NUER COMMEMORATION OF DECEMBER 15TH IS A SERIOUS PROVOCATION OF FULL SCALE WAR
4 min readPRESS RELEASE
BY JIENG COUNCIL OF ELDERS
The majority of the regional, international observers, friends and spectators of current events in South Sudan are perplexed and dismayed by the manner Nuers have been turning their guns against Jieng (Dinka).
Now that Nuers are again planning to commemorate the bloody massacre they inflicted on Jieng on 15th December 2013 and thereafter, it is a serious provocation which may lead to bloodbath between the two ethnic groups.
For the last several years till this day, Nuers are waging armed warfare against their fellow Nilotic tribes, Jieng in particular and in limited scale against others, whom they assume to be on the side of Jieng. The Nuer armed struggle started with Anya-nya 2 led by late Col. Samuel Gai Tut and William Chuol Deang (Abdalla Chuol). Both men lost their lives in combat with the SPLM/A.
Dr. Riek Machar Teny stepped in to perpetuate Nuer struggle for leadership by staging an imaginary military coup of 1991 in Nasir against Dr. John Garang de Mabior who was then far away in Torit, a distance of about 600 miles south of Nasir. His movement was briefly known as “Nasir faction,” dubbed as South Sudan Independence Movement (SSIM). However, Dr. Riek Machar Teny was utterly defeated by Dr. John till he ran to the enemy camp where he concluded the infamous “Khartoum Peace Agreement” with Arab dominated government in Khartoum, (from whom he was supposed to liberate the South). He moved all his Nuer tribal forces to Khartoum to fight against the SPLM/A.
However, the leaders of IGAD countries and representatives of Troika nations (USA, UK, and Norway) in preference of peace and unity of South Sudan nationals persuaded Dr. John Garang de Mabior, the founding father of South Sudan nation to pardon Dr. Riek Machar Teny together with Nuer armed militias to rejoin the liberation movement (SPLM/A). Dr. Riek rejoined in 2002 leaving behind in Khartoum all his armed militias to continue fighting a proxy warfare led by Gen. Gabriel Gatwec Kan (popularly known as Tang-ginye), Gen. Peter Gatdet Yak who mutinied seven (7) times from SPLA and was granted amnesty seven (7) times by Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit, Commander in Chief (C.I.C) of the SPLA as a token price for peace for rejoining the SPLA. Every time he returned to the SPLA, he brought a huge armed militia force to be integrated.
The policy of appeasement and engagement for the wrong peace (peace at any price) could not hold nor bear fruits.
It was Brig. Lim Bol that triggered the first bullet against his fellow Jieng officers, NCOs and soldiers of the presidential guard unit on the 15th of December 2013. He killed over 300 Jieng officers and men who were with him on duty in cold blood. In spite of the wide publicity among the Nuer all over the world that they were taking over the government as planned for several years the attempted coup failed miserably.
After repeated pardons, agreements and absorption of militias, Nuer constituted 75% of the SPLA soldiers. It is this huge number which motivated them to stage a coup, though they did not have technical know-how in the operation of the sophisticated military hardware. Hence, few SPLA soldiers flushed them out from the Town forcing them into the bushes where they are now miserably struggling to conduct aimless guerilla warfare.
Upon complete humiliating defeat of Riek’s forces in Juba by the SPLA, the Nuers started to misinform their fellow men all over the world that “all Nuers in Juba were killed by Jieng.” Thereafter, majority of Nuers in the SPLA in Bor, Akobo, Nasir, Baliet, Pigi, Malakal, Renk etc. instantly and spontaneously launched vengeance attacks by disarming and killing all Jieng soldiers as well as the unarmed civil population (women, children, old and disabled) in churches, mosques, hospitals and even in UNMISS camp bases.
If it was true that all indiscriminate killings was targeted against Nuers during the mob confusion at the incidents of December 2013 and beyond, how did majority of Nuer civilian population reach UNMISS base camps unhurt? How could Riek Machar Teny, Taban Deng Gai with all their families and large forces of soldiers leave Juba without being apprehended? Nuers deliberately intended to kill Jieng as they did in 1991! They repeated their well learned method of killing civilians in cold blood in Bor, Akobo, Malakal, Nasir, Bentiu, Baliet, Pigi, Renk and Juba as well as in refugee camps under UNMISS and in neighboring countries.
How long will Jieng tolerate persistent, absurd and inhumane elimination killings? If it is not fear of the Nuers, then time is about to come when Jieng may hold their breath to squarely face “all enemies from within South Sudan and those coming to invade” as declared by the 28th Extra-ordinary Summit of IGAD Heads of States.
Jieng as a people must by all means defend its territorial integrity, humanity and dignity and resist elimination and massacres by brutal enemies in order to survive and exist among independent proud nations of Africa and the world.
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