When Moral Values Collide with Law: A Value-based Opinion on Gen. Ajak Ayuen’s Assignment of Maintaining Order and Morality in Bor Town

Dear PaanLuel Wël readers, I hope this message finds you safe and well. Below is an article I wrote and posted on Facebook last year that was not published. A friend told me last night that I should have it published. Thank you and kind regards.

By Mabil Manyok Nhial

Sunday, April 16, 2023 (PW) — When I entered the School of Law seven years ago, my professor of Law, Dr Gift Manyatera, gave me a presentation on the interplay between law and morality. That alone honed my passion for the two. Then, a few of my colleagues started calling me “Rigid Moralist” or, sometimes, “Justice Nicholas McNally”, a former Zimbabwean Justice of the Supreme Court whose appetite for moral-based judgements could not be paralleled.

My understanding of the law is that there would be no such thing as a law if humans were morally upright. The absence of consistent observance of moral values creates a huge lacuna. There is a constant lapse of virtues by persons with unconsciously high propensities in their daily dealings.

Against this backdrop, the law must emerge from the dust of nothingness to bridge the gap and bring sanctions against unruly beings who fall short of fulfilling their obligations or omit to do what they are obliged to do. So, the law is a brainchild of morality that has no sanction thereof.

One of my favourite characters in History, especially, History of Europe, is Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon contended clearly and loudly in his exact words that “the world suffers a lot, not because of the violence of bad people, but because of the silence of the good people.”

The ongoing operations on the crackdown of evil modus operandi in Bor, conducted by Gen. Ajak Ayuen, have dominated and rented the looming air. Some of us who defend the Bor moral values from any invasion are being taunted, belittled, and even given names.

I do not consider that an issue because I am not absolute and do not know everything. I expect people to think differently. There has never been such a world where people think alike. There will never be such a world, either. Diversity in ideas is very much allowed.

It would be unwise for me to expect people to think like me. Some people think either differently or similarly. Some live but do not even think. So, I delight those who give different views from mine because it is when I face a different opinion that I polish and flourish my way of thinking.

Many people have questioned Gen. Ajak’s duties from the day he started with the known dangerous boys, who call themselves crew. No one can refuse to justify how those boys used to go terrorise the vicinity of the town and even villages. Others went far to cast aspersions at Gen. Ajak’s good name that he had devised his means of survival.

Just to let you know who Gen. Ajak is, he is a well-to-do, long-serving military officer, a national liberator and a graduate of Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. Besides, he owns a school at Block 3 in Bor Town, Jonglei State.

How Did Gen Ajak Ayuen Get in Charge of the Operations in Bor Town?

To answer this question, one must fully understand Bor’s situation before Gen. Ajak became the operations commander. The city was badly infested with dangerous unruly beings who became the rulers of the city both during the day and night. People were chopped into pieces of bones and flesh, but the so-called Government of Jonglei State, headed by Hon. Chagor, happily took his lodging in Juba, leaving the crew to control the State Headquarters and the surrounding areas therein.

Having been so much bothered by the perpetual evil activities of those criminals, the chiefs within Bor that were badly affected appealed to the Government of the State to allow them to have someone be empowered to crack down on criminal and immoral activities in Bor Town. Their appeal became fruitful.

A consensus was reached, and Gen. Ajak Ayuen was mandated to oversee the operations. It was then that Gen. Ajak’s jurisdiction was defined and drawn, highlighting his duties and the offences to be tackled after the State Government had succeeded in failing to save the City of Bor from such rascals.

In the first and second weeks of the operations, some police details tried to interfere with Gen. Ajak’s good work because some police officers were affected as their kids were among the crew members that were caught. They tried to sneak them out of custody, which heightened Gen. Ajak’s seriousness on such issues. Right now, the issue of the crew has become a story.

It is no longer a threat since the good General has salvaged the city from those boys. The issue of indecent dressing was and still is one of the duties that the chiefs mandated Gen. Ajak to exercise alongside the question of crew activities. One may question why indecent dressing?!

No one in their right mind would dispute the reality that the current immoral beings, who call themselves the crew that have sadly bedevilled most of the cities, started with indecent dressing. They started with the so-called FULL DOWN and WEARING OF TATTERED JEANS with many openings on them.

Their indecent code of conduct and dressing metamorphosed into carrying weapons such as sticks and iron bars when they felt ignored. Their iron bars got changed into machetes. Now, machetes have transmuted into guns, which they carry and use to terrorise people.

It is in tandem with that narrative that the community sat and agreed not to entertain any inroad into the Bor virtues in an ugly suit of “human rights,” or to call it more crudely “civilisation” or “modernity.”

How Does Indecent Dressing Affect a community?

For a community that strongly prohibits immorality, the young generations are protected from cultural and moral erosion. One such prohibition is to discourage inappropriate dressing from it being seen by young generations. Imagine allowing a lady with a bosomy cleavage that is wide open with breasts dangling in a threatening manner. Such kids looking at a “civilised” lady can be jeopardised by such indecent exposure.

A community surrendered to the vice of permissiveness is completely thrown to the darkest corner of incessant doom! One of my respected authors in the person of Alan Paton, notes in his masterpiece, ‘Cry, the Beloved Country’, that “the tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that they are not mended again… That is why children break the law, and old people are robbed and beaten.”

Paton eloquently talks about the danger of watching the breakdown of tribal customs in what I call a slow, painful death. According to Paton, when customs are broken, it is impossible to mend them again. Too much permissiveness has killed more than corruption and HIV/AIDS combined. That is why rights are given alongside limitations.

Article 251 of the Penal Code makes public indecency an offence.

Has Gen. Ajak Been Legally Positioned? Why Is a Military Officer Involved in the Enforcement of Laws or Engagement in Non-military Activities? Does the Law Allow Him to Do That?

First, Article 5 of the Transitional Constitution is cognizant of the customs and traditions of the people and the will of the people as sources of the Supreme Law of the Land. Considering that, what a certain group of people agrees and considers to be its law, becomes the law resulting from the will, customs, and traditions of the people.

Therefore, the consensus reached by the chiefs represents the will, customs, and beliefs of the Bor Dinka people. It undoubtedly becomes the law after that agreement. Generally, the law barricades the military from participating in enforcing civilian laws or in issues of non-military nature. However, this principle of law is not immune from exceptions.

A military apparatus is legally allowed by law to be involved in the enforcement of laws or resort to engagement in missions of non-military nature. These exceptions include inter alia: when public order breakdowns and rebellions smoulder width and breadth within a country.

An instance of the breakdown of public order is the erosion of moral values in the guise of “civilisation”, “modernity”, or “human rights”.

In this case, Gen. Ajak is legally allowed and well placed by the law to be involved in the enforcement of laws and engagement in non-military nature. This is well enshrined in Article 151(5) of the Transitional Constitution of South Sudan as amended. The above position has been buttressed by English and American Laws. In American law, there is what is called The Posse Comitatus Act, which was passed in 1878.

This Act puts down the exceptions such as protecting the values of a certain group of people or civil rights when the state is unable or unwilling to do so. Cultural rights, moral values, beliefs, and convictions are protected under Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 15 International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Article 33 on the rights of ethnic and cultural communities, states that ethnic and cultural communities shall have the right to enjoy and develop their cultures freely. South Sudan ratified the 2003 Convention on Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2016. This instrument takes cognisance of the moral and cultural values of any people.

When there is a loophole, especially when the law is silent on pertinent issues affecting people’s lives, moral reasoning is called for. This moral-based reasoning or approach is a cognitive process applicable in some countries such as Ghana and Zimbabwe.

A value-based approach is used to choose between inconsistent interests, values, claims and norms when no law applies.

Has Gen. Ajak Ayuen Exceeded His Duties?

I refuse to write anything capable of bias. I do not take and consider anything posted on Facebook. There are more lives than facts that are thrown here and there. That needs keen attention in sieving the truth from any crude information. When I first heard of Gen. Ajak’s powers being abused, I visited him in Bor.

Luckily, I got him with his officers advising some four ladies, who had been taken there before I arrived. After inquiring from community leaders, including the Bor Youth leader, who was also present at Gen. Ajak’s place, I confirmed that Gen. Ajak does not go beyond giving advice to those brought before him and correcting those who understand, for the case of any ladies or young men with inappropriate dressing codes.

When I called him on Wednesday to confirm what was being spread on social media, what he said was corroborated by what the chiefs and other community leaders told me. I tried to talk to Yar, the alleged victim, but I could not find her. I wanted to hear her version of the story. I wanted to hear from her on a phone call, but my intention could have been more fruitful.

I could not reach her. I communicated with her cousin, whose version was exactly in line with what I got from Gen.

Ajak. That’s how I found out the truth. The lady was not beaten as alleged. Neither did she have her clothes stripped off by force as it is being spread width and length. Now, where does this harassment come from? Sieving facts from lies does not cost anything apart from telling the truth even if it cuts deep into one’s bone.

In a nutshell, Gen. Ajak Ayuen has a legal mandate to continue protecting our moral values from being invaded by some toxic and haphazard “civilisation”, “human rights”, and negative imported foreign cultures. The law principle of ‘salus populi suprema lex’, which means the welfare of the people is the supreme law, is very much applicable to our case. Indeed, the welfare of any community is their supreme law.

Any law that closes its sleepy eyes to the welfare of the people is no law. Any rights that attack virtues or moral values cannot be taken for the rain! It must be fought with every available weapon.  Rights are limited. There is no absolute right, not even the right to life. That is why a justified killing is sometimes ordered by courts when it is in the interest of justice.

Way Forward

*The cofs should sit again and craft more well-organised bylaws for effective enforcement and exoneration of Gen. Ajak from any unwarranted dibs.

* Allow Gen. Ajak to continue with his mandate but with strict adherence to the stated duties and within the confines of the stated bylaws.

* The officers should not exceed their limit in any way if there are such incidents.

* If you are in Bor, respect the Bor values so that you do not collide with the authority concerned. Remember, you cannot wear a cap simply because you have seen your neighbour wear it. Be your person by how you do your things. Our positive cultural norms must not be contaminated. You may supplant the negative ones, but never try those that are held with reverence; and

* Be made aware that not everything hurled to Facebook is true. Get time and find out the truth, because a rushing conclusion has caused more harm than good.

The author, Mabil Manyok Nhial, is an Advocate of the High Court of South Sudan and can be reached via johnmabilmanyok@gmail.com

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