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Sudan Tribune

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GoSS minister describes shooting of colleague as “terrorist act”

By Ngor Arol Garang

February 9,2011 (KHARTOUM)- The Minister of Internal Affairs in the Government of South Sudan (GoSS) described Wednesday’s killing of Co-operatives and Rural Development Minister, Jimmy Lemi Milla, as an “act of terrorism”. GoSS authorities have pledged to investigate the accident immediately.

“I could not believe it happened because I just saw the minister passing by our ministry when I was standing outside, before we received reports of this shocking news that he is dead and that he was shot dead by an armed relative, an in-law”, Luka Monoja Tombe, the minister of health, the told Sudan Tribune in a telephone interview from the regional capital of Juba.

In a separate interview General Gier Chuang Aluong, minister of internal affairs, said he received the news with shock, and described it as an “act of terrorism”. “Someone breaking into the office of the minister during the daytime to kill and immediately kill himself, is completely an act of terrorism”, Aluong told Sudan Tribune from Juba.

Aluong said a joint committee will be formed soon, to investigate the cause of the killing of the public figure. The joint committee representing the Central Equatoria state government and GoSS will soon be formed to establish the real cause. “We have just finished holding ministerial meeting and have agreed to form the committee”, said Aluong.

Speaking to Sudan Tribune in Juba, Colonel Phillip Aguer Panyang, spokesperson of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, said he believed the minister was killed by his personal driver.

“Yes, the Cooperative and Rural Development, Minister Jimmy Lemi Milla, was shot dead this morning in his office by an assailant who also killed a bodyguard and then shot himself”, explained Colonel Aguer.

The incident occurs just two days after referendum results concluded that South Sudan will become the world’s newest independent state on 9 July.

While motives for the killing of the minister remains unclear, speculations from individuals who spoke to Sudan Tribune linked the death to tribal and territorial rivalry in his home area.

“There is tribal tension in Lainya over land and political representation, both in the state and at the level of the government of south. Certain communities are not happy. They feel that political representations are concentrated in one constituency. This representation does not reflect the makeup of the whole Lainya County”, explained Lokulenge Lukare, a source within GoSS. Milla represented Lainya County Constituency in the Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly. Lukare was keen to point out that this is what he described as his “personal observation.”

(ST)

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