Response to Dr. Peter Adwok Otto's 'scourge earth war on Chollo people'

Dr. Peter Adwok Otto, my namesake by two-thirds, who doubles up as a lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine, Upper Nile University, actively involves in writing on the www.pachodo.org thrashing out some cheap political propaganda material on behalf of the SPLM-DC.

I call this cheap political propaganda because it is efficaciously loaded with falsehood and exaggerations intended to incite hatred and enmity among the people of Upper Nile as well as to draw a wedge between the Chollo people and their compatriots in Southern Sudan. The ‘scourge earth war on the Chollo people by SPLA’ he authored can’t be allowed to go without response at least from responsible people. This is necessary to correct the falsehood that it was. I am aware of what has been happening in the Chollo Kingdom since the assassination of Kwanyireth Oyath and his entourage.

The SPLM-DC at the centre of the conflict in the Chollo Kingdom is a registered political party. It contested election and won, by all means including deceit, rigging, infiltration of the NEC, etc, nearly all the seats in the four Chollo Counties. It is true that its Chairperson and candidate for the presidency of the Government of Southern Sudan was defeated by a wide margin at the hands of the SPLM candidate General Salva Kiir Mayardit. Dr. Lam Akol refused to accept the elections results and went to court which subsequently dismissed his case. I did warn in one of my articles written immediately after the announcement of the elections results that Dr. Lam Akol’s failure to win the presidency of Government of Southern Sudan should not translate into aggression against the people of Southern Sudan.

I want to ask namesake, Dr. Peter Adwok Otto: Is it possible or rather permissible to engage in legal political work [registering a political party, conducting congresses, participating in parliamentary and presidential elections, etc.] alongside conducting illegal political actions [maintaining tribal militia in the Chollo Kingdom, having a parallel and invisible government structure: commissioners, police and security officers some of them still in the SPLA, Southern Sudan Police Service, National Security and Intelligence Service, Wildlife, Prisons and Fire fighters]; Can insurgents operate in the same terrain as the standing army and expect things to remain normal and peaceful? The SPLM-DC can’t operate doubly as an insurgent as well as a legitimate political party engaged in legality. Remember that ‘democracy’ and ‘illegality’ have never shared one bed.

Let us be frank; there is an undeclared war going on in Pachodo County in the Chollo Kingdom between the SPLA and the SPLM-DC. The civil population in the area is falling prey because the elements of the SPLM-DC have been ordered by their Commander in Chief deliberately not to wear military uniform in order to confuse the SPLA pursuing them. This is to achieve exactly the same effect reaction from the Chollo in the towns and in the Diaspora when there are civilian casualties. What is happening is typical of any counterinsurgency. However if the insurgency was for a just political cause the people, the civilian population affected by the counterinsurgency tactics of the government, always took it without much qualms what they did was to move deeper into the forest to escape the army incursions. This exactly is what happened during the Anya-nya in the sixties and during the war of liberation spearheaded by the SPLM/A. Many of our people were murdered, raped, brutalised, etc, by the Sudanese army because they supported the insurgency believing rightly the cause was just.

If the SPLM-DC decided to declare war on the Government of Southern Sudan because its Chairperson was defeated in the presidential race then it is up to the Chollo intellectuals, who are now very vocal about what is going on, and civil population make a clear cut decision whether or not the SPLM-DC war is a cause worth dying for. Let nobody be confused or ensnared into believing that dying for Dr. Lam Akol to become president of Government of Southern Sudan is equal and similar to dying for the right of the people of Southern Sudan to self-determination. What is happening in the Chollo Kingdom will not derail the exercise by the people of Southern Sudan of their inalienable right to self-determination in the internationally supervised referendum on January 9^th, 2011.

In his piece Dr. Peter Adwok Otto put the example of the three bulls in a wrong and unfitting situation. In fact the SPLM-DC by its distractive actions is playing the role of and indeed assisting the lion (read the ruling Arab dominated northern political elite) to subdue into slaves permanently the people of Southern Sudan. I vividly recall the talk by some of the SPLM-DC elements whom we met in Wijrek during the elections campaign when they said that ‘Dr. Lam says we will be settled in brick houses in Kenana’. This obvious shallow deception of poor and ignorant peasants in order to undertake a criminal act borders on treason. Why can’t these brick houses be built in their homes or in Kodhok the nearest County H/Qs?

The disarmament process is ubiquitous throughout southern Sudan. When we talk about this process and the concomitant violence and atrocities we have to be responsible in what we say unless the objective is to only to incite or gain political mileage. In many places in Southern Sudan the process has resulted in many deaths due to resistance from the local people themselves afraid of becoming victims of cattle raiding or reprisals by neighbours. In the Chollo Kingdom it is important to recall how these weapons were brought in and by whom. The Chollo people don’t engage in cattle rustling or other violent illegal practices and therefore don’t need fire arms at all. It is an open secret that the light weapons were brought into the Chollo Kingdom through the agency of the National Security and Intelligence Service in order to fight the Dinka aggression in the eastern part of the Kingdom triggered by the attack on Anakdiar and Abanimo in January 2009. Nonetheless we are yet to witness the battles in eastern part of the Chollo Kingdom involving these SPLM-DC elements. Did they mistake for Padang Dinka the SPLA deployed in west bank from Tonga in the south to Wad Akon in the north?

Some of these SPLM-DC officers, call them commanders, had wanted to start reconciliation talks through the auspices of the Reth. Why was this halted by Dr. Lam who instead ordered them to attack the SPLA garrisoned in Padhang and Lul? Did Dr. Peter Adwok Otto want the SPLA to just fold their arms across their chests and await slaughter? No army will do that even if they were poorly armed. I want Dr. Peter Adwok Otto to answer why did the SPLM-DC elements dressed in civilian clothes drive the civilians away from their homes was that to use them as a human shield or were they repeating the pattern of using the civilians in order to attract humanitarian assistance? This explains why the Tear Fund cars were carrying ammunitions alongside the humanitarian assistance in form of drugs, etc to the wounded in Orinyo and Kal Agany. The SPLM-DC is now responsible for the disaster in Gar particularly in Wic Rek and Pachodo; its leaders are responsible for the death of children and elderly people now plugged out from their natural environment in their homes.

What bad thing did the Chollo people do to Dr. Lam to deserve such treatment? Didn’t they give him support when he was the commander of Northern Upper Nile (1987/88) until he and his forces finished all their cows, goats and sheep. When Lam forces did not protect them from the SAF forces they migrated enmasse to Jebelien (1989/90) where the Sabah Arabs slaughtered over two thousand of these people displaced from their homes by Dr. Lam and his SPLA forces. Didn’t the same people welcome and accept Dr. Lam Akol into their ranks when Dr. Riek Machar humiliated and unceremoniously dismissed him from the SPLM/A-United in February 1994?

The people who carried Dr. Lam Akol shoulder high are the ones he betrayed in 2005 when he refused to have them integrated into the SPLA on account of them being illiterate but instead selected his relatives and sent them to the SPLA GH/Qs for integration. The bulk were left in the cold categorised as ‘unconfirmed names’ or ‘monydit’ who roamed our homes in Juba scavenging for assistance. Instead of turning their anger and frustration against their former commander in chief many of them came back to the Chollo Kingdom boiling anger against the SPLM led government and quickly Dr. Lam Akol transformed into his private militia. It was the height of cynicism when Dr. Lam Akol from the comfort of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs appointed the commissioner of Manyo County Mr. Aywok Ogat combining this with another assignment of commanding his slave army deployed in the ‘gum Arabic’ project in the county (2006/2007). This project almost precipitated a war between the SAF and SPLA. The incursion of SAF into the area on behest of the gum Arabic traders prompted the SPLA deployment in Manyo County.

So Dr. Peter Adwok Otto, my namesake, I don’t buy your statement that Salva Kiir has a secret agenda pertaining to Padang Kingdom otherwise if in fact you had cautioned Mr. Pagan Amum then it was in vain. This is because the Jieng are acephalous society they don’t have kings or kingdoms- check your information well; being a medical officer you must always make deductions from factual evidence.

The Padang-Dinka aggression and lust for Chollo land can’t be resolved by the methods adopted by Dr. Lam Akol and his SPLM-DC which neatly fits into the schemes of the Islamists and northern colonialists to prevent the logical conclusion of the CPA implementation. It is common knowledge that this was a long drawn out treacherous plan the SPLM-DC and other ensnared peoples are implementing; the Chollo Kingdom and its people are just being sacrificed. The conflict over land is not peculiar to the Chollo Kingdom; it is a headache in all parts of Southern Sudan. I believe the violence among the people associated with land is the manipulation by the political and military elite. Had the committee on the issues of border conflicts, headed by the Vice president of GOSS, started its work I believe much of the anguish our people are going through would have been stopped.

It is the hurry to translate other peoples’ mistakes into one’s political asset that underpins the bloodletting in the Chollo Kingdom today. The SPLM-DC leaders have burnt their fingers pulling and hatching many plots and conspiracies at one and the same time. Some of these would definitely back or misfire. The cold blood killing of the paramount chief of Panyikango and his entourage has back fired. The SPLM-DC is undergoing de-legitimisation and may soon be outlawed in Southern Sudan.

Peter Adwok Nyaba

Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research

Government of National Unity

Khartoum