| Saturday, May 17, 2008 | |
| Machakos Protocol | |
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| Let Democracy Choose Its Friends Among the SPLM Contenders |
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In my
opinion, let whoever thinks he can lead the SPLM better come up, and let
democracy chooses its friend amongst the contenders in the environment
of fairness and freedom of vote by the delegates. No intimidation and no
insults; the time of campaign is over! it is the time of reality
choice. The time of appointments and favoritism from the leaders is
gone; it is now the time of election and choice of the people for their
preferred leaders who they think can deliver... |
| Why Dr. Machar isn't the right person for the top job of SPLM and South Now |
 The
non-nationalistic and betrayal move by Dr. Riek Machar’s support based
counties of Dok Nuers, Unity State, is too late and insignificant in its
scope. The move confirmed, among other things, Dr. Machar’s lust for
power. The prospect of Riek becoming leader of SPLM has been damaged
beyond any repair with this last minute political rebellion by few Nuers.
With due respect, Dr. Machar is weak and can not run a nation still in
war footing unless the South Sudanese want the hard won CPA to go down
the drain like other agreements.... |
| A sample of opinions by southerners on those contending leadership at the SPLM 2nd National Convention in Juba |
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Constitutional office holders
shall, during their tenure of office, neither practice any private
profession, transact commercial business, nor receive remuneration or
accept employment of any kind from any source other than the Government
of Southern Sudan (GOSS), or a State Government as the case may be.” The
point I want to make is, we should not be afraid to talk negatively
about any person working with the GOSS because article 28 (1) and (2)
gave us all the rights to express our feeling about our leaders in the
GOSS.... |
| Nuer community endorses Dr. Riek Machar for SPLM chairmanship |
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Political competition in Southern Sudan has taken a
dramatic turn Tuesday after Nuer community endorsed Dr. Riek Machar Teny to challenge SPLM chairman general Salva Kiir Mayardit from his
position in the wake of the second SPLM national convention due later
today. The community accused the SPLM leadership of secretly planning a
move to kick out Dr. Riek Machar from his current position as the first
SPLM deputy chairman... |
| NEW Impending SPLM Power Struggle: An open message to members of SPLM |
 The
rumor that there will be some sort of power struggle among the members
of SPLM is an unfortunate scenario that we should avoid by all means and
at all costs dear brothers and sisters. Our struggle with the true enemy
is far from over. We need to come together more than ever and
consolidate our efforts to realize total freedom for which we have been
fighting for decades... |
| Advising SPLM members to the 2nd Juba Convention: Personal viewpoint |
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An advice to the South Sudan
ruling party, the SPLM, that the greater challenge facing all of us
regardless of partisan politics are:- the corruption and the lack of
development across the land. The delegations to the SPLM convention are
tasked with the party's and nation's business as far as the SPLM
position in the GOSS is concerned. It must come out with a very clear
vision of where GOSS/SPLM is leading the South Sudan to.... |
| Salva Kiir: Shedding the tears of failure |
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Crying during the funeral was a
clear sign of failure and weakness of the present leadership in South
Sudan; President Kirr knows that he has failed to achieve development
for the people of south to the required or expected standard, that is
why he is crying, that is why bad things happen and people die all the
time because of this weakness to develop ourselves to international
standards... |
| Expected Results from SPLM’s 2nd Convention NEW |
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The 10thMay,
2008 will mark an important point in the long awaited democratization
within political parties in the Sudan before they opt to rule the
Country. Here a movement which has been struggling for two decades
(plus) against injustice in sharing political powers, economic wealth,
and security arrangements, and also against the hegemony of Arab (Jellaba)
and Islamic culture, will show the whole country, Africa and the
world... |
| Will Oslo II be different from Oslo I? |
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Immediately after CPA was signed
three years ago, donors and all those who appointed themselves to care
for the developing world met in Oslo and promised to turn Sudan in
general and Southern Sudan in particular into Paradise on earth. Huge
sum of money was pledged for the reconstruction and development of
Southern Sudan. The so called MDTF (Multi-Donors Trust Funds) is doing
very little if any at all here in Southern Sudan... |
| Rumbek Plane Crash: Exposing the Fickleness of GOSS Leaders NEW |
 Both
GOSS and the SPLM will have to do more soul-searching at this critical
time in the history of South Sudan, and ask the apparently not-so-obvious
question: What is development? Development is not about flying high in
outdated airplanes nor is it about staying in a foreign owned
200-dollar-per-night tented hotel in Juba... |
| Southern Sudan locked in dependency syndrome: Southerners are grumbling |
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Mr. Kuol Athain, South Sudan’s Minister of
Finance and Economic Planning swivels in a leather chair behind a shiny
mahogany desk, in an air-conditioned office that has taken the
government three years to renovate, and answers why the Government of
Southern Sudan won’t construct housing estates to solve a housing
crisis. Despite billions in contracts, the region is not short of
misery. Misery is in schools, and it’s in rundown hospitals. It
manifests itself in the infrastructure, and it’s right behind Mr.
Athain’s office... |
| The Politics of Panic in Southern Sudan |
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The population census saga within the framework of the
government of southern Sudan (GoSS) is very painfully amusing and
embarrassing. The Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM) politicians
in both the GoSS and the government of national unity (GoNU) appear to
be operating under a tremendous weight of political confusion and
uncertainty. The public does not know who is in charge of the GoSS. The
GoSS looks like an institution which is being governed and managed by
human impulse.... |
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After having traveled wide, I
feel that I really have to say what I will be saying now regardless of
those whose interests may get threatened. We the people of south Sudan
have had the unique experience of being passed on several occasions from
one colonial master to the other. We did experience the French and the
Belgium misrule in the Lado Enclave (today’s Greater Equatoria), Fashoda,
and the Greater Bahr el Ghazal... |
| The Challenges of Democracy in Pre and Post Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement SPLM/A |
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The origin of the democratic
shortfall in South Sudan did not start when the so-called Sudan's CPA
was concluded but rather it has been in existence since the birth of
SPLA/M. This pattern of democratic deficit has been a long developed
culture in liberated areas where there was no coordination between SPLA
and the SPLM on how the movement should be conducted. Thus, the poor
relations between president and the executive and legislature in GOSS,
and the dissatisfaction... |
| Problems and lack of vision facing Kiir's leadership |
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It is perhaps not surprising
that, despite the formation of the Government of national Unity (GNU)
between the two main parties of Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM)
and the National Congress party (NCP), any one with modicum of common
sense could have seen that the CPA wouldn’t work to bringing to an end
the suffering of the black original people of Sudan.... |
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There is barely less than a year
left to hold elections in the Sudan, a time that should call for serious
groundwork on the part of all political parties. SPLM and NCP are
already doing mass sensitization. Yet others are still infighting among
themselves. This is the fate of most opposition parties in Africa. Early
preparation is... |
| Why is South Sudan always Loosing At The Presidency? |
 The
government of south Sudan (GOSS) has continuously expressed its
discontent about the inadequacy in the preparation for the census. Now
that the GOSS has lost at the Presidency
(photo) again in regards to participation in the Census, it
is time that it reviews the way it takes its decisions. Why is it that
always it is the GOSS (of Salva Kiir) who looses at the Presidency? Can
SPLM work out a formula which can help them win even once?.... |
| Why the United States should support a future State in South Sudan NEW |
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Most African people rightly
believe that the Western World and it's media are bias, unfair and
racist at best, especially when the dark-skinned Africans are concerned. A legitimate case can be made that race has everything to do with it when the West heartlessly and shamelessly stood by while over two millions people from South Sudan (mostly Christians) were butchered over the... |
| Editorial: |
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SPLM 2nd National Convention: Ensuring SPLM Failures and Power Abuses? |
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Quote: “How many high sounding speeches and declarations do nothing but justify the oppression of the poor, the marginalization of certain ethnic groups, the violence and cruelty of the strong, the further victimization of the victimized.” Cardinal Gabriel Z. Wako, Khartoum, Dec. 2007 Coming almost 21 years after the last one, this Second SPLM/A National Convention in Juba is eerily a relic of State-organized and sponsored communist Soviet Union-era politburo grandiosity. Typical of the dead communist party system, the “elected” chairman of the State Caucus becomes automatically the State governor. What a way to create ‘dictators’ in the states! In more civilized and democratic societies, the State governor and the party caucus chairman are separate to ensure primarily a check and balance system and avert abuse of power. One pertinent issue that must now be raised and defined explicitly is the separation of the SPLM from the SPLA. The Army must remain outside of any party politics and neutral and not be always seen as the ‘muscle-boys' of the Movement politicians. In hindsight, perhaps Lt.Gen. Dominic Dim Deng and his SPLA men would be alive today if they'd stayed neutral of SPLM politics. Furthermore, the exercise from the grassroots up to the election of the more than 1540 delegates was suspiciously undemocratic and grossly manipulated, and an unnecessarily gargantuan waste of money. Since assuming power in Juba and in the Khartoum’s GONU, the SPLM has been deliberately evasive and secretive of declaration of its assets. This is very important because the lingering suspicion among many southerners is that our scarce money is being illegally diverted from GOSS and passed on to SPLM, which shouldn’t be. Definitely, it is high time that the people of South, who have been irresponsibly and cruelly denied any development or peace dividends despite the billions of dollars received by President Kiir, should be acquainted of good governance, transparency and the rule of law. It is therefore imperative that the SPLM tell the people where it got the money from and how much, to launch this classical political exhibitionism. Already, many within the party have bitterly complained about the absolute and shameless lack of and abuse of due democratic processes in several states and regions across the Sudan. Apparently, most delegates “elected” are mostly favorable to the leadership of Kiir, to ensure his and that of his sycophants and intriguers assured election. President Kiir and his SPLM/A “rulers,” in a fit of bloated exuberance and super-ego, have set themselves on the path of yet another era of domination and misrule in the South. After languorous three-year tenure, marred by poor implementation of the CPA and development deliverance, it is clear that the SPLM has practically failed the people of south Sudan and the marginalized areas. Corruption, the bane of Kiir’s rule, is phenomenally spirally out of control, because Kiir himself is not willing to control it. Otherwise, how else can he sustain the vital political support and appease his own tribal people, who are claiming almost all credit for 'winning the war of liberation?' Are these people now being rewarded this way? Ethnic domination, as revealed in the aftermath of the Rumbek plane crash, has become a permanent feature of the political leadership. It is absolutely incredulous to belatedly realize that there were more Twic clan (besides Gogrial county) people of President Kiir in the government than all the combined tribes of both Western and Eastern Equatoria States. If the SPLM delegates are serious, it should be an opportunity and time for them to stop infighting and indulgence in characteristic ludicrous SPLM political shenanigans, and start solving the myriad of issues confronting the CPA and our fate and future. Abyei and the North-South Border demarcation are issues more crucial in their resolution than looking forward to participation in the coming national elections, or proliferating an unpopular SPLM and its leader in the north, an agenda sinisterly pursued by the minority unionists of Yassir Arman in the Convention. It should be imperative for the delegates to declare that if these two issues and others as stipulated in the CPA are not resolved, then there will be NO ELECTIONS IN 2009. South Sudan should demand for a binding international arbitration. Otherwise, either the 2011 Referendum on Self-determination is brought forward or else, South Sudan opted for Unilateral Declaration of Independence. Salva Kiir and his government must not repeat the inexplicable prevarication and dithering on crucial decisions on issues, such as that witnessed during the census debacle, which has proved a total failure in the country. Tough decisions are required of the delegates. That would be a fitting pay back and recompense to the aggrieved people of the south by these delegations, whose millions are stolen to fund and fete ostentatiously, them delegates in Nyakuron and at the 300 dollars-a-night hotels in Juba. As some one once said: “Never in the field of human conflict has so few benefited so much from the innocent blood of so many men, women and children.” Don't over milk the South! |
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| OPINIONS: |
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SPLM 2nd National Convention: Ensuring SPLM Failures and Power Abuses? Read Editorial below: |
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YOUR LETTERS |
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Verbatim: |
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Quote: Mr. Telar Deng called
on the SPLM to prove that the SPLM is an institutional body that
adheres to rules and regulations. "If they fail to do that they will not
be qualified to lead Sudan during the coming period," he said. He said
the methods applied by SPLM at present will lead to a dead-end and will
never enable SPLM to become a democratic party. "How can you advocate
democracy when you are not democratic?" he asked, stressing that SPLM
should reorganize its internal affairs before calling on others to do
the same. (Sudanvision, April 5, 08)
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POLITICS & FEATURES |
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Comrade
Pagan, when I read your interview with the New Sudan Vision
dated Dec.22.2007, you've insulted me, and I couldn't believe
how power can change the haunted lamb of yesterday into a
vicious wolf directing a salvo of his vengeance guns..
In
its last meeting in Juba, the SPLM Interim Political Bureau (IPB)
resolved on the 11th instant that its ministers in the
Government of National Unity (GONU) will have to stay at home
until the reshuffle of the SPLM ministers in the GONU is
effected. The public should not be misled about the SPLM
resolution.... 
There
is no doubt that the beloved President of the autonomous
Southern Sudan region, Lt. Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit, was and to
some degree still is a very humble, selfless liberator of his
besieged people. However, now that the General is in a different
position, occupying the Region's top post, he must work hard to
do away with his....