SPLM-IO: Real men don’t kill unarmed civilians
4 min readBy King David, Juba, South Sudan
September 12, 2016 (SSB) — The killing on the Juba – Nimule road last week was unacceptable. It was an act of terrorism and those who participated must know that they are indeed fighting a wrong war on the wrong people. If you are armed with an AK47 or any other military weapon and you kill a person unarmed, you are fighting a wrong person. Your enemy is completely not the unarmed man or woman travelling on the road. On the contrary, your enemy is in the military barrack.
From my past experiences with the SPLA war of liberation, I have come to learn that real armed men travel for days and even months avoiding civilians’ homes in order to confront their real enemy who are also armed in order to face them directly. They don’t hid alongside highways to shoot at innocent persons.
Real men fighting a just war always have objectives of their assaults. They test their military ability by fighting other armed men like them. And when they win against other armed men, they always take pride in their victory. I am now wandering, what could be the celebration of those who killed vulnerable unarmed civilians who could not protect themselves on the Juba – Nimule road. It is just meaningless and act of terrorism, I repeat.
Think about the behaviors of Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, ISIL, Al-Qaida and the rest and compare their activities with what is happening in central Equatoria region. I believe you will have no doubt to approve that what is happening here is also an act of terrorism. And therefore the government has a right to launch another George Bush ‘war on terror’ in the bushes of central Equatoria region.
If the government also gives a deaf ear to this and fail to act like it has done in the past with cobra faction in Jonglei State, I think the country will not be far from being termed as ungovernable. The country becomes only ungovernable when any mad person holding a fatal weapon launches an attack on innocent civilians and goes away with it unpunished.
I am calling upon the Transitional National Legislative Assembly to debate a motion of war on terror and passed it considerably so that the SPLA can launch an operation that can put to end these terrorism activities in the central Equatoria region and on the highways. These groups must be held accountable for their actions or dispersed back into their villages to go and farm.
I hear people say that the armed groups carrying out atrocities belong to SPLM-IO. I haven’t heard myself SPLA-IO general command claiming responsibility for such slaughters. But I do know that the SPLA-IO doesn’t fight this cowardice war unless they are a photocopy type of it. The original IO I have known carryout real attacks on military installations with a determinations to capture it. So to me these are not IO soldiers and should be treated as terrorists. Security forces should therefore put them off quickly if we are to call this nation governable.
But if the armed groups are SPLA-IO, then commanders of IO must be in for a big trouble for carrying out war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Hague must indict them and issue another warrant of arrest because they are doing more than or similar to what Bashir did in Darfur.
The author is a South Sudanese living in Juba and you can reach him at newkingdavid63@gmail.com
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