Let Us All Die From Inside

By Pal Chol* (Guest Writer)

Mr. Pal Chol
 (courtesy of the author)

With the escalating destructive war, many South Sudanese people have been forced to flee. Others live to seek protection in the congested UN camps resembling Nazi concentration camps under very squalid conditions. The international community is working and exerting efforts to make sure the war stops and life returns to normalcy.

The civil society organizations also work around the clock to make sure the war stops. If my memory serves me well, the President said he is not happy seeing his people dying always and running for their lives. Nobody knows whether the concern is real or imaginary. Leaders who are concerned by the lives of the people usually devise ways and means of stopping what is making people suffer even if it costs them their jobs. South Sudanese honestly have no problems among themselves.

The problems are the liberators who, because they had gone to the bush, found themselves at the helm of power. They have broken our social fabrics. They negotiate themselves into positions of authority. They don't address people's concerns. The rallying cry of all South Sudanese is to have the war ended at all cost. It has had its highest toll. The UNHCR has made it plainly clear that it cannot afford hosting and feeding the South Sudanese refugees in Uganda, now numbering over one million. There is nothing wrong if bringing peace can make rulers lose their jobs. South Sudan is a resourceful country with abundant riches. There is no reason why we should squabble and fight over Chinese rice.

It is a shame. What is in China which is not here? China has arable and vast land just like here with people (manpower) inhabiting it. These people put to use these resources to produce the rice by tilling the land. It didn't come like a manna. People have toiled for it. Perhaps, the only difference is because their leaders care for them; they love their country and keep the peace,  thus paving way for the people to work. It is an open secret that the ordinary South Sudanese have been confronted by their tribal leaders. They are at each others' throat. It is not now Dinka versus the Nuer nor the Nuer/Dinka versus the minorities. It is them [leaders, elites] against us, the citizens.

There is a need for unity of purpose. It is time to put aside our differences and work for peace and unity. No tribe is not affected by this dire economic collapse. I challenge even those who might have had the chance to look with impunity to come out clean that they still have their kids in the schools, afford three meals a day, and live a comfortable life. Even with the election being talked about by the power wielders, I don't think it would be transparent, fair and credible given the fact that most of the would-be voters are not in the country unless it is done in the African way:  entrenching dictatorship by rigging elections.

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*Pal Chol is a concerned South Sudanese. He has written extensively on various South Sudanese websites and in newspapers on social, economic and political issues.  He is reachable at palcholnyan2016@gmail.com

The Nation Burns as the SPLM leadership Drinks the Blood of the Suffering Citizens

I scaled down writing political commentaries because I believe that one can only criticize people who have the hearts and minds to change; people who look at criticisms and analyze their performances to improve institutional functions. Unfortunately, there’s only one thing the SPLM has done very well: the destruction of the country. What the Portuguese did in Mozambique in the 1970s when they left, is like what South Sudanese leaders are doing to the country. These men and women are looting, destroying and ruling as if they will leave tomorrow for ‘their real’ country.

The saddest thing about South Sudan now is that it has become a private property of gluttonous, incompetent and soulless men, who don’t care about the average South Sudanese. Our civil population dies or flees, goes hungry, but these men and women care less as long as they have their bloody dollars to spend on their mansions, villas and gargantuan SUVs in foreign countries.

Recently, we learned through a parliamentary committee report that the government of South Sudan doesn’t keep the oil money in the Central Bank. Do we have to wonder who’s to blame? But who’s surprised, really? The ministry of Finance and Economic Planning officials, the looting engine of the SPLM leadership, lost their moral and human souls when they saw and smelt the mighty dollar!  Not only is this destructive to the average hard-working South Sudanese, who needs hard currency, it also shows the callous extent to which Juba leaders would go to make sure that South Sudan is burnt to the ground. And there’s no end in sight as these callous, clueless and kleptomaniacs continue to burn what’s left of South Sudan to ashes. And the man, who’s supposed to be the guiding soul of the country, makes light of the fact that over 2 million South Sudanese are living outside the country as another 2 million languish in disease, hunger, insecurity, and death.

The SPLM-IG is a bunch of sheep led by a man who knows not his right hand from his left hand as he’s fed delicious food by selfish, gluttonous and blind supporters, who’d go to any extent to keep this man happy and clueless. SPLM-IO is another bunch of hopeless, structureless, leaderless bunch, who have no strategy to win anything except the fact that they oppose a rotten regime. They sing ‘winning and viva’ as if victories will descend to them from heaven in a divine fanfare. Their directionless rebellion, like the mess in Juba, is prolonging the suffering of the citizens.

Other opposition groups outside these two ruinous SPLM halves are a bunch of self-righteous men who only want to oppose without any tangible alternatives in terms of policy.

How did men and women who spent the prime of their lives fighting for the liberation of the country become such monsters? How did the then jewel of the liberation become the drinkers of the blood of the southern woman, man, and child? How did the African wisdom shun such men as they grow older?

SPLM is basically without a shred of caring leadership. How can a nation that prided in producing strong-hearted men who stood up for the rights of the African Person in the Sudan since the 1940s, produce such fat, clueless and callous men who continue to kill the very people the likes of Lolik Lado, Chan de Bilkuei, Both Diu, among others, spoke up for or fought to liberate?

No sane human being would say that he’s doing something positive when more than a third of the civil population has fled the country? South Sudanese citizens are being abused, insulted and mistreated now in Sudan as refugees. What’s different between a foreigner ruling South Sudan and the government of Kiir Mayardit? South Sudan has been destroyed in a manner we’ve never seen before. As our people suffer, there are still blind and greedy supporters, who still believe that ‘President Kiir is doing his best.’ How did we become such immoral as to see death of our own as normal? How did we become people who put pride in leaders before human lives?

It’s been twelve years since the SPLM took over the leadership in Juba. And it has been twelve horrible years on our people. No matter how untouchable and powerful this President thinks he is, he should know that the blood and the cries of our people will haunt him forever! No leadership lasts forever. Girls and boys as young as nine are begging in the streets and markets in Aweil, Juba, Torit, Wau and other major towns. Looting and killing in Juba is a daily occurrence. Except for Juba, in relative terms, the rest of the country is a wasteland the SPLM doesn’t bother to think about! Yet, the morally-challenged lot still believe ‘everything is okay.”

SPLM should know that peace is not easy, but it's valuable for national development. Nations don't develop when they are at war. The only way President Kiir can get rid of the specter of the lost souls that'd HAUNT him to his grave is to bring peace. John Garang made peace with the Nasir Doctors [Lam Akol and Riek Machar] not because he liked or trusted them, but because such an initiative was necessary for the unity of the South. No matter how incompetent a leader is, the suffering of the people should be something he or she should always pay attention to with humane eyes!

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