The SPLM/A is too deformed to be reformed
By Mark Y. Lual
February 24, 2014 – The SPLM/A-Sudan People’s Liberation Movement is a liberation movement formed more than three decades before the fall of the former Soviet Union and Eastern European communist regimes. The international communist movement has been spurned worldwide. The demise of the SPLM/A is only a matter of time.
Nevertheless, before its complete collapse, the SPLM/A is trying to tie its fate to the S. Sudanese nation, with its only two years of independency. This is a disaster for the S. Sudanese people. The S. Sudanese people must now face the impending questions of how to view the SPLM/A, how to evolve S. Sudan into a society without the SPLM/A, and how to pass on the S. Sudanese heritage. I will for now focus on the following Commentaries on the Communist Movement/Party.” To lay the lid on the coffin of the SPLM/A, we wish to pass a final judgment on it and on the international communist movement, which has been a scourge to humanity for over a century.
Throughout its 30-plus years, everything the SPLM/A has touched has been marred with lies, wars, famine, tyranny, massacre and terror. Traditional faiths and principles have been violently destroyed. Original ethical concepts and social structures have been disintegrated by force. Empathy, love and harmony among people have been twisted into struggle and hatred. Veneration and appreciation of the heaven and earth have been replaced by an arrogant desire to “fight with heaven and earth.” The result has been a total collapse of social, moral and ecological systems, and a profound crisis for the S. Sudanese people, and indeed for humanity. All these calamities have been brought about through the deliberate planning, organization, and control/power struggle over the SPLM/A.
As a famous Chinese poem goes, “Deeply I sigh in vain for the falling flowers.” The end is near for the communist regime, which is barely struggling to survive. The days before its collapse are numbered. South Sudan believes the time is now ripe, before the SPLM/A’s total demise, for a comprehensive look back, in order to fully expose how this largest cult has embodied the wickedness of all times and places. We hope that those who are still deceived by the SPLM/A will now see its nature clearly, purge its poison from their spirits, extricate their minds from its evil control, free themselves from the shackles of terror, and abandon for good all illusions about it.
The SPLM/A’s rule is the darkest and the most ridiculous page ever and should be last one in S. Sudanese history. Among its unending list of crimes, the vilest must be its persecution and extermination of the south Sudanese citizens because of their ethnicity. In fitting“ the Nilotes’ sister tribes which are known for truthfulness, compassion, tolerance” Jieng/Dinka and Naath/Nuer have driven the last nail into the SPLM/A’s coffin. We all believe that by understanding the true history of the SPLM/A, we can help prevent such tragedies from ever recurring. At the same time, we hope each one of us would reflect on our innermost thoughts and examine whether our cowardice and compromise have made us accomplices in many tragedies that could have been avoided.
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On What the SPLM/A & other Communist Movements Are?
For over thousands of years, the S. Sudanese people have been denied of their splendid civilization on the land nurtured by the Nile River and Its tributaries. During this long period of time, wars came and went, and the S. Sudanese culture waxed and waned. Sad and darker stories have played out on the historical stage of S. Sudan.
The year 1955, the year commonly considered by historians as the beginning of S. Sudan’s contemporary era, marked the start of S. Sudan’s journey from tradition to modernization. S. Sudanese civilization experienced four major episodes of challenge and response. The first three episodes include the invasion of the land by the Turko-Egyptian (1821–85), the Anglo-Egyptian condominium in (1899–1956) and the Arab dominium rule 1956-2005. To these three episodes of challenge, S. Sudan responded with the nationalist Movements, which was marked by various resistance spanning from traditional chiefs and prophets to protracted political and military wars with the attempt at the end of the untold suffering of the human being in this part of the planet, earth.
Good enough by the end of all those wars, S. Sudan got its independence victoriously, though it, was not listed among the adorable nations at this time. Many S. Sudanese believed that the first three episodes of response had failed. The May Fourth Movement [3] would lead to the fourth attempt at responding to previous challenges and culminate in the complete westernization of S. Sudanese culture through the communist movement and its extreme revolution.
This article concerns the outcome of the last episode of response in S. Sudan, i.e., the impact of the communist movement and the Communist Movement/Party on the civilization of S. Sudan. Analysis will be given to elucidate what kind of consequence there has been, whether it was chosen by the S. Sudanese or it was imposed on S. Sudan from the outside, after S. Sudan has undergone last 160 years of history, nearly one hundred million people have died unnatural deaths, and almost all of the traditional S. Sudanese culture and civilization have been destroyed.
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I. Relying on Violence and Terror to Gain and Maintain Power
“The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.” [4] This quote is taken from the concluding paragraph of the Communist Manifesto, the Communist Movement/Party’s principal document. Violence is the one and main means by which the Communist Movement/Party gained power. This character trait has been passed on to all subsequent forms of the Movement/Party that have arisen since its birth.
The S. Sudanese Communist Movement/Party (SPLM/A) first started as a branch of the Communist Movement/Party of the Soviet Union in the Ethiopian Communist Dergue. Therefore, it naturally inherited the willingness to kill. During S. Sudan’s first Communist-SPLM/A civil war between 1983 and 2005, the population in the in three S. Sudanese provinces, of the old Sudan, lost about 2.5 million in death. The damage wrought by the SPLM/A’s use of violence can be seen from these figures alone.
Using violence may be unavoidable when attempting to gain political power, but there has never been a regime as eager to kill as the SPLM/A, especially during otherwise peaceful periods. Since 2005, the number of deaths caused by SPLM/A’s violence has surpassed the total deaths during the wars waged between 1983 and 2005.
The SPLM/A had close connections with the world’s most brutal revolutionary armed forces and despotic regime, the Dergue, whose atrocities have been condemned by the world community.
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II. Using Lies to Justify Violence
The level of civilization can be measured by the degree to which violence is used in a regime. By resorting to the use of violence, the Communist regimes clearly represent a huge step backward in human civilization. Unfortunately, the Communist Movement/Party has been seen as progressive by those who believe that violence is an essential and inevitable means to societal advancement.
This acceptance of violence has to be viewed as an unrivaled and skillful employment of deception and lies by the Communist Movement/Party, which is another inherited trait of the SPLM/A.
“Since a young age, we have thought of the US as a lovable country. We believe this is partly due to the fact that the US has never occupied S. Sudan, nor has it launched any attacks on S. Sudan. More fundamentally, the S. Sudanese people hold good impressions of the US based on the democratic and open-minded character of its people.”
Deception and lies have played a very important role in the SPLM/A’s gaining and maintaining control. S. Sudan suffered the longest and most hateful and sad history in the world, and S. Sudanese intellectuals have had the greatest faith in history since ancient times. The S. Sudanese people have used history to assess current reality and even to achieve personal spiritual improvement. To make history serve the current regime, the SPLM/A has made a practice of altering and concealing historical truth. The SPLM/A in its propaganda and publications has rewritten history by hijacking the credits of all the patriots and veterans of all times. Such historical alterations have continued for the more than 30 years since 1983, and all efforts to restore historical truth have been ruthlessly blocked and eliminated by the SPLM/A.
When violence becomes too weak to sustain control, the SPLM/A resorts to deception and lies, which serve to justify and mask the rule by violence.
The SPLM/A promised land to the communities, factories to the workers, freedom and democracy to the intellectuals, and peace to all. None of these promises has ever been realized. One generation of S. Sudanese died deceived and another generation continues to be cheated. This is the biggest sorrow of the S. Sudanese people, the most unfortunate aspect of the S. Sudanese nation.
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III. Ever-changing Principles
The ideal of the Communist Movement/Party is social equality leading to a communist society. Today, however, communist-controlled S. Sudan has become a nation with the most serious economic inequalities in the world. Many SPLM/A members have become filthy rich, while the country has 10 million living in poverty.
The Communist Movement/Party’s evolving principles have largely contradicted one another. From the idea of a global integration transcending the nation-state to today’s extreme nationalism, from eliminating all private ownership and all exploitative classes to today’s notion of promoting capitalists to join the Movement/Party, yesterday’s principles have become reversed in today’s politics, with further change expected tomorrow. No matter how often the SPLM/A changes its principles, the goal remain clear: gaining and maintaining power, and sustaining absolute control of the society.
In the history of the SPLM/A, there have been more than a dozen movements that are “life and death” struggles. In reality, all of these struggles have coincided with the transfer of power following changes of basic Movement/Party principles.
Every change in principles has come from an inevitable crisis faced by the SPLM/A, threatening its legitimacy and survival. Whether it be collaborating with the SSI Movement/Party, a pro-US foreign policy, economic reform and market expansion, or promoting Independence and nationalism—each of these decisions occurred at a moment of crisis, and all had to do with gaining or solidifying power. Every cycle of a group suffering persecution followed by reversal of that persecution has been connected with changes in the basic principles of the SPLM/A.
A western proverb states that truths are sustainable and lies mutable. There is wisdom in this saying.
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IV. How the Movement/Party Nature Replaces and Eliminates Human Nature
The first and foremost requirement of all SPLM/A members and those ruled by the SPLM/A is to obey commands unconditionally. This is what the organization line is all about.
In S. Sudan, most people know about the double personalities of SPLM/A members. In private settings, SPLM/A members are ordinary human beings with feelings of happiness, anger, sorrow and joy. They possess ordinary human beings’ merits and shortcomings. They may be parents, husbands, wives, or friends. But placed above human nature and feelings is the Movement/Party nature, which, according to the requirements of the Communist Movement/Party, transcends humanity. Thus, humanity becomes relative and changeable, while Movement/Party nature becomes absolute, beyond any doubt or challenge; that is why you can see in the Juba massacre Nuer SPLM/A members were the first to deny the death of their relatives and friends, sad!!
The power of the Movement/Party nature over the individual results from the SPLM/A’s prolonged course of indoctrination. This training starts in red army training centers, where Movement/Party-sanctioned answers to questions are rewarded, answers that do not comply with common sense or a child’s human nature. Students receive political education when they attend primary school, middle school and all the way to college, and they learn to follow Movement/Party-sanctioned standard answers, otherwise, they are not allowed to pass the exam and graduate.
A Movement/Party member must remain consistent with the Movement/Party line when speaking publicly, no matter how he feels privately. The organizational structure of the SPLM/A is a gigantic pyramid, with the central power on top controlling the entire hierarchy. This unique structure is one of the most important features of the SPLM/A regime, one that helps produce absolute conformity.
Today, the SPLM/A has completely degenerated into a political entity struggling to maintain self-interest. It no longer pursues any of the lofty goals of communism. However, the organizational structure of communism remains, and its demand for unconditional conformity has not changed. This Movement/Party, situating itself above humanity and human nature, removes any organizations or persons deemed detrimental or potentially detrimental to its own power, be it ordinary citizens or high-ranking SPLM/A officials.
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V. An Evil Specter Opposes Nature and Human Nature
Everything under heaven experiences a life cycle of birth, maturity, decay, and death.
Unlike the communist regime, non-communist societies, even those suffering under rigid totalitarian rule and a dictatorship, often allow some degree of self-organization and self-determination. Ancient S. Sudanese society was in fact ruled according to a binary structure. In rural regions clans were the center of an independent social organization, while urban areas were organized around the guild. The top-down government did not extend below the county level.
The Nazi regime, perhaps the cruelest regime under a dictatorship other than the Communist Movement/Party, still allowed rights to private property. The communist regimes eradicated any forms of social organization or elements independent of the Movement/Party, replacing them with highly centralized power structures from the top-down.
If the bottom-up social structures allow for the self-determination of individuals or groups to occur naturally, then the communist regime is anti-nature in its essence.
The Communist Movement/Party does not hold universal standards for human nature. The concepts of good and evil, as well as all laws and rules, are arbitrarily manipulated. Communists do not allow murder, except for those categorized as enemies by the Communist Movement/Party. Filial piety is welcomed, except for those parents deemed class enemies. Benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and faithfulness are all good, but not applicable when the Movement/Party is not willing or doesn’t want to consider these traditional virtues. The Communist Movement/Party completely overthrows the universal standards for human nature, and builds itself on principles that oppose human nature.
Non-communist societies generally consider humanity’s dual nature of good and evil and they rely on fixed social contracts to maintain a balance in society. In communist societies, however, the very concept of human nature is denied, and neither good nor evil is acknowledged. Eliminating the concepts of good and evil, according to Marx, serves to completely overthrow the superstructure of the old society.
The Communist Movement/Party does not believe in God, nor does it even respect physical nature. “A Battalion in SPLM/A sings “shall abuk wediuo talaga” in Arabic being translated as shoot even your father.” This was the motto of the SPLM/A during the civil war with the old Sudan. Great suffering was inflicted on the S. Sudanese people and the land.
The Communist Movement/Party is a kind of being. However, it opposes nature, heaven, earth and mankind. It is an evil specter against the universe.
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VI. Some Features of Evil Possession
The Communist Movement/Party’s organs themselves never participate in productive or creative activities. Once they grasp power, they attach themselves to the people, controlling and manipulating them. They extend their power down to the most basic unit of society for fear of losing control. They monopolize the resources of production and extract wealth from the society.
In S. Sudan, the SPLM/A extends everywhere and controls everything, but nobody has ever seen the SPLM/A’s accounting records, only accounting records for the state, local governments, and enterprises. From the central government to the village committees in rural areas, the local government’s officials are always ranked lower than the communist cadres, so the local government governments have to follow instructions from the communist Movement/Party committees of the same level. The expenditures of the Movement/Party are supplied by the local government units and accounted for in the local government system.
The organization of the SPLM/A, like a giant evil possessing spirit, attaches to every single unit and cell of the S. Sudanese society as tightly as a shadow following an object. It penetrates deeply into every capillary and cell of the society with its finest blood-sucking vessels and thereby controls and manipulates society.
This peculiar structure of evil possession has existed in human history in the past, either partially or temporarily. Never has it operated for so long and controlled a society so completely as under the rule of the Communist Movement/Party.
For this reason, S. Sudanese farmers live in such poverty and drudgery. They not only have to support the traditional local government officials, but also as many or even more SPLM/A cadres.
For this reason, S. Sudanese workers lost their employment in vast numbers. The omnipresent blood-sucking vessels of the possessing SPLM/A have been extracting funds from their factories for many years.
For this reason, S. Sudanese intellectuals find it so difficult to gain intellectual freedom. In addition to their administrators, there are SPLM/A shadows lingering everywhere, doing nothing but monitoring people.
A possessing spirit has to control absolutely the mind of the possessed in order to drain energy for its survival.
According to modern political science, power comes from three main sources: force, wealth, and knowledge. The Communist Movement/Party has never hesitated to use monopoly control and force to rob people of their property. More importantly, it has deprived people of their freedoms of speech and of the press. It has raped people’s spirit and will in order to maintain its absolute control of power. From this aspect, the SPLM/A’s evil possession controls society so tightly that it can hardly be compared to any other regime in the world.
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VII. Examine Oneself and Get Rid of the SPLM/A’s Possession
The basic tenet of the Communist Movement/Party is to take away all private property so as to eliminate the “exploitative class.” Private property is the basis of all social rights, and often carries national culture. People who are robbed of private property also lose a free mind and spirit. They may further lose the freedom to acquire social and political rights.
Facing a crisis of survival, the SPLM/A was forced to reform S. Sudan’s economy in the 1990s. Some of the rights to private property were restored to the people. This created a hole in the massive SPLM/A machine of precise control. This hole has become enlarged as the SPLM/A’s members strive to accumulate their private fortunes.
The SPLM/A, an evil possessing specter supported by force, deception and the frequent change of its appearance and images, has now shown signs of decay, nervous at every slight disturbance. It attempts to survive by accumulating more wealth and tightening control, but these actions only serve to intensify the crisis.
Today’s S. Sudan appears prosperous, but social conflicts have been built up to a level never seen before. Using political intrigues from the past, the SPLM/A have attempted some sort of retreat, redressing the Gajaak Massacre, or making another group its chosen enemy, thereby continuing to exercise the power of terror.
Facing challenges over the past thirty years, the S. Sudanese nation has responded by importing weapons, reforming its systems, and enacting extreme and violent revolutions. Countless lives have been lost, and most of the S. Sudanese traditional culture has been abandoned. It appears that the responses have failed. When agitation and anxiety occupied the S. Sudanese mind, the SPLM/A took the opportunity to enter the scene, and eventually controlled this last surviving youngest nation in the world.
In future challenges, the S. Sudanese people will inevitably have to choose again. No matter how the choice is made, every S. Sudanese must understand that any lingering hope in the SPLM/A will only worsen the damage done to the S. Sudanese nation and inject new energy into this evil possessing SPLM/A.
We must abandon all illusions; thoroughly examine ourselves without being influenced by hatred, greed or desires. Only then can we rid ourselves of the nightmarish control by the possessing spirit of the SPLM/A over the last 30 years. In the name of a free nation, we can reestablish the S. Sudanese civilization based on respect for human nature and compassion for all.
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Mark Y. Lual is a member of the Revolutionary Democratic Alliance. He can be reached at:[email protected]