SOUTHERN SUDANESE WRITINGS COULD UNDERMINE UNITY AND SOLIDARITY OF SOUTHERN PEOPLE.

April 2, 2010- The emergence of the internet revolution seems to have brought an adverse and destructive effect on the southern Sudanese communities.

Whereas the southern educated group left over by the Anglo-Egyptian administration through the successive northern Sudanese governments up to the ten years of the High Executive Council [H.E.C] governments of the south kept themselves one and indivisible, and whereas it was thought that the 22 years of the SPLM/A struggle had molded the southern youth into a strong united and solid force ready to govern a just, stable, peaceful and democratic independent south Sudan, especially that the right of the southern people to decide their own future in a referendum to be carried out in the southern Sudan, had been guaranteed in the CPA,it is regrettable that the writings of the southerners these days including those of the most and highly educated ones, seem to undermine and in fact could disrupt the aspirations and the desired togetherness of the southern people.

The SPLM/A split 1991,the massacre of the Bor people, the killing of the Gajak,the Nasir group giving the SAF passage to attack the SPLM/A, the Kokora,the 75 Shilluk officers killed at Tonga by shilluk against shilluk ,the murder of the Nuer and Shilluk cut to the area under the control of the SPLM/A mainstream and the Dinkas under the Nasir faction and so on, are now the occupations of the southern writers.Dr.Riak Machar ,the V/President of the GOSS, but chairman of the defunct SSIM of 1991,is being condemned for touching down on Bor soil before apologizing to the Bor people for the massacre of the Bor people by the Nuer in 1991.The Nuers have their own stories against late Dr.Garang and other Dinka military leaders of similar atrocities or worst inflicted on their people at the time

The fall of President Idi Amin of Uganda in 1979, brought in to Juba a lot of Equatorian citizens who had found work in Uganda during their time of refuge there and could not come home after Addis Ababa Agreement 1972. There were also some returnees who had been borned there because their parents had moved to Uganda during the colonial era. Of course, unlike the present GOSS, which took over in the south in 2005, just to find itself wading in oil, the H.E.C had nothing to deliver to their kith and kin who had lost a great kingdom in East Africa . The upkeep of those sophisticated families was bound to result into something unexpected like Kokora. Now again, although the Equatorians had agreed to accommodate the capital of the south to be permanently in Juba , they are now locked in debate with others about lands ownership. A glance at the comments of southerners in the Sudan Tribune newspaper reveals a disgusting picture of tribal abuses and confrontations, sometimes expressed in local languages. Some writers praise the GOSS V/President while at the same time condemn the President as being incompetent thus conveying a message of a house divided against itself.

Under these circumstances, we the southerner elders must ask this generation of anarchy [1983-2010], what sort of country are they going to make of the south, given that there is enough evidence that the south in all probability is likely to vote for secession in the referendum January, 2010? The 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement stipulated among other things that all crimes of various natures committed in the south Sudan during the 17 years civil war, and in furtherance of the execution of that war, were not subject to prosecution or litigation in the court of law. Hence, the ten years of the H.E.C. administration in the south went smoothly and peacefully, with hardly any incidences of tribal or sectional or clan violence or even political confrontations. The only problem one can recall was the situation created by the one party system in the country. The Sudanese Socialist Union Party was established in 1971, one year before Addis Agreement March, 3rd 1972. The veteran politicians, who lost elections in December 1973, could not be appointed in the H.E.C. However, a few of them were appointed to the National Assembly Khartoum. They staged a go back to Juba by fitting General Joseph Lagu against Abel Alier thus the birth of a two party grouping which culminated into further decentralization of the south followed by the 16th May, 1983 SPLM/A rebellian at Bor. Another case in point is the South African confession of guilt for crimes committed during the apartheid period. I think the south should try to adopt some of these criteria.

The SPLM party being in power in the south must initiate enlightenment programs and civic training in schools, military, government departments, and the political party's activists so as to build a responsible solid and united society capable of running an independent sovereign state. Collective responsibility for decisions by a political party or a government cabinet or an organization should be taken serious to guide our moral, ethical and political conducts in meetings, discussions, and plannings and so on. Sectional or tribal or family concerns should not be the basis of our decision-making. In employment or promotion or recommendation or selection or voting we should be guided by justice, equity and good conscious. With this in mind we shall by the grace of God build a prosperous country of our own.

The author is a South Sudanese currently living the United States ; he can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.