Stop Nagging About Your Little Dirty Secrets and Emulate President Kiir
By Chol Michael Maker – SPLM diehard cadre, Juba, South Sudan
Thursday, 30 June 2022 (PW) — When we were in the bush, CDR Salva Kiir Mayardit had captured Kurmuk and Gizan in 1987, captured a handful of enemy troops, gave them amnesty and handed them over to the Red Cross as prisoners of war (POW) detected traitors amidst us, detained turncoats, caged conspirators, and sent the enemy spies to Hon.
William Deng Nhial (it’s our coded adage only decipherable by the SPLA proper) disciplined saboteurs and reoriented them, arrested malingerers and sent them to the frontline, and punished cowards and deserters. In a nutshell, he was the only fierce tiger feared by the spoilers and whiners more than Dr. John, who was his boss. He is where he is today because he was focused and determined to serve.
Guess why he was the rare toxic repellent being terribly feared by the enemies of the people’s revolutionary liberation struggle? He was everywhere, almost every time with zero overtime incentives like all of us, simply because he had adherently committed himself to the aims and objectives of the movement [acquaint yourself with the SPLM manifesto].
I still remember vividly when he left us in Southern Blue Nile under the Acting Zonal Command of Captain Garang Mabil in early 1988 and went for an urgent mission in Eastern Equatoria, most specifically the Raad area. Where were you? When he and Dr. John both planned the capture of Kapoeta in Boma in 1988, were you there?
When he used to toil in the gathering of intelligence from the enemy garrisons, barracks, and mobile contingents on all the frontlines as Chief of both the General Intelligence Service (GIS) and Communications Electronic Warfare (CEW) were you there? When he commanded the Kon Anok Campaign in 1989, were you in Rumbek?
When he risked disassembling all the vehicles in Dhiam-Dhiam, Bor and reassembling the war machines after they had safely crossed to Shambe, Yirol were you there? When he planned together with DR. John and William Nyuon to attack Nasir, Malual Gawoth and Juoku, did you experience hardship as their officers and men?
Did you know his nickname, “Tiger,” was his code? Did you know President Salva Kiir was the Tiger Battalion Commander? Did you know that both CDR Salva Kiir Mayardit and CDR Arok Thon Arok, Commander of Tumsah (crocodile) Battalion, attacked Pibor in 1984? Did you know that President Kiir was the SPLA’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations?
Did you know President Kiir was the SPLA Chief of Staff? Did you know he was the SPLA Commander in Chief? Did you know His Excellency Salva Kiir Mayardit was Vice President of the Republic of Sudan? Did you know H.E. the President, Salva Kiir, was the President of the Government of Southern Sudan GOSS?
Did you know you and I voted for him as our president in 2010 before the secession of Southern Sudan from Sudan? Did you know President Kiir called for the referendum? Did you know that President Salva Kiir was unanimously upheld as the flag bearer and president of the Republic of South Sudan in 2011? Did you know that if it had not been for him, we would have finished ourselves both in 2013 and 2016?
Did you know President Kiir saved the life of Vice President Riek Machar, who was captured and temporarily held as a prisoner of war when Riek’s Special Forces attacked the Presidential Palace? Did you know President Kiir was accredited with being a peacemaker and equally a humanitarian and was awarded a doctorate degree by three different universities as an honorary PhD holder? Now tell me what type of experience he lacks.
Did you know that comrade Chairman SKM hadn’t visited Akon/Gogrial, where he hailed from until he was officially transferred to command the SPLA Forces in Bahr El Ghazal in 1998? Did you know CDR? Salva Kiir used to drink water directly from a borehole and sometimes from a pond, like all his forces while stationed in Yithkuel/Thiet in Tonj.
After all the above-mentioned tempestuous hardship and the resilience streaks what else remains untouched for him not to deserve statesmanship recognition?
Supposed you are tasked with assessing his achievements in life, will you fail him out of mere hate?
Please, give him a break and let the man do his job without any hindrance, otherwise, some of us will consider you an enemy of progress, hence of the people.
We the SPLM/A cadres who have seen it all; those who have borne the brunt of the time should go back to the time machines and rediscover ourselves. It’s a pity that we have gone through all the odds to the point of forgetting the fact that we had taken an oath of allegiance not to betray our leadership and, of course, our extreme loyalty to the country.
Today some of us tend to be horrendously ridiculed when we praise our leaders simply because the NEWCOMERS expect us the cadres to disown those of Beny Kiirdit, Dr. Riek, Mama Rebecca de Mabior, Taban Deng Gai and so on and so forth.
The newcomers don’t want to see us show our leaders and elders courtesy or be accorded sympathy because we are being discordant. They, the so-called prodigal sons, pitifully rival us on a scale of relevance and that we shouldn’t be regarded as blue-eyed boys, as each one of them would simply pity themselves as a favourite no matter how contemptuously they are referred to as the biblical proverbial prodigal sons.
On a serious note, some of us are victimised simply because we got stuck to Kiirdit like a glued sole to a shoe, but unfortunately, the birds of prey mistook us for ticks whom they deliberately began to feast on. As we all know, the tick won’t stop sucking the host’s blood until sated.
The question here is who is the PARASITE?
To be precise in descriptive analysis, some of us are being jeered at simply because they are eagerly trying to deny us our birthright as biological sons and daughters of the SPLM/A who deserve the inheritance worth and sympathy of the upright cadres according to our blood chemistry in the SPLM/A.
At this point, I just want to remind us that we want to ensure that freedom fighters or war veterans do not work against each other and isolate ourselves from each other as comrades. We have a holistic mission ahead of us to develop the country we have liberated, and the welfare of the masses of our people remains a challenging monolith on our way that cannot be abandoned after we have achieved Phase One Mission, which was the Armed Liberation Struggle.
Beware! Our common enemy seems to have resurrected, thus it is high time we enthusiastically rally behind the historical military command and political leadership of the Movement. Nobody can stop us, no matter how great their hallucinations are desperately set to accelerate their little dirty secrets.
Remember, our chairman once reminded us that his vehicle has no reverse gear and, as a result, no force can separate him from the occupants of the wagon. However, we should neither turn a blind eye to the obvious conspiracy theories nor give any chance for our ideals to be compromised.
Let’s bear in mind that we are being thwarted in our desire to fulfil the vision of Dr. John Garang de Mabior and his age-old comrade Salva Kiir Mayardit. We have refused to be made a bunch of laughingstocks on our own premises. We will resist the gluttonous hijackers whose hearts and minds failed to guide their stomach policies towards the top seat in the country.
We have enthroned Kiirdit with the blood shed by our martyrs and wounded heroes. We have cemented the foundation of liberty with the fresh blood of the sons and daughters of the very same mothers, fathers, aunties, brothers, and sisters who voted for the incumbent president Salva Kiir to be the flag bearer.
Finally, we, the majority of the liberation struggle survivors, without fear or favour, call upon the minority of the disgruntled comrades to give our Chairman a second chance to deliver service to his people, for whom he has sacrificed a great deal of his life, as well as to continue to give thanks to our fallen heroes and heroines for all their self-sacrifice on our behalf.
You the heavy-hearted comrades should reserve your wrath as time is ripe for you to cast or slide your votes into the slot on a ballot box and call it a fair game. Mind yourselves that election is not a selection, but rather a collection of connections as we normally connect the dots. It will be up to you whether you vote against X or for Y, the choice will entirely be yours.
We, the cadres who are subservient to our Chairman should remain unshaken as we continue to epitomise the concept of patriotism. We shall forevermore stand solid as Movement vanguards and united in front of enthusiastic comrades until we voluntarily rest assured that our mission is successfully accomplished.
I reckoned with the glaring fact that even the opposition groups are our own who have temporarily chosen to remain irrelevant with how the gears are being shifted.
As for those who prefer sea voyages, we are in the same boat with them, and our oars are rowing smoothly, although their criticism of the captain is inherently threatening, hence the turbulence. But as things stand, the golden keel (mast) seems to be holding firm to the sails. We are cocksure that all the sailing masts are guyed and our voyage to safe shores is certain.
We must be double vigilant and alarmingly determined to stand our ground as Kiirdit continues to lead the people’s revolutionary zeal. Be fully aware of the fact of the truth that President Kiir’s mission is not yet accomplished and none of us will accept his request even if he wanted to resign from his position as our president. We will automatically accuse him of desertion from his duty station and vote him into office again and again as we wish.
As far as Kiirdit’s status as the Chairman and Commander in Chief is concerned, he ought to be accorded a spacious room in our father’s house to deliver on Phase Two Mission of development and prosperity as far as his status as the incumbent president of the Republic of South Sudan is concerned.
I would further reiterate that we will never risk any chance to get duped and turned against our Principal like what President Mengistu Haile Mariam’s Generals did to him as a serious act of betrayal in 1989 and consequently to the downfall of the Derg regime in Ethiopia in 1991.
To date, the sheer bulk of the said generals is still in exile, while the few who have been repatriated back home are mercifully pitied to earn a living as taxi drivers. Back to our case, if we must permanently retire, then it should be a legitimate process that may not jeopardize some kinds of benefits and pensions.
At this juncture, I would like to conclude with an assumption that most of the readers are well versed with the author of this article, so feel free to establish contact in case of any enquiry.
Mark well as you keep yourself reminded that I ain’t an icebreaker or a flatterer for I don’t have to explain myself pertinent to where I come from. All I stand for is that my mind aptly gets tuned to hosting one president at a time as loyal as I am!
God Bless President Salva Kiir Mayardit!
Long Live SPLM!
Long Live Unity Of The Masses Of Our People!
The author, Chol Michael Maker, is a concerned SPLM die-hard who can be reached via his email address: Chol Michael cholmichael68@gmail.com
If you want to submit an opinion article, commentary, or news analysis, please email it to the editor: info@paanluelwel.com or paanluel2011@gmail.com. PaanLuel Wël Media (PW) website does reserve the right to edit or reject material before publication. Please include your full name, a short biography, email address, city, and the country you are writing from.