Ateny Wek Ateny: The origin of land grabbing in Juba, South Sudan
Ateny Wek Ateny, Former Press Secretary of President Kiir
Why the necessity, greeds and emotional response is aggravating the land grabbing in Juba?
By: Ateny Wek Ateny, Juba, South Sudan
“How Much Land Does a Man Need” Leo Tolstoy 1828- 1910”.
A fictitious personality in Leo/Lev Tolstoy’s novel called Pakhom had a lust for wealth. He wanted to get rich by all means, and so, he had wanted to buy more acres of lands to enable him get rich. He moved from place to another. One day, the King asked him “how much of land do you want”? He said I want as much as possible”. So, the King told him to walk to any distance to find as much land as his ability could circumnavigate, with condition to come back to his point of departure before dust. Pakhom managed to walk ten miles – therefore arriving to the last point at 4:00 pm. Realizing that, he must come back to the point of departure before sunset, Pakhom felt the impossibility walking such distance in two hours. So, he decided to run the distance – arriving exactly before sunset, just to die immediately on exhaustion.
The King ordered the allocation of six metre by two meters of land for the burial of Pakhom. Then, the King said, all men need only that amount of land for burial. Greed has less chance. The moral of the story will be found in the body of this article.
Coming to Juba and the Necessity to acquire a piece of land.
The signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) on January 9, 2005 and the subsequent start of its implementation, meant the SPLA must come to Juba before the start of the Interim period. Few weeks after the start of pre- interim, Khartoum became reluctant to give green light for the SPLA forces to enter Juba, the capital of the then southern Sudan. So, the SPLA decided to march onto Juba from Yei with two full battalion armed with heavy weapons. Arriving to Juba in around September or October 2005, the SPLA soldiers were received and accorded the heroic welcome by the local population of Juba and it surrounding.
No doubt that Juba was seriously in bad shape. Very terrible and stand almost desolate and exceedingly unhygienic. The author came from London to Juba – arriving on 17/November 2005 and Juba was never to be seen close to anything of a city. There were only two hotels; the Equatorial Hotel and Juba Hotel, both were occupied by senior government officials. With no electricity, running water, the two hotels were powered and lit by generators. Places of food was another story. Mama Zhara and Wadmail were the only two known restaurants in town, so consumers queued to book the plates before buying food. It was quite a struggle.
Sanitation was never thought of. With all government buildings built during the High Executive Council, turned into toilets, every place was filled with human’s waste. The Juba we could now simply say, “let’s the capital be moved away from, if you are still grabbing land” was not the same with the Juba I just mentioned. All South Sudanese hands are on this beautiful Juba. We just need to be mindful of hate speeches.
Notwithstanding, nothing was bad in coming back to Juba as the national capital. The failure of the SPLM’s notion of “taking town to people” and “Land belonging to the communities” policy, are two most fundamental mistakes ever committed by our political elites. A country so divided such as ours, particularly during the Kokora of 1980s could not have been expected to unite when communities thinks lands are free from government’s planning. How on earth can communities built and survey cities? Which country that had successfully done it so, we can take its example?
How the necessity of acquiring land in Juba came to being?
With all the conditions numerated above, conditions of working and living in Juba became so demanding. It is impossible for one to work in Juba, and sleep in Wau for example. For our brothers and sisters from Juba county, renting from them was the first priority- given how the issue of land belonging to the community prevented new town planning. Security personnel rented and so the civil servants too. With inadequate living conditions getting worse, and the demand for accommodation soared, soldiers started to take lands that was surveyed by Khartoum’s Juba City Council- particularly the area starting from Juba Na Bari, Munuki and later Gudele.
Most of those lands that the soldier forcefully grabbed and later sold were plots already allotted to Mujhaideen who were by then on the verge of exit from southern Sudan as the referendum was nearing. The author is an eye witness, but owing to his high principles of not trying to take a land in which he doesn’t have the title deed, did not acquire any land by illegal means.
Again, given the position of Juba as national capital, it means any South Sudanese has right to come to Juba, to look for a job and reside here. There is no community bigger than the country to dictate on the government. I am cognizant of the fact that, some of stalemate in our resolve to build a nation-state are going to be addressed by our constitution, but the fact that more than 70% of our revenue are spent in Juba, the biggest beneficiaries are the local community in spite of the growing land grabbing, alas.
Part II
Juba County, Juba city Council and the entire Central Equatoria State’s reluctance to device a policy for leasing land to South Sudanese citizens – Bari and none Bari alike is a factor in necessitating land grabbing for squatting purposes. Instead they preferred leasing land to foreigners; Somalians, Eritreans, Ethiopians and Sudanese etc. they do not have the idea, that leasing a land to foreigners for 30 – 40 years make the person to become citizen of the country they are allowed to stay indefinitely. Equipped with economic power, nationals from those countries would be the best people to take Bari land, – South Sudanese by extension. It is justified and necessary for anyone who lives in Juba as a capital of South Sudan to have a plot or two as maximum for the purpose of accommodating a family. If, Juba land policy does not include other South Sudanese of non Bari background, while Juba remain the capital city, it is a right for any individual or group to distribute any unoccupied land for themselves – just for the purpose of accommodating themselves until further notices. We cannot have it both ways. To have Juba as Bari City while it is also South Sudanese Capital. The population from other areas of South Sudan have their own ancestral lands that are not less important than Juba. Juba is only important because it is the capital city and almost every South Sudanese resources are spent in Juba.
Moreover, the greedy, the thieves and marauders made the issue of land grabbing worrisome for Central Equatoria and Bari Community in particular. The greedy land grabbers are no longer grabbing land for accommodation purposes, but for the reason of making wealth. Some warlords and thieves disguising as Chiefs and community leaders are conniving in an attempt to take as much land as possible to be later sold to those who don’t buy the issue of land grabbing. Now, there emerged Dinka, Nuer, Mundari, and even some Bari Chiefs operating lands in Juba. They even have the audacity to set up Kangaroo courts in which they settle land cases- under whose jurisdiction, only God knows.
They are thieves and theft has no tribe. They sell one plots to more than 5 people – taking the same amount or even more and later, the one who pay more bribe is given the land to the dismay of those who also bought it. Imagine, the thieves also have their army and police. They operate at whim, and have no mercy. Whether you are a true land owner or another trespasser you need to be careful of this class of thieves operating in land grabbing. I saw in the last week or so, an officer – 1st lieutenant in the National army crying like a child complaining of being beaten by another stronger land grabbers near Mauna or whichever place in Juba. According to the officer that was crying, he was beaten by some soldiers from military Police. I believe those soldiers might have been operating without their command’s knowledge. They are only grabbing land, put a makeshift on it, and in two years time they sell it for more than 20,000 dollars. So, it is a business not under necessity. It should be called business land grabbing. I have seen two or three Dinka Men calling themselves Paramount Chiefs in Juba. They are the land owners, they sell and they can survey a totally fresh lands. One of them invited me in 2016 to take 10 plots of land to which I vehemently rejected. What for? What do I do with 10 plots, I said to him. I don’t even have money to build even one. Nonetheless, he continued to sell land anyway. He is now a millionaire and have couple of squads of the army. No one can dare joking with him. I have also learned this guy had a court of his own. He has more than 10 three or four floors buildings in Juba and so, he is now talking of contacting the government. It is unfortunate, if this is what the land of Bari is taken for. No community can accept some thieves to thrive by selling their lands. In my area, Malek-Alel in Aweil South, any South Sudanese can acquire a plot of land to reside or for business, but he/she can not be selling lands that doesn’t belong to him/her randomly.
Notwithstanding, the few greedy are putting the entire Dinka and Nuer communities at stake, just because they want to get rich. Whoever that wants to have land in Juba, has right to do so, but he must not have more than what is meant for living in it, unless he/she is buying them from rightful owners of land. You can’t sell land that doesn’t belong to you. It is also incumbent upon Juba City to ensure it is allocating land legally in an attempt to reduce land grabbing. Failure to do so, is only helping lawlessness to prevail. Victims are those of us who can’t grab land whatsoever. So, the choice is with the Juba authorities. It is critical. Even if, one decides to rent from Bari – the supposedly the owners of land, rent is not affordable in Juba. They charge you in dollars when you don’t receive your salary in dollars or any amount in pounds equivalent to the amount you are charged in dollars. The situation of land in Juba is making moving to Uganda and Kenya lucrative.
To be continued in the next article.
The writer is the former Press Secretary in the Office of the President and the views expressed here are his own. He can be reached by email;atenypiokerwek@gmail.com
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