Kenya faulted with my deportation, says James Dak

February 24, 2019 (KHARTOUM )  –  South Sudan’s main opposition leader’s former spokesman, James Gatdet Dak, said he blamed Kenya for his illegal abduction and deportation to South Sudan in November 2016, saying the country’s authorities faulted.

“I did not do anything wrong. I did not commit a crime against the Republic of Kenya or its people which would have warranted my arrest or deportation,” Dak told Sudan Tribune on Sunday when asked about his ordeal. 

Dak,  who was a registered refugee in Kenya, was abducted from his home in the Lavington suburb in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi on 2 November 2016, by security officers. He was serving as the official spokesman of the former South Sudanese first vice president and leader of the SPLM/A-IO party, Riek Machar. 

His abductors, he said,  immediately drove him to a police station at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport where he spent the night and was deported to Juba the following day against his will. 

Dak said the Kenyan security officers, later on, told him that he was being deported because he welcomed, in a Facebook post, the dismissal of the commander of United Nations peacekeepers deployed in South Sudan. The UN commander is a Kenyan. 

However, Dak argued that there was nothing wrong or criminal about welcoming the commander’s sacking. 

“There was nothing misconduct or criminal about my statement in regard to the dismissal of the UN force commander,” he said.

SPLM/A-IO,  as a concerned party in the country’s security and safety of its people, he said,  had the right to react to the dismissal of the UN officer who failed to protect civilians in the capital, Juba,  and elsewhere. 

‘First,  the Kenyan officer was a UN commander deployed in my country and failed to protect my people despite his mandate to do so.  Second,  he was dismissed by UN Secretary-General who had his representative in Kenya. They didn’t deport any UN official. Third,  I was a refugee and I was speaking on behalf of my organization and people” Dak said. 

He said he respected Kenya for being a democratic nation that tolerated freedom of speech and expression,  as well as knowledgeable in international laws that govern all forms of human rights, including rights of refugees.

“I didn’t expect authorities in Kenya to have overreacted in the way they did. If they didn’t want me in their country for any reason they should have simply asked me to leave and choose where else to go. Handing me over to the enemy and exposing my life to danger knowingly was never a right thing to do’,” Dak argued. 

He said he suspected involvement of an external player that motivated or forced Kenyan authorities to violate international laws or human rights in the case of the unlawful deportations.

Dak’s deportation was condemned by UN and human rights bodies around the world who called for his release from prison where he faced the death penalty for working against the government of President  Salva Kiir. 

In their report to the United Nations Security Council in April 2017, the UN Panel of Experts condemned Dak’s deportation and cited a Kenyan official for “inciting violence” in South Sudan. The official wrote on his Facebook account, mocking Dak on the day of his deportation to Juba and telling him to ” say hi to Mathiang Anyoor”,  a reference to a militia force from the Dinka ethnic group. 

Dak, however, said he is ready to forgive all those who were responsible for his kidnapping and commended South Sudan’s leadership for signing the revitalized peace agreement.

The former spokesman, who spent two years in prison, was pardoned by President Kiir on peace celebration day in Juba on 31 October 2018 in accordance with the revitalized peace deal he signed with Machar.

He is currently in Khartoum, Sudan, awaiting his travel to Sweden to reunite with his family he hasn’t seen in years. 

(ST)