The Backdoor Peace Deal and the Meteoric Rise of the Young Turks of South Sudan
12 min readGen. Akol Khor Kuch and the Spectacular Rise of the Young Turks of South Sudan
By Simon Yel Yel, Juba, South Sudan
Tuesday, June 12, 2018 (PW) — No sane person can contemn or condemn the government or Gen. Akol Koor for reaching the peace deal with inconsequential members of the SS-UF. This is not to say that the government dreads to confront the twonk Gen. Malong militarily in the battle field if he chooses so. It is because the government had already decided ( since the genesis of this war) to take the path of peace to salvage the country from this infinite crisis by giving out government positions to whomever has rebelled if that can make them cease from killing the innocent South Sudanese people. This is why Gen. Akol has reached this peace deal with SS-UF break-away group of Lino Ajang Ajang.
Frankly speaking, there is no a lucid person who has witnessed these destitutions and destructions brought upon this country by the ongoing senseless war is ready again to be lured by the discombobulated Malong into killing JUNUBIIN under the pretense of ‘arresting the carnage’. That is why Ajang has led this exodus of a few hundreds if not thousands youth and some elders to Juba. Their exit confirms that they want peace.
Though Malong pretended to negate Ajang’s importance to the movement by rhetorically disparaged him with all evil terms at his disposal in the press release he signed, his dearest private wish could be that for a divine thunderbolt to reduce his once poster boy into a pile of ashes. In fact, Malong is still mourning now for losing Ajang to Gen. Akol. With the return of Ajang and many others, the self-praising lion (SS-UF) to roar will soon turn into a disappointing meow. No strength to roar again. Ajang is gone! I can now bet without fear. Most of its members will come to Juba while carrying their parts of SS-UF on their heads very soon.
Make no mistake about it. Ustaz Ajang Ajang won’t be the last person from Awiel youth who are currently following Malong to realize that the Malong’s SS-UF is an ideologically barren organization with no political clout and hence can’t be an alternative for effecting any changes in this country.
This is because SS-UF is a motley fool’s errand of military desperados, political opportunists, and power-hungry politicians. It is a malefic hodgepodge that has no ideological raison d’être for existence rather than a vehicle for seeking to share government positions. To say the least, its establishment is a Hail Mary to bargain for government positions. It is not to topple Salva Kiir’s regime.
There is an emerging clique of promising youthful politicians in our country to which Ajang belongs to. This group pasquinades the good name of Youth. They are embodiment of political harlotry and sycophancy in our country. I’m talking about the likes of Agel Riing Machar, Albino Bol Dhieu, Gordon Buay Malek, and Mabior Garang Mabior. If not all of them, then most of them are products of our unfortunate politics of rebellion and back-door peace deals. However, they are little men to be watched.
Let me start with Ajang. Once upon a time he was the most popular youthful politician in the country. A few months later, his political ambition appears to be in rigour mortis after he lost the Presidency of the National Youth Union which he claimed to have been robbed of, and apparently lying in tatters after he decided to rebel against the government. His adversaries were celebrating that he has worn the accoutrements of a person doomed to failure.
Yet here he is again, a few weeks later, appearing in his best suit at the country’s top airport coming to implement the peace deal he negotiated and signed with the security tzar. Luckily, his deal appears to be more lucrative and densely loaded with many goodies than Agel’s. I am talking about the goodies it contains, for instance, the three ministerial positions in three states in Barh El Ghazal region, and etc.
However, the misery of this deal is that there is no expiry date stamped on those goodies. The question on whether these goodies are real and eatable rests on the speed of implementation of this deal in the first two months.
He may, like Brigadier General Lul Ruai, risk everything and fail. I am talking about the spectacular failure of Lul’s movement for the greater Akobo people.
He may, like FVP Gen. Taban Deng, come through being dismissed as derisory and climb at last to the top of the sebaceous pole and turn this chimaera and herculean mission into a practically doable mission. We have no idea what will happen tomorrow, and that is one reason why he is a force to reckon with and so watchable.
Ajang is a tactician and perilously scheming political ninja with posters of Chairman Mao and Machiavelli on his face. He is precise and capable of making complex decisions. His cheerful charisma has meant that he always been able to attract camp-followers. No wonder that is the reason some people from both political divides can’t bear him and are desperate to find ways of discrediting him as a political opportunist and unwanted concubine.
Ajang earned his epaulettes when he was the President of Juba University Students’ Union. He indubitably demonstrated his leadership abilities and superior intellect in the Union office. Owing to his unquestionable abilities, proven tenacity and splendid ideas, Ajang decided to run for the Presidency of the National Youth Union in 2015.
It is worth mentioning that he has cut an image as Malong’s poster boy among his peers. The most noticeable difference between him and his peers is that, he doesn’t throw bombs or speak haphazardly. He has no rhetoric of his peers.
There are some surface-level similarities between Ajang and his friend Mr. Agel Riing; however, there are also extremely glaring dissimilarities. Ajang has no insolence and ruthlessness of Agel.
The quisling Agel is a go-getter who goes against the grain to guarantee his own political survival and relevance; while Ajang believes in being given. He is an egomaniacal introvert who believes that he is always right. To jog your memory, every line in the backdoor peace deal he reached with Gen. Akol in 2016 starts with “I”, and ends with “only me.” This explains the reason why he singlehandedly came alone to Juba. He doesn’t command any following.
He is politically amoral and immoral creature. He is an exemplary impetuous opportunist and quintessence of the political avaritia that has swallowed our country. He is such a beefy telegenic gentleman who loves the cameras and television shows that he feeds with rhetoric. That is the spokesman of the FVP in capsule.
Unlike the toothy grin Ajang or the knavish Agel, the cagy Albino Bol is considered by his peers to be the regime’s blue- eyed boy. That is another way of saying that he is more Muslim than Prophet Mohammed in term of how much he supports the government in relation to Micheal Makuei Lueth, if that is possible.
He has a visceral repugnance for whoever opposes him and the government. His name calls forth a good-boy foaming at mouth with microphone in hand. He is certifiably wordsmith. His critics say he is a serial perfidious like Judas. With his coruscating wit and incomparable oratory, you may be tempted to think that he is a philosopher of our generation.
Unlike the one-foot amputee Prof Adwok Nyaba, the President of National Youth Union has never rebelled. He is cutting an image as the darling of the establishment.
As for Ambassador Gordon Buay, the less said the better. The former rebel General is the number two diplomat in South Sudanese embassy in Washington. Though he is not a cartoon, he could be one as a living creature can be. He is entirely inarticulate and rambunctious. However, the spite he spits causes his enemies sleepless night.
He exhales fire. One can’t accurately count the number of vitriolic drivels he utters in one month from his beak. Possibly could be hundreds of thousands if not an exaggeration. Either this man talks/writes before he thinks or doesn’t have mother wit. To say the least, his mouth is ungovernable.
There is more. He is tremendously self-regarding. There is nary discipline or field or state of affairs in South Sudan in which he is not an expert of. From politics, law, military, education, Health, and to International relation, he is a seasoned expert. Like Yahya Jammeh, don’t waffle to address him as H.E Gen. Dr. Molana Gordon Buay.
We may guess alike either the son of the former SPLA fighter is a virtuosic bloviator or a rented filthy mouth. He incarnates what the government supporters want and don’t. He charms them with the same magnitude he daunts them.
To remind you, the backdoor peace deal which brought him to the government was negotiated and signed without the involvement of the IGAD and TROIKA. It is one of the living examples of the successful backdoor peace deals.
The former rebel spokesman and once self-declared President of South Sudan in 2011 on YouTube is cutting an image as a born again nationalist who is ready to die on Facebook front line. Incontestably, he is the moral boosting chief propagandist. He bravely commands Facebook Division.
With all these, he is a regime’s diplomatic sabre rattler with a squirt gun in his hand in Washington.
There is another person. I am taking about the rambling Mabior Garang Mabior. He is first born son of the former SPLA/M leader. This creature has turned the name of his father into a badge of honor to brag about. He thinks he will infinitely use his father name as a passport and shield to protect and sail him to any political destination he wants.
Every year Mabior confirms that he is the only stranger in Jerusalem. He is Riek’s loyal foot soldier who can’t change his mind comes high water. The old adage is true here, it goes like this; “only fools and dead men don’t change their minds.” Therefore, Mabior can either be a fool that has never existed or a dead-walking man of the 21st century.
Like his sorry physique, Mabior has no kind words for his detractors. He believes Dr. Riek is the only right man to govern South Sudan. Anything less than that, he would rather die in the opposition fighting for Riek.
You can easily misidentify him for an outlawed drug aficionado or a financially stranded DJ who couldn’t afford to buy a hair lotion and rub it on his unkempt dreadlock hair. I can assure you, with one minute glance at him, you will construe that there is nothing political and futuristic in his physique and character. But he has written history you know! He was the youngest South Sudanese minister in 2016.
Though I don’t buy some Dinka wise sayings, this saying is worth buying, “the first born son of any married couples has a resemblance of the man’s brother in-law or created in similitude of man’s brother in-law.” This is not to say that Mabior’s maternal uncle is bad. But it is because there is nothing that portrays Garang in him whether characteristically or physically.
Arguably, some people say that an excessive lust for women always ends one’s political career. If this is true, then the son of late Dr. Garang is comfortably residing in a safer side. His heart is two-thirdly and one-thirdly stolen by the drugs and politics respectively. To him, women are tertiary needs and possibly could be insignificant. That is why the rumors have it that he is currently still unmarried while he is approaching forty years.
To describe these youthful politicians wholesomely, they are political little men in a rush who are too desirous to catch up with big men by all means. To say the least, the philosophical apophthegm of Mr. Alexander Eichener, “for a hyena, a bone is just a bone; no matter whether it lies in the bush, near the pit latrine, or in the vegetable garden of a white man. It is still a bone” accurately fits the bill of their misbegotten political philosophy.
What disturbs me is seeing them committing some fouls when consummating the politics of genuflexion and obsequiousness to ensure their personal interests are met.
Let me say this before I conclude. General Akol Koor is a good and honorable man by all measures. The peace deals he reached with Agel Riing and Ajang Ajang speak volume. He is a man who loves peace. He loves the country to prosper too. I don’t care about what performances of his successors would be later, but I know he will top them.
Don’t accuse me of typographical error and flattery. The truth is: Gen. Akol is not like the late Ibrahim Shamsaddin or Salah Abdallah Gosh, the current Director General for National Intelligence & Security Service, or even closer to Major Bob Astles, the former head of murderous State Research Bureau during the regime of former Ugandan President late Gen. Idi Amin. Gen. Akol values human life.
He doesn’t kill. And if you deny, then tell me the names of politicians or any political activist he has jailed and killed? If none, then come to me and I will tell you the names of politicians and political activists that were supposed to be buried six feet under the ground long time ago if he were really as bad as Salah Gosh.
Gen. Akol has human proclivity that sinners and offenders are not ought to be killed, but transformed and readmit into the society. He believes that peace can only come if we forgive ourselves and allow the freedom of expression of our diverging views without intimidation. That is why he is now making peace deals with political dissidents.
Can you imagine with me how many people would have been exiled, jailed and possibly prosecuted if he had fully implemented the controversial security act? Hundreds of people, right? But now is zilch.
Don’t say that I am living in Mars. I am living in Juba. The assertion that unknown gunman is a subterfuge of the Internal Security Bureau is an obloquy by any standard and is as nonsense as the narrative that the President Kiir had planned to kill Dr. Riek in J1 failed coup attempt on 8th July 2016. No an iota of truth in it. No spy agency/ secret police in any country that kills people in that deception form.
I will end where I began. The return of Ajang Ajang with some members of the SS-UF to Juba in a backdoor peace deal negotiated and signed by Gen. Akol is a hot slap in the faces of warmongers. It is a live evident that Gen. Akol wants peace and in the same note, it rebuts the fabrications that Gen. Akol has a political vendetta with Malong and his dismal was pushed by him.
Methinks Gen. Akol should extend this olive branch to other rebel groups. For him to succeed in this, my noggin tells me that he has to implement this deal at hand in a good faith so that it serves as example that Gen. Akol makes, implements, and keeps peace deals. This will motivate whoever wants to make a backdoor peace deal with the government.
I am not delusional; some rebel commanders in the bush can easily reach a backdoor peace deal with the government if there is such a window opening. I support such backdoor peace deal not because it is the manna from heaven that will rain the desired everlasting peace on us, but because I have no hope in IGAD bringing an everlasting peace to South Sudanese.
And if such a deal can somehow alleviate our suffering though it may not bring a complete peace, why not giving it an experimental trial?
Disclaimer: I don’t hold brief for Gen. Akol or anyone of these promising youthful politicians on this. As a citizen of this country, I felt that I should share my independent thoughts and feelings with my fellow citizens. Mr. Simon Yel Yel is reachable via simonyel2017@gmail.com or via 0914474471
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