Response to Lou Nuer Community: The annexation of Pajut County to Uror is a falsity
7 min readResponse to Lou Nuer letter of date 14 May 2016 on PaanLuel Wël blog that claimed, “Pajut is an integral land of Uror, not Duk County”
By Guong Manyiel Guong, Juba, South Sudan
May 27, 2016 (SSB) — I’m responding to Uror’s article at my capacity on behalf of Duk community that Pajut is within our territories and is inhabited by people of Duk County. To educate the general public about our boundary issues with Lou Nuer. Historically, Lou Nuer took an adventurous journey and found themselves on Duk land in around 17th and 18th centuries. Their cradle land is traced as Rubkona and around Bentiu in present time. When they came, they’re very exhausted and had no plans of moving forward, so they settled in Wunroor and Nyinne-rol as desperate migrants plus other Duk plothera areas in which they call in present day as Uror and Nyirol according to their bad pronunciations of names.
These two places were originally still Duk land but we gave them to them due to Duk people’s hospitality nature. They were warmly welcomed by the chief of Nyarweng Lual Ajok and quoted in Jieng or Dinka dialect “raan ee rot kum e raande” — which is translated in English as “a person covers himself with a person” meaning — to increase our population in Duk. We resettled them as our brothers and sisters in our land. They have no any land rights in both Wunroor and Nyinne-rol.
In the year 1956, British decided to draw boundaries between Duk and Uror with a clear cemented pillar (Palangka) at Ayuai. British colonial powers came up with boundaries marking of Sudan in order to ease boundary tensions among communities. We accepted the boundary to be in Ayuai as said by the British. But with Lou Nuer land-grabbing tactic, the decided to dig out the palangka and replaced it with a very big WELL (for water). We Duk people were not angered by the removal of the palangka in Ayuai because we could still identify our border with that WELL. What does Lou Nuer want again in Pajut? This is a daytime land grabbing of Duk land. They must be ashamed by their move of wanting to claim Duk land. We will not keep quiet and watch Lou Nuer petitioning Pajut. It is part of Duk even the inhabitants of Pajut can justify.
Those malicious claims by Lou Nuer of Duk land are lies and we will not allow them to roots. I individually refute and debunk the claims by Lou Nuer as fabricated lies, they impelled by their land grabbing motives. Those town were Nyarweng and Aborom’s cattle camps. Nevertheless, there were some other areas which could be under our jurisdiction by now but we allowed Lou Nuer to encroach on to them, for example, Ayuai.
They took those areas through peaceful means because they then knew they had no land rights in Duk. What has happened now? I think they want to grab Duk lands in 21st century! Lou Nuer of that time knew very well they were migrants. They developed good relationships which led to intermarriage with Nyarweng and Aborom communities. We currently know that we have borderline with Lou Nuer at the well in Ayuai and at Panom Thon with Nuer Gaweer.
So you confirm that Pajut is part of Duk and home to sections of Aborom. To acquaint you much, Aborom is categorised into many sections namely: Pan e Buai, Riem, Rieng and their daughter Abac who have her sons Liec and Kere are made of territories of Panyang and Werekungei the last born of Apadang. The groups of people are the inhabitants of Pajut, not Lou Nuer as they blatantly claimed. Coming to culture: Yes, we share almost the same cultures with Lou Nuer due to assimilation and good relationship our borders. There are some cultural shocks adopted from Nuer, and are like Nuer’s forehead marking, language, dancing style and many more among Nyarweng and Aborom. We still graze our cattle together with Lou Nuer.
The issue of Pajut started in 2008 as fracas of border issues which resulted into deadly loss of many innocent lives. It was instigated and triggered by the claim that border is at Pabiorol which is in the heart of Nyarweng land. That border development led to mirage of lawlessness in Pajut. There were some retail attacks in the area. Panyang payam has been a constituency of Duk County. Why didn’t Uror County raise a petition? Why now? Pajut/Panyang has never been annexed to Uror County or been part of. I wondered when I read their letter claiming Pajut is their area. I rebuke and call it a merry lie as Duk native. Uror county’s officials did not elaborate clearly how Pajut is in their territories.
I quote, “history cannot be forged and land ownership cannot be transferred in a broad daylight”. I don’t know whether Uror county’s officials are claiming Panyang people or land? They are not very clear to be comprehended. Panyang people are Lou Nuer or any Nuer. They are Dinka. For instance, Pan Buai of Panyang, Panna manlual have their blood relatives in Pawai and Payath. They can be very factual if they’re allowed to talk of our good relationship and neighbourhood. We have never fought them. We live in maximum peace and harmony with them. We do everything together. We were very important host to them, we always organised raid together.
But due to power greed of some of their leader, they are being blindfooled by some Uror politicians like Dr. Marial Benjamin, Hon. Nyadak and a few to mention. We are walking for progress and peace between Uror and Pajut.
Moreover, Nyarweng and Panyang-Athoon used to have a common leadership under Leek-Mathiai Deng Malual. He was the supreme authority and Council of Elders judge of both Nyarweng and Aborom. He intermittently settled disputes between Lou Nuer and Duk.
Notwithstanding, in 2014, we started to receive thousands of Lou Nuer IDPs in Poktap and other areas, thinking that they are our brothers and sisters. We are still hosting them even up to now. They feel at home and don’t want to return to Uror County. This is our hospitality. We love living in peace with whoever that comes to us. We allowed this as iota and infinitesimal because they are our brothers and sisters. I don’t know whether Uror would talk of land issues or the good hosting we are giving them. Which is which? Land or food? If it is land, then we have got a vast land which is endowed with minerals.
We can allow you to live in it but not as part of Uror county constituencies. We allow anyone to live in peace in our land but not to claim. Why are Uror politicians claiming Pajut at the moment and not before? Is it because of our hospitable way of life? Oh, no! Pajut is an uncontested area of Duk. Are they trying to invade our land in our watch? Or are they planning to grab our like they have done in the other parts of the country? I urge you to go and grab land elsewhere, not in Duk. This is a baseless claim.
Furthermore, I call upon all the Uror county politicians without forthwith to withdraw their statement because it is feeding people with very white lies. We’ve other various physical features to identify our land such as rivers for examples, Wunleng, Wunror, Ayom, Kewer and Akuot respectively plus the song sang for those rivers and names of trees in our territories and the song goes like this: “Nyaying aniin tiem yőőu”.
Nothing can’t be disputed at colloquialism. If I may ask Uror politicians to explain how they crossed to their present places, will they tell us? I guess none of them will tell the facts. To help them to know, they should ask their elderly persons for prehistoricals.
In nutshell, we Duk are divided into 3 counties in the new Jonglei state namely: Panyang (Pajut), Padiet and Payuel. We have sole unity among ourselves. We are always known by one common name “Duk”. Our three counties will be very best to attract everybody including Lou Nuer. We Duk people don’t segregate. We allow migrants to resettle in our land to be part of Duk. So, Pajut is part of Duk, not Uror.
The writer is a duk native, he can be reached by tungayok22@gmail.com
The opinion expressed here is solely the view of the writer. The veracity of any claim made are the responsibility of the author, not PaanLuel Wël: South Sudanese Bloggers (SSB) website. If you want to submit an opinion article or news analysis, please email it to paanluel2011@gmail.com. SSB do reserve the right to edit material before publication. Please include your full name, email address and the country you are writing.
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