Tributes continue for the SPLM’s late Samson Kwaje
August 4, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – The body senior southern Sudanese politician Samson Kwaje is due to arrive for burial at his ancestral home of Lainya on Thursday following his sudden death in Kenya.
On Tuesday, his remains were flown from Nairobi to the regional capital of Juba where his body was met by southern Sudanese President Salva Kiir, Vice President Riek Machar, government officials and many mourners.
His body was taken to the regional parliament where members made tributes to him for his role in the SPLM.
Lual Diing Wol, a southern Sudanese presidential advisor on political affairs said unity among the SPLM leadership was the best tribute they could give to Kwaje’s life.
“If we need to remember and pay respect to our martyrs like Dr. Samson Kwaje, for sacrifices and contributions they made, then there must be unity,” he said.
Wol said that the SPLM needed to make sure it spoke with “one voice” ahead of a referendum due next year on whether southern Sudan wishes to separate from the north.
Speaking with two voices, he said, would create a “dangerous” and “chaotic” situation. As part of the peace deal the SPLM is bound not to campaign openly for independence although its youth league and other organs have been vigorously campaigning for separation.
Speaking during a requiem mass for him in Nairobi on Monday, the Sudanese Ambassador to Kenya Majok Guandong described Kwaje as a great leader.
“Dr. Samson Kwaje was a great leader and he was among the few who really helped the peace talks between the SPLM and the government of Sudan. He was very steadfast, a good thinker and a bright man,” he said.
At the same occasion, the Chief Executive of the Moi Africa Institute, General Lazarus Sumbeiywo, who was the chief mediator of the north-south peace talks, said the region had lost a great mind.
Sumbeiywo told the service:
“Here lies the body of a man that embodied the principles that stood for the liberation of southern Sudan.
“He was and remained a member of the negotiating team, a very highly industrious team. He was a very trusted man by the team in the way that he used to put the issues of the SPLM party to the other party. He was a fiery man; he was intelligent, a man that stood out and never feared what will happen to him.
“So as I speak here, I speak not of just any other person, I speak of a man that I know for many of us besides his family we have lost a friend.”
From the late 90’s until the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) Kwaje was the official spokesperson of the former rebel group. After the deal, which ended 22 years of civil war Kwaje became the minister of information and broadcasting for the government of southern Sudan and was at the time of his death the regional minister of agriculture.
(ST)