S. Sudan interior minister and the Lakes State crisis
By Johnson M. M. Makur
November 3, 2014 – South Sudan’s minister of Interior, Mr Aleu Ayieny Aleu has some bad and good historical attachments to the crisis-hit State of Lakes. His wife comes from Lakes State. So, in his children lie a bond of blood between him and Lakes State – and with the Dinka Culture, it’s a powerful bond. But in his father Ayieny, who worked in the same State for so many years during the old days of the Sudan, lie a different story: a story of a cunning and fishy man who could coin dirty stories to get his critics hanged by the Government was so much inclined to listen to him.
The older Aleu was alleged to have orchestrated nasty things and planned terrible conspiracies in Lakes State. People got tired of him to an extent that they preferred to offer anything for him to leave Rumbek. And actually upon the news of his transfer, the man started grabbing all he could set his hands on, bringing forth the now popular saying, “Aa ka jiel Ayieny ke”. This means barely ‘whatever it takes for Ayieny to go let him take’.
Now in the younger Aleu history now repeats itself. How Hon Aleu today uses his position in the Government today to advance his devil deeds is akin to all what the older Ayieny used to do against people of Lakes State.
In the general SPLM briefing last month, Hon. Aleu shamelessly and successfully wrapped his own underperformance and failures of the Government in Lakes State around the necks of innocent politicians he claims to be in Rumbek and Juba. He said that the Lakes politicians in Rumbek and Juba are the cause of crisis in Lakes State. How Aleu came to that conclusion only God knows. However, it still costs nothing to the said politicians because people on the ground know the truths. Rather, it is the reputation of the Minister himself that is at stake.
Nonetheless, people know very well that Hon. Aleu has simply become the mouthpiece of the son of Chut Dhuol, the tyrant Governor of Lakes State.
Moreover, accusations remain accusations. While he goes around accusing other people, Aleu also remains accused in the wrangles of Lakes State.
One time, one day there may be a moment of truth. However, What Aleu should do just now is provide evidence and a complete detail of how and what the politicians did to exacerbate the crisis in Lakes State. Failure to do that will only pronounce him a liar who is on witch-hunt mission to drag the names of innocent people in the mud for self interests.
Otherwise, the people know the crime that might have been committed by Lakes State politicians is calling for the removal of the despotic Governor – but nothing else. People’s wills go beyond imaginations. No any person from Lakes State can buy Aleu’s cooked reports.
Lakes State MPs both in the State and National Legislatures have done their best to bring peace and stability in the State. Peace and reconciliation conferences have been held by MPs around warring state areas. The State Assembly on many occasions formed committees to establish the root causes of conflict in the State and gave recommendations and possible solutions to the said crisis. But their beautiful work was always frustrated by the Governor.
In the first place the Governor never had a policy in place to govern that state. Then to make matters worse, he refuses to implement recommendations given to him by all other stakeholders in the state. Seriously, if Matur boasts in public that he usually turns down the President’s advice then who else in this country will he listen to?
The army general who was simply appointed into politics now has all the guts to humiliate the elected MPs. What the MPs have asked him to do is to arrest culprits, arrange a speedy scheme to settle cases and produce mechanisms through which the state should be peacefully governed. This became the crimes of which they are detained in unknown locations as if they are al Qaeda terrorists.
Why Matur does all this quite so freely is because he has been awarded Lakes to manage like his own house. If one has the backing of those of Aleu Ayieny then why not?
However, one can take Lakes State people for fools but in the end it is you that becomes their fool. So, those of Aleu Ayieny who go around chest-thumping and implicating innocent people including elected MPs must know that, regardless of its current state of crisis, Lakes is still a State of proud people.
Those who put Lakes State in crisis are the same people who now pass around boasting and threatening as if the country is all laid into their hands alone. Yes, individuals can be threatened, some can be imprisoned or even killed but no one, whatsoever, can kill the spirit of people of Lakes State.
Aleu in his right senses knows that Gen. Matur is a part of problems of Lakes State; he can, therefore, never be part of the solutions of Lakes State.
In Lakes there is what people describe now as Matur virus. The fact that Aleu went to Lakes State and stayed in the same care and company of Matur Chut poised him to threat of contracting that bad virus. There is a joke going round that the Aleu that went to Lakes State as a neutral minister doing his job is not the same Aleu that returned to Juba. The best thing that should have been done about him upon his return to Juba was to put him on quarantine just like a person coming from the Ebola hit Liberia. Poignantly, he was allowed to address the important SPLM meeting spitting fire and venom on the innocent people.
One should not defend what is not defendable. Or altogether Aleu does not know what he is trying to defend in Matur Chut. Gen. Matur Chut has spread word that those people who are making noise against him in Lakes state are supporters of Chol Tong and Riek Machar. But Aleu and his friends must come to accept that Matur Chut is the complicate replicate of Chol Tong. The first person Matur met upon his appointment as Governor of Lakes State is none other than Chol Tong. Did Chol Tong not tell him to remove someone he referred to as ‘marath’ in Arabic, Mabor Achol Kuer? Ironically, this was the same Mabor of the SPLM– NLC who stood firm and sang songs for Kiir in the Nyakuron meeting a day before the war broke out.
If Chol was an enemy to Matur then how did he end up renting Matur’s house in Juba as the coordination office for Lakes State? If Matur Chut is not what Chol Tong is then why around him are there all the people of former Governor Chol Tong Mayay? It is important to note that Matur Chut’s current Deputy Governor and some of Advisors, Ministers and commissioners are close and personal friends of the former Governor, Chol Tong Mayay.
It must be noted that Hon. Mayen Kuc, who was the Chairperson of the SPLM Electoral College that gave zeros to Cde Daniel Awet Akot , now a powerful minister, is the brain behind Gen. Matur’s decisions.
Lakes State is not being managed from what its people want. It has lost its direction and so it should be managed as a sub – state under Warrap State and be led by its daughter and the Great Governor Nyandeng Malek. It might do all sides a great favor as jieng or Barh el Ghazal region. Otherwise, it will be hard for people of Lakes State to kneel down and beg other people to accept what they want to be done about their state.
The general belief on the ground, which is seemingly a reality, is that Matur is no different from the armed youths carrying guns in our society. There is no symbol of government in Lakes State, and it might what it should be for as long as Matur Chut continues to be the Governor.
As for Aleu Ayieny Aleu, many of us who celebrated his appointment now regret. I personally regret authoring an article published in Khartoum Monitor in his favor during his dark days after he was ousted out of SPLM in 2007.
That time I read an appealing open letter wrote by Mr Aleu Ayieny Aleu to Pagan Amuom. I never knew this was going to be the Aleu of today. In the piece I read, Aleu referred to Pagan as “the haunted lamb of yesterday who turned a vicious wolf directing salvo of his vengeance guns against wrong comrades.” Now at a time Aleu is a powerful minister it is what is left of the people of Lakes State to say. They are not only haunted but are also being hunted now by the powerful wolves of today for pointing at mistakes of their leader.
The way Aleu Ayeny felt pain, suffering and injustice in 2007 is the way the people of Lakes State feel in 2014. From the hearts of people of Lakes we need Aleu to leave our elders alone and stop distorting facts about Lakes state. We have kept our resolves and stayed intact with the Government but we are being served from what we never sown. As a result, there is nothing Lakes State cannot offer to Hon. Aleu Ayieny Aleu, Minister of Interior, so as to stop tarnishing our good names.
Johnson M. M. Makur is a South Sudanese citizen working in Rumbek. He can be reached on [email protected]