South Sudan Security Forces Shot Dead a Female Teacher in Juba!
6 min readBy James
Dear fellow South Sudanese,
A female teacher (Kenyan national) teaching kids at Dr. John Garang International school has been shot dead last night. She was driving with someone pass Dr. John Garang’s tomb where the soldiers at every 6:00 PM block traffic to lower flag of RSS. The driver, I believe never stop attentively like everyone else to wait until the flag is lowered.
Without consulting his boss, the soldier took the law into his hand, judged the situation, delivered the verdict, and executed the teacher in one minute and with one shot. I am saddened and especially seeing this represents my image. That is the level of trauma and emotional damage South Sudan youth have undergone. Very dangerous and scary! How important is it to guard the flag of RSS and especially with a squad of soldiers?
Will the world really continue to stand with us with such level of impunity? Be your own judge and take care of your life in Juba, please. Tabitha was an amazing, brilliant, humble, and beautiful. She was helping South Sudanese children.
The culprit is actually one of the Presidential guards, according to information we are getting from the Kenyan Embassy. The guy and his immediate boss have been apprehended. Like you, I think this person should be executed so that fair justice is done.
There is no law in South Sudan that permits shooting of anyone without due process of the law. I hope these extrajudicial killings are getting the attention of leaders so that they are stopped. We cannot continue serving under this hostile environment.
Mr. Majok Garang Accompanies Late Tabitha Body to Kenya
By Garang
Dear fellow South Sudanese,
Our collective indebtedness must go to Mr. Majok Garang for accompanying the body of the recent slain schoolteacher, Ms. Tabitha. As the CITIZEN TV showed this evening, the wailing female relatives and grieving colleagues waited and received her at the JKIA. It was disappointing or heartbreaking at best to see that our unruly soldier took away the life of this innocent soul who was in South Sudan to impart knowledge.
At any rate, the matter is serious. It is reported that the Kenyan Foreign Ministry will soon issue a statement over the matter. It will be an honorable thing and humane thing if our Foreign Ministry issues a solemn statement to apologize our behalf. We cannot just go about killing foreign nationals and pretend to doing business as usual with our neighbors.
In closing, I must say this: as we join chorus of regional and international organizations, we must uphold all universal values: respecting rules of law, applying due process, valuing human life and according others, citizens and non-citizens their human dignity. Some of our misbehaving soldiers must be told to behave otherwise this bush mentality is tarnishing the image of our infant nation.
Infancy or Malfunctional Justice in RSS?
By Two eyes for one
Last night I was reclining in bed with a can of Red Horse in my hand Reflecting on the quotation ‘an eye for an eye’. However, my recent experience exposed that the legal system sometimes removes two eyes as a reparation for one eye.
On May 7, I received a letter from the Ministry of Interior, Juba Central Prison. They were requesting my presence to attend the execution of two prisoners the next day. During my working years, I was a witness to people who died of illnesses. Some of those death were painful and depressing. I was not able to gauge how I would feel after watching the execution. I knew I did not want to be a witness to that killing. But how could I legally avoid being a witness?
The next day came and the time for execution came but I was still in the hospital. The director of Juba Prisons phoned me. They were waiting for me so that they carry out the sentences. I went to Juba Prisons and met the General and his team. Shortly after my arrival, the Judge and his team arrived. It turned out I was not the only one late.
From there on, the story began to evolve but sketchy.
The prisoners sentenced to be executed are from Toposa, a mother and her son. The incident happened in their village. Her elder son was killed by somebody. This woman and her younger son went to retaliate but did not find the culprit at home. Instead they found his father whom they killed. Both parties were arrested and taken to court of law. The man who started the killing was sentenced to 4 years in prison. But the woman and her son were sentenced to death; two eyes for an eye.
The prisoners were then transferred to Torit and from there to Juba. Their case was raised to the president for approval. It was approved and that is why I was contacted. The director of Juba prisons then told us how hard he tried to get clemency especially for the woman. He was genuinely unhappy about the sentence.
The judge then began to comb through the papers looking for faults. He did find 3 faults. 1. There was an affidavit for clemency for both mother and son. It had a finger print of the man who started the killing. This was ignored by somebody. 2. The woman convict was sent to the Juba Teaching Hospital for age assessment. Convicts whose age is 70 or exceeds that will get clemency. Instead of bringing this woman to JTH, they took her to Central Equatoria Medical Commission where her age was assessed as 61 exposing her to execution. 3. The letter of transfer of the woman convict was addressed to Wau Prison instead of Juba Prison.
Armed with the above scapegoats we approached the Deputy Chief Justice and the Judge tabled the faults with concentration on the first two reasons. There upon the Justice gave his directives. He wanted the age of the woman to be assessed in JTH. This together with the letter for clemency must be raised to him and he will raise that to the president.
We returned to the prison where the judge gave a written report with the above directives. The general then gave orders to return the prisoners to their cells. That was the first time I saw them. The woman was hidden in a small room close to where we sat. Her son however was returned from the execution room. The room is in the upper floor of a 4×4 sq m house. Emotions were very high in everybody in attendance. There was a feeling of relief and jubilation. The mother and son met for the first time ever since they were imprisoned. They were emotionally stable and none of them shed tears. They were allowed to shake hands and talk to each other after just missing death very narrowly.
The next day, she was brought to the hospital for age assessment. I formed a committee of three medical doctors and they found her age to be more than 71 years. Both of them are still alive and we expect them to live longer.
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