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Why Bor Dinka Cattle Keepers Ought to Quit Equatorian land

6 min read

We are destroying their farms and we are happily milking our cows and harvesting our crops back home. Our kids, elderly, woman and men are happy and their kids elderly and women have nothing to eat. Their crops and bees hives are destroyed and we imagine people should peacefully coexist? Where on earth can these happen?

By Mangar Biar Kucha, Bor, South Sudan

Sunday, March 07, 2021 (PW) — It is with profound desolation and sorrows to write these bitter facts about the innocent lost of live on both communities. May the innocent soul gone continue resting in peace.

Almost 15 years ago, the pastoralist from Dinka Bor in Jonglei State decided to abandon their land and occupied equatorian land in the name of good pastures and stability in the area. This move frustrated the equatorians, arguing that, cattle do destroy their crops, which are the center of their livelihood.

The Equatorians communities register so many complaints; concerning the cited move. However, due to their serenity, tolerant, respect and love of peace but not war, our people receipts this call differently. For instance, the pastoralist takes it undesirably, besides; the elders, intellectuals and prominent political figures conceded the call positively. They apply all the effort but in vain.

The pastoralist gave them deaf ears. The top authorities including the presidency also put so many measures to end this senseless quarrelling and daily attack by the civilian themselves, but none yield fruit. For example; around 2008 and 2009,they army tried to applied force in order to return Dinka Bor pastoralist to their land but failed miserably.

During the course, many innocent lives were lost and others sustain serious injuries including my own uncle. Many people from both sides are being ambush and killed in a cold blood, and the communities have taken no live serving mechanism, many homes are close because no one left.

Our pastoralist should return home, this could give peace and development a chance. Let accept our God given land, let evacuate Equatorians farms land, their land is main for cultivation and bee keeping. Why do we interfere with someone live activities? Do we suppose, others cannot deserve a better living like what we want?

We are destroying their farms and we are happily milking our cows and harvesting our crops back home. Our kids, elderly, woman and men are happy and their kids elderly and women have nothing to eat. Their crops and bees hives are destroyed and we imagine people should peacefully coexist? Where on earth can these happen? I can affirm, No. Call me an idiot, naïve, fool, shortsighted and so many names, but truth must be told.

Let come back home, our land is immense and productive. It is good for our cattle and crops. Our outstanding grandfathers have never deserted this land before. Why, they love it, they protect it. Why are we deserting it at our time? Many wars were fought, many people died and some families never exist now. Who are we to cause trouble everywhere?

We are the lazy generation indeed as cited by our own son who speak nothing but a naked truth. We are troublesome; we keep on blaming and cursing whoever says the facts. As I am writing this, I will definitely be level as an enemy of the community but remember, “a drunkard and little child, always say the truth than pastors’’.

Leaving Equatorians land will create healthier and better environment, hereafter, serving live and end continue destructions of property, which are source of development and prosperity on both communities. Dear Dinka Bor communities, inhabiting someone land requires respectable tolerant between the nomads and the inhabitants and if there is no such, than why living by guns. It is time to rest, it is time for peace and development, and it is time for love but not war.

We have fought for freedom from the Khartoum regime and it was decided in 2011 on popular vote, we fought a good fight. Why should we kill ourselves with no solid reasons? Do we have to use our power on our own brothers whom we courageously fought together during the liberation? Do we have to finish each other? Than who will occupy this land? The Khartoum administration will repossess right?

Frankly speaking, we are causing unnecessary lost of live, we have conquered their land by force and it is time to quit, no more blood shed needed. Widows and orphans cause by this senseless wars are so many on both sides, compared with the total number of widows and orphaned of the late heroes and heroines who died for a true course, our freedom. We are creating and supporting poverty at our watch, the continuous increase of war widows and orphans will always pull us down no matter the effort asserted.

Let embrace peace and stop rigidity, let built our nation together. Come back home, come to your immeasurable land, it is rich with pastures and peaceful at the same time. The death of cattle cannot be matched with human fatality. Return back home; give peace, reconciliation, healing and prosperity a chance to reign.

The Customary Laws of the Greater Bor Dinka Community: Legal and Basic Rules for Self-Administration, 2017 Paperback – 28 Jul 2017, edited by Makwei Mabioor Deng (Editor), available on Amazon

Genuinely speaking, fighting in your own land for self defend is far better then fighting on someone land with vulnerable people i.e. kids, women and elderly. We have no right to fight Equatorian. If the rejected us in their land, why fighting unreasonable and shameless wars with them?

Let’s quit, it is shameful and painful for our names to be remember on bad things, we have our respectable values, ethics and norms that we the current generation when to buried for good. In History, we are peaceful people, who love peaceful coexistent within and with our neighbors, we have never been aggressive with our neighboring community before.

I call upon peace loving partners, media houses and the government at the grassroots level to peacefully intervene and serve lives between these sisterly communities. Failure will hinder the plan development and security stability for so long, act now. The chiefs from the aforementioned communities should take a lead.

Conclusion, We have shame our heroes and heroines. They have died a worthless death; the virtuous fight the fought, turn to misery and mistreatment of vulnerable natives. It is sad and shameful for the same people who struggle together for a good course to turn blind eyes and deaf ears to peaceful coexistence amongst themselves and refused support development, which they are far behind any other country in the world.

No good schools, no good road and no better health system, simply because of unnecessary wars among civilians. Stop it now, never wait for tomorrow. Let support peace and harmony among the sixty-four [64] tribes of this beloved nation.

The author is a citizen of Bor and graduate of Dr. John Garang Memorial University of Science and Technology [2019], can be reach through his email: acholchotborong@gmail.com; Tel: +249906453407

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