The Hype of Hatred vs. Identity (Part 4)
The Hype of Hatred and Land Grabbing in South Sudan
By Thiik Mou Giir, Melbourne, Australia
April 02, 2016 (SSB) — There has been an outcry about this issue of land grabbing which was, and still is, taking place in Equatoria. To make this sound worse than what it is, some people use general terms by saying, ‘Jieng people are grabbing lands in Equatoria’. However, I have met some Jieng people who say their lands have been grabbed … by who? by Jieng perpetrators. Jiengs taking lands of Jiengs! I have not yet come across anyone who told a story of lands being grabbed by non-Jiengs. This does not mean that non-Jieng members do or do not seize lands from others. Since members of Jieng, especially army-linked individuals, bear most blame, I will focus on Jieng. Land grabbing is one of the issues that have intensified the hype of hatred in South Sudan as well as in Diaspora. In order for us to somehow have a grasp of what drive certain individuals to grab lands that belong to other people, let us look at three phases: the background, the middle ground, and the foreground of the land grabbers.
Jieng land grabbers have a background and this background is the same background that all Jiengs, or at least Jieng of my ancestry, namely Jieng Rek, shared. Jieng people have a code of conduct in regards to stealing or robbing (land grabbing falls under robbery). These acts are prohibited. Jieng never had jails but it had a system of punishing those who were proven guilty of theft and robbery – isolate them and sing songs that tell their stories. These two ways of punishment were effective enough to put everyone in line. Girls did not want to associate themselves with perpetrators who were bachelors and that made it almost impossible for those wrong doers to get married. Were a perpetrator in Jieng land given the option of a ten-year jail sentence or have a story of his theft told through a song and face isolation for stealing a goat, for example, I am sure the perpetrator would not hesitate to opt to spend five years behind bars. Unfortunately, there were no jails in Jieng land!
The beginning of Sudanese civil war in 1983 marked the beginning of Jieng land grabbers’ middle ground. War is evil. John Milton wrote, ‘The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell a hell of heaven’. There were two stages of the middle ground: pre-disciplinary and disciplinary stages. During pre-disciplinary stage, there was no time for the newly formed movement to establish positive relationships with chiefs and as well as their subjects. They were always on the move. The new recruits needed food; they grabbed it from the locals by force. They needed able young adults to conscript to the army; they grabbed them from their parents by force. They needed their belongings to be taken from one place to another; they grabbed people and ordered them to carry their belongings. They wanted to have sex; a number of them grabbed girls, even women, and raped them. They wanted to live on; there was only one way they could do that; they had to take the lives of their enemies. All these were different forms of grabbing. It came as one package with a goal of liberating the marginalized people of Sudan. It was a pre-disciplinary grabbing stage.
Then came a second stage when the army became a well-disciplined army. The relationships between the locals and the army had improved considerably. The locals understood the goals and the objectives of the liberation army. All soldiers had to observe the laws that protected civilians and civilians’ rights. Whoever went against those laws was punished. They had no time to sing songs that told their stories and they had no jails. They were always on the move. So, anyone proven guilty of stealing a chicken, for example, rape, mistreatment of civilians, and so on, was shot in the head and heart and they did it quickly with all locals and soldiers watching. This was a rule-of-law-and-no-grabbing stage.
Referendum and the announcement of the birth of a new nation, South Sudan, marked the beginning of the foreground of the land grabbers. At the outset, the whole country was in the hands of the liberators. A few people would remain competent to govern after doing nothing but fighting for over twenty years. In addition to the problem of incompetence, so many people became greedy; there was so much money to be looted. So what happened was that the light of the rule of law got switched off. People preferred to work in the dark. As a result, millions of public money was stolen. The episode of land grabbing accelerated. Corruption and land grabbing are two intertwined issues.
What are people’s attitudes in regard to corruption and land grabbing issues? Instead of singing songs that told their stories, people talk about them in terms of, ‘Ainnoo Faateh’/his eyes are open (smart). Instead of isolating them, people surround them and embrace them. Whenever they attend events, they are given microphones to speak and people listen to them more attentively than they would listen to those whose eyes are Magfool/blind (disable), those who are not involved in corruption and in grabbing of lands that belong to other people. And girls? Girls make themselves available to them. Land grabbing goes against what the entire Jieng people used to believe in, yet there are people who are saying, ‘Jieng are grabbing lands from the people of Eqatoria’. What a mess!
These are aspects of the issue, which are open for fact-finding research:
- There are people whose lands have been grabbed;
- There were lands whose owners took refuge in the nieghbouring countries during the civil war and when they came back, they found SPLA-inked people had built homes and settled in those lands;
- There are people who paid large sum of money to buy lands from people who posed as owners (Equatorians) and after deals were done, then the real owners showed up; the buyers could not get their money back because the fakers had run away with their money; (some people claimed that they had paid for the same lands three, four times.)
Let us see how this issue is supposed to be dealt with in the mechanic repair shop.
Inside Thiik’s Automobile Mechanic Repair Shop for Identity
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine from Equatoria told me a story of an old man whose land he believed was grabbed. He said a land belonging to this old man was grabbed by an SPLA officer and that the old man cried like a child and said, ‘where shall I go now. This property belonged to my family long before the war started and now you are taking it away from me. Where shall I go?’ This old man’s cry can be considered a lamentation prayer. If what he has said is right, I do not know how a person who has seized his property would sleep in it without tossing in anguish in bed at night. Sleep is like death. When a person dies, people write condolences with expression R.I.P. The opposite happens when one takes a land that belongs to someone else, especially from an old man, and builds a house on it. During his earthly life, he would toss in anguish (T.I.A) in bed; after his earthly life, he will toss in anguish.
Creating tension in the society is not a good way to live. Something needs to be done to address this controversial issue. SPLA stopped multiples forms of grabbing before; they can stop this one. The government and SPLA can solve the problem.
These are some suggestions that may help in resolving this issue:
- A pressure, by members of tribes in Equatoria, Jieng and all people of good will, to be brought to bear on South Sudanese government so that the government take action against those who grab lands;
- A tribunal body to be formed to deal with land disputes;
- A course of action to be taken to mobilize members of tribes of Equatoria, Jieng and all people of good will of South Sudan to raise funds to assist those whose lands have been forcefully taken to enable them hire advocates. Just as people of South Sudan fought marginalization and oppression together, so are they expected to fight this evil practice in South Sudanese society together;
- A media to be given a free hand to cover stories of those whose lands are being grabbed, those who are illegally making profits out of it, and those who are manipulating people by labeling certain ethnic group as ‘grabbing lands that belong to others’.
We all need justice done and when justice is done, we are all happy. Land grabbing is un-Jieng. The original moral code of Jieng prohibits all members of Jieng to rob (grab) or steal other people’s properties. Let all people of South Sudan rise above this controversial and divisive issue. When our people do this together, they will know it is one of many ways that demonstrates how we are making progress in constructing our new identity as one people.
The Hype of Hatred and “Born to Rule” will be the next topic in the series. I will post it next Saturday. The writer can be reached at thiik_giir@hotmail.com
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