Urgent Alarming Message to all Ruweng & Padang Jieeng of Unity State and Upper Nile!
7 min readBy Deng Chol Mijak, USA
Dear fellow Citizens,
August 26, 2015 (SSB) — Given the breaking news this Morning or evening about the looming or pending news of signing the popularly rejected peace between the South Sudan government and the rebels, it came to my personal attention that these forsaken peace-loving and law-abiding people of Greater Padang generally in Unity State and Upper Nile should not hesitate to prepare to issue their own unilateral position in regard to what appear to be an arrogant and negligent compromises over the security and survival of their people and territorial integrity as well as failure to guarantee and respond swiftly to their communal appeals and petitions for the separate States from Upper Nile and Unity State respectively to form Padang and Ruweng States.
Now that the signing and implementation of the biased peace proposal is pending to be signed on August 26th, 2015 and looming to implement in the near future, the great constituencies of Jieeng De Padang ought to come out stronger and acknowledge their acceptance and recognition for the Kiir and Riek peace, but the Padang Jieeng is obliged to make a unilateral declaration of their self-rule States of Ruweng and Padang as the only option to accept this biased peace in protest of Riek’s political and military powers over their people and territorial boundaries.
The call for the self-determination to decisively make a unilateral declarations of self-rule states should be the only best and last resort to protest and demonstrate against both Kiir and Riek after Kiir had failed to approve and declare our proposed and petitioned States as Padang ever since. The demands for the Ruweng and Padang States were appealed on conditional reasons related to the systematic issues such the routine tribal extermination of Padang Jieeng by Nuer whenever there is any national political and military crisis which arise between their political leaders and other opponents in the national arena.
Although, Greater Padang Jieeng have no influential figures in the national politics, these people of Padang Jieeng had often and continue fallen to be the victims of any Nuer greedy politician for power in South Sudan.
With this cited major case alone, Padang Jieeng had generally fed up with Riek and his Nuer forces who often victimize them for the political war which has nothing favorable to them as beneficiaries. Padang Jieeng had tried their level best for some decades to live side by side in peace with Nuer counterparts, including intermarriage and sharing some common cultures and identities.
However, Nuer have taken the harmonious coexistence and coherent cohesion shown by their Padang Jieeng counterparts for the free rid to try to marginalize and exterminate them off the map of the shared current States in Greater Upper Nile region. Nuer presume that when Padang Jieeng forgive and tolerate their crimes against them, they mistake it for fear and self-submission for their gluttonous rule over the two states of Unity State and Upper Nile. Padang Jieeng humility, tolerance, integrity, patience, consideration, coexistence had been misinterpreted and used against them by Nuer counterparts as weakness.
In Unity State, Nuer had gone as far as mocking Ruweng Jieeng as minority whom they should enslave and downtrodden at will or crash at any time of their desire or wish. In the Upper Nile State, the same Nuer forces harbor and entertain the same exclusive policy of discriminatory act against Jieeng De Padang as well as sponsoring the negative culture of selfish pride and cult of tribal intimidation against the humble minorities under their state rules despite the sizeable number of them.
In Unity State in particular, the Nuer counterparts had went as far as demanding for the changing the state official of Unity State to Liech State (meaning the original of Nuer) as per their dialectic definition of the term Liech.
Although, Jieeng minority in the Unity State had tried to resist the maintenance of the English name “Unity State” as the best way to maintain the unity and diversity of the State, the Nuer majority in Unity State had threatened to change the name Unity State to Liech State as a matter of demonstrating Nuer supremacy and superiority and to exhibit the heritage symbolically in Unity State as the Nuer cradle land. This is really divisive and polarizing and nobody shall deter them for doing it democratically in the future through the parliamentary votes in the State Legislative Assembly of Unity State as they had cautioned.
Having narrated these few polarizing grievance and other political disparities between Nuer and Dinka counterparts, both Jieeng De Ruweng and Padang find it more empirically imperative for themselves to determine their future destiny in creating their states free from the inclusion of Nuer so as to relieve their people from the psychological warfare of majority oppression and tribal extermination against them by the Nuer counterparts.
In 1991 factional war led by Dr Riek Micaar against the led-faction of Dr John Garang, thousands of Jieeng De Padang in the Upper Nile region were massacred indiscriminately in cold blood in their tribal territories by Nuer counterparts even when they have no political influences whatsoever which led to the 1991 SPLA and SPLM military and political splits. All these systematic mayhem were done against the wills of Padang out of Nuer tribal pride and brandishing of the Nuer superiority and supremacy to crash any minority tribes in their proximate vicinity even when it has nothing to do with the issues which provoked Nuer then.
In December 2013 upto 2014, the systematic massacre of Jieeng De Padang continue to the more harsher level of elevation in the name of eliminating every single Jieeng that cross their paths in their lands and towns. After they had succeeded in selectively culling all Jieeng in their towns and Nuerland in Greater Upper Nile, they went on wage an aggressive invasion of Jieeng Padang land and violently mobbed every single villages slaughtering every innocent civilians they could find and burnt all their homes and properties to ashes. They looted every foodstuffs and valuable commodities they could find in the villages.
Contemporary, these innocent survived Padang Jieeng people are terrified psychologically to live and share States with the Nuer counterparts in the aforementioned States for all these cited grievous causes.
Therefore, it would be wise of Salva Kiir to have been politically considerate of the pleas and petitions presented to his office by the Padang Jieeng that they had eventually determined decisively never to share the same States anymore with their Nuer counterparts now in the future. Their communal quests for the two States is a non-negotiable issue which must not be overridden and ignored in the expense of pleasing other political caucuses.
Conclusively, now that Salva Kiir had finally decided to cowardly surrender his signature to the unpopular peace deal rejected and opposed by his vast majority of his constituencies including the Greater Jieeng of Padang respectively, it is now the right time for Padang Jieeng to call for the eventual self declaration of their self-rule States of Ruweng State and Padang separate from current Upper Nile and Unity State. The decision made to issue and justify the unilateral declarations of these States is based solely on the cited issues of Nuer tribal mayhem and negative rules against the Jieeng minorities in these states as the major causes for the declaration of this self-determination based on the matters of general security and Survivability of Jieeng Padang.
This matter has nothing to do with tribal hatred against Nuer counterparts but it is an issue of relieving and decolonizing the minorities from the harshest superiority bullying and violent victimization. Liberty and survival is also an issue of liberating Padang Jieeng generally from the chronic supremacy of Nuer violent aggression and psychological warfare nightmsre. The definition of liberation and liberty is when one is mentally free and settle at peace of mind in his or her dwelling.
The ball is now in your courtyard as Padang Jieeng to determine their fateful future either to give in to the coward submission and dubious betrayal of Salva Kiir in the expense of facing another detrimental tribal genocide in the upcoming next Dr Riek Micaar forces and authority in the two states. Should you fail to act and execute your destined plan B by this time around, then you shall remains forever as tribal slaves of the Nuer and Jieeng masters in the screwed system of South Sudan tribal dynasties.
Best regards.
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