Waylaying and Killing Leaders for Ethnic Politics is a Ricky Business
4 min readBY James Mayik,
The death of Maj. Gen. Malok Ring is hard and painful to receive. It is even harder when seen from the way it happened. For those who do not know what happened on Saturday last week, be informed that General Malok Ring, who served as commissioner of police in Torit, was waylaid and killed by unknown gunmen on his way back to Torit. He was coming from Juba where he went for official assignment. Mr. Ring hails from Dinka Ngok, Adong Baliet County of Upper Nile State.
My heartfelt condolence goes to the family, Dinka Ngok, and especially the Baliet community in Juba and at home. What did he do or denied someone that amounted to taking away his life untimely? Is it simply because somebody wanted him to carry the cross of his fellow ethnic brothers and sisters so hated for lame reasons perceived as tribal domination? But this is a dangerous calculation from the parts of the culprits.
What if his fellow ethnic groups gang up and give their own youth a green light to restore order, keep the streets save for their leaders to pass, take revenge for repeated assaults? Will that not create another Chukudum crisis when Comrade Deng Aguang was slain in the same way? It is hard to know that ethnic politics is taking such a dimension and toll on the lives of people we should all respect for the hard won freedom they brought all of us.
I thought we should just give each other a hard time if ethnicity is so important to the point where we cannot do without including it in every public discourse. Comrade Malok Ring is a hero who suspended going to college to join the struggle in 1983, fought relentlessly until 2005 to bring the freedom we all enjoy today regardless of ethnicity. He served in the Torit State police to protect civilians of all background. Why kill him? What did he do? What did he deny somebody?
We, the sane people of South Sudan, do hope that justice will be delivered in this case and the culprits will receive the kind of punishment, in accordance with the law, commensurate to the crime committed. We must work together to get tribal gangs off the street corners. We must work extra harder to uproots envy from the hearts and minds of those who always think the cause of their problems is some ethnic domination.
The only best way to prevent perceived fear of tribal domination is to marry many wives, give birth to many children, feed them well, and educate them well. That way, numbers will match in the end if at all that is seen as a problem. Killing members of the perceived dominant tribe is just risky business. It may result into revenge that could lead to reduction of already perceived suffering numbers. This perception should be discarded and put away as outdated and old fashioned ideals.
South Sudanese should learn to live contented with the little they have. What if the same tribal perceptions are replicated from every side, Maj. Gen. Malok Ring’s death would not be left to the mercy of perceptions. It could be responded to in the same old fashioned way. I know this is the worst way but know this is the third time a leader has been slain in cold blood from the same ethnic group and by the same people. Patience is running out. One day, such lynching will be taken as a declaration of war and efforts may be exerted to stop it in the hardest way.
Brother Mayik, well done! By the way, before talking of Cdr Deng Aguang’s assassination, the Brig. Gen. Akech Loi, the director for prisons for Eastern Equatoria was gunned down in Torit centre at bright day light. We mourned and continued on like sheep being dogged by a hyena, in a state that uses a hyena as their official emblem. People may talk of him having been killed between Gumbo and Nesitu of Central Equatoria, but that all points to the fact that another killing of the head of department inside Eastern Equatoria this time would not go withouth strict handling. So they applied the WWE’s warning: Don’t Try This At Home! The thread of killing started with Cdr Nyal Nyal, then Deng Aguang Atem, Akech Loi and now Gen. Malok, all South Sudanese freedom fighters, whose crime is not other than being Dinka by origin. Where are we heading?????
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