Ambassador Telar Ring Deng: The Political Judas Iscariot of South Sudan
12 min readPUBLISHED BY THE EYE OF THE NATION COMMITTEE, JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN
By Jacob Adut, Paul Cabiet Ayang, Michael Mabor Rin, Gai Karanja and Makur Madit
Sunday, January 27, 2019 (PW) — As the Republic of South Sudan transitions into a new era of peace and tranquility, with the signing of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCISS), it is paramount that we learn a lesson or two from the mistakes that brought about the senseless war in the first place. There are a cocktail of problems that have been haunting the SPLM/A, now turned into a political party from the outset up to date. One of such unfortunate problems, is the emergence of sadists, wrong elements and hardened betrayers or sellouts of the South Sudanese cause into the center of decision making. Since, its inception from 1983, the SPLM/A, continues to suffer from terrible internal sabotage, orchestrated and manufactured by moles and enemies of progress within the movement.
One of the most dangerous and power-hungry moles, who is still haunting the leadership of the people, is Telar Ring Deng. This notorious crook, played a very active role in the 1991 SPLM/A Nasir Declaration, that almost brought the movement to a total collapse. Telar defied the advice from every wise cadre that hail from Bahr el Ghazel region, and Lakes in particular not to join the Nasir Faction. What was his agenda? Nothing near the sense of nationalism at all, but driven mere self-interest and malice. He simply found himself at the periphery of the decision making since Dr. John Garang was well informed about his selfishness and hatred for those who were for the right cause for South Sudan. Within a short while, Telar fell out with Dr. Riek Machar, the then leader of the Nasir faction of SPLM/A, only to end up joining the NCP led Khartoum regime-the then top enemy of the people of Southern Sudan.
In 2002, when Dr. John and Dr. Riek signed an agreement to unite the ranks and files of the SPLM/A factions and through the subsequent South-South dialogue, Telar pleaded with elders of Yirol to use this opportunity to reconcile him with Dr. John Garang and Dr. Riek in order to rejoin the united SPLM/A. Our patriotic and forgiving elders around Dr. John Garang at the time, such as the late Dr. Deng Dongrin Akuany (RIP), Hon. David Deng Athorbei, among others, labored hard and successfully persuaded our late chairman to forgive this dangerous, callous and ungrateful prodigal son.
But only about two years later, the inherent trouble maker, betrayer and grand liar quickly became dissatisfied with the system, while the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was being negotiated. He intensively and extensively indulged in the game of clashing the two and only two surviving founding members of the SPLM/A at the time, Dr John Garang and his long-time comrade Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit, now the president of the Republic.
However, the entire leadership of the SPLM/A, exhibited the highest wisdom at the time when the peace was being negotiated between SPLM/A and the Khartoum based government. To put their house together, the two leaders -driven by the ideals and the liberation principles, convened a high-level meeting in Rumbek to address their differences amicably, leading up to the successful signing of the historical CPA in 2005, and subsequently resulting to the independence of South Sudan in July 2011.
Nevertheless, Telar-the habitual betrayer and supreme opportunist, shamelessly and unpatriotically leaked and sold, the most confidential minutes of the historical revolutionary and comradely reconciliatory meeting to NCP, for millions of dollars. Though treasonous, Telar was slightly reprimanded but forgiven once more.
When the then Government of National Unity (GONU), was formed in late 2005 after the demise of our late leader Dr. John Garang de Mabior, the lucky outlaw crookedly sneaked his way to the ministerial position in that government. He was appointed State Minister in the office of the president on SPLM ticket. As usual, he continued to play foul against the South Sudanese cause and against the SPLM on which ticket he was assigned to GONU. He formed a dangerous alliance with NCP fanatics to destroy the CPA, and engineered a useless propaganda on the so called Garang versus Kiir boys at such critical time, when we were strategizing on how to safeguard the implementation of the protocol on self-determination and other vital protocols stimulated in the CPA.
Once more, his gargantuan ill-intentions to destroy the nation failed miserably. And this time around he and partners in the egregious conspiracy were met with the full force of vengeance by the SPLM leadership. Telar was immediately relieved from the ministerial docket he was holding as well as being dismissed from SPLM party in 2007. Without any sense of remorse, he embarked on a dangerous spree critical of the government and one such article in which he blasted the GOSS and in particular, the people’s president H.E Salva Kiir Mayardit.
After all these, and as if our leadership and elders do not have limits in forgiving betrayers and sellouts like Telar Ring Deng, they picked him up again from a well-deserved despair and drunkenness induced frustration, while roaming on the streets of Juba almost half-naked and drinking himself to death. He was rehabilitated, reconciled with president and the entire leadership, then re-instated into the party and appointed a care-taker governor for the then Lakes State.
For only three months in the state, Telar amassed millions of pounds and dollars from various projects including the Egyptian Rumbek town electrification plan, only ending up with the erection of few poles. He used the money he pilfered from the state and the corruptly designed 10% cut on national projects and tenders to build himself one of the biggest mansions if not the biggest at Thongpiny residential area in Juba, which he later sold out and now under the utilization of SIPET Engineering Company, a subsidiary of Nilepet.
The worst was still to come. Telar Ring Deng has sworn to destroy South Sudan once and for all. After the 2010 election in which Eng. Chol Tong Mayay was overwhelmingly elected governor of the then Lakes State, Mr. Telar was relieved from care-taker governorship and appointed as the Legal Advisor to the president based on a false premise that he was a lawyer. Precisely, this advisory is what threw our country into an abyss of protracted crises that we unfortunately find ourselves in today. As a Legal Advisor, Telar used his proximity with the president to score nasty cheap political points against his foes.
He worked day and night to convince the president about what he calls Garang versus Kiir Boys. He spoiled the relationship between Dr. Riek-the then Vice-President and President Kiir, resulting the loss of trust between the two leaders. He did the same between the President and Pagan Amum Okech, Mama Rebeca Nyandeng, Deng Alor Kuol, among others. After the rift between the president and the said SPLM leaders brewed and escalated, Telar, by default and trickery became so powerful to the level of appearing as the de-facto president of the Republic of South Sudan. Telar ill-advised the president to dissolve the entire cabinet so that he could form a cabinet of his friends.
This was in a bid to prosecute those he deemed his enemies. With foolhardy courage he went ahead to cunningly form a cabinet, in which he assigned himself the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, while nominating his cronies in other powerful ministerial portfolios. This was aimed to execute their cynical goal of humiliating their perceived political enemies and their intention to ruin the country. Although he cunningly and dubiously succeeded to form that fateful cabinet, Telar’s malicious plans were brought to a halt by the people’s parliament. Telar miserably and embarrassingly failed the vetting process at the NLA at the time, largely due his dubious academic credentials.
The parliament found out that Telar holds no LLB (a law degree), but rather Bachelor degree in Anthropology and an LLM (Master of Commercial Law). And as a matter of fact, Telar was being falsely referred to as Maulana (lawyer) and appointed judge in various occasions during the movement when he was/is technically and professionally fraudulent as he testified during the vetting process. During the war he sentenced people to death, a judgement that could have been issued only and only by a certified judge. In other words, he is murderer in this case.
As much as Telar could not qualify to hold a ministry of justice, it was the worst of all that he maneuvered his way to become a LEGAL ADVISOR-a position that is much more technical than the ministry itself. Somebody with dubious legal credentials cannot possibly become a legal advisor to the president in a nation endowed with numerous brilliant legal minds.
Due to the pressure from the people of South Sudan and Telar’s legal ineptitude, the president removed him from his legal advisory role and appointed him as an Ambassador to Russia. However, Telar in his quest to work near the president, he inefficiently carried out his ambassadorial and spent most of his time between Nairobi and Juba lobbying to be appointed in either the ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation or Ministry in the Office of the President, but failed miserably.
Now frustrated with his abject failure, Telar decided to use another dangerous strategy, falsely accusing his cousin, Maj. Gen. Rin Tueny who was the then Governor of Eastern Lakes State of looting and killing civilians. This was a malicious political move to create for himself a space in the national government. Far from Telar’s bogus and baseless propaganda, Gen. Rin was one of the best performing governors in the country at the time if not simply the best.
In his policy statement grounded on the rule of law and protection of the civilians and their economic development and good governance, General Rin greatly cracked down on cattle raiders and rustlers, as well as robbers on major roads leading to and out of the state. General Rin, successfully coordinated these with his counterparts in the neighboring states, especially Western Lakes and Terekeka States within a very short time. Peace began emerging among our communities and people freely moved about their day to day livelihood activities.
However, Telar- the destroyer was not happy with this progress. He instead embarked on his dodgy and conspiratorial machinations to unseat General Rin and his Western Lakes counterpart, as a deliberate attempt to destabilize the greater Lakes region. This is when 2013 which he engineered was still fresh in the minds of the people. The evil-faced, master of destruction and all that is evil, Mr. Telar, shamelessly continues to orchestrate false propaganda against General Rin and other able leaders in Yirol and South Sudan as a whole, through hired street-boys, social media mercenaries and academic quacks. This is simply because he feels threatened by the stature of the able politicians and leaders, particularly those with clean revolutionary credentials.
The list of Telar’s malicious acts includes his recent masterminding and brewing of confusion that led to Gen. Malong fleeing the country, and his subsequent declaration of his rebellion in Telar’s house in Nairobi against the people’s government under the most revered and able leader, H.E Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit. After Malong left for Nairobi on medical grounds, Telar flew to Nairobi from Russia on the same day with an intention to plan the rebellion against the people’s government.
When his ill-plans were detected by the government, and coupled with the revelation of his graft of USD 6 Million, meant for compensating Russian pilots who were unfortunately and unintentionally shot down at the military operation zone in South Sudan, Telar quickly resigned from his ambassadorial portfolio to evade the embarrassment of dismissal and accountability. He deliberately defied the orders of the then Minister of Foreign Affairs – Hon. Deng Alor Kuol to report to Juba in 72 hours for explanation.
Before, finally settling for the subsequent formation of SSUF/A, Telar desperately and blatantly tried to join various opposition groups including the FDs, SPLM-IO, among others, but to no avail, as his dirty machinations are evidently known to each of the opposition members. After all he was the one who pushed them against the wall in the first place. At last, he resorted to forming a rebellion which he intended to lead in order to broker himself into negotiating table in Addis, but Gen. Malong could not accept to be led by a habitual defector and a briefcase conman in the person of Telar Ring Deng. The heartless powermonger and a dubious lawyer has no following in Yirol, where he hails from. Nobody in Yirol and greater Lakes ever followed him in all lone and series of rebellions against systems and government since 1991.
During the period of his stay in Nairobi, Telar constantly wrote scathingly against the government and the President in particular, falsely claiming that the president wanted to kill him, Deng Alor Kuol and Malong Awan (refer to his Facebook page dated 13 May 2018). There is unquestioned evidence of Telar Ring Deng-the serial killer and the notorious fraudster being currently with SSUF/A. This is evidently substantiated by Telar’s continuous association with Mr. William Alexander Keating, former UNMISS Security Advisor and who is now a consultant for SSUF/A military operations and risk management.
Now that Telar is in Juba and earnestly lobbying to get the ministerial position, particularly the Ministry of Presidential Affairs in the upcoming R-TGoNU, there is a reason to worry about, especially on the dark history of violence and bloodshed repeating itself as a result vengeful and malicious character. The man is in town to continue with his agenda of regime change and dismantling of the mighty SPLM party. Telar’s destructive plans against our hard-won nation are endless. The war has left profound wounds to heal as soon as possible.
It now needs time and the right kind of people to work hard in order to bring about a comprehensive reconciliation among the South Sudanese people, while completely keeping away agents of destruction and doom such as Telar Ring Deng. In this regard, we the people of South Sudan, and the youth of Yirol in particular, appeal to the wise and able leadership of H.E, Gen Salva Kiir Mayardit, the President of the Republic of South Sudan to ignore the illicit campaigns and desperate political propaganda now circulating the social media and many media outlets in bid to give political opportunist a ticket to destroy the beloved nation again.
This day-dreamer and the political lone-ranger in the person of Telar should not be given another unfortunate opportunity at this critical moment where South Sudan is longing for unifying and peace-loving leaders. It should be categorically pointed out that Telar Ring Deng has no political support in Yirol, and should he ascend to power again, we are afraid this may shake the long-time loyalty of the people of Yirol to the SPLM led government.
Jacob Adut – +211926068344
Paul Cabiet Ayang – +211928181501
Michael Mabor Rin – +211922258885
Gai Karanja – +211923119992
Makur Madit – +211922248884
#JANUARY-DECLARATION
#TO BE CONTINUED!!!
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