The return of SPLM-IO isn’t a bad sign but needs caution!
4 min read“Both the First Vice President designate, H.E. Dr. Riek Machar Teny-Dhurgon, and the SPLA-IO Chief of General Staff, 1st Lt. Gen. Simon Gatwech Dual, have not traveled to Juba today, Monday, 18th April, 2016…Until tomorrow…due to logistical arrangements (transportation)…” said James Gatdet Dak, Dr. Riek Machar’s spokesperson
By Sunday de John, Yirol, Eastern Lakes State
April 18, 2016 (SSB) —- I opted to cease writing about issues pertaining the conflict in the Republic of South Sudan. My halt was brought about by the fact that what has been going on is routinely what would be referred to as throttled truth.
Rebels on many counts have openly lied, either to themselves or to the South Sudanese. Too, the government has had its fair share in giving untrue information on the same. The versions of stories told have been of little value if there is any latent truth in them. The stories about capturing and recapturing of this town and that town have been recounted many times and wildly. The accusations and counter-accusations have been thrown at each other for quite sometimes with no meaningful breakthrough.
I have on many counts failed to understand why there are so many lies uttered by the rebellion and particularly the spokespersons of their varied many echelons.
Right then, many lies have been released and even at will, South Sudanese have been given no messages of hope to safeguard the dwindling trust of leaders. It is acceptable that South Sudanese of all walks have been subjected to suffering that they do not deserve and a hostile environment has been created, thus generating if any, little trust amongst the innocent citizenry.
Dr Riek Machar with myopia of his unsuccessful utopia of leadership has rhetorically made unbelievably derisory justifications of what is at stake. In essence and with sincere acceptance, it has and will always be tribal jingoism that would be the bane of our coexistence.
Nevertheless, We ought to stop chanting known unsatisfying choruses such as Kiir failed us or Riek has done this and that as the root causes of our impending problem, instead the probable justification of what went wrong should be the admittance of the fact that leadership crisis has trickled down to everything crisis (including economics crisis and all its derivatives—fuel, food, transport, education, health, dollar, water etc.). In other words, Leaders have failed us. In spite of many wild justifications from either of the sides, failed leadership would be the sincere admittance if sanity isn’t at stake.
It isn’t Kiir’s fault and ass well, it isn’t Riek’s major fault but leadership crisis. If you are a leader even at your own small level, accept that directly or indirectly, you have contributed to the downfall of South Sudan. Sincerely, the return of Riek Machar and the entire rebellion isn’t out of a blue ribbon, it is through mixture of unreasonably coined phrases that hold insignificant value and that have widely been rejected by the siting leadership. In fact that deal was enforced.
The way Riek and cohorts perceived the agreement isn’t the same with that of Kiir’s camp. However, varied expectations existed from the first day on which the deal was inked. Likely, Dr Riek perceived it as a win and the reaction from Justice Makuei Lueth denotes the fishy deal would be at stake. The ploy isn’t satisfying. Warriors aren’t wearied. Politics is still hot. Development has been halted. Military ranks have been inflated. Kleptocracy is rampant and Peace hangs by a thread.
The return of Riek and cohorts is a good sign, however, her latent portion isn’t favourable. It is a creation of a ground for political exercise. There seem to be another explosive disagreement in waiting. Although unpredictable, there is much to fear than to celebrate. I hope this serves the day.
Yours truly, Mr. Teetotaller!
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