Harboring criminal gangs in Juba: The insecurity in neighborhood is being nurtured by the community
6 min readBy Bior Raad, Juba, South Sudan
November 1, 2016 (SSB) — It’s incontrovertible that various gangs group in Juba such as West, East coast, Mob gangs and Bad Boys etc. are concurrently pursuing the interest of rebels and individuals who want this country to slide into disintegration and subsequently mass killings on tribal lines. There is enough evidence to proof that these groups are being sponsored or hired by some individuals within the community to take part in destabilizing the area. Also partake in targeted inhumane killings at the roadsides. Surveyors must justify to the public that Munuki is a legal domicile to West Life Gangs as they claimed in their banner.
If we are able to bring this matter to light, we will not hear incidents of someone shot dead by unknown gunmen as well as gang-raped. We are always in search for who to scapegoat the sporadic killings meanwhile, the kind of neighborhood we are living in is the one harboring gangs by voluntarily nurturing insecurity. The big guys with heavy wallets in the area are the one financing terrorist activities directly or indirectly against innocent residents. How could young boys and girls dressed in a T- shirt labeled “Mob Gang” with sign of machetes printed at the chest. People turn to admire the design not knowing the meaning of the text. My fellow residents of Juba, the danger lies ahead of us. We refused to believe that the environment we created to ourselves is the one made up of strangers with high degree of incivility.
Why has community failed to identify unknown gunmen, rapists for a decade? Unknown gunmen are the gangs who armed themselves with machetes and small arms none other than these groups. Why has community got obsessed in activities of accumulating wealth by paying less attention to maintaining social order? The kind of relationship you are trying to build with your children is a “mouse and rat relationship”. Your own kids will be destructors of your harvest if you don’t reshape them early before they could go out of control. If nurturing kids in an evil lifestyle is in your DNA, report your aggressive son or daughter to the disciplinary authority like Church and Prison otherwise, we will not help you in mourning for the soul of your criminal son when he fall victim of police crackdown. Everyone is aware of the existence of the gangs in areas like Munuki, Gudele block 5 and 8, Hai Referendum etc. but no one has made a single step to report this case to security organs.
Many people are asking themselves to where this culture of gangs came from. Allow me to drive your attention to the origin of this behavior. The globalized world we are living in today has not decreased the likelihood of warfare as we think that improved communications give people an opportunity to feel empathy with those who are not members of their tribe. Instead, it has facilitated the global violence entrepreneurs planning to extend their profiting projects to the developing world like South Sudan who is just a spectator to western biggest sport. For example, in countries like United States, philanthropies or billionaires owned ultimate fighting championship games such as boxing, wrestling known as WWE RAW. Most of these billionaires sponsor Hollywood movies production like action movies, violence wars, west, and east coast gangsta rapper movies and etc. those movies are virtually being sponsored and promoted to destroy passive races like African American society within and outside US. To be honest, white families have prohibited children from watching violence movies except cartoons.
It’s African American’s lifestyle of 1990’s that has descended to South Sudan to create more havoc and destabilization to the communities. Every young kids of this time want to be a gangsta like Tupac Shakur (2 Pac). The imitation initially started with the full down dressing style where jean trousers are suspended between the thigh and buttocks and with the period of time after building muscles, would graduate into mob gangs armed with machetes and pistols. 98% of those who grab women’s handbags and laptop bags are from the group of gangs.
Such movies and lifestyles courage organized conflict of one group against another that causes fatalities. For example Munuki boys referred to as west coast gangs attack other gang members. This is “unbecoming” if I can borrow popular jargon of Hon. Michael Makuei. According to sociology of crimes and deviance, psychoanalytic scholars argued that criminals have marks or signs that they can be identified with. Why can’t community get use of one theory like Lombroso’s theory? According to him, criminals have marks like tattoos, muscles, big scars at forehead, big head, long arms, big and red eyes, long ears and many more features. However, let’s ignore some features which could be the work of divine creator such as long ears, big eyes, and long arms.
To emphasize on features like muscles, red eyes, big scars and tattoos, you will definitely agree with me that community will be able to identify wrong elements referred to as criminal gangs. There are some people born with red eyes which opticians can elaborate much on the cause, but there are those drugs addicts like opium smokers, marungi chewers, and other drug related substances with red eyes. 65% of these groups are members of criminal gangs. The community-based police should be trained with features indiscernible in criminals such that they can easily be identified and deal with according to the law.
In addition to that, churches or mosques must take a leading role in organizing sermons aimed at educating public about living a Godly lifestyle as a precondition to inheriting the kingdom of heaven. First published book of Max Weber in 1904 – 05. “The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism”. Some of you who have read the book have learned the role played by church in promoting discipline and foster human thought towards capitalism. “ for sure, even with the best will, the modern person seems generally unable to imagine how large a significance those components of our consciousness rooted in religious beliefs have actually had upon culture… and the organization of life”.
To some extent, law enforcement agencies have greatly contributed to existence of these gangs simply because everyone mined his own business. Be mindful that police and public security personnel have no any other businesses than dealing with such criminal behavior. All in all, small unit of counter terror or gangs must be immediately be established and empowered to carry out their duties without resistance from community. Communities must also take an initiative of establishing a committee to coordinate with police in cracking down criminals. I solely know that gangs are our family members but we should not continue to live with them in the same roof if they don’t denounce their activities. Their existence is more harmful to the community and that is the reason why join action must be undertaken to reshape and reunite them back to the families.
We need stable population that would positively contribute to stable world of total safety and better place to live in. Giving teenaged child money to fund his or her undisclosed project has no different with buying a rope to hang him. Either you like or not, parents are the sponsors of what scholar refers to as “the remnant of war”- namely insurgencies, targeted roadside killings, guerrilla warfare, terrorism and unknown gunmen.
The author is a sociologist living in Juba and can be reached at biorraad@gmail.com
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