A Debate on SPLM-DC versus SPLM

“I am convinced that whoever does not take side on hot political issues is not a sincere politician. Political questions have many answers and that is why multiparty approach with toleration and open-mindedness has proven successful and stable in countries like USA and UK.” [Dr. Okuk reflection]

By James Okuk

I do not think application of the norm: giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s and an Eye for an Eye is ‘hypocrisy’ unless we don’t have a common agreeable definition for this English term. It does not imply double standard either, unless we don’t grasp what contextualization means. Just to defend my case here, evaluate my reply to the Ethiopian Ezekiel Lol, to Jellaba Yasser Arman and to Mr. Pagan Amum, compare the contexts and prove to me that I have used double standards for the same measurement. Be reminded that I am not Jesus Christ; I am a mere human being with both good and evil potentialities actualized in accordance with my choice. So if Jesus did not agree with the Old Testament norms, that is his own choice and not mine. When dealing with decent people, I know to apply decentness and etiquettes. Tell me Apiath Jeremiah, did I ever insult you or used derogatives in our debating correspondence and ask yourself why if I had not?

It is good that you withdrew your prior biased judgment on the invitation of the SPLM to the SPLM-DC National Delegates Conference (NDC). The SPLM-DC invited every political party to the opening and closing day of the NDC. Some examples of parties that were invited but shied away were the UMMA, DUP, Popular Congress, and Communist. The tacit reason was that they did not want to disappoint the SPLM because this might complicate and even abort the process of their opposition alliance-in-the-making.

If you regard the former Interim Deputy Chairman of the SPLM-DC as an incompetent kid to have qualify for that position, please tell me how on earth a credible national political party like the SPLM can have juvenile spokesperson in the kind of Mr. Yien Mathew? Is not Yien a junior SPLA Officer too like Anwar Musa? To apply your own question to your side: “Where on earth would he have ever dreamt to be …. [a spokesperson]…. in a party in no time and with no effort given his limited education and experience?” Do you know that Mr. Yien is an academic failure and a drop-out of a Sudanese university? The news of Mr. Anwar Musa’ press relaease is true; it was published in Al Sahafa and Hadadh News Papers in Khartoum on 01/09/2009. The SPLM Secretariat were not acting to welcome him back but only to use him against the SPLM-DC and then throw him in the political dustbins after he succeeded or failed the flunky job assigned to him. The truth is that he decided to burn his card of the SPLM-DC and the rare chance of leadership opportunity that he could have confirmed in the NDC. He started very well but unfortunately fell prey of SPLM-Secretariat mediocrity and dubousity. This is a mistake he is going to regret in his young political life. Nonetheless, the SPLM-DC is still open to welcome him back once he apologize like his other colleague Edward Aciek who is back now to SPLM-DC.

We don’t have an under-table dealings with NCP, ours is just open dealing on the table in daylight. We are supporting Al-Bashir for the Presidency of the Sudan in 2010 and Al Bashir is supporting our savvy leader, Dr. Lam Akol for the GoSS Presidency in 2010. This is called tête-à-tête in political tactics and games. It is your SPLM who is still shivering to come up with a clear position towards 2010 elections because its leaders are fevering from losing people’s confidence. They are finding it hard to decide whether to go for elections as an opposition alliance and coalition with Anti-CPA traditional family dynastic Northern political parties like Umma, DUP, Communists, etc. But until the SPLM come up with a clear and a decisive courageous position like what the SPLM-DC has done, time is just running out against and it might not be in SPLM favour. People want to know whether SPLM is going to run the coming elections as opposition or as a ruling government within the CPA partnership.

I said the “Juba Meeting of the Opposition Parties” because of the nature and the declared position of those parties, especially in the umbrella of the idea of the former National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Asmara. But what the SPLM had forgotten is that the idea to topple the NCP-controlled government forcefully has been criminalized by the CPA and its constitutional complements. It will be a high order treason punishable by law. The CPA and Interim National Constitution only allows peacefully shift of the government powers through democratic people’s mandate in periodic elections. Now, the SPLM is running away from elections and finding futile blocking reasons here and there just to postpone the elections. Now the SPLM is talking of re-confirming the power sharing as they enjoy it now in legislative, judiciary and executive branches of the government. The SPLM has gone against the rule of Electoral Law as enacted by the Sudan Parliament in 2008. The NCP will be the happiest party for this SPLM foolish proposal because it gives them continuous control over other political parties as it is the case now. The traditional Northern political parties have been complaining against this and now the SPLM is trying to convene them in Juba in order to convince them to accept the current CPA power sharing for 2010 elections. What a laugh!!!! These opposition parties have been against what they call unfair bipolarism of the CPA. That is why I am convinced the “Juba Meeting of the Opposition Parties” is just dead before it has started. You will agree with my projection afterward.

My friend, just dare to run away from the NCP and the SPLM-DC has already filled the gap. The SPLM will not be missed if it chose this foolish path because the CPA will be continued implemented jointly and fully by the NCP and the SPLM-DC. If you dream that war will spike in Khartoum this time when the SPLM has lost the compass of the CPA, then you are dreaming a fantastic dream in the sky not the ground. Go and asked Dr. Khalil Ibrahim of Darfuris JEM and he will tell you how difficult it is to wage war inside Khartoum and other cities of Northern Sudan. The roots of the NCP/NIF are so deep in the North that it is not an easy affair to uproot them the way SPLM Secretariat thinks.

Dr. Salva Kiir is C-in-C of the SPLA by virtue of being the GoSS President and not by virtue of being the SPLM Chairman. When he is out of the GOSS Presidency mandate, he will cease to be the C-in-C of the SPLA. This is what the Interim Constitution of Southern Sudan says not my opinion [See article 103 (1) and 104(2)]. No doubt, all the comrades (Cdes) you have mentioned were Commanders (Cdrs) in the past SPLM/SPLA, which was a liberation movement and not a political party. Now if they happened to be soldiers and civilian at the same time, this is a complex matter and part of the dilemmas of the CPA that need to be resolved so that civilian politics is separated from military uniform.

The fact that I know well is that the past SPLM/SPLA of the bush has been ‘transformed’ into different natures today: The SPLM which has become a political party rather than a people’s movement against the government, and the SPLA which has become a conventional army of Southern Sudan rather than a rebel army for toppling the NIF regime in Khartoum. The NCP did not transform itself to anything else. It has been registered in the National Political Party Council in the Sudan even prior to the CPA. Go and check the list of the registered political parties in the Sudan before and after the CPA and tell me where the SPLM as political party begins; only in April 2009. The SPLM-DC is also a new political party that has just emerged like the SPLM. Both of them have never been registered before and have never gone for elections experience as institutions except some individual members who did it in the past in the platform of other existing political parties. Some of the SPLM leaders now were members of other political parties in the Sudan before they went to the bush to wage a rebel war against some governments that had ruled the republic of the Sudan. This is undeniable fact.

Apiath, there is no falsification of facts on my side regarding SPLM abuse and mismanagement of South Sudan share of Oil Money. Actually, the mentioned political parties have been complaining that they cannot operate strongly because the SPLM controlled GoSS and states of Southern Sudan deny them their rights in the public Coffers. Ask SSDF, UDF, UDSF, SANU, USAP 1 and 2 about this and they will tell you perfectly. The SPLM want to assimilate them instead of enhancing their independence status as separate political parties. The fact is that giving other political parties their rights in oil share is a strange idea for the SPLM and that is why they are making terrible empty noises when the SPLM-DC has found a right way of funding its activities, especially from the public rights of the share of Oil Money. The SPLM thinks it is the only party that has the right to control the South and everything in it, including the money that comes to any political party that operates or is capable of operating in there. Wrong and No! The SPLM-DC denounced this.

If the SPLM leaders do not have fuss when Dr. Lam Akol talks of making unity of the Sudan attractive then why all the fusses, even shamelessly tarnishing his political image in the house of God in Juba regarding his visit to Syria and telling the authorities there that the SPLM-DC will work hard within the CPA provisions to make unity of the Sudan an attractive option to Southerners by availing them development and security in the South as good indicators of CPA? Is there a difference when attractive unity is pronounced by the SPLM-DC, the NCP, the SPLM or any other political party? The SPLM-DC is clear on this Mr. Apiath and its leaders do not say one thing in the South and another thing in the North or abroad regarding unity of the Sudan. The SPLM-DC is bound by the SPA provision to make unity attractive as the first option and test this by granting self-determination to Southerners so that people’s voice can rule at the end which way to go. So where is the sin of Dr. Lam here if SPLM leaders are not just playing dull propaganda where they eat from the same dish of making unity attractive but deny that they have not eaten or even defecate into the dish indirectly in the dark with their contradicting rhetoric and multi-voices?

You are free to have any assumption against Dr. Lam Akol, but from my keen observation and knowledge about this man, I can assure you that his most closed relative have not been happy with him in most cases because he gives what they see as their merits to others so that he is not seen as a tribalist, nepotist nor corruptist. Most of them have been disadvantaged by Dr. Lam just to avoid propaganda against him, yet he has never been spared by the shameless image-spoilers and liars who hate him to death. Check the identities of the Sudanese diplomats and ambassadors who are related by blood and tribe to Dr. Lam in the Foreign Ministry of the Sudan when he had the powers of a minister there and tell me how many of them his relatives beyond the propaganda are? What I know is that out of 17 Ambassadors appointed by President Al Bashir from Dr. Lam’s recommendation list, only 1 is his step brother; and a well known qualified civil servant well fluent in Arabic and English. Out of 60 diplomats only 6 are his clan relatives 3 of who have been recommended by the SPLM/A Foreign Commission even before it was know that Dr. Lam Akol was going to be the first Southerner to be a Foreign Minister in the Sudan. Also check the qualifications and merits of the few ones who happened to be related to him and tell me whether he appointed wrong diplomats in the wrong positions. Also compare this to list of Mr. Deng Alor where the majority (90%) were Abyei Dinka some of whom were even not qualified for the positions given them. Imagine a BA graduate of 2007 was given a Counselor position and another First Secretary position. This mismatch has never happened in history of diplomacy in the whole world, leave alone the Sudan. Just take out the propaganda that has been indoctrinated into your head about Dr. Lam and go to find out the truth about this matter. I am talking of what I surely know here.

Just to conclude, please Apiath Jeremiah, tell me sincerely and far from politicking, do you think Ezekiel Lol Gatuoth is a right man to head GoSS Mission and Represent SPLM in North America? Do you think he is not an Ethiopian Nuer as I know his origin and as his relative from Upper Nile Nuer can testify? I am waiting for your answers. Don’t run away. We are informing and maturing each other politically through our debate here. I am convinced that whoever does not take side on hot political issues is not a sincere politician. Political questions have many answers and that is why multiparty approach has proven successful and stable in countries like USA and UK. Take Care and Be Honest.

Dr. James Okuk is a concerned Southerners. He can be reached at [email protected]