Tribal politics, compartmentalized hatred and the unchanging, education-proof youth: a response to I-read-one page revisionists
BY: Kuir ë Garang, CALGARY, CANADA 1. Respect for all Freedom Fighters! NOV. 8/2011, SSN; The greatest threat to co-existence in any given society is the implicit, at times, glaring claim by a section of that given society that they are more important than others. What makes the claim monstrously dangerous is the denial that follows it. South Sudan is composed of people who stratify our society into tribal hierarchy with their tribe on top. This is a sentiment I despise to the last subatomic particle of my blood and breath. Naath (Nuers) people think they are better fighters and better humans than all the tribes in South Sudan. Jieng (Dinkas) think they are better leaders and the champions of South Sudan freedom. Most tribes in Equatoria think they are better civilized than the unruly Jieng and Naath people. Such divisive sentimentalism is a cancerous societal cell that will eat into the core of any developmental efforts or any attempt to build a united South Sudan. This article is a response to an article (Nasir Article) written by Manyok Chuol in response to my article published on South Sudan Nation website (My Article). The purpose of my article was to stress that incomprehensible issues happen in complex liberation struggles and that whatever we do should be geared towards reconciliation without forgetting the past. To understand 1991 split one should contact people like Bishop Paride Taban about reconciliation efforts from November of 1991 onwards or read documented evidence and stop assumption stirred by emotions. I should add that Manyok Chuol is a good friend and a colleague I respect dearly. Same tribe, different political and social outlook! The response is not only to Mr. Chuol but his apologists as well. Mr. Chuol wrote a scathing article whose purpose beats any peaceful logic. It’s one thing to criticize me, but it is another to criticize me in total disregard of the universal consequence of such insouciant writ. We all know the split of 1991 was a horrible incident; and what happened in Duk Padiet, Duk Payuel, Twi and Bor (Athooc and Gok) shouldn’t be excused as acceptable in terms of lives lost. I should stress that when people erroneously write ‘Bor’ massacre they mean the rampant, senseless killings that happened in 1991 in Duk Padiet, Duk Payuel, Twi (Lith, Ajuong and Pakeer) and Bor (Athooc and Gok), not only in ‘Bor’; another dangerous revisionism in names. Read The Upper Nile Province Handbook: A Report of Peoples and Government in the Southern Sudan, 1931 by C. A. Willis (edited by Douglas H. Johnson). My critic wrote: These un-integrated and disillusioned former Anya nya I forces became Anya nya II. Unfortunately Anya nya II was not well organized force and did take the stature of a national liberation movement. For example, it did not have a strong unitary leader and lacked steady flow of recruits. The Anya nya II was not a strong and structured force capable of challenging the Sudanese Armed Forces militarily. However, it is important to note no one argues the SPLM/A started the long struggle for freedom in South Sudan nor can we claim the SPLM/A was a continuation of the Anya nya Movements. Such revisionists’ writings should be seen as contemptible and condemned by all oppressed people of South Sudan. Calling Anya Nya II fighters ‘disillusioned’ is to abuse the resilient spirit of any oppressed persons. It is also disrespectful to all South Sudanese. And remember, a freedom fighter is not motivated by the desire to succeed; she’s motivated by the oppression no matter the consequences. It is called self-less sacrifice. Dr. John Garang could have made decent living as an excellent professor in any Ivy League university in the US. But he was ‘disillusioned’ by the Khartoum’s attitude towards the African person in Sudan. What should be applauded is the spirit to continue to challenge an oppressive system not that the force resisting the system is organized or strong. The presence of the remnants of Anya Nya I in the bush was a constant reminder that nothing has changed in Sudan. Any conscientious South Sudanese dare not disrespect these freedom fighters as insignificant and deserving of only marginal mention. Dr. John Garang, in his interview with Arop Madut of Heritage on Monday, Nov., 2, 1987, acknowledged that “Anya Nya Two… was a genuine movement fighting for the separation of Southern Sudan.” The problem was that Anya Nya II due to failure of SPLM/A to win them over (as Garang acknowledged), let to Anya Nya II being used as a militia against SPLA/M and the southern cause. To know that Anya-Nya II was not insignificant and disillusioned fighers, Garang said: “When I was at the General Headquarters in Khartoum, we used to be briefed about Bil Pam. The reports we had is that Gordon Koang had 7,000 strong, that Yagoub Ismail was with several thousand men at arms and Abdalla Zakaria had many thousands. So you can see the Anya Nya Two was already an existing movement before the birth of the SPLA.” That is one freedom fighter acknowledging another freedom fighter. Are those my words? Let’s stop accusing people of being revisionists when we are distorting history to favour out parts: To say that the "SPLA/M DID NOT initiate the process leading to freedom of South Sudan" is an astonishing capitulation and a victory to a more recent internet -based revisionist view that aims to reconstruct history. Ok, here is what Garang told Arop Madut in the same interview in 1987: Our immediate task after we formed the SPLM/SPLA was to try to regroup the scattered fighting forces that we found, politicise them, win their confidence and make them organic to the SPLA. It is worth to note here that the Anya Nya Two was not only confined to Upper Nile. It was stronger in Bahr El Ghazal. That is what I meant by exceptionalizing the liberation struggle. Garang and his SPLA/M tried in good faith to make sure that all Anya Nya II forces both in Upper Nile and Bahr El Ghazal join SPLA/M for a conceited effort against our common enemy. The main contention was the objectives: unity (under a reformed, secular Sudan) verses complete separation of South Sudan. So let’s read from the liberators themselves before we write what is on our minds that has nothing to do with what happened…or what we think happened because it favours our affective requirements. Ignoring the role played by Anya Nya II (which is acknowledged by Garang himself) is the very meaning of revisionism and distortion of history. The role I am talking about is telling Khartoum ‘it ain’t over!” Garang’s letter to Joseph Lagu in 1972 can tell us he knew ‘it ain’t over!’ 1991 Split and distortion of history A good colleague of mine whom I respect dearly wrote on New Sudan Vision (NSV): “Here are some of the questions I am pondering on in the wake of the recent debate in which Nasir declaration is being legitimized (sic) as the political discourse that brought independence of South Sudan…” If my colleague was responding to Dr. Lam Akol then I have nothing to say because I don’t know what Lam’s political intentions are and I don’t care what they are. However, if this is an indirect response to me then I should say that what I wrote about 1991 split is that the incident was a consequence (not a good one) of liberation struggle, and that, it has contributed (not initiated) to a changed mentality in SPLM/A. It’s a political discourse not the political discourse…that contributed to not brought South Sudan independence. This Malok Aleng acknowledges with critical diatribe in his book so I am not the only one claiming this. And Mr. Chuol has this to say: But it’s also in 1991 when a seismic political change occurred in form of collapse of the communist Soviet Union and the subsequent fall of Mengistu who was a strong SPLM/A benefactor. As Mengistu fell, the SPLM/A lost a reliable ally and military bases which precipitously put the Movement at greater perils. Besides, the refugee camps that logistically supported the Movement were also closed down. Therefore, the SPLM/A had lost considerable political, logistical and military support as a result of the events of 1991. I didn’t just read this. This is not only a monstrously personal, and I mean personal, subjective coinage of extreme political favouritism, it is a destructive revisionism and distortion of history. It is the explanation of history in-the-way-I-want-it-to-be or in-the-way-I-think-it-happened. Why did it take SPLA/M three years to realize they have lost such a base and logistical support? An organized movement would have convened a nation-wide convention immediately after the May of 1991 or several conventions between 1983 and 1991. That was a practical necessity. The April 1994 Chukudum convention was meant to institutionalize, restructure and liberalize SPLM, not take stock after the collapse of communism. Administrative structures were created and SPLA and SPLM were separated. This has no direct (maybe indirect) link with the collapse of communism and fall of Mengistu. NGOs also needed a structure to work under in the South but there wasn’t one. SRRA was weak. The Nasir trio had outlined grievances against Garang ‘one-man, dictatorial’ leadership and the external and internal pressure to define New Sudan (which Garang did in April1994 convention). It is hard to argue that the heartrending events of the1991 Nasir defection in which the SPLM/A lost a sizeable portion of its forces under the command of Dr. Riek Machar, Dr. Lam Akol and CDR Gordon Koang did not play a role in holding the 1994 Chukudum Convention. Even prominent people like Malok Aleng who was not only close to Garang but, also Garang’s uncle, will tell you that the ‘did not play a role in holding the 1994 Chukudum’ is wrong. Read the book: The Southern Sudan: struggle for liberty. Also read Øystein H. Rolandsen book (Guerilla government: political changes in the Southern Sudan in 1990s. Mr. Chuol continued: That said, the harrowing Bor massacres were obviously well planned and coordinated by the Nasir leaders. The catastrophic expeditionary incursions into the Dinka villages continued on throughout the 1990s and nearly exterminated the Bor Dinka existence, leaving the community desolately destitute having their means of survival pillaged. Many who luckily survived these recurrent senseless incursions pitifully succumbed to an enabled endemic hunger and diseases. I am one of those who survived. My family came back to Wernyol from Itang through Akobo about two weeks before 1991 declaration. I know exactly what happened and I felt it. I had to head cattle for the first time in my life; a bad experience. I went for weeks without my family and they thought I was dead. I met them weeks later in Paliau: dirty, tired, hungry with shredded clothes. I went tired, hungry sick…beaten and bitten by crawling animals and I have scars to show. Poktap fell to Nasir forces after weeks of fighting. It fell into Riek’s soldier’ controls when I was at Kiir of Adhiok. I thought the world was ending then. We walked on foot and settled at Malek displaced camp north of Mading (now call Bor Town) until we were forced to cross the river. Nasir soldiers shot at us as we lodged on the Nile bank just on the other side of the Nile; just across from Malek. When the Nasir forces were chased away by SPLA, (which Lam wrongfully calls withdrawal in his book) we came to Malek the same day and found dead bodies still on the ground. I too lost relatives in the process. Whoever wants to assume that they are the only people lamenting the split should remember that I experienced it first-hand. However, I don’t need such bad sentiment to negatively mark my life. I have to let go. If an opportunity comes for people to be held responsible, I have to act as a responsible adult and let the people of South Sudan decide the appropriate course of action given available evidence. I have to arrest my emotions for the benefit of South Sudan even when I don’t want to. Note that the claim that the Nasir trio intentionally planned to kill innocent civilians doesn’t deserve any response. What deserves a response is that people died because of the consequences (misunderstanding by local Nuer) of trio’s intentions. What is to be remembered is this: · Only brainless atom would deny that people’s lives were destroyed in 1991 in Duk, Twi and Bor. · Any writing has to both respect history but be of some benefit to South Sudanese. What Mr. Chuol wrote has nothing to do in terms of inter-tribal co-existence, or in terms of political reconciliation. It only stirs good sentiments and feel-good-ness in the incomprehensible ‘Bor community’ or ‘Greater Bor Community’. · There are intentions and the consequences of intentions. An intention doesn’t always engender the desired consequence · No one is anyone’s apologist, but we don’t have to condone hatred in the name of our tribes · We should not assume things; let’s read history and present historical proofs · Let’s not assume we know when we don’t know · What Riek, Lam and Koang did in 1991 was a horrible decision, but any educated person shouldn’t buy into hatred and ignore the fact surrounding the management of SPLA/M from inception · If the trio is to be legally held responsible in the future, I am for that as long as the court is not some tribally-inspired semblance of justice · Assuming my tribal point of view is the right one and others’ is wrong should be left for the old-timers. · There is no incident in history that can never have a better side except RAPE! · Talks of nyagat and traitors is semi-illiteracy at best, and ignorance at worst Writing what didn’t happen or justifying what happened using wrong subjectivist support is the very core of revisionism of hegemons. As much as I respect the idea of people’s points of view being respected, one has to remember that we are building a nation and whatever we say should always try to contribute towards peace and inter-tribal understanding. We have been scarred by history so maintaining unhelpful sentimentalism should be abhorred without forgetting the past. Kuir ë Garang is a South Sudanese poet and writer living in Calgary. He’s the author of Carcass Valley and Trifles. For more information about Kuir, visit www.kuirthiy.info Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author(s) and do not represent those of the website. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/SouthSudanKob?hl=en.
