South Sudan: Freedom from the Yolk of Oppression
By Gai Pac, Ottawa, Canada
October 13, 2015 (SSB) — I am writing this article because the circumstances have enabled me to do so. This article is intended to praise H.E President Salva Kiir Mayardit for the creation of 28 states, which was recently decreed in
October 2nd 2015. Some of the states that were created were Eastern Nile state, Ruweng State and Jonglei state. The people that reside in the above mention states are the Dinka Bor( Jonglei Sate), Dinka paanuru with its many clans such as Ngok, Baillet, Ruweng and many more. ( Upper Nile State and Ruweng state). Emphatically speaking, I do not know the official name of the Dinka Paanuru or Dnka
Ruweng, however, I hope you will be able to understand which clans I am speaking about. For the purposes of this article I will use the term Dinka Paanuru to describe the Dinkas that reside in pigi county, and dinka inhabited counties in Upper Nile State such as the Renk county, Melut County, Akoka county as well as the Dinka-dominated counties in Unity State. If you find the term Dinka Paanuru to be offensive, than you need to understand that I am not a native from that region. Besides, when I refer to Dinka-bor I mean the Greater Dinka-bor which includes the twic east Dinkas, Duk Dinkas and Dinka bors.
I completely understand that some twic dinkas and duk dinkas detest being called Dinka Bor but for the purpose of this article that is what I am going to do. Equally important, I have never seen greater bor community being refered as greater twic east or greater Duk, I have only heard and seen greater Greater Bor people which comprise of East twic dinkas, Duk dinkas and dinka bors in bor county.
Let’s address the elephant in the room which is Tribalism. I want to make it vividly clear that I come from Dinka-Bor Kolyang payam. Now, the question in everyone’s mind is that why am I writing about the Dinka Paanuru when in fact I am a Dinka bor and should stick to my clan? Are you looking to mock and be insolent towards the Dinka Paanuru?
Well, I personally think that this is a good question and I will answer this question my stating that I am concern for the wellbeing of the oppressed people and I truly feel their pain, I sympathize with them and have solidarity towards them because(1) we share the same enemy(Nuer white Army), (2) our circumstances are similar in that the state government is controlled by a different tribe, both our clans cannot develop our lands by buildings essential things that are the building block for our towns to function properly such as building roads, schools, hospitals, business centers among other things due to the fact that the funds are being mismanaged through corruption, (3) whenever violence occurs the Nuer white army comes at our villages and kills innocent people that have nothing to do with their failures.( 1991, 2013-2015).
(5A) And finally we the Dinka Bor and Dinka Paanuru even though we do not hold the leadership of our respected states and as a matter of fact we are being marginalized, this does not stop other tribes from pointing figures at us when things do not happen according to them. (5B) this brings me to my point that we are both hated, demised, envied, marginalized and blamed for the problems that happen in our states by our neighboring tribes.
Examples, include the Murle cattle and Nuer cattle rusting the cows of Dinka-Bor, land disputes among the Dinka Paanuru and shilluik, shuiliks and Nuers creating militias or rebel forces prior to December 2013 violence to murder Dinka-Paanuru’s, Murles declaring war, slandering and blaming the Dinka-Bor because the national government which is not controlled by a Son/Daughter of Dinka-Bor refused to build road connecting Pibor to Juba, Nuers killing both our innocent people, Mabaan community blaming the Dinka Paanuru for not bringing development into their lands despite the fact that they did not hold the leadership at the time.
The list goes on and on unfortunately I do not have the time to mention all of the vices that are being committed against us. In the examples that I stated above it is up to the reader to know which one is motivated by abhorrence, scapegoating, slandering or jealousy. (6) Moreover, the Nuer white Army has killed thousands of dinka-bor and Dinka paanuru people in 2013-2015 after their failed military coup in Juba which was orchestrated by none other than DR. Riak Machar, now knowing that this is a fact that happened won’t it make sense that we become natural allies.
(7) As well as, I believe that it is our duty to stand with one another during times of difficulties and help one another because I perceive this to be the spirit of brotherhood. (8) As mention earlier, I am a Dinka-Bor and it is worthwhile to note that we are well known for our altruism and this makes us talk about the national interest of other people even though it does not benefit us at all. One case example is that during our community meetings I always hear people discuss the issue of Abyei, this just indicates that we are concern of the wellbeing of other. If this is not genuine care than I do not know what can be regarded as compassion.
(9) In short, this proves that we both have legitimate grievances that needs to be tackled/solved. We are the true victims in this scenario and if we do not resist them we will find ourselves politically annihilated by our neighboring tribes. Currently if you think I did not answer the question that was in your mind or you are unable to understand the issue that I am addressing, or you are totally confused or oblivion to what happened, or you do not like reading long articles you are welcomed to exit from my article and please do so peacefully or offer me a rebuttal.
Back to my point, Tribalism has been embedded in the governance structure in Upper Nile state, Unity state and Jonglei state. We have seen ruthless leaders in the likes of Gatluck former governor of Upper Nile State before Simon Kun, mismanaging the affairs of the state and the Dinka Paanuru are being blamed for his weak leadership. The shuiliks and Maaban community immediately complained of not beng well represented in the state making decisions, and had land disputes with the Dinka Paanuru.
Instead of them blaming the Jikany Nuer for their problems because Gatluck hailed from Nasir which is inhabited by Jikany Nuer, the state government is also controlled by them so it should make sense that they blame the Jikany Nuer for causing that kind of environment which resulted in those problems. Instead they resorted to blaming the innocent Dinka Paanuru. How is it the fault of the Dinka-Paanuru?
Despite the fact that, the Dinka Paanuru lands are the ones that are producing the oil money that generates the revenues for the state, they do not hold the leadership of the state, than how can it be their fault? The shuilik and Maaban community believe that anything which they view as being evil emanates from the Dinka. They believe that the Dinka-Paanuru have in one way or the other something to do with their problems and thus this lead to hatred among each other. Now is it fair for the Dinka Paanuru to be margalized in their own territory and not have the upper hand power in terms of political decsions if they were already balmed for the problems that happened in the past. Problems that were caused by the former governors Gatluck and Simon Kun both of them were Jikany Nuer.
For this reason I was delighted when I heard that H.E President Salva had created the Eastern Nile state and it will be a predominantly Dinka state with shuiliks and Maaban tribes in it so that they get to taste the problems that they were causing. Pigi county is in Jonglei state but it is inhabited by the Dinka-Paanuru and I think it is a wise decision to send it with her sisters in the other dinka counties were it belongs because if it was incorporated in East Beih state that would have been a disaster for the dinkas that live there. The white army had killed plenty of them and they would have been politically isolated but the President’s wisdom made them become part of Eastern Nile State. Indeed, no one will enjoy being ruled by the savage/ uncivilized rebels who killed their relatives.
Furthermore, Pigi county shares linguistic, cultural and societal values with the Dinka counties in Eastern Nile state than with Ayod or Fangak county both are thiang Nuer. It is geographically bordering Malakal which is now part and parcel of Eastern Nile State. Aside from that, in the current civil war the armed youths from Dinka Paanuru have contributed a sizeable amount of militias and troops to protect the oilfields in their lands and they need to be rewarded by being given their own state. Also, during the North-South civil war of the SPLA the Dinka-Paanuru were very loyal towards John Garang. Eastern Nile state will make them govern themselves as this will allocate them the state ministers like the ministry of local government, ministry of finance in their own state.
That capacity alone will enable their land to flourish and give them a sense of pride. The SPLA/M in opposition led by DR Raik Machar created 21 states that made Pigi county live with their hostile neighbors the nuers. DR Raik Machar wants the his ethnic group to dominate the Dinka-Paanurus in Upper Nile State and Unity State that’s the reason he put Bailet county, Renk County and Akoka county with other Nuer dominated regions. In Unity state, he gave it a Nuer name which totally does not recognize the rights of the minority Dinka-Paanuru/Ruweng that reside there. Finally at least this decree on October 2nd by the President of the republic has made the Dinka-Paanuru free from the rule of the Nuers.
Likewise, the governance structure of Unity State has been dominated by Nuers. The Dinka-paanuru have never attained the post of governorship. This is understandable due to the fact that Nuers are the overwhelming majority in the state. As a result, the Dinka Paanuru have been marginalized in a harsh manner. To add insult to injury during the war the Nuer White army killed hundreds of their people in bentui and in their villages. They had to defend themselves from the savage White Army and they did a good job in doing so because the white army wanted to kill them until extinction.
Now that the Ruweng state has been formed this means that they will be able to exercise political power for the first time. This political power will allow them to efficiently use resources on their towns and the mismanagement of the funds by the previous governors will not have an effect on them. As you all know that Unity state was renamed by the rebels of Riak Machar and given a Nuer title and this undoubtly proves that he has ulterior motive for the Dinka-Paanurus that live there.
Unlike the Dinka Paanuru in Unity State and Upper Nile State, the Dinka-Bor have been given the post of governorship twice in 2005 by Philip from Duk County and Koul Maynang from Bor County from 2008-2013, it was until recently that governor John Koang from Fangak county was made the governor in late 2013. Now you might wonder that if the Dinka-Bor sons have ruled the Jonglei State from 2005-2013, whats the point of me talking about the situation of the Dnka-Bor in the state? Since, 2005 when Philip came to power until the reign of Koul Maynang ended Jonglei state has never seen peace due to the jealousy, hatred, hostility that was openly portrayed to us by other neighboring tribes. Both the Nuers and Murle formed rebel groups intending on overthrowing the state government.
Especially, Murle has attacked our villages many times killing innocent civilians. They did not like the fact that it was a dinka that was governing the state and they decided to cause havoc and this led the state government to spend funding on containing those groups instead on social services. Our state could have progressed but the jealousy shown to us has made us remain on the same pace. And as of recently Governor John Koang has marginalized our people, he does not allow criticism of his administration and he arrests activists, women who are just demonstrating in the streets. This is totally wrong and terrible and we need to govern ourselves. We have many educated people and thousands of our people are sheltering in Eastern equaotria state.
Do you think Governor John Koang will be able to bring them make to Bor? Those people are crucially needed in order for our counties to develop. The Decree issued has made Jonglei State exclusively homogeneous and it will belong to the Dinka-bors in DUk, East Twic and Bor County. The governor John Koang does not have the interest of the Dinka-bor at his heart, he is catering to the Pibor people/murle and employing his own tribesmen in ministries without any experience while the most competent of our sons are being layed off. The funny thing is that it is happening order our noses because Jonglei headquarters is located in Bor and the greater fangak and greater Akobo are occupied by the rebels while the Greater Pibor area is under its own self-rule of YAYUA. We are the ones supporting this very government, yet we are being marginalized under our own ancestral lands. If you think this is fair than I do not know whats wrong with you?
Freedom from the yolk of oppression has finally been achieved by the Dinka-Paanuru and Dinka-bor because they will be able to exercise their power without the interference of other minor tribes. The oppressors has you have already known because I am assuming you used your critical thinking are definitely the other tribes that have caused us problems and the ones that are governing the states. I am taking ths time to praise H.E President Salva Kiir for creating 28 states in South Sudan. This wise decision will go down in southern history as a magnificent achievement.
Therefore, I wish the best for our President and I hope God can extend his life so he will rule for 30 more years. When people are confronting a common foe that is mend on destroying us politically than it is our obligation to defend ourselves. It is time for us to call a spade a spade, and make our voices heard across the whole nation of South Sudan. If I have offended you by using the term Dinka-Paanuru than take my sincere apologies.
Gai Pac, the author, is currently residing in Ottawa, Canada and can be reached via his email williamjames2006@outlook.com.
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