July 9th Anniversary: The 1993 Prophecy of Dr. John Garang has Come True in the Republic of South Sudan
DR. JOHN GARANG DE’ MABIOR’S 1993 PREDICTIONS ABOUT THE ECONOMY AND INFASTURATURE OF SOUTH SUDAN HAS MATERIALIZED IN OUR COUNTRY
BY GEN. SALVA MATHOK GENGDIT, JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN
Friday, July 17, 2020 (PW) — My personal congratulations goes to H.E President Salva Kiir Mayardit for 9th anniversary of our independence, I also congratulate our comrades whom we made that day a real, particularly our martyrs, without them, we would had not made it. Congratulations!
The predictions and events are always part of histories. In 1993, Dr. John Garang called me into his office in Natinga (Taposa area) and gave me orders to prepare a force of one battalion size force for a mission. It was not easy to assemble such a force in time but I managed to lump together the force in Buoyaarea (Kimatong) within 5 weeks’ time that included refreshment training under daily enemy bombardment to the location.
It was a hard time in Kapoeta attack, and Nasir faction force fighting my forces in Lafon. With the force ready, Dr. John Garang joined me with Gen. Kuol Manyang Juk and Gen. Bior Ajang Duot (Bior Ashuot), he then announced the mission to Pany-agoor where Gen. Kerbino Kuanyin Bol, Dr. Riek Machar, Gen. Arok Thon, Late Joseph Uduoh and many other splinters of the movement had a meeting there.
Gen. Kuol Manyang led the operation and I went back with Dr. John Garang to Natinga, which was the headquarters. After six days in the morning, we received the message that Gen. Kuol Manyang captured Pany-agoor, we celebrated it and Dr. John was very excited.
On the same day at 2 PM, the signal officer bequeathed me a message that Pany-agoor recaptured. When I passed the message to Dr. John the chairperson of the movement, he was very annoyed and exasperated a lot, when I saw that his mood is not normal, I seat near him and called the bodyguard to bring us tea so that I entertain him.
I told him, your comradeship, all those towns captured by an enemy will be reversed one day, we will march to Khartoum, and when we took over, we shall explore oil for development. We will bounce all infrastructure of Upper Nile to China, Bahr el Ghazal to Germany and Equatoria to America.
It was a sort to flatter him and boost his morale. In his response to me, he said; “Mathok, this is a wrong idea in your mind and it will not work, if we take over this country, we shall start with Agriculture to finance exploration of oil, but if we start with oil, we will be corrupt and lazy”. He referred to a certain country that I will not mention as an example.
Today, who can judge our prediction of 1993? South Sudan’s political analyst are urge to put across their ideas about the economy and infrastructure of this nation compare to our 1993 predictions with Dr. John Garang.
The writer is a liberator, R-TGoNU National MP, Former Deputy Army Chief of General Staff, Former Deputy National Minister of Interior and the Acting ApukCommunity Chairperson in Juba, South Sudan; He can be reached via +211925571888
Yes it was a wrong idea to permit oil operations and productions in both Unity and Upper states. I thank Gen. Salva Mathok for reminding us of this golden suggestion by the late leader, Dr. Garang. And I hope all youth and leaders of our beloved country are now reading this proposal that would be the way forward if it was implemented.
It is true that the beginning of everything including the nation building is the hardest part of all and that was why the visionary leader, Dr. Garang, have come up with such an amazing start. However, we can not blame the current leaders because none of them chose to operate oil in any part of the Republic of South and I believe we are all well aware of that. Instead, our enemy in Khartoum have come up with the idea then went on to lunch oil operations and productions in Paloch, Ruweng and Bentiu. The government of the RSS took over from the Khartoum regime immediately after the Independence in 2011 but I believe our leaders can diversify the economy if the chose to. Never too late.