Who is responsible for the Duk Padiet Attack?

By Chol K. Thon

September 25, 2009 — Duk, a county inhabited by Dinka ethnic group, was ablaze Sunday barely one month after its neighboring Twic East payam of Wernyol experienced the same disaster. The same Lou Nuer youths who had been menacing Twic East have been confirmed responsible for the attack on the payam administrative center of Duk Padiet.

The attack (never) before unprecedented in terms of the number of casualties, the strength of the attackers and their target of attack, raises questions in the minds of many as to who is the invisible hand behind this, who staged it and what could be the motive. The massacre in Duk had had its tip of the iceberg in the Wernyol and Baping attacks and therefore answering the questions which to us may be puzzling requires us to investigate them in the light of the other attacks on Dinka Bor soil.

Calling the attackers as Lou Nuer would be unreasonably generalizing the community. The chiefs who facilitated the discourse between the Deputy Gov. and the gangs’ leader would have been included. Labeling them as cattle rustlers would not fit in with the fact that they did not target a cattle camp.

Mr. David Gressly, the UN Regional Coordinator for Southern Sudan, who had been looking at the Jonglei tribal clashes from an economic point of view (as being conflicts over land, pastures, cattle etc), was impelled to acknowledge that Duk Padiet was a special case. In his words, the attack “seems to be different. Cattle were not there. It was more targeting”.

Adding, Mr. Gier Chuong, the Interior Minister, would rule out the possibility that the attack was motivated by desire to loot cattle. “It does not look like [cattle raiding],” “Because there are no cattle in the town. We believe it is motivated or encouraged by elements we cannot pin-point,” the minister said.

To look at this attack using the same lenses we use for the Warrap, Lakes and Western Equatoria skirmishes would defy reason. In Lakes State, for example, the most recent encounter between Dinka Agar and Jur Beli was triggered by the murder of one of Jur’s son which was allegedly blamed on Agar. The Aguok and Apuok’s was over land (pastures). Most of these clashes occur between close clans and the bone of contention can be identified with much ease. In most cases they are generated by revenge. This goes on to suggest that we can understand the Duk incident from a different perspective.

Who exactly is responsible for the attack (Duk attack)? The question seeks to address the organization of the attackers, the history of the attackers, their numbers, the weapons used, their target and everything else that can help us to answer it. Let us go!

“Little is known about the man leading militia from Lou Nuer. Chibetek Mabil is believed to be a former militia who never joined SPLA or Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) as stipulated in the peace accord between Khartoum led by National Congress Party (NCP) and former rebels the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A)”( Sudan tribune 22 Sept). The attackers are headed by Mr. Chibetek Mabil, a man whose militia group was allied to SAF during the war.

Militias were used during the war to cause havoc to their own brothers and sisters in South Sudan. They were used to make possible the Arab’s ideology of using ‘slave to kill slave’. South Sudanese were known by the Arabs as slaves. Even the militias who were supposed to be promoted to a caste higher than the slaves were equally regarded as descendents of the same slaves. Their support for the Arab policy of exterminating the South was never acknowledged by their Masters. The only thing they were getting was meager amount of money which could be seen as a tool to steady their shaking hands in case they realized that the blood they were shedding was their brothers’. That was Mr. Mabil during the war but what is he now?

“Though they [attackers] could be termed as civilians, they had military formation; had uniform and carry new brand of G3 (Gimp three),” Gov. Kuol further said. Gov. Kuol, being a former commander in the SPLA knows how trained soldiers organize themselves when staging an attack. The soldiers are grouped into units whose jobs are clearly defined. There would be a group firing artilleries and is stationed behind the assaulting unit. There are those whose job is to provide reinforcement in case the other groups are overpowered. There are yet others who take care of the wounded. Soldiers from the same side are dressed uniformly in order to avoid confusing an enemy with a fellow comrade. The number of the assailants is believed to be thousands and this means they are a group having some common cause. A cattle rustler cannot do all these.

The target of the attackers provides an interesting insight into how we can tell apart these people from other criminals. Government units were mostly attacked. Among the dead, about 29 are from the organized forces (army, police, prisons, national security). Government structures were also burned to ashes. These people seemed to be having a case to settle with the government. It was not by coincidence that the town was targeted because Wernyol administrative center had been hit just a few weeks before. So it is obvious that the target here was the government. Could our civilians be so fed up with their government to the extent that they would stage a rebellious attack? No!

The type and the number of the weapons used can provide us with a cue that these people are not ordinary criminals. The use of new Gimp 3 implies that the weapons had just been acquired. And from whom and where? The story of looting of military equipments in Khorflus is a thing of a year or so ago and weapons acquired then could not still be new. But why should innocent civilians loot military equipment? How about the suspicion of the Jikany Nuer of Nasir which led them to attack UN barges? Would a poorly armed civilian attack a government unit in a manner that is suggestive of show of strength? Someone who believes that they are stronger than our forces is doing this.

Most important of all the indicators that can help identify the group responsible for the attack on Duk is the tactics used by this armed group. The burning of huts with their contents is indicative of the scorched earth policy used by trained assailants. The policy is aimed at starving the enemy to death. The culture of killing without discrimination is alien to our South Sudanese norms of behaving in war.

Mr. Luk Kuth Dak has it better below: ‘The reasons are pure and simple: Firstly, the gruesome nature in which the massacre was carried out is un-Nuer. Secondly, in the Nuer culture – which I adore – children, women, young boys (unmarked) and elderly men are all off the table, regardless the viciousness of a war’. (southsudannation.com, Tribal wars: How Much Blood is Too Much to Bear). Mr. Luk goes ahead to say that this manner of killing is particular to the Arab government which implies that someone allied to the Arabs is responsible for the Duk attack.

In conclusion, the word “militias” fits the description of those who massacred innocent children and women in both Wernyol and Duk Padiet. The NIF has been famous for fitting Southerners against Southerners using their proxies (militias) in order to support the notion that Southerners hate themselves more than Arabs and that they are not capable of controlling their own affairs. This means that they (Arabs) have to be our rulers in order to make up for our deficiencies.

Is this how we want to appear before the world? NO!

Chol lives in South Sudan and is reachable at: [email protected]