Open Letter to GOSS: Who is to blame for the moral decay in South Sudan?

By Sarah James Ajith Awoul; May 22, 2008.

One Sunday I heard one of our church leaders complaining bitterly to God about the moral corruption that has hit our country, but on behalf of God, this blame, complaint or prayer, is very unfair and misdirected.

God has given us the CPA, brought us to Juba, given us our daily life, and monitors our spiritual lives. Is he to blame also for anything wrong with our physical, social and political lives?

I am hereby redirecting this prayer from God to GOSS, our government of southern Sudan, especially the organ that claims to be responsible for the laws that safeguard the lives of the citizens.

Yes, we are too busy; too engaged in current and urgent matters such as implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), attending meetings here and there, chasing big business deals day and night: all in the name of building the nation. But which nation is being built without a foundation?

As a mother, I know that a family is the nucleus, the foundation of a nation, and we have a common saying that "a leader who has failed to bring up a family will definitely fail the nation." It is worth noting that this nation is made up of thousands of families.

This is the nation I refer to as collapsing from moral decay. Everyone is aware of what I am complaining about, even foreigners who could be held responsible for the destruction of our cultural values and moral lives are making fun of it. This is serious! Our fish is beginning to rot from its head; the country is socially wasting away from the top!

For instance, rumors of sex scandals are roaming the town in the name of our government’s senior officials. The fancy accommodations along the River in Juba are the hot spots for these indecent scandals, not forgetting the so-called new 'Sodom and Gomorrah' - the Customs and Konyo-Konyo markets.

To call a spade a spade and give the devil its real name, I have been troubled by an open confrontation that took place sometime recently at the Bros Hotel and the Civicon Hotel. In one of these two separate incidents, a wife of a big man openly attacked a Ugandan waitress, accusing and warning her to stop the dealing with her husband.

In the other similar scandal which took place at the Civicon Camp Hotel, the wife of a certain community chairman was armed to the teeth hunting for a Kenyan waitress who was involved in an extramarital affair with her husband.

These so–called friends are now on the run for their lives while our senior family whose head is responsible not only for two wives and thirteen children but also for the security or laws of the whole nation remains.

The same happened at the Rock Shield Room (16) and at Sun Flowers. These are just a few examples among thousand others that take place day and night in those tents and prefab hotels.

As a woman responsible not only for my family but the whole of my nation, I heap the whole blame, if not a curse, on two categories of victims - I call them victims for the reason you will find herein later – our husbands or wives and their God-damned girlfriends or boyfriends from East Africa and other parts of the world.

Not to be biased, women are not spared in these cases, either. Actually, the same rumors flying about their husbands in Juba here could be copied to wives back in Khartoum, Kampala or Nairobi, wherever. And we blame our children for joining the dance?

What our people should understand well about the influx of these 'angels  without borders' is their physical, social, economic, and political nature. This situation could now be well lectured on by one of our young boys whose Kenyan ‘fiancee’ escaped with 375,000 US dollars to Kenya.

Don’t ask me how he acquired the money and why he kept it with her. Some of these are not young virgins sent by their morally upright families to come and tap the overflowing milk and honey in Southern Sudan, neither do they come full of love to settle for marriage in Sudan. Most of them are street kids graduated to the ranks of prostitutes, thanks to cosmetics.

Economically, it should be understood that most of our husbands’ office managers or secretaries, hotel room attendants or waitresses, house girls, and the likes do not cross the border to southern Sudan with their money to invest. Simply put, they come with their bodies to invest. And what is in those bodies? HIV or Aids, plus other socially or sexually transmitted diseases.

One of the sexually transmitted diseases is syphilis, rampant nowadays and disrupting normal child deliveries in Southern Sudan, and one of the socially transmitted diseases is prostitution, which is responsible for family break-ups as seen in the examples hinted earlier on, leave alone being the major agent of Aids in our urban centers.

One overriding question in this open letter to all the Southern Sudanese is: who is responsible for safeguarding the moral lives of the citizens of a nation, especially our virgin nation now struggling to copy and paste the socio-economic set-ups of older nations?

The forefinger, as usual, goes to authorities like the government and the church. The thumb goes up, either to God or to the opposite achiever, whereas the rest of the three accusing fingers bend back to the pointer, the accuser, in this case, a Southern Sudanese, citizens like me and you. That is why I am writing about it. What are you, as a responsible individual, doing about it?

I am not ruling out the bigger percentage of the blame on the government, because, whether in a developed country like Britain or developing country like ours, it is the responsibility of the government, especially the law-making and law-enforcing organs of the nation.

No wonder some of the policemen and soldiers run some of the brothels (prostitute-infested hotels) in Customs and Konyo- Konyo, not to mention the porch structures along the Nile. Why doesn't the Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly, our parliament, debate about this social disaster, this ugly epidemic? What is the position of the SPLA/M or the GOSS’ department of discipline, if any, on some of their immoral officials?

Are we aware that sex scandals can lead to resignation or dismissal of a government figure, or is it not documented in our interim constitution? Ask any American about how they socially, politically or legally handle incidences of sex sagas, just as in the recent case of the World Bank president, Paul Wolferwitz and his girlfriend or President Bill Clinton’s case with his office manageress, Monica Lewinski.

There are many Lewinskis in the GOSS here but, on the one hand, talk about them only if you are ready to feel the metallic lips of a pistol kissing your forehead. On the other hand, never talk about them only if you are ready to see the spade heaping earth onto our men's graves in the cemetery.

To sum it up, I quote form one of the young Sudanese writers, John Penn de Ngong, from his two articles he published in the Sudan Mirror in July 2005 and in an online New Sudan Vision December 2007, respectively.

In his humor column called 'Master Tale-teller,' he prophetically wrote in an article headed: "we welcome only abandoned wives here."

“Another source of abundant abandoned women is the salaries .Those big fish with fat salaries will be tempted to marry a battalion of fresh babes, right from schools, and this will mean a family coup d’ tat that will push off the old mamas who got worn out from child bearing and load-bearing. Imagine how they have been faithfully dogging their husbands in and out of the ambushes in the bush since then. For me, these women are heroines,” he continued.

"In the world today, women‘s hearts are in the Pajeros, Prados, Mercedes Benzes and the like, which are always owned by men who've deserted their women and children. That Sudan now is being peopled by all races, be afraid, be very afraid! We've already witnessed how foreign employees, and businessmen and women are entitled to a big YES from home women or men haven’t we – aren’t they?”

That is the socio-economic outlook, but the socio-political warning about the double face of the prostitutes or sex workers, John Penn de Ngong wrote from his book of poetry titled “The Black Christ's of Africa”, sourced to his online column, “The Three-Eyed Watchman“ (newsudanvision.com), quoting the late P.W. Botha, a former South African Apartheid president, saying :

“As the records show that the Black man is dying to go to bed with a white woman, here is our unique opportunity. Our sex squad should go out and camouflage with apartheid fighters and quietly administer the chemical weapons. White men in the squad should go for the militant Black Women and any other vulnerable Black Women. We’ve received a new supply of prostitutes from Europe and America who are desperate to take up the ]appointments.”

With these fresh prostitutes from East Africa, is it difficult for our enemy to turn them into sex squads against our modern apartheid fighters? Woe to the money-blinded men and women of Southern Sudan!

NB: The writer is a southern Sudanese, a mother of seven children and a deputy chairperson of Bor women community, a founder of CBO by a name of Jonglei women development association, (JOWDA) and a member of a women group, but her opinions may not necessarily reflect all the opinions of the Southern women or the media institution that publishes this article. She can be reached on Sarah_awel@yahoo.com

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