By John A. Akec
http://www.johnakecsouthsudan.blogspot.com/A well known South Sudanese secondary school teacher from Greater Bhar El Ghazal by name Mathon Mathon often said under Abakr Tree (The Wau's answer for London's Trafalgar Square):
"When a war breaks out in a county, it is not the earth that gets destroyed but people's morals." In the South Sudan's war against the North, they did.
In 1984, Benjamin Bol Akok, a South Sudanese veteran politician was invited by SPLM leadership for a briefing in Ethiopia. After he was bidden farewell by a number of colleagues at Adis airport, he was disembarked and later presented to his colleagues in a box as a coffin. He was murdered by Ethiopian security personnel on the behest of SPLM leadership. Why? No convincing answer was provided. Many concluded that it was a political assasination of a potential leader.
Later, many SPLM politicians were arrested on trumped up charges and many of them were murdered in cold blood. These included Martin Majeer Gai, Joseph Malaath, and pilot Thomas Krow Tong. In 1993, veteran Southern politician Jopseph Oduoh was captured after attending a SIM political conference in Kongor then executed. His killers are well known. Ever since life became cheap.
And as if that was not enough, the phenomenon of "sudden death" appeared and took many more lives amongst our political figures in early 2000s. People became increasingly suspecious of possible use of poison as a new tool for political assassination. This practice was completely alien to South Sudanese communities, but known to be prevalent in some neigbourly East African countries.
Now, how far would you expect our morals to sink. All that because of our lust for power and feeling of extreme insecurity once in power. And a manner akin to King David of old, many of our leaders commit the sin and then murder to cover it up. Assassination is a virus once it infects, it spread like a wild fire and. Once started, it is hard to be stopped. And nowhere is the practice of assassination devastating like that of tribal and sectarian communities like ours and those of Lebanan, Iraq, and Somalia.
Moreover, where that is the practiced, the so called "National Security Organ" becomes nothing more than a "death squad" that moves under the orders of "leadership" to hunt down and muder potential future leaders and remove "threats", even if they were 2 years old, as did King Herod of Israel, and before him Egypt's Paroh! That of protecting everyone becomes irrelevant and nonsensical. And they (the security agents) become a laughing stock, children of devil himself, people's thieves, andlike those who lead them!
What is all this sermon about and whom am I trying to get at? You are bound to ask. The reason for the "sermon" is the recent attack on Lam Akol's convoy (which was met with a mutted response). And I am trying to "get at" all of us and specifically our leaders to be good role model. We know robbery was blamed, but not every body is convinced. And if indeed, it was assassination attempt, then that is an attack on the freedom of each one of us. It means Lam Akol will not be the last regardless as to who was behind it. This is not another Lam's defence by me, but pointing out something that can take us to hell, including those who stand to benefit from such schemes
In brief, this is a plea to all of us, and in particularl our leaders (right from the top) to come clean of these dirty practices that will cause our society to sink in blood bath. It is a call to us to be vigilant to alien and damaging habits creeping into our society and completely ruining it beyond repair.
Failing that, and if the GOSS cannot to protect all its citizens (from political assassinations), our society will degenerate into new Somalia, and some of our leaders will find that they have no one to lead except their clan members.
When that happens, he has more power will have more to loose and more tears to shed.
