SPLA Soldiers Response to President Kiir Accusation of Atrocities in Juba on May 16th
6 min readBy David Aoloch Bion
The SPLA celebrated the 31st Anniversary of the inception of SPLM/An in 1983. In his speech at the occasion, President Kiir distanced himself from Juba Massacre and said the SPLA soldiers who were involved in killing civilians will be punished severely. He said “some people (soldiers) killed people here in Juba saying they were supporting me or defending me, they are liars, they were not supporting me or defending me . They must be punished. I have set up committee headed by Wol Makec, to investigate these atrocities.”
The following are words of ‘’the would be punished SPLA soldiers’’ by Kiir’s Justice
The 1st soldier says ‘’ the president must categorically say the atrocities he is haranguing about, there are two version of atrocities claimed , we want the compatibility of the two claims
1. the Nuer tribe claims ‘’10,000 to 20, 000 Nuer boys, girls and women were systematically killed by Dinka soldiers
2. the 63 tribe claim ‘’ 400 to 700 civilian from the 64 tribe of South Sudan were killed in the crossfire between soldiers of Salva and soldiers of riek , which version will Kiir’s justice act on ? Nuer’s or 63 tribe’s
The 2nd soldier says ‘’ first of all , the president should know that I was not defending him as person but as an institution ,The Presidency , secondly , I was defending the constitution of the Republic of South Sudan and it institutions like Parliament , Judiciary and executive from juntas and I don’t regret come the hell or heaven ‘’
The 3rd soldier says ‘’ Do president punishes those who kill people? Why he doesn’t punish Peter Gatdet, Gabriel Tanginya, Riek Machar, how many times have these men kill people and he has not punished them? If you have capacity to punish, punish Riek Machar first and then punish us afterward’’.
The 4th soldier says “I was just obeying the orders from above, who is above The C in C? And if he wants to punish me because I am discipline , loyal soldier , I pity him , if the C in C conscience doesn’t understand how difficult to fight a enemy in civil population then , I will not regret defending the constitution of South Sudan, even if they fire squad me , and I die , and down if there is Republic of South Sudan , I will still defend it constitution down from juntas ’’
The 5th soldier says ” when SPLA Commander Thon Ayiei Jok attacked Mudari tribe in 1987, his soldiers were not charged of crime but , Thon was charged and killed by firing squad in Panyagor, if they want to punish , it is not we private soldiers ,it will begin at Brigadiers and Major Generals , who commanded us on December 15, 16 .’’
The 6th soldier says ‘’ the US President Harry Truman, once said ‘ it was my decision , the bucks stop here , nobody else can be blame ‘’ , he was replying question from journalists about who should take responsibility of US soldiers who killed civilians In Germany and Japan during second World War. Why President Kiir is passing on the buck? .let leave it there, he is afraid, as an SPLA soldier I will not regret my decision to defend the constitution and so the buck stop here ’’
The 7th soldier says ‘’ I am sorry to defend coward president Kiir from the Evil Riek on December 15 . I am sorry to be in such football team ,when you win trophy , they praise you, when situation dictates foul on you they punish you instead of coaching so you play well next time If Mr Kiir snub us because he is afraid of something somewhere ,we don’t care, no food we have not eaten , no girl we have not engaged , no enemy we have not fought ,nothing good or bad we have not seen . Let his coward justice take place . We will not regret our act of constitution mandate ‘’
The 8th soldier says ‘’ if nothing happens all men are men even the men who will cry like women if something happens, before December 15 , we were all men in the SPLA but now you can see how some men are speaking like women . I am a man and will remain a man like Apuki Alam of Yirol , if President Kiir distances him from us I thank him very much’’
The 9th soldier says ‘’ I am not surprise by Mr Kiir’s words that is what he did to the former Public Security Director who he recently appointed as new Military Intelligent Chief , he said in a rally like that some officers abusing women with broken bottles , these officers, I have arrested them , they are now in prison’’
The 9th soldier says ‘’ if they come to me I will tell them that I was told at 11 pm at night that somebody called Riek Machar is overthrowing elected Govt in a coup tonight , and it is constitutional mandate of the soldiers to protect the will of the people. , my coy commander said we are given combat order to fight Riek Juntas. we started fighting in the city , In the city , there are millions of people ., we fought, many civilian were killed in the cross fire , because , the enemy ran to residential areas, used civilian as a human shield , also many of these juntas were in civilian clothes , whom do you blame , is it me ? who response or is he who start the fight, Mr President do you know fighting in the city is not like fighting in the forest of no man’s land ? ,if you fight in the city , you have no choice but to kill civilian in the crossfire , this happen everywhere , where there is conflict or war but Commander in Chief never blame his servicemen like you ., it happens in Afghanistan when the US was fighting Taliban , Iraq in cities , and today in Syria cities , . we did not kill any one intentionally , we killed them in the cross fire , if we are charge because we kill civilian in the cross fire , we don’t regret , the buck stop here ,it is our action and no one else is blamed it is said if you want to make omelet you must break an egg ‘
The 10th soldier says we will not be deterred by the punish from fighting in juntas in cities should there be any attempt to take power by unconstitutionally mean , we will defend the Constitution from brigands even President Kiir if he tries to overthrow the elected government in the near future by AUTOGOLPE , we will not accept It ’’
The last soldier says ‘’ for better or worse , we will wait for Kiir’s Justice steadfastly to explain ourselves , to explain our action , we will not panic like him who panic when he hears ICC indictment rumuors . we, in the SPLA , we know that we are innocent , we have not killed any civilian deliberately. . We did not initiate any anything, we were just responding to the situation… We acted within the law and within our constitutionally mandate, no more or less.’’
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