Against land grabbing anywhere in South Sudan
By Gordon Buay
December 30, 2010 — For quite a while, a certain Peter Karlo has been spreading unfounded allegations that I support land grabbing in Upper Nile State. This Peter–who is not Peter in the new testament in the bible–went as far accusing me of being part of what he called “Dinka–Nuer coalition” that he portrayed as a group that wants to grab Chollo lands in Upper Nile State.
I want to make the record straight to Peter Karlo. The argument that ensued last time between me and Dr. James Okuk was about the cosmopolitan nature of Malakal town. I don’t think Mr. Peter Karlo would provide tangible evidence in this forum implicating me in any land grabbing in South Sudan. The problem of land dispute between Chollo and Dinka of Upper Nile State was not part of the debate I had with Dr. James Okuk. Our debate was based on cosmopolitan nature of Malakal town and its inhabitants. Areas that belong to Shilluk (Chollo) in Upper Nile are known and nobody would dispute them because there are administrative records that show the areas occupied by the Shilluk since 1956. The CPA too is very clear on the issue of land ownership. Any land occupied by the Shilluk after January, 1, 1956, belongs to the Shilluk and no tribe, be it Nuer or Dinka, should claim any Shilluk land as theirs without violating the CPA and the administrative records known to the people of Upper Nile.
Besides, the South had a government from 1972 to 1983 that mapped out areas which belonged to the Shilluk. There are areas that some tribes may claim now which were administered in the 1970s as part of Shilluk land. Any reasonable Southerner, including myself, would agree with historical records that areas that belonged to Shilluk in the 1970s must still belong to Shilluk in 2010. If there is any Nuer who migrated to Shilluk land after 1983 war, I would urge that Nuer to vacate the Shilluk land. If I am a governor of Upper Nile State, I will order the security forces to evict Nuer who occupied the Shilluk lands in a minute.
I believe in the principle of justice and I am not somebody who can support glaring injustice. If the administration of Simon Kun Puoc, the governor of Upper Nile State, fails to adhere to administrative records of the 1970s to solve ongoing land disputes in Upper Nile State, I, as a person believing in justice as fairness, will not support him. If there are Shilluk lands grabbed by the Nuer and Dinka, the governor has a responsibility to correct the injustice. He can form a committee that will unearth the administrative records of the 1970s and address the disputes accordingly. If there are Shilluk lands the Nuer and the Dinka grabbed after 2005, the governor should return those lands to Shilluk. This is the matter of the principle of justice. I believe as a person that the principle of justice should not be contaminated by politics of expediency that bedeviled Upper Nile State since 2005.
We as South Sudanese should differentiate between the right to live in a state capital and the ownership of land. I don’t have a right to grab land in Yei that belongs to somebody under the pretext that I am South Sudanese. I have a right as a South Sudan citizen to work and live in Yei provided that I live in a plot of land that I either acquired legally or rent from the landlord in Yei. If I grabbed land in Yei by force, then, any argument I put forward will not be valid because there is no law in existence in the modern world that would permit me to grab somebody’s land. The Europeans did land grabbing 300 years ago under the pretext that they were occupying “no man land”. We all know that North America was inhabited by Natives–it was not a “no man land”. Such a thing cannot be allowed to exist in South Sudan in the 21st C.
But it is very important if we don’t confuse ownership of land by the communities and the attempt of some to reject certain ethnic groups to live in state capitals. Every Southern Sudanese has a legal right to live in Juba or Malakal provided that he or she does not live in the city by grabbing somebody’s plot of land. I have seen with my eyes in Juba in 2008 some mad individuals who took plots of lands which belonged to others by force. It should not be so hard for us to conclude that any Southerner who took land in Juba from somebody because he or she possesses a gun is a criminal. If we have a functioning government in Juba, those who grabbed other people lands should be legally evicted.
However, those who legally bought lands in Juba or rented them from their rightful owners have legal rights to live in Juba whether they are South Sudanese, NGOs, or aliens irrespective of their ethnicity, race and section. Since 1956, there are Northern Sudanese who legally acquired lands in Juba and have been living there ever since. Those northern Sudanese have legal rights to own the properties they legally bought and nobody should take their lands because they are northern Sudanese. The same thing applies to other South Sudan tribes who are not originally from Juba.
What is criminal though is the behavior of some guerrilla fighters who grabbed lands in Juba or Malakal because they have Russian AK-47. People who grabbed lands any where in South Sudan, be it Yei, Nimuli, Malakal, Gogrial, Wau or Juba, through barrel of the gun, are criminals, period. This does not need debate and if the South has a real government, the land grabbers who acquired lands because of the barrel of the gun should be locked in prisons. I will not hesitate to jail them for life if I am a governor or president of South Sudan because permitting those criminal activities is not only the violation of South Sudan constitution but it also erodes the very reason why we took up arms in 1983. We did not go to bush to grab Dinka land, Bari land, Nuer land and etc. We went to bush to correct injustice and any reasonable Southerner who believes in the principle of justice cannot tolerate a mad SPLA officer who grabbed lands because he has AK-47.
The author is a former Secretary General of South Sudan Democratic Front (SSDF) and a signatory of Washington Declaration between the SPLM and SSDF in 2008.
Mercy Madit
Against land grabbing anywhere in South Sudan
Good respond mr Buay,time has gone when Nuer use to steal others land.
This era is an era of laws and accountability and as such no one can grab others lands and get away with it.
Afterall you are enjoying your life outside the country and hence can not be connected to any land grabbing if there is any at all.
Oduck Bol
Against land grabbing anywhere in South Sudan
Mr Mr Buay you are right. Those who think they can take land of others by force or through political perctice, they are lying to themselves. The war of land never end. Today it may be your turn ,but tomorrow it may be others turn too. It is batter to have rule of law so people can avoid seeing each other with red eyes and live in peace. All southern are aware of land grabbing,but beacuse it is a refreendom time.
Many communities in South Sudan now are in threating.
It is well written artical.
Deng Ateny Lueth
Against land grabbing anywhere in South Sudan
Well, first of all let me say thank you to mr.peter for his courage to stressed on what next hiden war of south sudan. indeed people of south sudan will enter another conflicts with will erupted as people will fight over lands surrounding states capital cities of ten states of the south. but what im definetly in total disagreement with peter is the fact that we should not open those cases for discussion right now. i think we are engaged with the issue of freeing the south from northern dominion over us and that issue alone drmand our undivided attention and indeed watchful offorts to encounter arabic tricks or traps. on top of that we don’t want our people to remain divided or be discribe base on the lands or their tribal lands. it will the same as what arab did when they treat southerners differently they happened to from other ethnicities and different religious group or the region. i believe intermigling among southerners in the cities will promote
peace and love among. so let open south to all and let people live where they want to live. I think for the sake of peace and fredom, CPA articles about land will be amended of else lands contest will be another war before the end of 21 century.
Lokaku
Against land grabbing anywhere in South Sudan
Thanks Gordon, you are a patriot. I wish we had twenty of you in South Sudan. Could somebody tell the authorities in GOSS not to interfere with the work of the Governors when they want to evict land grabbers? This is particularly so in Juba and Yei counties when the South Sudan Police force appears to be under instructions not to take orders from local authorities. Although not a good idea, perhaps it is time we had Regional Police forces in all the states of South Sudan answerable to the local authorities.
James Okuk Solomon
Against land grabbing anywhere in South Sudan
Correction of Gordon Buay for straight records:
My past debate with Gordon Buay and others was not about the cosmopolitan nature of Malakal town because this is obvious even for a child who is learning to talk. Instead, the debate was about the the nomenclature of one of the counties in the Shilluk Kingdom called Makal County whose Headquarters is in Malakal town, and with authority to levy taxes there because it is considered part of its territory.
That debate came about because the Minister of Information and Broadcasting of Upper Nile State, H.E. Dr. Peter Both, posted some information on the registered number of the the referendum voters and their counties where he put in his list a name of a county that does not exist in Upper Nile state; his so-called Malakal County. He did not apologize for the error and so some of us considered it intentional.
The debate got heated up and more personalized to the worst when Mr. Gordon Buay tried elusively to support his argument by a phone call he made to the Commissioner of Upper Nile State Headquarters Affairs, H.E. Mr. Simon Duop, who told Mr. Gordon (if it was true) that he is the Commissioner of the ghost Malakal County.
I requested Gordon Buay and his supporters to provide any legitimate evidence of their Malakal county but they failed to produce any one. But when I produced the legal evidence of the formation of Makal county, Mr. Gordon came up shamelessly to disqualify it with request that I take it back to the archives because it was a useless document issued by a deceased rebel leader, Dr John Garang de Mabior ( My his good soul rest in eternal peace!!!). This is where I rested my case because I realized that I was just wasting my time with someone who does not believe in truth even when it is shown in a broad daylight.
Dr James Okuk
James Mangula
Against land grabbing anywhere in South Sudan
If nobody is bored with this myopic and malicious commentaries infested with tribal hatred,I would say I’m. Whenever I come across this name call Okuk, I do often encounter a trail of a man who has been reduced by a tribal hatred to nothing, but visible devil with quest to eat away the core social fabric of Southern diversity. Even during this time, when all Southerners have devoted their time and efforts to make effective divorce with traditional enemy a success. Here Okuk with his tribal gangesters are talking about nothing, but the so called Chollo’s land grabbing. To me, this man has committed a social sin by playing politics that has no character.