS in combating the smuggling of weapons to known and unknown crime pockets in the south. We want to collect arms and not to distribute it illegally. To any one who is suspecting the citizens of the eastern Nuer region is to know that: the SPLM is the ruling party in the south have a commissioner in Nasir county. H.E the commissioner of Nasir County, General Garhoth Garkouth is the SPLA general and is aware of what is going on in his county. You should ask him to give the necessary report about the county’s citizen loyalty and the source of their weapons. We should have as responsible people a good knowledge about any sensitive security issue like this before taking a wrong final judgment.

The author is based in Upper Nile State – Malakal. He can be reached at
[email protected].