Who is behind the picking and killing of MTN? A nickname for Dinkas in South Sudan. MTN is a network with logo of “everywhere you go”, the business company’s logo becomes nickname for Dinka in South Sudan. They ask people in vehicles, is there MTN? They said yes if available or no if not!
By David Matiop Gai, Juba South Sudan
April 18, 2016 (SSB) —- Our fellow South Sudanese are enjoying MTN killing on South Sudan high ways without compromise like beating of a snake. The killing of Dinkas on the roads is a crucial responsibility of South Sudanese tribes either specifically or generally. Specifically, some tribes spearheaded Dinkas killing as a special duty, but generally others did not talk about it to those murderers that what they are doing is wrong, because those who kills have parents, and areas they belong.
It is another kokoro against Dinkas like old event of the 1980s when music were luring in simple Arabic or Arabic Juba that, “Dinka turuju, Dinka mafi”, meaning Dinka is chased away, Dinka is no longer there but that division was downplayed by the formation of SPLA/SPLM in 1983. Behind the kokoro was Arabs crackdown of southerners to weaken them politically, socially, culturally, economically, and geographically for well known reasons, but who is behind this new strategy of picks and killing of MTN on South Sudan high ways every day? This is a question I post specifically to learning class of South Sudanese politicians who are not fit for political ethics in the young nation. I know very well that South Sudanese were marginalized politically by Arabs and they learned political hatred which implied its consequences against tribes today in South Sudan politics.
Political tribes are dangerous but I want to highlight bit problems of targeting members of other tribes if tribes didn’t know the danger of such killings ahead of they are doing! It is good to educate those who are ignorant about Dinka. Some just hear about a tribe called Dinka, or Monyjieng but what it is or how it was, one may not know. Friends, fellow countrymen/women, you are committing suicide. Dinka is largest tribe in the old Sudan when Sudan was one country.
It is the same largest tribe in South Sudan with many clans, and sub-clans. The clans’ inhabited eastern River Nile includes Dinka Bor, Ngok in Pigi, Apadang, Ageer, Thiangjiol, and abielang. On the western Nile are Aliap, Atur or Atut, Jieng, Chiec, Adook, Agaar, Gok, Luuch, Rek, Twic, Awiel, the majority Dinka, Ngok de Lual Yak, Ngok de Kuol Arop, Ngok of Pan Aru, and Ngok de Abiei. These clans are numerous when counting, for example in Bor, Bor has 15 payams established during British colony 1821- 1947 with addition of new payams during SPLA era, but what about other clans of Dinka in South Sudan?
Indeed majority of Dinka does not mean as a threat to other tribes, but other tribes become threats to Dinka because Dinkas are living in their towns or Dinka does not leave the seat of president to others. Living in towns doesn’t signify Dinka owned somebody place unless you buy the land especially in towns and not in the villages and this policy of buying land in towns is everywhere. It brings fears in South Sudan, and politicians of tribes where Dinkas are living in their towns are not happy about it. This idea is not true. Juba city as a capital of South Sudan is growing big and bigger, and this new development may affect natives of the land.
It is civilization, not Dinka. We cannot narrow mind like before when buildings are two – three in towns but it is no longer now. Juba will grow beyond forty kilometers from the centre and it is not a problem of Dinka, it is a city problem. Like other towns in South Sudan, they can grow big too, and it is not a Dinka problem. I dream of South Sudan where a leader can come from any tribe in the future, not because if Kiir today a president, then all Dinkas are government, no, not at all. This policy needs to be ratified and address so that peace building mechanism is achieve at the grass root levels.
Majority of Dinka in South Sudan make them appear everywhere in the world even in America, East Africa, Arab world, Europe, Asia, and China. They are there living in those areas in a big number, not only in South Sudan their country as others see it a threat to them, but our fellow South Sudanese are applying MTN business logo of “MTN everywhere you go” for picking Dinkas from the public vehicles and kill them along roadsides and in South Sudan jungles like what had happened last week along Yei- Kaya road where two aid workers were brutally killed by enemies of peace simply they are Dinkas.
The motto of one people, one nation was lunched at Dr. John Garang’s mausoleum after 15 Dec 2013 crisis by government and SPLM party to influence angry South Sudanese who were provoke for one reason or another to abide by roles of co-existence, harmony, peace, forgiveness and true reconciliation but it is not in mind of other South Sudanese communities even when IOs are in the city of Juba. Dinkas are being targeted on high ways and in many parts of the Country. I don’t know is it because government of South Sudan is led by Dinka or if South Sudanese kill Dinkas on roads as they are doing it now, then Dinkas will leave the government? I don’t think South Sudanese who ambushed vehicles for MTN as they said should better differentiate government, and Dinka people, because we are not all government’s , nor does President Kiir accommodate Millions of Dinkas in his house or for his seat.
Now if Dinkas apply the same killing on non Dinkas along roadsides, will it really be endure? People know it very well that Dinka is MTN,or everywhere and if MTN turn the same side of this tragic death on whoever thinks what they are doing is good, how will South Sudan look like? This behavior of killing one another is a view of backwardness in the nation, some called it Satan works especially Christian believers, but why Christians are behaving more evil than what the non-Christian may not even intended to do? Why a Christian is much enjoyable to brutally kill his/her fellow Christian? Answers are with you South Sudanese, because the way you do things these days will determine the doom of our country.
I hope one day, those who opted for this business will regret upon their own affairs. They have done a great mistake which they will never be reverse to normal in life. The killing of Dinkas in 1991-995 when the SPLA/SPLM was almost collapsing until it gained back on it gear in 1996 is now repeating itself again in South Sudan. The number of Dinkas South Sudanese killed is bigger than what Arabs killed. In 1992-1994 when Bashir pushed SPLA on borders, Junubians killed SPLA soldiers specially Dinkas with whole interest of their hearts. Truth is dislike wherever you go in human family but it is my nature to speak it out.
I am not a tribal man. I hate those who cause division. My neighbors and those who walk with me are my witness. I love and like peace, and my heart is full of peace, and I do preach peace, I defense others than myself, but the signs of such killings in South Sudan may cause worst scenario ahead of us in the nation. Dr. John Garang de Mabior who is being praises today as a hero was one time deserted or disowned by his fellow South Sudanese whom he thinks (Garang) to liberate them from the Arabs colony.
My writings contain full advice to all South Sudanese who inhabited this country to abstain from picking innocent people along roadsides because shedding innocent blood is a curse upon the nation as well as on those executed the killing. Although one may read through my writings, I also advice Dinkas to endure this severe situation and earns for peace. Life of human being can not be given by state.
Therefore, if South Sudanese are killing Dinkas because of South Sudan’s seat, the state has no right to omit any South Sudanese life without any crimes. According to the UN Universal Declaration (1948) of Human Rights “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person”. Please I conclude with serious warning that let’s cease this business before it vast into our hands otherwise this nation will be too little for us to hide for safety, even during 15 Dec 2013 crisis in Juba, not all Dinkas participate in the fighting.
The author is a co-founder of National Mental Health Care Organization; He holds Bachelor degree in Social work and social Administration from SSCUST, Bachelor degree in Theology from CLT in Kalispell, Montana USA, and a fellow researcher. He can be reach at tonggaid551@yahoo.com/ davidmatiopgai@gmail.com.
Show Us Your IDs: Ethnic Patriotism And The Killing of Simon Dhieu in Yei River County
WE ARE HOLDING FUNERAL PRAYERS THIS SATURDAY FOR SIMON DHIEU
By Martin Garang Aher, Perth, Australia
April 22, 2016 (SSB) — Ethnic targeted killing is heightening in South Sudan. The constellation of killings out of tribal detestation, ordinarily executed following effective identification to establish the correct ethnic origin of the person(s) to be killed, has, to this juncture, reached its zenith.
A few days ago, presumably April 13, 2016, Simon Dhieu and his co-worker of the Danish Demining Group (DDG) based in Yei, were gunned down by a group of unidentified Dinka haters on the outskirt of town. They were on their usual routine – which involves locating and destroying mines and other unexploded ordnances – exploring suspected areas to be demined. Their killers, who stopped the commercial vehicle they were travelling in to the demining site, made no secret of what they were looking for.
After forcing them out of the vehicle, they asked about their ethnic origins. The specific identification process employed by these determined killers included asking if there were MTNs or Dinkas among the occupants of the vehicle, numbering about eight people per the narratives of those who witnessed the scene.
Sensing the gravity of the situation, the demining workers grew numb, unable to speak for fear of being caught lying, which might have led to further catastrophic consequences; or as a ploy to hide the identities of their colleagues that the assailants demanded to know. Either of the two, the ploy did not work. The assailants asked for IDs at gunpoint, which were produced under intense nervousness.
Satisfied with their search and identification that Simon Dhieu and his friend were Dinka people (the other who said his mother was a Kakwa from the area was spared), they separated them from the group, undressed them, tied their hands behind their backs, faced them away from the rest, took aims and in an unembellished bestial ferocity, shot them all in the back.
The two young men, intelligent and dedicated nation builders who, on daily basis, risked their lives demining their new country from mines and other unexploded ordnances left behind by two decades of civil war – especially Yei River County – contorted and collapsed in front of their colleagues. The mother earth, unpreparedly, received their lifeless bodies pushed down on it by the curvature of space.
On the ground, they lay never to get up again. Their colleagues looked on completely petrified, outraged but powerless.
Dinka, the MTNs of South Sudan
The killers were out looking for the MTNs, a euphemism for the Dinka people. MTN is a South African-based Mobile Telephone Network operating in many countries around the world, including South Sudan. But to understand its contextual use in this ethnic-based targeted killing, one has to understand the Hutu paramilitary génocidaires of 1994 – The Interahamwe Militias – that likened Tutsi ethnic group members to cockroaches and set about to exterminate them; the Sudanese president’s likening of South Sudanese to insects (hasharat) that should just be sprayed dead.
More broadly, think of any other time someone likens another person to a monkey, a dog or a pig – wishing to do unto them the treatment such animals would receive. The perpetrators always used these euphemisms to deny themselves any feelings of sympathy or remorse. It is a human way of turning off humanity and revealing the devil within in its full glory. But in this case, a simple analogy is that MTN coverage seems to be everywhere, just as Dinka majority in South Sudan could be found anywhere in the country, hence, the MTNs.
The killing of Simon Dhieu and his Dinka co-worker is one count among many: between Juba and Yei, people have been pulled out of vehicles and killed; between Juba and Mundri West and East, vehicles heading North of the country have been ransacked and travellers killed mercilessly; out of Rumbek to any direction, extrajudicial killings have been meted out on tribal identities. Even in Juba itself, people say it would be stupid to walk on in the streets at night without checking your back. Suburbs have become lethal tribal areas with people from particular regions of South Sudan settling exclusive from others.
Lethal Tribal Identity
At the moment of their death, and in the realms of the spirits – if there exists a metaphysical ability enabling the dead to extend earthly tragedies into conclusive discussions in the worlds beyond the physical, Simon and his colleague would still be questioning their abrupt and tragic human engendered demise. No doubt, even those alive and have heard or witnessed the killing are probing for answers as well.
There is a need to fill-in the gap left by the deaths of these two young nation builders with answers. They had no time to ask their killers. Their killers were filled with rage. Simon and his friend were, in turn, filled with fear and questions. They died before working out anything for a resolution or understanding. The only message that brutally departed with them was the question and confirmation of their Dinka originality.
In South Sudan, a nation that must assert itself among the nations of the world, telling the truth could be part of nation building. But, in telling the truth about who they were, Simon Dhieu and his Dinka colleague stumbled on a mystery: having been born Dinkas was a deadly natural reality that kills at once upon pronunciation or realization.
That was why they were killed. They might want to know why it was lethal to be found or born a Dinka? Would they have survived had their killers known that in the Dinka blood runs a shared DNA strains linking them with Kakwa, Acholi, Shilluk, Anyuak, Nuer, Taposta, Luo, Atuot, Aliap, Didinga, etc? Would they have been spared if they had a chance to remind their killers that, despite being the Dinkas they so much hated, they both shared the history of marginalisation and, now, the independent South Sudan?
The Nation Built on Tribal Allegiances
To suggest that South Sudan is a nation built on the glaring reality of ethnic patriotism, one cannot be accused of overstating the network of the South Sudanese society’s identity crisis.
We have seen this in government, where communities rally behind politicians hailing from their areas; we see it in the South Sudanese army, paramilitaries and militias where people we have blood relations are the ones we support and stand by irrespective of inabilities and misleading, often destructive dreams; we know this when we speak and argue with pervasive national character and suggesting revolutionary changes while discreetly, wishing that these changes be done by somebody closer to home; we see it in employment sector, where entire tribes dominate key structures of subsistence; in the airport and immigration where rules only apply to tribes other than mind; in service delivery queues where if an official delivering services is of my blood relation, tribe, region, or any other category that fits, we must be esteemed queue-jumpers.
If ethnic groups favour themselves over everything, then the end of everything will always be ethnic clash – Clashing over resources, government positions, national projects, administrative areas and all that the country throws at her citizens. South Sudanese must rise and meet the challenges of true nationalism – It is not right to speak with national rhetoric while practicing ethnic patriotism. Nations of the world that are now considered prosperous, peaceful and strong did one thing: they shunned ethnic allegiances and accepted to be one and subjects of a nation.
It is in shunning ethnic loyalties that the deaths, like that of Simon Dhieu and his colleagues, would be brought to an end. If it starts effectively at the national level, other gruesome deaths related to ethnic loyalties would surely be curtailed.
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