Mãjöķ

18/11/2022

Denay Jock Chagor Gubernatorial Republican Decree....

01/08/2021

Written by Bona Malual Madut Ring

South Sudan’s Martyrs Day: Martyrs, Martyrdom and Inspiration to draw from it

Friday, July 30, 2021 (PW) — After the untimely death of the founding father of the SPLM/A Dr. John Garang on July 30th 2005, the autonomousGovernment of Southern Sudan (GOSS) recognized this day as Martyrs Day. It was meant for the recognition and celebration the lives and ideals of the individuals and politicalgroups who resisted oppression, exploitation, domination and hegemony of the powers that pervaded the former Sudan and beyond. It is an occasion to appreciate and draw inspiration from martyrs’ courage, determination and risk-taking attitude.

Most significantly, a day for future generations remember and draw courage to deal with the contemporary challenges of social, economic, political and climatic change. This opinion hopes to make sense of the South Sudan’s Martyrs Day.

Who is a Martyr and Martyrdom?

A martyr is ‘someone who demonstrates extraordinary courage in the face of persecution or oppression’ for reasons of his or her identity, social, economic and political beliefs or aspirations and martyrdom is a ‘psychological readiness to suffer and sacrifice one’s life for a cause.’

During the Rivonia Trial on 20 April 1964, Nelson Mandela said, “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and to see realized. But, My Lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” Consider the utterances of Chief John Both Diu of Southern Front (SF) during the Juba Conference (18-21 October 1954) on Southern Sudan federation or separation debate.

He passionately asked of his colleagues, “may I draw your attention gentlemen, chiefs of all tribes, citizens present in this house, I should like to know whether you in this house want to be slaves or it will be better for you to be poor and free?” He then concluded, “we are here for freedom and not money.” Dr. John Garang De Mabiorcalled for a “New Sudan” – a secular, inclusive, plural, just and democratic state for the people of former Sudan. Martyrs let go of wealth, relationships, hobbies and life to follow through an important cause. Martyrs ‘are not defined,’ they are ‘made’ by self-less acts of sacrifice in the face of adversarial existential situations.

30th July – Martyrs’ Day

While the narrow and minimalist approach to South Sudan’s martyrs and martyrs focuses on the sacrifices made during the Sudan’s 2nd Civil War (1983-2005) – the war of liberation, maximalist perspective on the journey of South Sudan to independence is broader. The quest to be free from all kinds of oppression, exploitation, domination and hegemony, big or small, began over 100 years ago.

The long list of our martyrs started with those who died resisting slavery and slave tradesystem; to those who challenged forceful raw material extraction and deprivation by Turko-Egyptian occupation; To youth and native spiritual leaders who died for their vehement rejection to the evils of the Anglo-Egyptian condominium rule; And to our well-known martyrs of war against the Sudan’s Arab-Islamic neocolonial domination and hegemony.

On the 30th July every year we have the obligation to remember, thank and draw aspiration from the ideals for which our martyrs sacrificed. We remember and appreciate the South Sudanese who died while attempting to liberate Rumbek from the Turko-Egyptian occupation forces in 1883; We praise the Aliab Dinka heroes who were persecuted after the killing of the Governor of Mogalla Province in the Aliab land in 1919; We recognize and drew courage from the Nyuong-Nuer fighters such as Gatkek Jiek Puoch (hanged), Chuol Weng Khor (hanged) and Chief Dang-Dungjiek(mysterious death in jail in Malakal), in cold-blood between 1929-1931 for their contribution in the murder of an Anglo-Egyptian District Commissioner at Lake Jorr (Tayar) in December 1927; and inspiration,,,,n from Guek NgundengBong of Lou-Nuer who was killed for resisting the Anglo-Egyptian colonial rule among his people. We do not stop there. South Sudanese recognize the martyrdom of various South Sudanese who died in the massacres of 1960s and 1970s in different cities (Wau, Bor, Juba, Akobo, Malakal) for resisting the Arab-Islamic domination and hegemony; We remember sacrifices and celebrate the lives of William Deng Nhial, Aggrey Jadden, Fr. Saturnino Lohure, Gordon Muortat Mayen and all the Anyanya I leaders and fighters; We give special place to the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/ Army fighters, leaders, and South Sudan civilians who died in the course of the 21 years of civil war in order to deliver the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) on 09 January 2005,which gave birth to the ‘right to self-determination’ plebiscite and the subsequent independence of the Republic of South Sudan on 9th July 2011. We owe a great deal to the Anyanya II/ SPLM/A leaders, particularly Dr. John Garang De Mabior,Samuel G*i Tut, Akuot Atem Mayen, Kerubino Kuany Bol, William Nyuon Bany Machar, Vincent Kuany Latjor, Joseph Oduho, Arok Thon Arok, Nyacigak Nyaciluk, Martin Majier G*i, John Kulang Puot, Martin Manyiel Ayuel, Elijah Hon Top, Lual Diing Wol and more. As the famous hero and prominent South Sudan musician Emmanuel Kembe sings, “Many many heroes we lost along the way of freedom.” Each family, household, a village and a clan and tribe have a martyr or martyrs who gave their lives for our freedom and future.

Inspiration from the ideals of Martyrdom

On this day we remember and celebrate the lives of the individuals and groups who resisted and succumbed due to resistance to oppression, exploitation, domination and hegemony of the powers that were there. We appreciate their courage, determination and risk-taking attitude and draw inspiration from these in order to surf through the difficulties of the contemporary dynamic context.

The Anyanya I – fought a vicious war with limited resources and external assistance, yet these men and women delivered the autonomous Southern Sudan Regional Government in 1972. This was garnered through thick and thins of sacrifices and the first time South Sudanese had an autonomous government in Juba.

Dr. John Garang De Mabior and SPLM/A offered a vision for a “New Sudan” – Secular, inclusive, plural, just and democratic state for all Sudanese. He recognized the suffering of all Sudanese (West, East, North and South) and went on a journey to give them hope. Today, does the Republic of South Sudan and its leaders have an encompassing and accommodative vision or ideals to safe and inspire all people of South Sudan to dream of a better republic? While the New Sudan vision arguably vanished after his sudden death, elements of the ‘New Sudan’ – secular, inclusive, plural, just and democratic state are relevant to this diverse and plural society. There is a lot for leaders to draw from to make a South Sudan for all.

The new republic should have championed and perfect Dr. John Garang’s “taking of towns to the people.” Yet, what happened after and bound to continue is reverse – people coming to towns (rural-urban migration). This trend must be reversed.

Conclusion

In one of the addresses to his officers, Dr. John Garang said a “poor people equal to poor government” and “weak people equal to weak government.” South Sudan is a rich country in land and other resources, but its people are increasingly poor and weak. Majority of our citizens depend on international humanitarian aid and on foreign food and commercial good imports. Dr. John Garang imagined a South Sudan where oil money would finance agriculture and manufacturing sector. 30th July – Martyrs Day is less meaningful if and when the current and future generation of leaders lose sight of the ideals to which South Sudan’s Martyrs sacrificed their lives to achieve. May our Martyrs’ revolutionary souls rest in eternal peace.

Author: Bona Malual Madut Ring.

17/07/2021

This is a look of Juba International Airport..

07/07/2021

....

26/06/2021

: They misunderstood returning of Ajang Mapuor into the wrestling.

I hear wrestling fans are still celebrating the return of legend Ajang Mapuor to the wrestling field (puor Ayang) soon. Well, I don't want to interrupt your celebrations, but here is the sad reality you need to hear about him. Ajang won’t be back to wrestling arena soon, leave alone leading Jonglei team in the upcoming matches. He had fractured jaw bone few years ago and I doubt if it has been fixed properly to face the ‘bones wrecking’ wrestlers from Lakes State. The fracture was bad and I believe no sane man in Jonglei will allow him to be injured again. For record purposes, I will be surprised if I see him in the squad next month.

Besides that, in wrestling, we don't beat farewell to traditional wrestlers ceremoniously like in Football. They vanish to their homes without saying goodbye to public. You may remember how those of Lual Tiar, Majok Jokriir, Thon Mayen, Ajith Nyakuoi, etc, vanished to their communities without saying a word to their fans. They usually leave because of age, personal reasons, economic pressure, and major injuries sustained in wrestling. Mapuordit is going through one of these circumstances and we should leave him alone to complete his treatment and to retire in peace.

What you hear often on Social Media from him is what Alfred Adler called “superiority complex" in psychology. It’s a feeling that linger in the minds of retired legends in their transition to normal life in the community. They raise their fists often to remind public about their presence, but their bodies cannot permit them to do what they used to do. In fact, they are supposed to be protected by their friends and the community at this stage to avoid humiliating defeat and further injury.

A good example of “superiority complex” is what we saw with Ajak Taban in 2010 when he was humiliated by Gore Mapak. He insisted to lead, but he was shown exit door in one minute. Same thing happened twice to Akoonydit at Juba Stadium when he was smacked down by a twenty Year old man from Terekaka.

As long you keep provoking Ajang Mapuor with questions in front of your cameras, don't be surprised to hear “come back” expressions. He was a champion and will never stop taking about himself. Thank you!

Written by Jacob Aluong

08/06/2021

..Bilpam Press SSPDF Leadership Update.

04/06/2021

Facebook said Friday it is suspending the accounts of former President Donald Trump for two years after an investigation into his statements about the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. "Given the gravity of the circumstances that led to Mr. Trump’s suspension, we believe his actions constituted a severe violation of our rules which merit the highest penalty available under the new enforcement protocols,".. Nick Clegg, the company's vice president of global affairs, said in a blog post.

After two years, Clegg said, the former president's Facebook and Instagram accounts may stay suspended if the company determines a risk to public safety still exists. Even after the suspensions are lifted, Clegg said Trump will face "a strict set of rapidly escalating sanctions" if he continues to commit violations.

In response, Trump said the decision was "an insult" to the people who voted for him in the 2020 election. https://to.pbs.org/3cjjQlQ

04/06/2021

"Nigeria" set to change its "Colonial name" to "United African Republic"...

West African country, Nigeria is considering a total rebranding by way of scrapping its colonial name “Nigeria” for a newly proposed name called the United African Republic. According to local reports, the proposal was tabled before a committee in Lagos by a tax consultant identified as Mr. Adel...

02/06/2021

Akuurdit-Anuur Church Politics in Bor....

11/04/2021

BREAKING NEWS: SATURDAY 10TH APRIL 2021, JUBA. ON SSBC:-

1. Chief of General Staffs Lt. Gen. Johnson Juma Okot has been sacked and replaced with Lt. Gen. Santino Deng Wol.

2. Minister in the office of the President Hon. Nhial Deng Nhial has been sacked and replaced with Dr. Marial Benjamin.

3. Deputy Minister of Defence has been sacked and replaced by Lt. Gen. Chol Thon Balok.

4. Director for General Intelligence Bireau - GIB or External Security, Gen. Thomas Duoth Guet has been relieved from his position and was replaced by Gen. Simon Yel Makuach.

:-

1. Lt. Gen. Malek Ruben was also appointed as Ambassador to Eritrea 🇪🇷.

2. Lt. Gen. Thomas Duoth Guet was also appointed as Ambassador to Kuwait 🇰🇼.

3. Lt. Gen. Johnson Juma Okot was also appointed as Ambassador to Belgium 🇧🇪.

4. Director General of National Security, Major Gen. Akol Khor Kuch was also promoted to the Rank of Lt. General and remain in his position.

09/04/2021

Dr. John Garang de Mabior Interview in 1989

PART 1 – DR. JOHN GARANG INTERVIEW OF 1989: While on a visit to the U.S., Dr. John Garang was interviewed by African Report magazine. In the interview he spoke of the SPLM's objective and also the SPLA's military offensive against Sudan government.

REPORTER: The SPLA has been fighting a war against the Sudanese government for six years. What are your goals in fighting this war? What do you hope to achieve as an end outcome?
GARANG: We hope to achieve what in our literature we call a new Sudan. The Sudan has been characterized by injustices ever since 1956. The government that took power after independence failed to evolve a new Sudanese identity and a new Sudanese commonality to which we all pledge our allegiance and our patriotism and on which future generations will build. The Sudan has been characterized by sectarianism based on religion or on race and these differences have been used not to evolve a new, enriched particularly, but to maintain political power in Khartoum. I envisage a Sudan which transcends these localisms. Our vision contrasts with the first movement, the Anya-Nya movement, whose primary objective was the separation of southern Sudan. With a separatist objective, you either achieve separation or you don’t. If you don’t, then you must compromise. And if you compromise, then you have essentially failed in you primary objective. The Anya-Nya movement could not achieve its objective, and it reached a compromise in 1972 in the form of the Addis Ababa Agreement. It was clear that that agreement could not last because it was based on opportunism on both sides. So in 1983, Nimeiry could openly say that the Addis Ababa agreement was neither the Bible nor the Koran and he tore it up.

We see a Sudan where such questions – what does the SPLM want, or what would satisfy the guerillas, or the guerillas are fighting for greater autonomy – do not become relevant, because we don’t see a situation where Khartoum gives and the south receives. We see a Sudan where the power of the central government in Khartoum is restructured so as to reflect this new particularity.

REPORTER: How do you want to see it restructured?
GARANG: We are talking here of a socio-political mutation – a new entity coming out of what we have now. As a socio-political mutation, you cannot really delineate it by saying one, two, three. But we are talking about a new reality in which the localisms and parochialisms – Sudan is composed of more than 150 different nationalities speaking different languages with various religions – are transcended by a commonality to which we all pay our allegiance and our patriotism. That commonality has never been achieved in our situation. For example, the United States, peopled by various nationalities from Europe, had to fight against England to achieve independence and that unity had to be maintained through a civil war. In our situation, our fellow citizens of Arab origin have not transcended where they came from. When you want to dig your roots in America, you say you are a German-American, an Italian-American, an African-American. The challenge facing our fellow citizens of Arab origin is whether they are Sudanese Arabs or Arab Sudanese. We want a transformation where they become Arab Sudanese, not the other way around, and the same with the other nationalities.

This is vision of Sudan and the conceptual framework in which peace can be discussed. I do not see peace being outside justice. The correlation between peace and justice is very high, probably 100 percent. I cannot conceive of peace outside the parameters of justice that I am talking about, outside the new Sudan. I don’t see myself integrated into an Islamic or an Arab republic, but into a new commonality.

REPORTER: How close are you to achieving that? Were the meetings held in June in Addis Ababa between the SPLA and the government the beginning of negotiations?
GARANG: We are quite confident. It is not the beginning, but the continuation of dialogue. I have often refrained from the use of the word negotiations because in negotiations, you have two sides – one giving, the other taking, until you reach a middle ground, which was the case in the earlier context of the Anya-Nya, for example. The Anya-Nya had a firm position – it wanted separation. The Sudan government had a firm position – it wanted unity. The two sides then negotiated in terms of what powers the central government would relinquish to the south so that the south abandons its position of separation.

In our situation, we share the same objectives of Sudanese unity. The cornerstone of the movement at the very beginning in 1983, as enunciated in our manifesto, is Sudanese unity. So here I go back again. We are talking about the restructuring of power in Khartoum, so it is really a process. In the meetings in June, we agreed to meet again in mid-July, and agreed to set a date for the national constitutional conference for September 19. Again, this is a process. The dialogue started with Koka Dam in 1986. Koka Dam was then lost in the dust of elections and coalition government formation, and it was not until last November 16 that a major breakthrough was made again in that dialogue. Then what happened? We agreed to freeze the September laws, the sharia, and to abrogate the defense treaty between Egypt and Sudan, and Sudan and Libya, to lift the state of emergency, and to work out a ceasefire and then go for a national constitutional conference to agree on the fundamentals for a new united Sudan. That agreement was very badly received by the National Islamic Front, but was popularly received by the Sudanese people.

The prime minister, Sadiq al-Mahdi was ambiguous. The peace had wide support. His party even endorsed it, but somehow the prime minister worked against the peace process until Parliament voted against it on December 28, using the votes of the Umma and the National Islamic Front (NIF). That caused a major crisis in government. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) walked out and a new government was formed between the Umma and the NIF. That government was very weak and war intensified. Within six months, SPLA overran 16 garrisons. We captured lots of ground. You cannot lose 16 military garrisons and have no impact on your army. So the army gave Sadiq an ultimatum that he either accept the November peace agreement or give them enough armaments to win the war. Of course, the real demand of the army is peace, because it is not normal for the army to give ultimatums to prime ministers. That clause, or else give us armaments to win the war, is sugar-coating to a demand for peace. So the prime minister had to make an about-face and say that he had accepted the November 16 peace agreement between the DUP and the SPLM.

You can see the dynamic of change. The prime minister accepted this peace initiative not because he wanted it, but was forced by the political situation, the pressure from the army, from the SPLM, and from the DUP and other political parties. So the kind of Sudan I was talking about, born out of socio-political mutation, comes out of this process. The Anya-Nya, by defining its objective as separation, defined itself out of the mainstream of the Sudanese politics. The SPLM, by defining its objective as unity, defined itself into the Sudanese political process. So this interaction is an indication of how near we are to achieving our objective.

Militarily, we have gone to the north. We are fighting now in southern Kordofan, in southern Blue Nile, so on the ground, our objectives are being realized. Politically, with the interaction with the other Sudanese political forces, we are not isolated, and we are influencing events as part and parcel of the Sudanese political process. So I am quite confident that our objectives are being realized, that enough political pressures will be brought to bear on people who make decisions in Khartoum and they will be forced to see the necessity of living in a multi-nationality Sudan. This is the only way we can keep the country together. It will not be a situation where the question is asked: What will Khartoum give to the SPLM? We will not be given, we will be part and parcel of the decision making process in Khartoum.

02/04/2021

Speech

30/03/2021

Great song!!

27/03/2021

PLO Lumumba had met President John Pombe Magufuli in Tanzania...

25/03/2021

...Ministry of Presidential Affairs!!

08/01/2021

On January 20, the certified President and vice President will be sworn in to office.

24/12/2020

Merry Christmas Eve

15/11/2020

Community chiefs

07/11/2020

Congratulations President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris for winning the hearts and minds of Americans.

26/09/2020

01/05/2020

"Who is on the Lord's Side"?

25/04/2020

24/04/2020

This Coronavirus Pandemic gets critical on western countries such as United States, Spain, Italy, France, and Germany, leading the world. This virus takes of lives worldwide, that is 2,000,000, and cure or treatment still hard to find until today, since the virus started in November 2019.