South Sudan deputy interior minister denies accusing Twic community
March 1, 2013 (JUBA) – South Sudan’s deputy interior minister, General Salva Mathok Gengdit has vehemently denied accusing Warrap state’s Twic County community of backstabbing the Dinka Ngok in Abyei over territorial disputes.
Traditional Court in Warrap State, South Sudan (Photo: UNDP South Sudan/Brian Sokol)
A press release from a Twic Mayardit youth group in Juba recently quoted Gengdit as saying their community was stabbing the Dinka Ngok in the back, while they are preoccupied with the issue of the ownership of Abyei.
Abyei’s status remains unresolved 19 months after South Sudan’s independence due to Sudan’s insistence that the Arab nomadic Misseriya tribe be able to vote in the much delayed referendum on the issue.
In an interview with Sudan Tribune on Friday, General Gengdit, a native of Warrap State from Gogrial East County, said the Twic Mayardit’s accusations were “false political allegations” and that he had been misquoted.
The deputy minister said that he told an event in Juba that there was “a need for unity instead of focusing on small issues which are internal matters. So I do not know where these people got these claims that I said Twic is stabbing members of Ngok [in] the back. I think these are just political allegations”, Gengdit said on Friday.
The function in question, on February 16 at the New York Hotel, was to recognise the appointment of General Pieng Deng Kuol as Inspector General of police after he was removed from active military service in January.
The Twic youth also expressed disappointment and condemnation of a cartoon published in The Citizen newspaper depicting the Ngok Dinka being stabbed in the back by their fellow South Sudanese.
The group pointed to the role their community has played in support of the Dinka Ngok during the war when they were displaced from Abyei and when the area was forcefully occupied by the Sudanese armed forces in 2011 and during a clash in 2008.
The statement said:
“We Twic Community like any other community in the South believed and proud to have contributed and stood with the cause of Abyei people. Twic Mayardit is one of the counties in the region of Bhar El Ghazal that have settled large number of the internally displaced persons from Abyei and currently hosting the Abyei Administration. In 2011 and beyond, Twic Community lost many of their sons including the last two senior SPLA officers to die while fighting the enemy in Abyei. This is in addition to sporadic and frontline fight in Abyei where Twic lost lives together with sons of South Sudan.”
They also accused the minister of making remarks which they think could instigate members of the two sides to become emboldened overhistorical territorial disputes.
The release added:
“We are alerting the President of the Republic of South Sudan, International Community and entire South Sudanese community that if conflict arises between Twic and Ngok Dinka, Salva Mathok will be answerable.”
TWIC COUNTY
Twic County is inhabited by members of a section of Dinka Rek known as Twic Mayardit community. It shares a border with Aweil East County in neigbouring Northern Bahr el Ghazal state to the west and Gogrial West County in Warrap to the south and the Abyei Area, inhabited predominantly by members of the nine Ngok Dinka chiefdom’s.
The territory of the nine Dinka Ngok chiefdom’s was transferred to Kordofan province in central Sudan in 1905, during British rule.
Twic County also shares a border with Abiemnom and Mayom counties of Unity state, inhabited by members of a section of Dinka Ngok Ruweng and the Nuer tribe. It is divided by a swampy area, locally known as Toch.
(ST)