Letter to President Kiir: Appeal for Clemency and Presidential Pardon for my Son – Agou
7 min readHis Excellency Salva Kiir Mayardit
President and Commander-in-Chief of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA)
Republic of South Sudan
Dear Your Excellency,
Subject: An Open Letter to President Salva Kiir from John Wuoi Chuit, the Father of Agou John Wuoi: Appeal for Forgiveness and Presidential Pardon for My Son, Agou John Wuoi
January 11, 2018 (SSB) — Your Excellency, I wish to take this earliest opportunity to congratulate you and sincerely thank Your Excellency for the wise and courageous decision you took to pardon some of the individuals who were jailed together with my son John Agou Wuoi because of alleged corruption case at the Presidency.
I want to personally thank you for the noble gesture of forgiveness, mercy, and kindness that you have shown to the families of these individuals who were jailed together with my son John Agou Wuoi. However, as you may be aware Your Excellency, my son John Agou Wuoi was left out of the Presidential Pardon which was extended to the rest of the people who were together with him in prison.
It is, for this reason, Your Excellency that I’m writing to you this personal letter to appeal to you to forgive and pardon my son just like other individuals who were jailed with him. To be honest Your Excellency, the decision to pardon the rest of the people is a noble decision as mentioned earlier but to single out my son John Agou Wuoi as the only individual who can not benefit from the Presidential Pardon has shocked all of us as a family beyond description.
But not only that, we completely fear for the life of my son given the chronic sicknesses he is suffering from. My entire family members; Agou’s mother and step-mothers, his younger brothers and sisters and other immediate family members and relatives are still in deep shock for which they may never recover anytime soon. I have in my capacity as the head of our extended family done my utmost duty to calm them because I have a complete confidence, trust, and belief in you, Mr. President, that no matter what the circumstances may have been, you will not leave my son John Agou Wuoi to stay in prison.
I say this with conviction because you are known to be, by nature a kind-hearted, merciful, humble, forgiving and tolerant person who is unable to bear the suffering of other people that include my son John Agou Wuoi. Your Excellency, I am humbly and earnestly pleading with you Mr. President to pardon and forgive my son John Agou Wuoi on the following humanitarian grounds:
- My son John Agou Wuoi is suffering from chronic atropia gastritis, peptic ulcers disease (PUD) and dyslipidaemia and Malory Weiss Syndrome. All these chronic diseases need specialized treatment and management which are not possible within the prison conditions or even within South Sudan. My son is also suffering from poor eyesight because of impaired vision that needs to be corrected through laser surgery before it got worse and renders him blind.
- John Agou Wuoi is also suffering from Neuralgia related to prolapsed discs, narrowing discs and narrowing of vertebral foramina of the lower back which if left unattended may lead to paralysis. He needs surgery to rectify this condition as recommended by doctors. Please see the attached copy of his medical report and referral for back surgery.
- My son John Agou Wuoi has a young family; young wife and a son who needs his presence in their midst. His wife Anyieth Chaat Paul Nul who had been imprisoned with him since October 2015 was acquitted in September 2017 by the Supreme Court of South Sudan.
- My son John Agou Wuoi has already served three years in prison since he was the first one to be arrested and detained on 29th May 2015. During all this time, he has shown good behaviour, he has also remained law-abiding, loyal and respectful to all the authorities starting with those who arrested him, took him to court as well as the prison authorities.
- Your Excellency, John Agou Wuoi is the sole bread-winner in my family and his long absence from the family has negatively impacted the well-being of my entire extended family.
Your Excellency, I appeal to you, Your Excellency to forgive and pardon my son John Agou Wuoi for mistakes he may have committed in the course of discharging his duties in serving you and the people of South Sudan. As the father of John Agou Wuoi, I want to assure you of my personal, my family’s and my community’s unwavering and unshaken support for you as a person, your entire government and as the President of the Republic of South Sudan.
Your Excellency, some people may have expressed fears that if John Agou Wuoi is pardoned and released just like some of his colleagues, he will flee the country and therefore fail to fulfill the orders of the Supreme Court of South Sudan to refund the money imposed upon him by the Court through civil proceedings. In this regard, I want to assure Your Excellency and give you my personal guarantee, that my son John Agou Wuoi is a law-abiding citizen who has never dreamt of running away from his responsibilities since he was a young boy.
John Agou Wuoi has assured and promised me as his father in presence of other prominent community leaders from our area that he has never contemplated going anywhere until he is granted his freedom through lawful and legal means which is the Presidential Pardon that can only be granted to him by Your Excellency. He also assured us that he will fully comply with the orders of the Supreme Court of South Sudan to refund the money imposed upon him by the same court through civil proceedings when he is out of prison.
I am appealing to Your Excellency to forgive and pardon him. By remitting his sentence impose on him just like you did with some of his colleagues who were jailed together with him, you will have given my son John Agou Wuoi a second chance in life to redeem himself as well as a chance to be free to work and be able to refund the money imposed upon him by the court.
Secondly, some people may have informed you that my son has hidden money somewhere and therefore by singling him out of the Presidential Pardon, they will force his hand to “surrender this alleged money to them or the government”. In all honesty Your Excellency, I have discussed this issue at length with my son John Agou Wuoi in presence of other prominent community leaders. His answer has always been that he has NOT hidden any money anywhere and if the government or anyone has proof of where this money is alleged to have been hidden by him, then let them tell us as a family and John Agou Wuoi in particular and he will within a blink of an eye sign off this money to be given back to the government or anyone who is interested in taking this money.
Your Excellency, I want to make a personal commitment as the father of John Agou Wuoi that I will ensure my son has complied with orders of the Supreme Court of South Sudan to refund the money imposed upon him even we have to sell everything that we have as a family. His freedom that will allow him to be with us and raise his young family matters most to me as his father and all of us as the family more than anything else in this world.
Your Excellency, as I end this appeal, I would like to take this opportunity to pray for Your Excellency’s good health and the good health of your family. Once again, I beg and plead with you to forgive and pardon my son and show mercy upon my son in line with Your Excellency’s exclusive Powers to grant Pardon or remit sentences as stated in Article 101 (H) of the Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan 2011 Amended 2015.
On my own behalf, on behalf of my son John Agou Wuoi and my entire family and community, I want to assure that I will never forget these great noble acts of kindness, forgiveness, and mercy throughout our lives and the lives of our many generations to follow. May the Almighty Father continue to grant you and your family a great reward and wisdom for these noble acts of kindness, forgiveness, and mercy in this World and hereafter. On my own behalf, on behalf of my family and my community, I thank you, Your Excellency.
God bless you. God bless the Great Republic of South Sudan.
Yours Sincerely,
John Wuoi Chuit,
Father of John Agou Wuoi
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