People of South Sudan: Do not be digressed!

By Luk Kuth Dak

October 8, 2010 — As we reflect on the Jan. 9, 2011 referendum, most everybody seems to agree that one thing is clear, the so-called National Congress Party, also know as NCP, is vehemently going to spread fear that separation will be anything but peaceful for South Sudan.

As a result, underway is a relentless campaign to digress our attention from what we have bravely fought for our entire life, by the NCP and their cronies in the African Union, Chad and Eritrea.

Lately, not a single day that passes by without hearing some of their ominous, asinine and bigoted statements aimed, of course, at injecting fear in the Southerners, especially among those who live in the north, that if they vote for secession, they might as well pack up and leave for the south, otherwise, they will not only be denied to shop in the north’s grocery stores, but worse, they won’t be seen by a doctor in case of illness, as disgorged by Dr. Kamal Obied, the NCP’s minister of information, and the regime’s spokesman.

But there is an important truth here. Whether you loathe him or love him, Dr. Obied, instead, should have been lauded by Southerners for telling us the secret plan of his radical party. He has spoken the truth that some of his peers in the dysfunctional Islamic movement would much rather discuss it behind closed doors.

So the bright spot in his statement is, that he has volunteered to give us an incredibly invaluable early warning, that otherwise might have been ignored, of what awaits the Southern citizens living in the Northern Sudan in case the separation does take place.

More so, he has helped – perhaps indirectly – in making the decision of choosing between unity and separation all the more easier, for some Southern Sudanese, who might have been leaning towards unity, or perhaps those uncertain and undecided about their vote on the January ballots. You cannot ask for a better ally than Ustaz Obied, because of his early warnings, Southern Sudanese in the north are now all ears. So thank you very much Dr. Obied for the wake up call, and I can assure you that Southerners who live in your part of the country will for ever more be indebted to you, for so many precious lives would be spared as a result of your generous warning.

Truthfully, I can feel the NCP’s pain because this jumble of contradictions is indicative of not only that the radical Islamic movement is in total disarray, but also on the verge of losing anything and everything including the unfettered spending of the country’s resources, which they enjoyed and kept to themselves and their families for over two decades long. Certainly, it only makes sense that they will continue to do what’s best for them, but we should also do what is best for us in the south. Of course, it is not hard to ascertain that the NCP singed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) not for the love of the south, but they did so only because they wanted to buy the time, take the SPLM leaders for a ride, lure them in, and then shower them with bribes to turn against the aspiration of their people.

Well, along the way, there have been some very bad news and lots of disappointments to the NCP. Over the course of the last five years, they tried just about all the dirty tricks on the SPLM leadership, but that did work. I can remember, vividly, when Ustaz Pagam, Ustaz Yasir Arman were in the center of their radar, but when they discovered what they were made of, they quickly turned against them and ultimately unleashed their( yellow) media to go after them, in a mass character assassination that has never been experienced before in Sudan.

Not only that, they tried to divide the SPLM between the so-called “ Garang sons” verses Salva Kiir. They tried relentlessly to create fraction between President Kiir and his right- hand man, Dr. Riek Machar, by suggesting that somehow, the Nuer nation that he comes from was being marginalized by the Dinka.

Fortunately, that one too, did work. The SPLM remained as solid as ever, and it will only continue to be so until justice and freedom emerge, and the Sun shines in the skies of a nation called South Sudan.

Giving up is not our option.

The author is a Sudanese journalist writer and a former anchorman at Juba Radio. I can be reached at: [email protected].