MY COUNTRY DIVIDED

We need not be surprised or annoyed by the way Mr. Mohamed Ali Salih is belittling us the Southern Sudanese as people who have only got our independence through others. He contends that had America pressured the southerners to accept unity, we would have voted for the same.

This is the same mentality held by the northern riverian elites who inherited the political power from the British and those who have followed them up to the 9th January, 2011, when the South burnt its boats and voted for secession. Prime Minister, H.E. Ismail El Ahzari described the southern struggle as," a storm in a tea cup." With the same mentality of intransigence and contempt, he sent a telegraphic message to the south in 1955," To my administrators in the southern provinces: Do not listen to the childish complaints of the southerners. Southerners are very simple; they understand the language of force.

Southerners should be treated according to my orders. Ill treats them, oppress them, and persecute them according to my orders. After six months time you will all come to Khartoum and enjoy the fruits of your labour." That message sparked the Torit incident on August18, 1955, Mr. Mohamed Ali has unfortunately expressed his complete ignorance of the reasons why the southerners continually persisted to struggle against the northern domination. He therefore needs some lessons on the many stages taken by southerners before they finally opted for secession. The southern MPS on 19th December, 1955 voted for independence of the Sudan with the understanding that the country was to be federated into states of south and north. That parliamentary resolution was immediately thrown into the dust bin after the declaration of independence.

In the Round-Table-Conference 1965, the three southern political parties which attended the conference presented their positions as follows: 1. Sanu Outside (Aggrey Jaden) with 5 delegates for separation. 2. Sanu Inside (William Deng) with 4 delegates for Federation. 3. Southern Front (Clement Mboro) with 9 delegates for self-determination. The resolutions of the 12 men committee of that RTC were again given cold-storage.
The Addis Ababa Accord granted the south a regional government and the Unity of the country was very much publicized, but the north later agreed to have the agreement abrogated. President Nemeiry influenced by Sadiq El Mahdi and Hassan El Turabi cut the branch of tree on which he was sitting. He said Addis Ababa accord was not the Bible of the Christians and not the Koran of the Moslems. He introduced Islamic Laws for the whole country. The SPLM/A struggled for a New Sudan for 22 years, hence the CPA which resulted in the ordinary southern citizen casting his vote for secession.

Mr. Mohamed Ali needs to know that the southerners are not angry only because the northerners had enslaved them or calling them ibid or infidels. The northern activities in the south since the departure of the British have made the southern people to reach a point of no return in favour of final good bye to the northerners. What is it? Converting a Christian chief to Islam or Christian born children or turning Christian schools into Islamic or turning churches into mosques or making a Christian teacher or politician a Muslim or else he loses his government employment. How does Mohamed Ali justify Jihad in a civil war in one country?

His people called the southern teacher responsible for the education of their children an infidel. Their teacher who had worked in the south had a gun to defend himself against threats from those southerners whose children he was converting to Islam. How does he justify the senseless killing, massacres rape, sodomisation, burning people, throwing military officers working with them down in the bush or sudd by helicopters? Mohamed Ali is a man who knows nothing about the Sudan as a whole leave aside the southern people and the land called The South Sudan.

James Ogilo Agor, He can be reached at  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.