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(June 30th 2009)

SALVA KIIR AND THE MISUSE OF THE PULPIT

The church is a place for worship so venerable because it preaches love and reconciliation and abhors hatred and conflict. It is the place that brings all kinds of people together united in their faith but not necessarily in anything else.

Hence, the laymen who are given the opportunity to speak in the church must not abuse others as this will mean abusing the message of the church itself.

H.E. Salva Kiir, the President of the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS), did precisely that when he spoke in the church on Sunday the 28th of June 2009. He used the pulpit to mount a personal attack on Dr Lam Akol, Chairman of the SPLM-DC. H.E. Salva was right when he mentioned more than once that supporters of the SPLM-DC were there in the congregation, for we had several scores of them listening. Thus, our information is first-hand and indisputable. His message was that Dr Lam Akol has practically abandoned the cause of the people of southern Sudan. He alleged that Dr Lam mounted the 1991 Nasir move to frustrate the imminent capture of Juba that would have entrenched Dr John Garang as leader of the South; that he declared the formation of the SPLM-DC to stop the separation of Southern Sudan and that he is getting funds from the Arab world to derail the process of southern separation claiming that he has documents which members of the congregation can look at. In other words, H.E. Salva and Co. are the champions of separation of the South while Dr Lam Akol is obstructing that! We intend to deal with his baseless allegations.

Before we do so, it is incumbent upon us to register an important point. Since the launching of the SPLM-DC, we deliberately avoided saying anything about H.E. Salva Kiir for the obvious reason that although he appears to be holding the steering wheel he is not actually the one driving the car, so to speak. Therefore, we did not beat around the bush and pointed the finger where the problem lay.  Now that he chose to fire the first bullet, he cannot possibly blame us for returning the fire in self-defence!  Even in doing so, we will refrain from using all our weapons, as we have not yet declared an all-out war of words.

The most obvious remark to make is that H.E. Salva and Co are not sensitive even to those still with them from the former SPLM/A-Nasir. That move was led by none other than Dr Riek Machar who is now his deputy in both the Government and the party.  Also, a number of persons who are Ministers and Governors in the GOSS and GONU were leaders in the Nasir move. So, what he is alleging to be the purpose of Dr Lam for that move must indeed be really Dr Riek's. Dr Riek was not a dummy in the Nasir move as some people are today but a real leader who knew what he was doing. Coming to the substance of the allegation itself, it is not true that the Nasir move was to frustrate the attack on Juba at that time for no plan like that was known to the members of the Political-Military High Command including the three Commanders that were in Nasir. Even if it were to be accepted, for argument sake, that there were such a plan to capture Juba, it is absolutely simplistic to suggest that the capture of Juba would have meant the capture of the whole Southern Sudan. Many important towns, including Malakal and Wau, were still in enemy hands.  So, his allegation does not stand close scrutiny.  However H.E. Salva Kiir and Co. attempt to deny, history records that it is the Nasir move that brought the right of self-determination back into the Sudanese political agenda.

It can be discerned from H.E. Salva's remark on the formation of the SPLM-DC that he is questioning the purpose as well as the timing of it. It will be worthless here to repeat what we stated as the reasons behind the birth of the SPLM-DC since H.E. Salva Kiir and Co. have chosen to look for different reasons.  We better deal with him in the field he has chosen.  It is a well known fact that Salva Kiir staged a coup in November 2004 against Dr John Garang, just a month before the conclusion of agreement on the protocols of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in Naivasha. May we ask him, following his logic, whether he was doing so to sabotage the signing of the CPA? Why would his timing be acceptable and the timing of others be suspect?

The correspondence H.E. Salva Kiir is talking about relates to a letter forged in Juba (we are grateful to him for his admission that he is the source!) and distributed there which we responded to in a press statement at the time. Since the Church congregation cannot possibly get access to the files of the President of GOSS, the only sensible thing to do is to publish the alleged correspondence, as they have already done with the one referred to above. We challenge him to do so. Talking about money, we know where the SPLM gets its money from and at what cost. Those in glass houses should not throw stones.

The most audacious claim in H.E. Salva Kiir's speech is that he is the champion of separation and that Dr Lam is against that. This is a tall claim belied by the facts on the ground. Just to mention one instance, H.E. Salva Kiir himself, on the behest of the Northerners now surrounding him, said in a public rally in Khartoum organized by the Northern Sector of the SPLM in April 2008 that they are the champions of the unity of Sudan, that the first bullet they shot was against Southern separatists and blamed the National Congress Party for having embraced the separatists (a reference to the Khartoum and Fashoda Peace Agreements).  How does His Excellency explain off this strong statement or when was he converted to separatism? Are his Northern friends against Dr Lam Akol and Dr Riek Machar because the two are unionists? Please, respect the intellects of Southerners. The problem with H.E. Salva Kiir is that he is failing to realize that in this age of information technology you cannot be saying one thing in Cairo, another in Juba and yet a different one in Nairobi without being discovered in a few minutes. The congregation he addressed is already aware of his inconsistencies because they have heard a lot of it before.

Again how can H.E. Salva Kiir and Co. claim champion of Separation of the South Sudan when the GoSS administration under them squandered all the money of the South Sudan to the tune of over $7 billion  and moreover the   people of South Sudan have been left to suffer from tribalism, marginalization, nepotism, injustice and insecurity. In recent months over a  thousand people had been killed in Southern Sudan via  ethnic clashes which had been exacerbated by tribalism practice in Juba which  in turn reverberates to all the villages and towns where today we have the issue of violence and deaths exceeding those  in Darfur for the same period, according to recent report by the UN. Do  such mistreatment of the South Sudan masses under the administration of HE Salva Kiir and Co make self determination  attractive or all such malpractices  tend to make unity  attractive to the Southerners if we may ask HE Salva Kiir and Co?

We end by giving two pieces of advice. One to the SPLM under H.E. Salva Kiir, and it is that they better stop hiding their heads in the sand and address the issues raised by the SPLM-DC seriously. Looking for scapegoats and attempts at character assassinations will not help an iota. The second is to the church leaders. Please, do not allow your services to be abused by people who are unable to face the masses in public rallies; otherwise the churches will be deserted.

 

The Information Department ,

SPLM-DC

Khartoum