Critical Analysis on the paper presented by Presidential Advisor, Mr Bona Malwal under the title ‘The Future of the CPA under the Current Political Crises`.

Fellow country men and women,

Introduction : Our moral conscience to unknown figure of the SPLM/A martyrs dictates us to critically analyse the political document written and presented by Mr Bona Malwal to the symposium organised by `South Sudan Democratic Forum` on 12 December2007. The synthesis of the document is so clumsy and non-methodological, however, politically disturbing. For this reason, we coordinated to analyse it and to present our political antithesis. Our analysis is long and we kindly ask the concerned people to the fate of our political destiny to give their time in reading it for historical records  

First, aware of indignity and political damage his paper incurs on him, Mr Bona began his introduction that most Southerners would “certainly be disappointed”. Yes, we are badly disappointed and belligerent, because, the paper is unbalanced and therefore, unjust. We thought that Mr Bona was a Presidential Advisor that advises President Omer Hassan Al-Bashir to implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, CPA. On the contrary, Bona options to advise him to obstruct the implementation as:

1.       Presidency and Bashings .

Bona advises Al-Bashir to interfere into the political powers of the First Vice President of Sudan and Chairman of the SPLM by claiming that “Annex 2B, of the CPA, stipulates that the appointment of any constitutional position holder in the GONU, including ministers and ministers of the state, can only be made after consultation with the presidency”. He concludes by stating “This should mean, in plain language, that the president of the Republic has a say in who the SPLM wants to appoint into a constitutional position”.

Reference to the CPA, we find this legal advice from the Presidential Advisor to the President as seriously misleading. First, Mr Bona fails to define for us the semantics of the presidency. For him, it does mean President of the Republic of Sudan . Under `Power Sharing` Article 2.3.2 defines “the Presidency consisting of the President and two Vice Presidents”. And above all, Article 2.3.6 binds the President of Sudan not to take definitive decisions without “the consent of the First Vice President”. Article 2.3.6.3 in regards to the appointments to constitutional positions dictates the President to appoint in consent of the First Vice President in “according to the Peace Agreement”.

This means, distribution of powers in accordance to the CPA is clearly defined at Article 2.5 of the Government of National Unity, GONU, where paragraph (a) states “The National Congress party shall be represented by fifty –Two Percent (52%); (b) “Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) shall be represented by Twenty Eight Percent (28%);”. There is no any legal reference in the CPA providing exceptional theocratic powers for President of Sudan to reject the nominee(s) of the SPLM to the constitutional position. Therefore, Mr Bona bashed the SPLM wrongly and allegedly claimed that the “conventional wisdom in South Sudan is the bashing of Northern Sudan , rightly or wrongly” that “makes for a good Southern Sudanese nationalism”.

 We consider this political characterisation as clumsy, insulting and disrespectful to our nation, Southern Sudanese, hence, we must excavate history in response to this allegation. Firs, Bona has been bashing the people of the north and we do not know, what has become so sweet to the system of the NCP that forces him to contradict his political hatred to the Islamic system that refuses to implement the CPA and threatens to adopt Jihad in eradicating the SPLM/A.

In 1976, after the abortive coup against the defunct Military President Ja’fer Muhammed Nimeiri, where Bona was a Minister of Culture and Information and the emergence of political reconciliation between Sadiq Al-Mahdi and Nimeiri, Bona was outrageous against al- Mahdi Islamic religious slogan. He argues “Rather than becoming a healer of old wounds, which President Nimeiri obviously intended national reconciliation to be, it seems to have had the opposite effect. Such issues as multi-partisanship, sectarianism and the official religion of the state, with Islam being regarded by some as an inseparable part of national politics, have re-emerged. Many had thought and hoped that the country had left behind it all these old and traditional slogans. They have now again become matters of heated public debate” (see his book, People and Power in Sudan : The Struggle for Stability, London : Ithaca Press 1981 P. 155).

In contrast, the slogans of Islamism which he describes in his book with dis-interest were effectively revived at the public institutions of the north by the NCP, after the SPLM temporary withdrawal from the GONU. First, the second man to the NCP and Presidential Assistant, Nafia Ali Nafia argues that it is an illusion to the SPLM to think that democracy means the change of the skin of the Salvation Revolution. “Our policy is behind our slogan; no god except God of the Prophet Muhammed” (See Ray Aam 2007 October 16). Second, addressing a mass rally at the stadium in Wad-Madeni on the celebration of the 18^th anniversary of the Popular Defence Force, PDF, President Al-Bashir states “Now, we order the PDF, the legitimate son of the people to open their camps and gather the Mujahedeen not to wage war, but it is obvious that we should be ready” (see Shraq al-awast 2007 Nov. 18, Issue No. 10582).

The current bashing of Mr Bona to the SPLM indicates that he bashes the north, when his own interest is touched. For instance, when Bona was an Editor-Chief of Vigilant in 1965 and his paper was about to be closed down he bashed the north that it had become an apparent policy to the northern government to treat every educated Southerner, whether or not he was a soldier as a rebel (see Malwal op.cit., P. 96).

During the war, between the SPLA and the government of the National Islamic Front, turned later to the National Congress, Bona bashed the north. Addressing a press conference in Washington at the National Press Club over the denial of Louis Farrakhan, the head of Nation of Islam in USA to the existence of slavery in Sudan , Bona said, “I would have expected Farrakhan to keep quiet about the issue of slavery not to deny it”. Bona concludes that every Northern Sudanese Muslim Arabs practises trafficking in slaves from the South (see Aikman, David American Spectator February 1994, Vol. 30. Issue 2, P. 52).      

If it is true that the people of the South bash the north, then it is, because of our gloomy political experiences between the political system of the north and the South and not inclusively against the people of the north. Marvin Harris defines society “is a group of people who share a common habitat and who are dependent on one another for their survival and wellbeing”.

In the light of this definition, there has been no Sudanese political leader from the north who has constructed Sudanese society that may depend on survival and wellbeing, rather than, the political Islamic conspiracies to kill the people of the South. Such alleged bashing between the political power of the north and the territorial people of the South is a consequence of conspiratorial war against the inclusive people of the South. Violence breaks down naturally given social relationships and places barriers of suspiciousness and mistrust between territories. It creates binary sentiments of political and social community, where the community that feels oppression lines up towards an opposite direction against the oppressive forces.

Our history teaches us that there is no regime in Sudan free from having not oppressed the people of the South. Under all regimes, whether autocratic, theocratic, democratic which have ruled Sudan demonstrated a pattern of eradicating the people of the South and that makes the South to bash the political north. We give you few examples of violence that have broken down trust and we bash ourselves. First, in August 1955, the Southern Corps that mutinied in Torit was persuaded by the departing British Governor-General of Sudan, Sir Knox Helm to surrender to the northern Arab forces in Juba and Torit. When some decided to surrender, the government of Ismael Al-Azhari inflicted on them a brutal killing and exiled some to the north. Second, during the reign of General Ibrahim Abboud (1958-1964), planes were used to bombard the civilians of the South in their villages. Third, during the second democratic system, under Muhammad Ahmed Majoub of 1965, the people of the South had experienced unforgotten tragic events. First, some 3, 3000 grass thatched houses in Juba were reduced to rubbles and more than one thousand men, women and children were massacred in cold blood that dark night on July 8 1965. After three days of Juba tragedy, on 11 July 76 persons were murdered in Wau at the wedding party of late Cypriano Cier Ayuel. On August, the army attacked the Shilluk village of Warajwok , some few kilometres south of Malakal and massacred 187 people of the South. In a village of Arini , 13 kilometres from the town of Akobo , 45 Nuer men were massacred and no one was allowed to be buried. Are these few instances are not enough to bash the political North? We refrain to touch the massacres of Sadiq al-Mahdi of the third term of democracy of 1986-1989 and extensively aggravated by Al-Bashir with his monotheistic ideology of Islamic fundamentalism guided by Jihad.                                      

In the general context, we do not know of any convention in the South that allows northern bashing as a form of Southern nationalism. We have, however, come to know of Mr Bona’s opposite convention that bashes the South and the SPLM, in appeasement of the north. We fully understand why the gears have been reversed in the chilling manner. It certainly pays to bash the South, and offers Presidential Advisor position for life.  

Furthermore, Mr Bona provided an interesting quotation from an exchange between the two British Prime Ministers, Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden. In that exchange, Eden was reported to have told Churchill that unless he supported the invasion of the Suez Canal, he would have to eat his words to which Churchill gave the answer to the effect that, in his long political career, there had been occasions in which he had had to eat his words and that he sometimes found them to be nourishing.

Our comments : We see nothing nourishing in Mr. Bona’s undeserved defence of the NCP and of blaming the SPLM for the crisis that led to the SPLM Ministers pulling out of the GONU. It is clear from Mr. Bona and NCP body language that he has given up bashing the north, because he might has discovered that it is nourishing to bash the South, than, to bash the north. In this context, Mr Bona had to eat his words (bashing of the north) for a more nourishing prospect (bashing of the South).What remains of Mr Bona is to tell us frankly as did Churchill with Eden if he supported his President or whether or not he has eaten his words in order to eat the rewards of bashing the weak South. Given northern enormous means and readiness to pay for the bashing of the South, Mr. Bona’s Southern convention of bashing the north has been revised and amended. Could this explain why the tables have been turned against the weak South and its protector, the SPLM? That remains to be seen if not seen already.

Mr Bona alleged that the SPLM had betrayed the expectations and hopes of the Southern people which they pinned on it on the understanding that they would guide the ship of the South Sudan state to independence via their exercise of their right to Self-Determination. Mr Bona thought Southerners in their collective wisdom abandoned their known political divisions to allow the SPLM to lead the negotiations and then, lead the government of Southern Sudan during the interim period.

Our comments : Well, if that is what Southerners did, we do not see the reverse of such a position. They were right and are still right to place their future in the hands of their liberator, the SPLM. Their rights have not been violated nor is there reason to believe that they may be violated in future. The present crisis which Mr Bona belittles and ridicules as nothing but a child’s game, is in pursuit of that goal. Moreover, the history behind the SPLM is lesson enough for them to be as careless as portrayed by Mr Bona. By such simplistic accusations, Mr Bona is simply taking advantage of the fragile situation and distorting realities for his own purpose---purpose which may possibly benefit him but, not the Southern people. Such terrible accusations have no basis since the SPLM has not failed to see the said wisdom. We do not see in which way deploring and exposing the SPLM and reducing it to ashes is in the interest of the South. Worse still, we do not see what Mr Bona wants to accomplish by his spirited defence of the NCP and giving it a clean bill of health. We disagree with such a strategy. The SPLM had already made possible the attainment of the Southern Self Determination. They fought very hard for it and had successfully brought us CPA. What is left is for all of us to deliver through our choice of Independence or Unity through a vote, not cohesion from the SPLM as Mr Bona suggests. This is an undemocratic expression by a person who claims to be a democrat. The role of the SPLM is to facilitate the people via the implementation of the CPA and, not to choose for them. The SPLM had done the fighting, the negotiation and, had delivered to us the CPA. Should they also do the campaigning and voting for Self Determination or Unity on our behalf?

Mr Bona did all he could in his defence not only of the NCP, but also in laying out war strategy for them. Mr Bona regrets NCP’s failure to rock the boat, during negotiations when they could have done so, since they controlled other armed groups in the South. This view is not just a wish unmet in the past, but a threat and recommendation in the present about what the NCP should do to rock the boat to correct the mistake of allowing the SPLM as the only negotiator, during negotiations. We do not also see Mr Bona’s sense in wishing friends—the NCP and their armed militias--to negotiate and about what. Clearly, Mr. Bona-NCP carrots and stick are either co-operation with the NCP or rocking the boat through NCP-controlled armed militias. Mr. Bona is not in doubt about the NCP’s means and potential to use such militias to rock the boat in the South. Yet, he tries to calm down the SPLM and, wants them to demobilise, while he encourages the NCP to mobilise and keep their controlled militias to rock the boat. Not many Southerners would take Mr Bona’s preaching at face value. They certainly know that Mr. Bona did not tell us anything new regarding northern intentions to rock the boat. The rocking of boat has been and still is the ordained and official policy of the north and their parties or sitting government. Another name for it is ‘divide and rule’. More importantly, many Southerners will not fail to know that the north does the rocking of boat not only with armed militias, but also with unarmed politicians. Mr Bona’s outrageous attack on the SPLM is definitely part of the equation to do with the northern rocking of the boat, which is not surprising. The bashing of the South which contradicts Mr Bona’s made up own conventional bashing of the north by the south is also a feature of the policy of rocking the boat. Is it not?

Mr Bona highlighted other serious points that put the SPLM on bad light. According to him, the SPLM had failed to unite the South under it, during the negotiations at Naivasha, in Kenya . He further argued and, in a disdainful manner, that it was because of the NCP’s willingness to talk peace that the CPA was realised. He claimed that the CPA was not going to be possible, if the NCP did not show willingness and readiness to relinquish using other armed groups within the South. Mr Bona raged on to suggest, in an intelligence-gathering-like manner, that the situation in South Sudan was fragile. He cited and projected, in a blackmailing tone, that the NCP was potentially capable of undoing the CPA by using the armed militias to rock the boat in the South, if they concluded that the SPLM leadership was causing trouble for them.

Our Comments : We do not share Mr Bona’s twisted sentiments above. On SPLM’s failure to unite the South, Mr Bona has faked the facts. The SPLM did unite the South which enabled majority of other armed groups to proudly walk back to their people. Mr Bona’s beloved Lam Akol, who he now showers with undeserved praises is a product of that unity. For other dissenters and collaborators with the NCP, it is unrealistic to expect the SPLM to do so, while they were not under their control and did not show willingness to join their own kind. Moreover, the democratic choice given them to join either the SPLM or SAF in the CPA was meant to have the South united. No one imagined that thinking people with hearts and minds could go the opposite direction. This right was followed up by the agreement between the SPLM and other armed groups which brought their absorption and unification, under the SPLM and SPLA. Those others who continued to remain outside these arrangements might have accepted to be used when need arises to rock the boat against the SPLM as Mr Bona suggests.

On NCP’s willingness implying SPLM unwillingness to negotiate peace, this assertion is equally vain. Mr Bona’s projection casts the SPLM’s role as secondary. He insinuates that the SPLM’s input into the peace process is minimal. This leaves the CPA as a product of the NCP’s efforts with the unwilling partner/SPLM. In this sense, Mr Bona appreciates and praises the NCP rather than the SPLM for the success of the agreement. He sees no role and sense in the fact that the NCP could not have negotiated and signed the agreement if the SPLM were not a willing partner. He gives all the credit to the NCP, thereby playing down the role of the SPLM and sacrifices made by Southern people to bring about the CPA. Such a cold-hearted appraisal does no justice to people’s Movement which had given so much to our cause.

On fragility of the security situation in the South, we see such revelations in terms of intelligence gathering. Arguing in terms of insecurity of the South and its fragility, Mr Bona is directly passing on the necessary intelligence to the enemy, showing the vulnerable aspects of our situation. Having known where it pains the South through Mr Bona, the north can now be at liberty to start their assault on the South using information offered and means prescribed to them by him. By emphasising Southern fragility in the face of the north, Mr. Bona is trying to blackmail the South into submission while manipulating the north into trusting him. Mr Bona knows that the SPLM is not causing trouble to the NCP. Such accusation is just a make-believe and manipulative strategy for which Mr. Bona is famous. Besides, in war, fragility is a shared one. No one has a monopoly of it. In our case, Sudan , as a whole and, not just South Sudan is fragile. Above all, the north is more insecure than the South. In deed, the north is on the process of Somalisation.

Mr Bona also described the SPLM-NCP partnership in terms of Catholic-like marriage for which no divorce is possible until 2011 Self Determination. Mr Bona also zoomed in saying it was not provided in the CPA that if democracy did not take place in Sudan , the SPLM should abandon the pursuit of the interest of the people of South Sudan , under the same agreement.

Our Comments : In his catholic-like marriage episode, Mr Bona’s assertion is not true. Chapter II of the CPA, under Power Sharing, paragraph 1.8.3 disapproves him. It states: “General elections at all levels of government shall be completed by the end of the third year of the Interim Period”. This simply means that all the political forces in Sudan will participate in this general election and whoever wins the elections will form a new government. So, where is Catholic here? A winner, however, is bound to implement the CPA as Paragraph 1.8.6 states “Whoever runs in any election must respect, abide by, and enforce the Peace Agreement”.   This leaves Mr Bona’s concoctions naked. In addition, partnership does not mean friendship in the sense forged by Mr Bona. Friendship does not need written documents requiring the two sides to abide by its provisions and timeframe. Partnership does and is governed by the written principles of partnership and timeframes. Friendship is not necessarily governed by written rules and is not subject to such rules and timeframes.

In his second argument in which he accused the SPLM to have abandoned pursuing southern interest in favour of democracy for Sudan , Mr Bona missed an important point. The same CPA did not also say that the SPLM should abandon the pursuit of the interest of the people of Sudan .

2. THE ROLE OF THE SPLM IN GOVERNMENT

Mr Bona’s most excruciating attack intended to impress his northern breadwinners is his accusation of the SPLM as a party keen on the creation of a ‘New Sudan’. Furthermore, Mr Bona accused the SPLM of poor performance in GONU saying they have failed to make use of the most crucial seats of government, and thus failed to make a lasting imprint in government of Sudan , during the interim period. He went on to accuse the SPLM of being a party which is interested in things foreign, rather than, in national things. Singling out Dr. Lam Akol for a case example, Mr Bona also charged the SPLM for being narrow-minded and too partisan for not wanting its partner/the NCP to admire one of their own, meaning Dr. Lam Akol. Mr Bona claimed that it is on these grounds that the SPLM wishes to dismiss Mr Lam Akol from foreign Affairs Ministry in spite of his success on behalf of the SPLM.

Our comments : Mr Bona aspires to cripple SPLM’s potential to carry both the local support and support at the national level including Mr Bona’s no-go areas of the north. Mr. Bona once said that ‘New Sudan’ is a racist concept which wants Arabs driven away from Sudan . This is what he is following up in this theme. This explains why he projects the SPLM leadership as unpatriotic and collaborating with enemies of Sudan . This message is meant to inspire both the NCP and, other anti-CPA northern politicians like Mr Sadig Al Mahdi, in order to win their trust and reap the rewards in exclusion of the South and other marginalised areas. On SPLM’s alleged poor performance in GONU, this is meant to impress and antagonise the South against the SPLM. None of these things holds any waters. Southerners know where they came from and where they are going to be halted by such ill-conceived and desperate utterances.

On the SPLM being jealous of the NCP’s admiration of Dr. Lam Akol and it desires to punish Dr. Lam Akol with dismissal from Foreign Affairs Ministry or have success punished and rewarded for mediocrity. We do not see it in those terms, only very few within Lam’s constituency---region and party share Mr Bona’s evaluation of Dr. Lam Akol as a success. In political and party work, loyalty to the party and party leadership is second to none. From this perspective, Mr Bona’s Lam Akol is widely perceived, rightly or wrongly, by his constituency and constituents to have fallen short from this angle. It is as simple as such, by trying to make a mountain out of an ant hill, Mr Bona is working up the differences among the SPLM members in order to fish in the dirty waters. Pursuing a line that may weaken the SPLM to the advantage of the NCP is perplexing. Perhaps Mr. Bona is aware of Dr. Lam Akol’s fragile character and ease with which he could be manipulated from without and, hence, his choice of Lam.

A respectful elder would not have opted for a strategy which incites and widens the gap but, one that narrows the differences and unites in the interest of his people’s cause. That’s the role many expect of him as an elder. Mr Bona’s capable Dr. Lam Akol cannot be expected not to see sense in the fact that when one gets into the government through one’s party, after nomination by one’s party leader, one can also get out of the government through the same channel. Praising Lam Akol for attempting to breach this process is not professional in political terms nor is it honest in moral terms.

Moreover, unless a different Lam Akol, our present Dr. Lam Akol has no reason to be flattered to the extent of believing that he is admired by the NCP. The NCP does not admire him for a good purpose, if at all it does. This is the same Lam Akol who signed Fashoda Peace Agreement and, whom the same NCP humiliated, forcing him into the bush to join his kith and kin in the SPLM, only to triumphantly return to Sudan with his brethren in the SPLM. What has now changed for the NCP to admire the SPLM’s Dr Lam Akol? What has made him suddenly likeable, after all the humiliation he underwent in the hands of the NCP?  

In spite of all these unanswered questions, Mr Bona wants to know if Dr. Lam is a failure. Our answer is an overwhelming yes. Many from his own constituency and outside it see him as a failure. Disloyalty to the party and disregard of the opinions of one’s own party and constituents represent nothing, but a failure in political work. This is a political matter, not an academic one. The demands to have him reshuffled are not personal, although there is an attempt on the part of Mr Bona to project this popular opinion in bad light as simply a hatred for Dr Lam Akol.

Reshuffling offices is a normal practise in government business and governance, not hatred towards anyone. Besides, nowhere has the SPLM said by word of mouth or written material that Dr. Lam Akol was a traitor though some scholars such as T. Abddou Maliqalim Simone, a Muslim American Professor at University of New York, sees him in that light in his book, ‘Whose Image? Political Islam and Urban Practices in Sudan 1994, P. 43. According to Professor Simone, Lam Akol had held “secret meetings with the government of Sudan in May 1992”, under folded agenda.

This piercing truth seems to dispel Mr. Bona’s claims of Lam’s patriotism. Dr. Lam Akol has simply created conditions that have made people’s distrust in him easier, though they may not always be right. To this end, Mr. Bona’s so-called NCP’s admiration of Dr. Lam does not inspire in us any confidence, but confirms our suspicion. What will free him is to distance himself from the NCP, only to observe partnership to the degree his party does. It is not too late.

On mediocrity being rewarded and success punished, the assertion is an unnecessary assault on the incoming ministers. The incoming Ministers are not mediocre nor are their appointments a reward for mediocrity and punishment of the successful as Mr. Bona would want us to believe. They carry with them into their offices people’s support, confidence and blessing. People’s confidence in their politicians is all it takes a politician to succeed in politics and holding a political office. We call this confidence people’s whip or veto against unruly politicians. No hunters can drown this veto by acting unilaterally.

Mr Bona also argued that SPLM leadership shares power with the NCP on behalf of South Sudan and, not just SPLM. On this premise, Mr Bona claimed South Sudanese are astonished to see their positions given to northerners----an action which he saw as evidence showing Southern inability to run the Ministries assigned to them.

Our Comments : We agree with Mr Bona that the SPLM shares government with NCP on behalf of Southern people. We disagree in his failure to see the same is true of the SPLM in relation to the nation as a whole rather than just the South. And of course, the SPLM would not claim to be national without the South included. Hence, Mr Bona’s attack of the SPLM from this angle is only intended to discredit SPLM’s national role and diminish its support among northern circles. This will not work.

Mr Bona’s singling out northern members of the SPLM as having been given Southern positions equally flies in the face of truth. Besides, it is also hypocritical for a man who is an Advisor of a northerner, and actually holds a northern position. More importantly, such assertion is an uncalled for assault on these great patriots and it mocks the spirit of nationhood and citizenship. We simply see this strategy as manipulative and wrong, because it is meant to antagonise and rally the South against the SPLM. The SPLM is a national party and its positions are allotted on grounds of membership and loyalty to the party and leadership besides qualifications. If the SPLM were just for the South, we would not have allowed these northerners to struggle with us prior to the signing of the CPA. Sensibly, we can not like them, during war time and reject them, during peace time. Can we? Such logic is discriminatory and backward. It may sell only to people with myopic view of the world. Given the patriotic role of Mr. Bona’s unwanted northern liberators in the SPLM, many of us do not have problem with them. Above all, we would have no problem with, for instance, Dr Mansour Khalid becoming our President in the present CPA South Sudan or in an Independent South Sudan. We know him for a just man. We cannot reject a just northerner to take an unjust southern traitor. We in the South and other marginalised areas see him as King Solomon of Sudan , the sincerest of the sincere and wisest of the wise. Dr. Mansour Khalid is a liberator, not an oppressor. Very few among us are not prepared to defend these northerners by word of mouth and by sword. An overwhelming majority does. Regrettably, we will not do so for Mr. Bona who happens to be our own. We see him as an oppressor. Does this not make much of a difference? If Mr. Bona thinks Southerners are consumed by the inferno of hatred towards the north, he is wrong. All we are after is justice, not automatic hatred for northerners as Mr. Bona seems to advocate. If he thinks these northern liberators and angels of justice are his easy prey, he has miscalculated. The South is matured enough to differentiate between the woods and forest. Besides, we also know that a hunter who does not share his killed animal with compatriots, standbys and other helpers does not qualify for a hunter. Replace the word hunter with liberator and you get what we mean. In Mr. Bona’s worldview, the killed is already here and sees the presence of the hunter as irrelevant if not a threat. For him, both the hunter and his/her killed must be belongings to somebody else.

What Mr Bona did not tell the South is why Northerners give their positions to Southerners as justified by a large presence of Southerners with NCP and other northern parties and governments, the gone and present. We have for instance, Mr. Allison Magaya, Mr Bona Malwal Madut (himself) and several others in positions which, by Mr Bona’s definition, are northern positions. Unless Mr. Bona is saying that we in the south are more or less equal to the north, he has no case against members of the SPLM who hail from the north. Many of them are more popular and highly respected among Southerners and Northerners than Mr. Bona is among his own Southern people. Perhaps, by the north Mr. Bona means Khartoum and surrounding areas. He does not even raise his eyebrows to see that his map of what used to constitute the north is now history, than, the real. He is still bothered and frightened by the shadows of what used to be referred to as the north! He is decided not to see the extent to which the SPLM has changed and is changing Sudan , both the geographical north and south.

Mr Bona also expressed cynicism that the SPLM was not keen enough in safeguarding the benefits and gains of the South from the CPA. This is mere mudslinging. Nothing of this sort is the case. This only falls in with his strategy to discredit the SPLM and deprive it of support among the Southerners. The same strategy also explains why Mr Bona loosely acknowledged disappointments in dealing with the NCP but, instead of condemning the NCP for their failure to implement the CPA and share power honestly, he singled out the SPLM for his theatrical performance. Perhaps, he prefers the SPLM to bury their head in the sand and all would come to pass in relation to the CPA and Self Determination. Mr. Bona’s stage-managed failure to see the wrongs of the NCP is suspiciously insincere. We cannot discount the fact that something extraordinary that forced our elderly politician to eat his words must have happened. To this end, we may not be wrong to ask our brethren in struggle to be on the look out every minute, hour, day and week otherwise our case may be pawned in a closed market!

3. What crisis is all about according to Mr. Bona Malwal?

We all know that the crisis that ensued between the SPLM and NCP was about the CPA and the failure of the NCP to implement its provisions in both order and timeframe. The SPLM pull out of its Ministers from GONU was not abrupt, nor was it a 24-hour ultimatum. The pull out was a last resort after several attempts to have the situation settled behind the scenes in a peaceful way. This is what the world knows to have been the problem and to have happened. The only person who sees it differently is Mr Bona Malwal. How does he see it? We have given a summary of what he thinks the crisis was all about. We will follow that with Mr. Bona’s verdict on the SPLM. Mr Bona thinks the crisis is a result of many factors. Some of these are:

1. SPLM’s narrow-mindedness and war mentality . Mr. Bona alleged that the crisis is due to the SPLM’s narrow-mindedness and war mentality. Although he doesn’t believe this to be the case, the trappings around him allow him no freedom to say the truth. In this sense, he projects the SPLM as war mongers. He claims the SPLM leadership has a war mentality and because of this they triggered the crisis. Mr. Bona screens the NCP and by so doing sets free the culprits. The whole world sees NCP as either reluctant to implement the CPA or conspiring against it to make it fail. Not Mr Bona. This is amusing if not disappointing.

2. The SPLM hatred for Lam Akol . Mr Bona also sees crisis as one caused by the SPLM hatred for Lam Akol whom he thinks must be rewarded, not punished, for his success within its ranks. He represents a success story for Mr. Bona because he sees Lam to have carried himself with grace, pride, knowledge and experience, both at home and abroad. Mr. Bona asserts that, under him the world recognised that South Sudanese are truly capable of running their independent state, if it came to that. In his view, Lam is an able South Sudanese. Mr Bona argues that the SPLM does not has any foreign policy which Lam was unable to implement in his Ministry. He further reiterates that he saw no reason for such a controversy that rocks the entire government of the Sudan . He also claims the SPLM did not ask him to resign and fails to obey so that they fill his place with someone else.

Our comments : This tactical way is intended to drive a wedge between Lam and his party and leaders. We do not know what Mr Bona may stand to benefit from the SPLM fragmentation. Turning ordinary requests for an ordinary reshuffle into weapons of hate as Mr Bona does is an interesting proposition.

3. SPLM’s pursuit of policies and events that are not South Sudanese . Mr Bona claims the crisis is due to SPLM’s pursuit of policies and events that are not South Sudanese. Mr Bona is talking about the SPLM’s concerns for other regions such as Darfur , Eastern Sudan , Nuba Mountains and Southern Blue Nile . According to Mr Bona, the SPLM concerns for these areas are uncalled. He thinks doing so may provoke confrontation with the NCP and SPLM consequently wrong.

Mr. Bona gets it wrong. The SPLM is a national party and its concerns for all regions are right. Mr Bona is trying to create divisions within the solidarity among those who believe in togetherness across the country. The massive exploitative and injustices committed against some areas of Sudan cannot be tackled singly. Solidarity is the solution.   By adopting the policies of divide and misrule of the centre-less centre, Mr. Bona is no longer a defender of the rights of these people. He is with the oppressor and is an oppressor to be taken seriously. For him, the weak must not resist no matter whatever provocations. We disagree with Mr. Bona’s philosophy that supports the oppressor rather than the oppressed. There is no way the SPLM can abandon its base and vision to appease the oppressors.

Mr. Bona recommends a way out is for the SPLM to cooperate with the NCP, rather than, confronting it. Cooperation is true only, if the provisions of the CPA--what we have signed---are being implemented without excuse and delay. Unless this is done, we do not see any basis of such cooperation.  

4. Factors other than South Sudan .   According to him, most of the reasons for this confrontation, if not all of them, are due to other factors than South Sudan .

Mr Bona’s other factors than the South are those of Abyei, Nub Mountains , Blue Nile , Darfur , and Eastern Sudan . He describes Abyei protocol as “controversial Abyei Protocol of the CPA”. For Mr Bona, Abyei is not part of the South nor is Abyei for the Dinka Ngok alone. The insinuation is that the SPLM concerns for these areas are illegal According to Mr. Bona; such concerns are driven by the SPLM’s racist and expansionist policy and with the SPLM being an aggressor. Second, Mr Bona’s other factors relate to the SPLM’s concerns in Darfur , Eastern Sudan and for democratic transformation for the people of Sudan as a whole. Mr Bona’s third factor has to do with his accusation that the SPLM was pursuing war that may drive the South back to war. He goes on to claim that the SPLM had the potential to declare the war so unilaterally, since they have their own standing army.

Our Comments : None of these claims is true. The SPLM’s concerns in these areas and for the whole country are justified. We do not see what right the north has to express concerns and talk for the whole country, while the south and other areas do not have. Besides, the SPLM is not an army of war than of peace. If they were, they would have not signed the CPA. Moreover, the fact that one has an army doesn’t give anyone any right to declare war unilaterally against X or Y. If this were the objective, no nation which has an army would be in peace. Mr. Bona’s concoction is mere incitement of what he claims he wants the SPLM to avoid besides being a scathing assault on the SPLM leadership and an appeasement of the NCP.

5. SPLM impression to appoint SPLM ministers in the government of national unity . Another dangerous area where Mr. Bona jumped the boat and went overboard relates to the appointment of SPLM ministers in the government of national unity. Mr Bona thinks the SPLM has created a wrong impression in their insistence on their right to appoint their ministers.   What he is insinuating is that the powers of the President have been encroached upon.

Our Comments : This is a dangerous invitation to Bashir to have the CPA and constitution violated. On the contrary, Mr. Bona that is trying to create an illusion for the President to imagine and assume the right which he doesn’t have and never will under the CPA. Sadly enough, Mr Bona doesn’t see the transformation that had taken place in Sudan . He is still living in the old and unjust Sudan of servitude where the order of the day was that a southerner must be appointed and humiliatingly dismissed by a northerner and without reference to whoever is said to be the President of the South. Perhaps, Mr. Bona doesn’t see the possibility of his being appointed by the President of the GOSS. He had and has better chances under Bashir and, other northerners. Hence, his preference for a power of appointment under a northerner-----the same northerners he hates to see occupy what he called ‘southern positions’. In this sense, it is he who must be both a southerner and a northerner. A jack of all trades! Others are not.

Our independence is not reflected by our mere physical presence in the three Southern regions, but by the power of appointing and replacing our ministers as we want, and at any level of government. That is a power we would not allow Mr Bona to auction out. On realising that he was talking about an impossible proposition, he gave in by saying that the SPLM Chairman could only change ministers after consultation with the President. We do not see this as something new. It is provided for under the CPA and the SPLM did observe this procedural nicety in the past appointments. This doesn’t need Mr Bona’s pretentious expertise and salesmanship skills. What Mr Bona wants is the total submission or letting go the right of SPLM Chairman to appoint the members of his party as Ministers in GONU. The question is both about what positions to fill and who to appoint. That the President should have a say in who the SPLM wants to appoint into a constitutional position is a procedural matter, not a veto. Only abnormal and insane Vice President would not consult with his President in such matters. This is not an issue to be lectured on by Mr Bona. If Mr Bona wants us to go back to those days when our leaders had no say on whom to appoint, what position to occupy and what means to remove them, this is something which no threat of war can make us relinquish. We do not see any reason why we should let go this right.   

On Mr. Bona’s other accusation that the SPLM is not playing its role in line with article 72 stipulating that the national council of ministers is responsible for the implementation of the CPA. He claims the SPLM is laid back, only expecting the NCP to deliver.

Our comments : This is a misplaced charge as this is an impression just created to back up his new convention that spares the north its skin while that of the South is peeled off if not uprooted. This is a poor show which can hardly fetch some harvests. There is nothing the NCP or the north for that matter can deliver to the South if we do not press for it. If they could not deliver it to the South during the last fifty years on the basis of what makes for a nation, they cannot be expected to do so this time. History tells us that they only delivered, do deliver and can deliver when we stand up and fight for our rights as Bob Marley correctly predicted. Praising them and baby-seating them--Mr. Bona-style--- is an endorsement of an endless servitude, boiling down to slavery. This viewing is intended for individual and short term gains which have nothing to do with the welfare of Southern people. Such a call must be categorically rejected.

6. Power struggle . Mr Bona also thinks the cause of this crisis is about competition over power by the two parties. He claims that each party is fighting to draw more power for themselves from the other. He denies the crisis is over expanding the democratic participation by the people of Sudan . Mr Bona thinks such a struggle over power is a draw back of the third protocol----power sharing------the result of which is the political saga between the NCP and SPLM Sudan is now experiencing.

Our comments : Mr. Bona’s accusation on grounds that the partners are power hungry doesn’t hold water. Very few political parties, whether in the developing or developed world act purely on principles. Mr. Bona knows this fact, so he is not actually saying exactly this. He is trying to belittle as insignificant what the disagreement is all about. Thee partners are in power already and we do not see why they would fight and lose the power they already have. Yet, power is always part of the game in any political conflict to be eliminated. It is the case everywhere on earth and Sudan is no exception. Alan Clark, a junior minister at the Department of Employment in Thatcher’s government had this to say, in an interview with The Observer : ‘My party has held power for three-quarters of the past 70 years through a mixture of ‘greed and fear’-----the greed of wanting power and fear of losing’. Except for fear factor, Mr. Bona’s scathing attack of the SPLM is fuelled by nothing other than what Allan calls ‘greed and fear’.   This equally explains why the NCP have been hanging to power for over 20 years. It is the case with Mr. Bona’s abandonment of the South.

7. Disagreement over Money, esp. oil revenues . Mr Bona further argues that the crisis between the NCP and SPLM is over oil revenues and lack of transparency with the people of Sudan . He argues that mechanisms on how to solve the problem have been subordinated in favour of a shenanigans type of resolution. Mr. Bona thinks what the SPLM is doing is nothing other than a deceitful confidence trick which is mischievous and annoying. This simply means the SPLM leaders are playing with fire.

Our comments : Yes, this is part of the equation and it is an important one at that. What the CPA gave the South must not be let go. It must be pursued until it is attained. The NCP and not the SPLM controls the oil revenues and the administration. The South must not only have the revenues but also partake in the general management or administration of the oil. We see no wrong in the SPLM pursuit of this right. Without oil revenues, we cannot develop anything nor can we feed ourselves. It is a lifeline which we cannot do without.

8. Seeker of squabbles . Mr Bona thinks the SPLM leaders have annoying habit of seeking squabbles all the time with its partner. He advised that such squabbles be ended and that the SPLM should go ahead to govern South Sudan since power sharing, the system of govt. including legislative system are in pace. He also wants the SPLM leadership to ensure better security for the South by bringing under control the many incidents of insecurity rampant there.

Our comments: There is no disagreement with his last observation. However, indicting the SPLM as mere squabble makers, deceitful and annoying is farfetched. It undermines the truth the SPLM is putting forward in defence of the CPA and interest of its beneficiaries. This is unacceptable. The SPLM has nothing to gain by seeking squabbles with the NCP. Yet, any resistance to the NCP’s attempts to slow down the process of implementation in order to have it finally liquidated must not be accepted. The SPLM must keep talking. If doing so translates to squabbles according to Mr. Bona, then, we do not see it that way.

9. Perpetrators of conflict through endless complaints and confrontation . Mr Bona also accused the SPLM leaders as trouble makers. He does not believe their case against the NCP is justified. According to him, the SPLM must avoid complaining over Oil revenues and put to better use the 50% they are getting. Instead, they must strive to co-operate, rather than perpetual confrontation with the NCP.

Our comments: Mr. Bona’s negative remarks here are uncalled for. Worse, his repeated attempts to play down as inconsequential the SPLM’s case against the NCP which is well known to may worldwide are equally outrageous and, unacceptable. It is not trouble making to as for one’s rights.

10. Shenanigans. Mr. Bona’s description of the SPLM’s protest against the NCP’s attempts to fail the CPA as simply annoying, deceitful   and/or a confidence trick is misplaced as this belittles the seriousness of the issue at hand. Given the seriousness of the situation, the position taken by the SPLM is right. We back them up in every detail.

In conclusion, Mr Bona’s prescription that the SPLM is vent on confrontation with the NCP is misplaced. Pressing for the implementation of the CPA is sure to have positive impact rather than adversely affect the interest of South Sudan as Mr. Bona alluded to.   Co-operation rather than submission to blackmail between the two partners is a sensible proposition. We do not disagree with that. What we disagree with is the intention behind the condemnation of the SPLM and attempts by Mr. Bona to persuade southern people not to ‘blindly follow the SPLM to action, including back to war’. The SPLM did not say it is going back to war. This is an unnecessary emphasis. This implies that the war is SPLM-induced and no one should obey them. We object. It is wrong on the part of Mr. Bona to try to isolate the SPLM and deprive it of the support by the people. The SPLM does not have any rights of its own which it fought for and continue to fight for which did not and do not belong to the people of the South. The people of the South have nothing to gain in the SPLM’s defeat or humiliation as Mr. Bona advocates. Only the NCP stands to gain from such a divisive strategy. Our failure not to support the SPLM as seems apparent in Mr. Bona’s preaching means support for the NCP. We do not see any sense in southerners being prepared for such a suicide.

Mr. Bona also accuses the SPLM of threatening the war. According to him, war must be threatened only by the north, not southerners. He describes southerners as passive people who only volunteer to fight after they are threatened or when provoked by the north. Mr. Bona wants Southerners to wait for the north to impose the war on them. That necessarily begins with slow and sure death of the CPA. The implication of Mr. Bona argument is that southerners must not react because doing so means a declaration of war. Only the north has the absolute right and testicles to declare war and violate peace as they wish. In Mr. Bona’s world view war is allowable only if the north refuses to fulfil its role under the peace agreement which translates into violation and a threat to go to war. In other words, the South must wait and, with folded hands, until the nuclear weapon is released on them after which the maimed and the dead would rise, get transformed into volunteers and fight back.

However, contrary to claims of good intentions against war, Mr Bona betrayed these by accusing the SPLM to be threatening an unpopular war and by preaching to southerners against his unpopular war. He rationalised his view that only wars fought by the South in reaction to violations and wars declared by the north are more popular among southerners. Mr Bona’s message is clear and loud. He plays down the NCP’s rejection of the CPA which triggered the crisis and, without shame and without hesitation, he full-heartedly argues that it is the SPLM rather than the NCP leadership that is threatening war. Mr Bona treacherously ignored a universal or worldwide view that it is the rejection of and attempts by the NCP to kill the CPA which threaten a return to war. In a further contradiction to his alleged good intentions, Mr. Bona lodges a scathing campaign in which he accused the SPLM as running all over the world to agitate for a fruitless foreign intervention. Mr. Bona believes and wants to make others believe that the SPLM is agitating for foreign intervention which is futile in his view and that of the NCP.

Mr Bona’s dangerous and fabricated lies against the SPLM leadership which are meant to bring down to its knees the SPLM at the national and international levels may be summed up in four factors.

A. Agitators of foreign intervention . Mr Bona thinks the SPLM leaders are agitators with interest in the intervention of foreign countries. He dismisses his own accusation as futile, alleging that the NCP won’t respond to the SPLM’s demands.

B. Alarmists . Mr Bona sees SPLM leadership as merely alarmists---only determined to alarm the world or what he calls ‘our friends abroad’. Mr. Bona sees his own accusation as needles and meaningless---nothing but only mere gimmicks known to our friends because they are a daily witness to our (bad) performance in government in addition to the fact that they know what we as representatives of our people in government are doing and not doing. Mr. Bona thinks the IC knows for itself what they can do and what they cannot do. The IC has no interest to intervene in the affairs of Sudan and in case they do, they may do so only when they see the window of opportunity to achieve their own interest in Sudan – the change of regime, for instance, which is the goal of some of our powerful friends and, not through SPLM orders.

Our comments : Mr Bona’s incitement has reached its climax here. Such incitement is clearly intended to drive an unbridgeable wedge between the NCP and the SPLM. Earlier and throughout his paper, we saw Mr Bona’s pretences against war and in favour of cooperation. If you took him seriously, you were wrong. Here, he reveals the extent to which he is committed to inciting collision rather than cooperation between the two partners. He does this by projecting the SPLM as working against the NCP with the enemies of the NCP. He is saying the SPLM are collaborating with an unnamed ‘our powerful friends’ to bring about a regime change. Although he failed to name names, the vocabulary of the phrase ‘regime change’ is unmistakeably American. This is sure to sound sweet in the ears of the NCP and their base of support, locally, regionally and internationally. Being anti-America and Israel in what is believed to be Arab and Islamic country has quiet a few and interesting dividends. Mr Bona may be one among many who think such anti-American ad western world strategy may earn him some blessing not only from Khartoum but also from Medina and Aqsa! This may explain why some frustrated commentators are already calling on Malwal to drop his beautiful Dinka name for an Arab and Muslim name. Some had already suggested Mohamed Bashir for his new name. This is the extent to which Malwal’s repeated and unjustified outrage against his own people had driven his own kind to the edge. Many already see him as enemy number one, rightly or wrongly!

C. Stooges and agents of foreign interest . Mr Bona simply reduced the SPLM leadership to being stooges of or puppets to foreign influence. According o him, the SPLM leaders are being used by our friends to achieve their own political objectives in our name. Mr Bona ventured further into accusing the SPLM leadership as trying to ‘give our friends the opportunity to use us to achieve their political objectives in the Sudan .’

Our comments : Mr. Bona’s unjustified accusations have shown he knows no borders or limitations. Whoever is opposed to his sale are an enemy and whatever principles and goals one fights for must be relinquished and betrayed as soon as he fails to have the leadership on his side. He abandoned the SPLM and Self Determination of the South when he disagreed with Dr. John and he is doing the same under the present leadership. For Mr. Bona principles only hold and count when the SPLM leadership is in his arms-pit, ready to be manipulated by him. Once the leadership utters a no, Mr Bona’s worldview ends there, and history becomes history, null and void.   He may have succeeded in the past, but this may no longer stick. He is discovered! The NCP also knows his mercurial character, but they are playing cats and mouse.

D. Agents of regime change and regime changers. Mr Bona strikes the heart of the very co-operation he advised the SPLM to observe. How did he do this? He accused the SPLM leadership as working for a change of regime in Khartoum in collaboration with the enemies of the NCP. He grounded this fabricated logic on another fabrication. He alleges that the SPLM leadership does not accept that it is part of the regime in Sudan . Mr Bona planted this danger only to pretend to advise the SPLM that his fictitious game is dangerous which the SPLM should not pursue in the name of the people of the South. Mr Bona argued that the SPLM should drop such a possibility since there is no some external power to engineer a change of regime in Khartoum to take away the NCP and impose the CPA on the new regime, including the 28 per cent share of power and the fifty percent share of the oil revenues from the oil wells of the South.

Our comments: The SPLM is not for any regime change because they are part of the said regime. It makes no sense for one to stage a coup against oneself. Yet, by unwittingly contemplating such a possibility on behalf of the SPLM, Mr Bona is not opposed to the idea. What he objects to is the SPLM doing it and the means to do so. All the same, Mr Bona’s targeted victim is the SPLM and his bemused audience is the NCP. Again the accusation follows the same pattern----appease the NCP and enlarge the prospects of co-operation, not between the SPLM and NCP but between him and the NCP.

Mr Bona makes other damning claims to the effect that the SPLM leadership is working for a change which he thought was advised by and taken from their many foreign friends. A way out, according to him is for the SPLM leadership to drop his own invented idea since he believes most changes aren’t clean. He further added that the SPLM’s foreign friends as well as the SPLM do not share the political aspiration of the people of South Sudan – Self-Determination, for example. Mr Bona advised the SPLM not to listen to such foreign friends since they do not believe in Self-Determination, the way it is contained in the CPA. Mr. Bona advised the SPLM to hold on to the CPA which he describes as a very precious agreement and to cooperate with whom they signed it.

Our comments : Mr Bona is back to the South with a few bombshells which he intends to use to antagonise Southerners against the SPLM. He imagines himself as and, actually is trying to create an impression that he is a guardian of the right of the South to Self Determination. He is not and, people should not believe him. He is not for Self Determination which we all want. Such a position was true of him before 2000. Not true any longer. He had abandoned this right since 2000 for his so-called Northern Bahr El Ghazal Self Determination and, unity which he now pretends to oppose. No separatist can have the confidence of a unionist President and still imagines he is a unionist! Mr. Bona cannot be an exception, and especially after he made a declaration upon his return to Khartoum from exile that he was prepared to give unity a chance. It may require a miracle for an alleged separatist to give separation a chance if he is prepared to give unity a chance. Very few from among Sudanese may fail to see this as bait. (Quotation on honesty)

3. THE ROLE OF THE SOUTH IN THE CENTRE

Mr Bona argued that the SPLM should behave as well as carry out its function as member in GONU, leader of GOSS, a representative rep. of people of south Sudan and a negotiator of CPA at Naivasha.

Our comments: Mr. Bona wants the SPLM to abandon its national role and relinquish the agenda of ‘New Sudan. The appeal is to the South. Southerners are being told that their hard-earned gains have been usurped, their interest in peace and in government marginalised in pursuit of new political frontiers elsewhere in Sudan . The message is loud and clear to Southern people. They should not allow these things by any of their leaders. One cynic remarked that this was Mr Bona’s coded message for a coup against the incumbent SPLM leaders. Mr Bona has distinguished himself as one who has a hobby in trying to derail the incumbents!! He did so with the late leader, Dr. Garang and is doing it again with the present leader. He does it again and again! But, will the SPLM leaders fail to see the logic in the saying that a lion’s roaring may be frightening, but it is also a warning which may enable one to take one’s safety.

4. THE NEED TO CO-OPERATE

Mr Bona objects to what he calls an endless saga of confrontation. According to him, the people of South Sudan have been treated to an endless saga of confrontation between the leadership of the SPLM and the NCP.

Our comments : Again, Mr Bona sees the SPLM as the victimizer rather than a victim. In consequence, he placed the blame squarely on the door of the SPLM. According to him, most of the reasons for this confrontation, if not all of them, are due to factors other than South Sudan . Mr Bona’s other factors, other than the South, have been mentioned earlier. They include Abyei Protocol, Nuba Mountains , Blue Nile , Darfur , Northern Sudan and eastern Sudan as well as SPLM’s concerns and interest in democratic transformation for the people of Sudan as a whole. Co-operation is acceptable, not stoop in humiliation and, violation of the CPA nor abandonment of our Ngok Dinka brethren as Malwal would want us to believe.

5. THE STATUS OF THE CPA

In what many people may construe as nothing but betrayal of the CPA and of the strength of its provisions, Mr Bona accused the SPLM of being irrational for demanding the full implementation of the CPA. Mr. Bona thinks it is unreasonable for the SPLM leadership to aspire for the implementation of the Agreement in its entirety. He claimed that ‘no agreements under the sun are carried out fully during an interim period of six years and, that not all sections of any agreement are equal and not all sections of any agreement can carry the same weight to be equally fulfilled’. Mr. Bona claims that doing so becomes a futile game of politics, and hence, he condemned the SPLM leadership’s attempts to change what he calls ‘the order of priorities of the CPA’. Mr. Bona claimed that the Protocol number six in the CPA has been made a priority number one and, as the basis of cooperation between them and their partner, the NCP.

Our comments : Unbelievable views, aren’t they? Mr Bona daringness is unbelievably notorious in implication. He is trying to rewrite the CPA and create his own CPA and provisions. What we know and the world knows is that all CPA Protocols are equal in weight and length and, must be implemented fully in line with the timeframe allotted them. The CPA allows no multiple choice type of selection which Mr Bona is suggesting. Mr Bona doesn’t care that doing so is a clear undemocratic amendment and violation of the CPA which must not be allowed. The history of violation associated with Sudan ’s agreements should be a thing of the past. Mr Bona’s suggestions ensure a return to the unpredictable, unreliable and devouring character and characters of old Sudan . The SPLM must not be part of such a terrible legacy just to avoid Mr Bona’s concocted war.

The implementation of the CPA as is the case with all agreements was designed to be total rather than partial or selective. It must be totally and faithfully carried out in its totality. The strength of CPA lies in the total implementation of its provisions and, in accordance to its timeframe. In doing so, chronological order must not be subordinated in a hope to scavenge on assumed soft spots of the CPA. No soft or hard spots in the CPA. This simply means that nothing should be added and nothing should be subtracted. Any additions and subtractions such as those proposed by Mr Bona constitute an unforgettable and unforgivable violation of the CPA. SSD has not been surpassed as Malwal would want us to believe. Moreover, his first priority----SSD comes at the end of the interim period, not first as he claimed. All other protocols including Abyei protocol which Mr. Bona now wants demoted in terms of implementation in both chronological order and timeframe, come before Mr Bona’s preferred SSD. Each protocol was meant to complete each other in the order chosen, not in the order selected. Unless met in the exact order and timeframe, you fail to facilitate the implementation of SSD. If we go by this logic, we would not reach Mr Bona’s ultimate goal. The door to this goal lies in the fulfilment of these other protocols which Mr Bona wants avoided in preference for his ultimate goal. But, is it true that Mr Bona is unaware of the fact that this is not the case? Why is he turning his back to Abei people and the CPA which has safeguarded the right of Abei people? Isn’t it a heartless and cold-blooded proposition to want the SPLM safeguard SSD without doing so for Ngok Dinka of Abei? Does Mr Bona believe that he and those he thinks are his people would be free without Ngok Dinka getting the same? Such a treacherous sell-out is unforgivable as well as unforgettable.

Mr Bona moved further to accuse and, in person, Chairman Kiir Mayardit whom he referred to as ‘the current leader of the SPLM that now threatens to walk out of the CPA’. In his opinion, the Chairman should guarantee the SSD since he was the same person who signed the Machakos Protocol, on behalf of the SPLM and therefore, on behalf of the people of South Sudan . He has to do so because Malwal believes the CPA is about the rights and the interests of the people of South Sudan first and then about whoever else. He insinuates that he doesn’t want the Chairman to be among the very few extremely small individuals who permit themselves into erasing their own signature to such important documents like the CPA in their own life time. But, Mr Bona did not stop there. He went further to remind the Chairman of the agonies which might result from such actions and which he thinks are severe on the individual, as well as on the entire community. He pointed out that Mr Kiir must not, knowingly, allow himself to be dragged into such terrible agonies of history, by reversing his own signature.

Our comments : This piece of conclusion summarises his personal view about his so-called the current SPLM leader. He thinks Mr Kiir is being dragged rather than an independent thinker and, a decider of the right course of action on his own and for the good of his own people. Although Mr Bona recognised the possible factors that might lead to the faltering of the implementation of the CPA, he denigrated such factors as inconsequential to the cause of the South Sudan to allow going back to war with the North, for a third time. For him, the North should be allowed once more to abrogate the CPA and deny the South its referendum. In light of this, Mr Bona who thinks the SPLM is prompting the NCP by its behaviour to abrogate the CPA warned the SPLM leadership to get off the dangerous hook. Although Mr Bona acknowledges that NCP is doing some things which he failed to identify, he shows an incredible tolerance as clear from his promptings: ‘Whatever the NCP does; however the slowness of the implementation of the CPA; whatever the Spam’s many foreign friends counsel them to do, the SPLM must not walk away from the CPA (in response to their friend’s orders). Doing so would be turning away one’s back to the long suffering people of South Sudan .

Our comments : Read from his promptings above, it is clear that Mr Bona is conscious that the NCP has the intention to abrogate the CPA, but does not say it as may be gleaned from his prompting of SPLM not to give the NCP any excuse to abrogate the CPA. The NCP should be the ones to do so on their own as is apparent in what he writes: “Let the North alone abrogate the CPA. The SPLM leadership knows that the South never fails to react, in such circumstances. Such actions forced on the South by the North, have always been noble causes for the people of South Sudan .”   There is nothing as SPLM prompting of the NCP to abrogate the CPA. What the SPLM leadership is doing is to stand up for such rights via dialogue and other means such as pulling out of the government. These are peaceful means, not threats to go back to war. However, Mr. Bona’s coaching to allow the NCP to violate agreement is funny. The NCP have no right to decide for us. We have to do so, on our own. Such a proposition puts the NCP in a superior position which is not the case. Partnership is governed by consideration to such things as respect and adherence to equality. No one weighs less or more than the other.

6. THE ABYEI PROTOCOL

Mr Bona’s slaughter house is Abyei. Here, he tackled the Abyei issue with reckless vengeance. Giving himself a position and weight he doesn’t have, he volunteered to give his opinion on Abyei district and the Abyei Protocol which the Ngok Dinka people earned by sweat and blood. Mr Bona thinks the Abyei issue is controversial and is given larger, improper size and share than it deserves. According to him, the Abyei issue is not crucial as compared to his so-called ‘the most crucial issues’. He thinks Abyei issue has been exaggerated and inflated. He attributes this exaggeration and inflation to what he calls ‘extremely unrealistic political influence of the leaders of Abyei within the SPLM leadership’.

Our comments : By such treacherous and unjustified arguments, Mr Bona has practically, physically, culturally and politically wiped out Abyei and the NGOK Dinka from the map. This is simple logic. Once you remove them from their folk and have them sold to the north Bona-style, there would be nothing called Ngok Dinka to talk of. Mr Bona’s bad faith against the Ngok Dinka is real. He talks about the smallness of Abyei in size, share and undeserved influence of the sons and daughters of Ngok Dinka within the SPLM. This is an irrelevant rationalising and a denial of one’s own people. Mr Bona must know that what is at issue is not their size, share or influence. What is at issue is the freedom of Abyei people irrespective of size, share and influence. You do not have to be numerous, large and influential to deserve any rights. Mr Bona’s irresponsible ideas on Abyei and suggestions for a way backward are unacceptable.

Our support for Abyei is not based on any favouritism, its oil vast reserves or misplaced sympathies as alleged. Does Mr Bona forget that there is no war, no battle and no wrestling which the rest of the South and marginalised people fought in exclusion of the Ngok Dinka of Abyei? If yes, Mr. Bona must know that their influence is not a donation from anyone or is it mere sympathies from anyone. All that is in recognition of their positive role, sacrifices they had made since civil war I through civil war II. Such a position is hard-earned and their treatment by the rest of the South as well as our sympathies for their case deserved. There are more traitors in the South than are in Abyei. The Ngok Dinka people are our symbol of resistance, patriotism and, in deed, they represent Southern heart in general and Dinka heart in particular. Having positions doesn’t necessary have any impact, otherwise, how many Southerners are in NCP including Advisor, Mr. Bona without any influence or pride?

Mr Bona is on record and even boastful, that his view on the issue of Abyei is known to those he regards to be ‘steering this controversy and using his view in so negative a manner’.   Again, he sees no truth in the demand of Abyei people and of the SPLM to have the Abyei Protocol implemented. He regards them as merely steering the controversy which has no justification. What else could be negative and irresponsible?

Mr Bona sees Abyei’s case as a non-starter and sees it an annoyance which should be left to its fate rather than allowed to threaten a return to war with. Mr. Bona thinks the South must not fight even if Abyei’s Protocol is not carried out. Mr. Bona goes on to claim that he sees the Abyei issue as a threat to peace rather than a deliberate and arrogant refusal by the NCP to implement the Abyei Protocol. For Mr. Bona, the Abyei issue has been ‘exaggerated and inflated’ by the SPLM leaders, acting on the orders of or under what he calls ‘unrealistic political influence by Ngok Dinka members of the SPLM’ whom he accused of wanting the Protocol carried out according to their ‘whims’. Mr. Bona thinks it preferable to hand over Abyei---both land and people---to the NCP to avoid being driven back to such an ‘encompassing and devastating war without justification’. Mr Bona concludes his remarks, saying Abyei alone must not return the country to war and that he wants the Abyei protocol implemented without the threat of war.

Our comments : Mr Bona’s ill-conceived accusation against Abyei patriots and the SPLM leadership as manipulators who want to go back to war for a cause which is unjustified is mind boggling. The SPLM has, time and again, made it clear that it is not going back to war where and when avoidable. This can’t be a message intended to drive people back to war as it is against it. The assault on the Ngok Dinka leaders in the SPLM is nothing useful other than mere envy prompted by jealousy and desire to inflict a grievous harm on the NGOK Dinka people. In deed, a non-return to war is a product of the implementation of the CPA. We do not see in which way one can claim to be peaceful if one fails to implement the CPA-----an agreement that ended the war.

Furthermore, the problem with this sweetened suggestion is that Mr Bona has not eliminated the threat of war. In his message above, we can go back to war if other issues besides Abyei are not implemented. He is only opposed to war on the issue of Abyei. Clearly, Mr Bona has a case against Abyei, not against the war itself. He objects to war if it is about Abyei alone which implies he allows for war if other issues including his ‘crucial issues’ are not observed. Mr Bona fails to prevent the threat of war by offering Abyei to the NCP and by denying the right of the South over Abyei. Asking the NCP to implement the CPA and Abyei Protocol is not a threat to war but a way forward. Prompting the NCP to listen to experts and recommendations they made is not a threat to war. In all cases, the NCP had failed to deliver. Is such behaviour a peaceful one?

Mr. Bona dealt a terrible blow to the case of Ngok Dinka when he dismissed the findings and recommendations of the experts and denying Abyei to be part of the South. Unbelievably, Mr. Bona thinks their findings and recommendations favour one side---the Ngok Dinka. Mr. Bona denies the right of the South as well as the right of the Ngok Dinka over Abyei. In order to deliver Mr. Bona’s justice without borders, others who are not Ngok Dinka of Abyei must be accommodated.   After acknowledging that the people of South Sudan care very deeply about Abyei because they are their kith and kin, he contradicted himself by saying standing up for the rights of Abyei people was not real but utopian. See what he says: “But in the real world, one does not go to war to return to themselves what was not taken from them by force or by war”.

Mr Bona’s real world is clearly different from our world. What is part of you cannot be unreal but, real in the real world. In the real world, nothing which is part of you can be relinquished. This explains why we cannot afford to abandon what is ours to appease those unreal people with unreal claim over our real land and real people. That may only happen in an unreal world such as Mr Bona’s. Mr Bona made a sensible case when he argued that Abyei was not taken by conquest of war and that a peaceful way to implement the Abyei Protocol under the CPA must be found. What Mr Bona ignores is that this logic is equally applicable to the north. The north did not take Abyei by conquest of war. More importantly, the north has been on a noisy record that what was done by the British administration is wrong. Mr Bona should help explain this fact to the north since he has suddenly become the defender and advisor general of the north. If what the British did in the South is wrong, why isn’t the case of Abyei wrong since it was done by the British? Why is Mr. Bona’s north prepared to go to war for something they did not take by war? Mr. Bona must also explain to us why the north is refusing to relinquish in peace what was not taken by force or by war from the South. Isn’t doing so an act of bad faith and provocation if not an act of war?

In a blank and forceful denial of the Southern right over Abyei, Mr Bona claimed that the Abyei issue does not settle easily peacefully as part of the borders of South Sudan since the Abyei area became part of Southern Kordofan – Northern Sudan since 1905. Mr. Bona thinks Abyei is outside the borders of South Sudan as they stood on first January 1956 and, also outside the CPA specification. He wants Abyei issue resolved peacefully by discussion rather than by war.

Our comments : Mr Bona’s conclusion against war is sensible, but his preceding remarks refusing to recognise the right of the South over Abyei, his urgings to give up Abyei on grounds of certain historical coincidences for which we had no say and his blaming of the SPLM and some of its members from Abyei are not just controversial, insensitive and provocative but also wrong. Except for his urgings against war, such arguments are nonsensical to deserve listening to. Mr Bona should not forget that CPA is a product of discussion and resolutions or provisions made there are final. They have only to be implemented by the two partners. Suggestions about talks over discussions and compromises made leading to CPA are a violation of the CPA.

Mr. Bona made sure he gave away Abyei at no price. He justifies this sale on grounds that the Abyei area is no longer purely Ngok Dinka area because it has been an area of Southern Kordofan since 1905. According to him, there are other tribal interests there that he claims the Abyei Protocol of the CPA has not catered for and which must be considered in carrying out the Abyei Protocol.

Our comments : Mr. Bona is expressing his displeasure with Abyei Protocol because he thinks it clearly favours one side---meaning Ngok Dinka---a fact which he thinks doesn’t make the Abyei Protocol comprehensive enough. He argues that any insistence to have his so-called incomprehensive protocol fulfilled by way of implementing it as it is without catering for what he calls ‘other interests’ may not necessarily maintain peace in the area besides being an incitement of   the north to fight what he calls ‘little war’. Mr Bona thinks he does not see the interest of the SPLM, in reaching peace agreement with the North only to end up inciting war in the north or in putting itself in the situation of having to use force to evict the non-Ngok Dinka elements from Abyei by force. ‘That would be war itself all over again’, he concludes.

After projecting Abyei as a small area, both geographically and population-wise and attributing the floating of oil to the concoction of what he calls ‘pundits’, Mr Bona set down his ritualistic-and-compulsion-like recommendations to fulfil his phobic reaction on Abyei and Ngok Dinka people. According to him, the way forward lies in two steps which the Government of National Unity (GONU) and the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) and, in cooperation with each other, can take in the interest of the people of Abyei while the discussion of the other issues goes on between the parties, until they reach a final agreement. Mr. Bona two steps are: First, they must set up local administration for Abyei, under the leadership of the citizens (not Ngok Dinka people as CPA indicated) of Abyei, in their entirety. Mr Bona cynically remarks that the SPLM leadership can assign their members who hail from the north to achieve such an objective in Abyei. Mr Bona qualifies his view saying that it may not be difficult for the SPLM to achieve this since they seem so keen and generous in assigning so much of their own share of power in the central government in Khartoum to non-Southerners, meaning SPLM members from the north. Second, the oil must be extracted for the benefit of the whole country. Doing so should be through peace rather than war. Mr. Bona thinks that for an oil producing region of Sudan, the two percent provided for by the CPA may be all it would take to develop Abei rather than holding it back, in a political controversy whose possible and devastating consequences on the people of Abei themselves one is not in control.

Our comments: Mr Bona’s ritualistic and compulsive views are very revealing. On the whole, such views blatantly violate the CPA. He prescribes local administration for what he calls ‘citizens of Abyei in their entirety’ contrary to the provisions of the CPA that deal with only the owners of the land, the Ngok Dinka. This can hardly be a language of peace. On the contrary, Mr Bona’s suggestion is a deliberate introduction of an element of conflict as this is sure to whet the appetite of intruders from outside Abei. This is an unnecessary interference which may complicate the smooth implementation of the CPA. While Mr Bona pretends to urge for CPA implementation, he has actually derailed it by suggesting things which the CPA had overcome and which made possible the Abei Protocol. Whatever may happen after this betrayal, Mr. Bona’s confusing and disruptive takeover of Abei issue will go down in history as one of the complicating factors? Mr. Bona gets it wrong again. The Abei issue is a matter which needs no appeasement. Many see this as a question of land grabbing from the weak South by the strong North. We do not know when Mr Bona’s north has been so keen in not giving up the land which they claim to be theirs, rightly or wrongly. Let Mr. Bona be reminded that Hallaib belongs to Sudan and, to the north in particular. Do we need to remind Mr. Bona about the fate of Hallaib? Why did the north give up Hallaib to foreigners if they were keen in keeping and dying for their land as Mr Bona wants us to believe in the case of Abei? Mr. Bona would have been right if he had used our weakness as a reason other than that Abei was not ours. Moreover, if by the presence of any grain and element from outside one particular area is a justification qualifying one for ownership, Mr. Bona’s South Sudan would not belong to us alone according to his universal view. If this makes sense, Mr. Bona’s so-called presence of others in Abei doesn’t give them the right which he treacherously and undeservedly gave them.

In his futile attempt to frighten the South and deliver Abei and its owners to non-owners, Mr Bona ventured to remind us of our bad experiences in war and that we should not be too eager to return to war. Mr Bona blamed the SPLM leadership, accusing them of igniting the current debate and of wanting to go back to war on the issue of Abei. In his view, Mr Bona claims he detests going back to what he calls ‘SPLM-ignited war’ because it is not in their interest as a party nor the people of Abei themselves.

Our Comments: Mr. Bona’s obsession with his so-called SPLM-ignited war is an illusion. The SPLM doesn’t want war nor is it going back to war. However, if by pressing NCP to implement the CPA is what Malwal implies to mean war, then, he should be prepared to run or submit to northern bully. The sale of Abei and submission to the highest bidder can’t be in the interest of Abei people. Certainly, under such humiliating conditions, the South isn’t prepared to submit or to sell Abei people and land. We will continue to press for the implementation of the Abei Protocol, and since Bona’s north doesn’t want war; it will comply with all CPA provisions and let the SPLM go to war on its own!

Mr Bona concluded his assault on Abei and SPLM in a bitter taste. According to him the Abei Protocol is priority number five in the CPA and should not be made priority number one in the current debate as such prioritising won’t serve the cause of Abei, or the South. Mr Bona sees his alleged prioritising as holding the implementation of the CPA hostage to the Abei Protocol besides being an unacceptable attempt to rig the system.

Our comments : Mr Bona’s determination to amend the CPA, have it violated and thus drowned with the Abei Protocol and people represents an unmatched barbarism and sadism on a grand scale. Mr Bona knows it is not a question of chronological and order-like prioritisation. Such prioritising doesn’t come in and has nothing to do with importance of what protocol. Such viewing is misplaced. What counts is not Mr Bona’s re-prioritising of the articles or provisions, phrases, or clauses of the CPA, but the implementation of such provisions in their entirety and, in their right and chronological order and timeframe as it is laid out in the CPA. This setting gives no one any liberty to add or subtract, to order or reorder in the manner suggested by Mr Bona. Doing so is tantamount to abrogating the CPA. It is this which Mr Bona and his beloved NCP should worry about rather than his illusion-like threat of war by SPLM leadership.

At the end of this torturous part, we understand the hurt Mr Bona had caused to our Ngok Dinka brethren from Abei. We do not condone his most baffling, embarrassing and treacherous views on Abei on one hand, and an unwarranted assault on the SPLM leadership on the other. To that end, we feel obliged to ask our brethren from Abei not to despair. Mr Malwal is a loner regarding your issue. You are screened by your God-given right over Abei--your land, by blood and sacrifices you made throughout the history of our struggle—struggle one through struggle two--and beyond. Above all, the South is with you. Mr. Bona doesn’t have a final word. You and we have. Hold on great people. You have our hearts and support. Individuals in the South may betray you as they did us in the interior South.   But, as long as the South---the land and people--- are behind you, the Abei people will, at the end, enjoy the sweet taste of victory and freedom with or without the support of Mr. Bona as a person. Mr. Bona Malwal’s own words said it all when he wrote: “Even the weakest of human beings, can sometimes call the bluff of the strongest and the most powerful with devastating consequences. If an agreement is to endure, the parties to that agreement must not threaten each other with return to war.” No more comments.

7. THE EXAGGERATED FOREIGN INFLUENCE

Mr Bona’s audience in this section is certainly the north in general and the NCP in particular. This observation is justified by Mr. Bona’s condemnation and indictment of the SPLM leadership. In addition to earlier accusations against the SPLM, we have summarised his areas of final assault on the SPLM leadership in a clear and deliberate attempt to impress the rich NCP.

First, Mr Bona thinks that what he calls ‘SPLM repeatedly trial to use outside threat against its partner-----is an entirely counter- productive conduct’. He supported this concoction saying that no provision under the CPA, except the work of the Joint Assessment Commission exist for some foreign intervention. He argues that there is no harm in appealing to friends to help, nothing but just help, but not an appeal for intervention, which, according to him ‘the SPLM threatens all the time.’ He argues that agreement on an issue of disagreement and arbitrator should be mutual and that no one party should threaten that they would invite a foreign power to take over the running of - Abyei for instance. Second, Mr Bona thinks it is the SPLM which threatens to use the power of their foreign friends against its partner, the NCP. Once partners have become friends, each partner must convince or persuade their foreign friends to befriend the other partner rather than encourage hostility against them in favour of SPLM in the CPA. Mr Bona thinks such a situation might lead to the end of the CPA.

Our comments : Mr Bona did not say which foreign friends the SPLM has who are enemies of the NCP. Our assumption is that it could be IGAD countries and the USA or any other member of the friends of IGAD. If not wrong, we do not see them as SPLM’s friends. These were the very countries that saved millions of our refugees and helped us negotiate and sign the CPA. They are neither friends of the SPLM nor friends of the NCP. They are there to carry out their international duty. They are friends of humanity and of Sudanese in general. This wish by Mr Bona to involve them in a local dispute is only intended to impress the NCP and north besides having to lend justification to northern endless accusations of non-existent foreign intervention. Mr Bona himself had tried several times to befriend some if not all of these so-called SPLM foreign or friendly countries when he picked a quarrel with Dr Garang, and going as far as attempting to recruit them to support his side of the argument but to no avail. This is the grudge Mr Bona holds against them. Finding himself between a rock and hard place, the next of kin to whom he had to turn to save his skin and soul was the north beginning with Mr Sadig Al Mahdi and, finally ended up in NCP’s demonic arms! He has no case against the SPLM and his so-called SPLM foreign friends. Like Abyei people, these foreign friends are a means to an end for our elderly politician, Mr Bona Malwal.

Second, Mr Bona argues that the SPLM’s dream for creating a ‘New Sudan’ through the help of a foreign invader who might in turn handover the control of Sudan to the SPLM is inconceivable. Mr Bona thinks the people of Northern Sudan must consent to such a move which he doesn’t think possible in view of the cultural attitude of Northern Sudan towards such an eventuality, meaning the creation of New Sudan.

Our comments : Mr Bona’s attribution of northern unwillingness and lack of change to cultural factors has actually exposed the north and weaken their case for unity. If you do not want to accept a change that favours unity, then, how else are you a unionist? Mr Bona wrongly concedes northern claims in favour of unity and allegations of southern separatism. Such concession is misplaced. The only unionists are the very northerners Mr Bona doesn’t want to be given his so-called Southern positions. The rest, including Mr. Bona’s new god-father, Mr. Sadig Al Mahdi, are hypocrites and separatists. If Mr Bona truly believes that northerners have their national vision impaired by some cultural factors to a point of rejecting one united New Sudan, then, isn’t it evidence that they have failed to make unity attractive which is attractive to Mr Bona’s Self Determination? Shouldn’t this be good news for advocates of independence who think in exclusive terms?

Third, Mr Bona introduced another element---popularity--to the discussion in an attempt to hammer what he calls ‘The few Northern Sudanese members and supporters of the SPLM who make a big deal about the popularity of the SPLM in the North.’ He dismisses this view as mere sloganeering which cannot be translated into reality on the ground in Northern Sudan . He went on to say that they do not see any popularity of the Northern Sudanese members of the SPLM on the streets of Northern Sudan . Any popularity that cannot be translated into votes at the hour of reckoning is not worth this hullabaloo (agitation, excitement, turmoil, upheaval, disturbance usu. in protest).

Our comments : Mr Bona’s unreasonable show reached its zenith here. Popularity is irrelevant because it is not a requirement for citizenship nor is it a requirement for a citizen to express his/her view. If this were the case, Mr. Bona would not qualify. Indeed, he would be the first casualty since we do not know, as we write, any other politician who is as unpopular if not hated politician in the south as is Mr Bona Malwal. Being popular or unpopular doesn’t diminish one’s citizenship nor does it take away one’s rights. Mr Bona’s present writing is actually a refuge from the South and an attempt to seek sympathies from the north. In life there are things you hope to achieve which may not necessarily be met. Yet, one must give it a try. Let us give a living example in our own environment. Some northerners claim they are Arabs, but in real life, they reject a party like Arab Baath party which has openly articulated this aspiration---Arabism. Does this rejection amount to these Arabs being non-Arabs? Definitely, it doesn’t. In like manner, you do not need to be popular to say your point of view or hold to a certain belief. In our case, popularity is not a criterion allowing one to give an opinion or be a member of x or y party, otherwise, Mr Bona would not talk for life. Moreover, Mr Bona must tell us why northerners cannot listen to unpopular northerners while Southerners can listen to unpopular Southerners like him?

Fourth, Mr Bona also accused the SPLM leadership, saying they had made such a big deal about foreign intervention in their dispute with the NCP. Mr. Bona argues against such intervention not just because it is wrong but because he cannot see how a foreign power can intervene in the domestic affairs of Sudan without provision in the CPA besides lack of follow up role for these foreign powers in the CPA. Mr Bona warned the SPLM to refrain itself from being carried away too much by its own wishful thinking since there is no mechanism for such intervention in the CPA. ‘This is a world run by realism and not by fallacies’, he zoomed in.

Our comments : In all cases, Mr Bona sees everything SPLM says and does as ill-conceived, deliberate and wrong. This is clear from his ridicules, charge of SPLM being narrow-minded not only in wanting foreign intervention but also in failing to see the danger and impossibility on the part of these foreign countries to intervene. Mr Bona sees SPLM leadership as being utopian, ill-informed and their position fallacious. Such an assault which consistently accuses and faults SPLM leadership is grand in its scope and ultimate goal. Its impact must not be underrated. Doing so would be very irresponsible. The roots and branches of such a talk must be properly analysed, uprooted and its destination pinned down. Our response by way of analysis and comments is intended to clarify things and help pin down the direction and destination Mr. Bona wants to take us and, with what consequences.

Mr Bona stretched his condemnation of SPLM leadership to pre-CPA period. According to him, the SPLM leadership had failed to make provisions for any possible foreign intervention in the CPA, claiming that any talk about foreign intervention by IGAD or the IGAD partners is irrelevant. In his view, the SPLM leadership, as representatives of people of South Sudan , must avoid threatening war in their name and stick to CPA. Mr Bona harshly concluded that the SPLM had no mandate to threaten war, leave alone, and declare war. In brief, it is Mr Bona’s view that the SPLM should do two things. First, it must persuade its partner--the NCP-- to co-operate, to complete the implementation---in line with what Mr Bona cynically calls ‘their enormous trust or confidence which allowed no role by a third party’. Second, the SPLM must stick to the CPA, until 2011, when the people of South Sudan decide in their referendum, about their future.

Our comments : Once again, while there are some useful points here and there in his piece, Mr Bona’s singling out and an unfair rebuke of the SPLM is unacceptable. Many of his arguments and their grounding are mere circus and trouble shooting. There is nothing the SPLM is doing or has done to betray CPA whether alone or in collaboration with Mr Bona’s fictitious or concocted SPLM foreign friends. This claim of high moral grounds is suspicious. Perhaps, we may understand Mr Bona’s sham claim of honour and honesty through what Ralph Waldo Emerson had said to listeners of Mr Bona-like politicians. According to Emerson, whenever a politician talks about morality, listeners must remember that ‘The louder a politician talked of his honour, the faster we count the spoons’.

8. THE GOVERNMENT OF SOUTHERN SUDAN

Mr Bona’s objective of trying by all means to defame and cripple the SPLM in many fronts ----local, national and international--- made him turn his hammer against the SPLM using what he wrongly believes would appease the north.

According to Mr. Bona, the SPLM leadership has created an impression on the people of South Sudan that making unity attractive for the people of South Sudan before they cast their vote on Self-Determination is only the responsibility of the NCP, or the North. Mr Bona denies this to be the case, arguing that this is a shared responsibility since the North doesn’t control the Sudanese state government and machinery to the exclusion of the South the way it used to be.

Our comments : Mr Bona’s rampage in trying to undermine and allow the NCP to violate the CPA and scavenge on the spoils of CPA destruction couldn’t be overemphasised. The phrase ‘making unity attractive’ is purely a northern assignment. There is nothing the South can make attractive. They have always been unionist since 1947 through the CPA in 2005. Besides, this phrase has a hidden philosophical meaning to be superficially interpreted. What it means is not simply that northerners and southerners must work 24 hours 7 days a week to show how capable they are. That’s not the case. We do not need to be capable to be equal citizens of Sudan . What it means is that the north must abandon its separatism and separatist policies and turn to unity. There is nothing else the north can successfully do to make unity attractive without being inclusive in the way the New Sudan envisaged it, and which this phrase epitomises. Moreover, the north has been in control of Sudan for the last 60 years but, couldn’t make unity attractive. This simply means that having positions and working hard do not count. Mr Bona himself is a good example if capability were part of the equation. In short, the CPA specifically requires the north, not the South, to make unity attractive. Twisting it to suit one’s own purposes does not justice to the CPA and those it was intended for.

Viewed from this angle, Mr Bona’s ‘SPLM has a responsibility to make unity attractive since it occupies 28 percent of the state government and machinery and is therefore at least 28 percent answerable to the people of Sudan, for making unity attractive or otherwise’ is misplaced and flat wrong.   There is no such requirement in the CPA that wants SPLM Ministers in the centre to deliver and show they are capable of an efficient running of the Sudanese state to convince the north to accept unity. This is misrepresentation of the truth as we know it. If capability were the case, we would not have gone to the bush since we do not lack such capabilities. Mr Bona himself is a good example dispelling Mr Bona’s capability criterion.

Mr Bona’s charged that the SPLM leadership is laid back with a hobby to blame the NCP in a manner that shows they are playing a role of an idle opposition party rather than of a partner would change nothing.

Our comments: Mr Bona’s advice to the SPLM to behave and act in the spirit of unity is interesting. Is Mr Bona really true to his convictions or is he faking it? Isn’t it strange that a separatist can advise on how best unity may be achieved? What good can a separatist get from unionist’s success in making unity attractive? Doesn’t and won’t this prevent the realisation of Mr Bona’s Self Determination? Is Mr Bona a unionist or a separatist?

Mr Bona shifted his focus to the GOSS, saying the SPLM is crippled by its own greed that forced them to opt for an absolute control of the affairs of the South which they got in the CPA. In an apparent attempt to recruit Southerners, Mr. Bona claims the north conceded this point at Naivasha in recognition of SPLM’s claim that it is a unity party with creation of “New Sudan” as their objective. Mr Bona said he thought it was this factor and its consideration that made the NCP to feel that it was handing over the South to an ally---as both a partner in peace and a unionist. Mr Bona thinks that this contention persuaded the NCP which in turn persuaded some of its allies in the other armed groups of the South to join the SPLM in the South. According to Mr Bona, the NCP did not want to be seen to harbour armed groups that may be a problem to the SPLM, even though the SPLM does not seem to appreciate this.

Our comments : There you have Mr. Bona live on the NCP disinformation channel. He wrongly believes the NCP is a unionist organisation. Wrong. It is not a unionist but, separatist. Its allies in the South such as militias are separatists. Its political agenda is divisive. This is the proof in case you do not have it. No unionist can support separatists, appoints separatist advisors and still claims to be a unionist. Got this point? Add to these their divisive laws, Islamisation and Arabisation ideologies. Underline these facts, cram them and make use of them to avoid being duped with lies!

In a futile attempt to court what he calls ‘some other armed groups from the South who he said refused to join the SPLM or SAF as provided for by the CPA’, Mr Bona claims the SPLM wants NCP to either disarm them by force and cause another war for a country that is seeking peace with everybody, or the SPLM simply concludes that its partner is harbouring these armed groups against it. Mr Bona doesn’t see this to be the case. On the contrary, he makes a counter-argument in defence of the NCP, saying there are also other armed groups in Southern Sudan – Equatoria and Upper Nile , but the SPLM has not disarmed them by force nor has the NCP accused the SPLM of harbouring these groups against them.

Our comments : Mr Bona’s arguments, as usual, take the SPLM in bad light. He thinks the NCP is justified in not disarming their sponsored Southern militias (these do not qualify as other armed groups because they refused to be part of the process that allows the majority to be recognised as other armed groups) not to avoid war but in a tit-for-tat action against the SPLM’s failure to disarm what he calls ‘other armed forces in Equatoria and Upper Nile’. Mr Bona left us in no doubt about NCP’s intention to use these forces as a counter-veiling force against SPLM if the SPLM fails to disarm those other armed forces operating under their territory. In other words, Mr Bona is suggesting an eye for an eye approach. The only way out as he claims is for both the NCP and SPLM to deal with these armed groups with gloves in hand, rather than gloves off. He says he fears a shoot out which may be ‘inflamed into something nastier than just a gunshot’.

Mr Bona concludes that SPLM leadership fakes unionism as they are working for separation according to the local newspapers reported by some northerners still living in the South. Mr Bona claims such news do not inspire confidence in the unity efforts of the SPLM. Mr. Bona touches on another damning factor. He claimed the SPLM supporters from inside the country and who lived in the displaced peoples’ camps are being called ‘black Arabs’ and other names in the South by SPLM. In the light of this fact, Mr Bona thinks that negative reference may force these Southerners to vote for unity. He concludes that if these reports were right, then, the SPLM is working in a strange way to make unity attractive for these South Sudanese. He grounded his point on that these Southerners feel insulted and insecure because SPLM threatens them.

While we do not agree with such views, we recognise the danger such talk could bring to our community. We do not necessarily dismiss the context. What we dismiss is the manner and choice of audience. The SPLM is advised to take a hard look at such allegations.

On independence and the risk posed to it, Mr Bona warned the South saying independence of the South may be at risk unless the SPLM or GOSS performance improves. He asserted that people might ask themselves whether or not they should vote for an independent South Sudan that may be worse than what they have endured under the North. After all, South Sudanese would vote seeking a better system of government for themselves rather than vote for independence for independence sake.

Our comments : Mr Bona’s painted picture of the GOSS performance pictures doom’s day for the South. What keeps life going is hope and hopefulness in a better future ahead. Mr Bona’s pessimistic picture has sealed that hope in the face of the South. Doing so nourishes the enemy and gives them hope and ammunition to use against us. In most of our cultures, an elder is the last to despair. Contrary to this unbeatable culture of hope, persistence and resistance, Mr Bona fades away in both conspiracy and despair. He wants our people to submit to our killers and enslavers. By this talk, Mr Bona has finally accepted to be owned and used by the enemy of his people. Mr Bona thinks the mistakes we are making cannot be tolerated. He is preferred to submit to slavery without end. Sadly enough, he thinks he can carry us into slavery with him. He is mistaken. None of us from the South and other marginalised parts of Sudan is going back from liberation. We are not preferred and never will to surrender and submit in humiliation to an oppressive system that has killed millions of our people, enslaved thousands and kept us backward, poor and diseased.

Without shame and in utter submission, Mr Bona demonstrates a rare courage in his attempt to give SPLM leadership one year ultimatum to retrieve themselves. He thinks the SPLM leadership won’t just receive the confidence of their own people because they have fought for the cause of their people. He added saying one must also show that after the war, one is also capable of efficiently running the affairs of their people as a government.

Our comments : Mr Bona’s point here is that people can only have confidence in the SPLM not because they fought the war but because they show they are capable of being efficient in running their affairs in government. This is an unfair portrayal of the weaknesses of the SPLM leadership. Inefficiency in running affairs is an every continuing thing in all systems. It takes education, training, and practice to curve it rather than have it eliminated. Above all, it takes a responsible opposition. Mr Bona may have seen a valid point, but by offering submission to the north as a solution, he has shown he is not a reformer. There is no sense in using SPLM leadership weaknesses as a reason for surrendering to the north. What is it that Mr. Bona sees in the north as efficiency? Are oppression, destruction, enslavement and murder of our people what Mr Bona calls efficiency of the north? Are SPLM mistakes and weaknesses reason for Mr Bona to want our people to ignore northern crimes against them to a point when they can give up their destiny? Is it sense and sensibility for Mr. Bona to offer submission to the north as an alternative to SPLM to an alternative and responsible Southern Opposition? Doesn’t Mr. Bona see the irony that by submitting to the north, it is not the SPLM alone that has failed but all South including him and opposition? If he thinks he is more capable than SPLM leadership, why doesn’t he offer himself as an alternative than sell us to the north?

9. SPLM AND DEMOCRACY IN THE SOUTH

Dictators in the South and democrats in the South :   In the last section of his paper on SPLM and Democracy in the South, Mr Bona had harsh words for the SPLM leadership. Mr Bona dismissed what he calls SPLM’s claims in the north that they are champions of the new democracy, as provided for under the CPA, are false. He sees them as fake democrats since they do not show for it in the South. According to him, the SPLM leadership is undemocratic judging by the way they conduct its political business in South Sudan . He claimed the dictatorial nature of the SPLM is evidenced by the fact that the non-SPLM political parties in South Sudan who are members of the Government of Southern Sudan and participate in the other institutions of the Government of Southern Sudan are marginalized and their opinion muzzled. He argues that unless permitted by the SPLM or toe the SPLM line, no political activities are allowed for these parties. Mr Bona’s second evidence pertaining to alleged marginalisation of the representatives of some of these other Southern parties to the governments of the states of South Sudan have not been appointed up to now – three years after the institutions for these regions were set up under the SPLM. He went further in what many may find disturbing to claim that the appointments, decrees by or orders of the head of the government of Southern Sudan were refused implementation by some Governors of some of the regions of the South. He alleged that some leaders of the Southern political parties had been forbidden to travel to their own areas of birth in South Sudan .

Our comments: Mr Bona is not wrong to want to see our government conduct itself in a democratic way. Many favour democracy in the South and would prefer it to govern our way of life. However, we differ with Mr. Bona in his exaggeration regarding the autocratic nature of the SPLM leadership. Democracy begins as a theory and ends in practice. If Mr. Bona thinks the SPLM leaders are democratic theoreticians than practical ones, this in itself is encouraging and reassuring. However, although Mr. Bona boasted earlier as a realist, his failure to see the difference between the autocratic and fundamentalist NCP proves our assertion right. In real life, the SPLM is more democratic than the autocratic, intolerant and fanatical north under the NCP whose chairman is the President to whom Mr. Bona is an Advisor. A look into the NCP prisons talks volumes and raise questions as to why and which democratic transformation did the NCP mean or accept. That’s for Mr Bona to answer.

Moreover, Mr Bona’s choice to bash the South and SPLM rather than the north and NCP is proof enough to show he is aware of the democratic spirit of the South under SPLM. He avoided doing so with NCP because he is not sure if President Bashir might blow up himself with him in order to secure a place in heaven. Mr. Bona’s mind-my-nose approach in criticising the NCP says it all. It’s not coincidental. Besides, there are no political detainees, jailed journalists, censored papers in the South as they are under the NCP-controlled north.

Mr Bona further alleged that the undemocratic circumstances under the SPLM show that non-SPLM South Sudanese have no confidence in SPLM conducting free and fair elections in the year 2009 while the SPLM is in charge of the South. Basing his conclusion on his own indictment of the SPLM, Mr Bona said the SPLM has no case in making such a big noise about democratic transformation in the North. According to him, the SPLM has not shown in practice its democratic credentials in the South which is under its control. Since it didn’t do so in the South, they cannot be expected to do in the north.

Our comments : By this argument, Mr Bona wants to turn away the north, esp. those who believe in democracy, from SPLM. The projection of the SPLM as undemocratic and citing its failure in the South is meant to be a glue to the north. In this precarious sense, Mr Bona is attempting to turn off the tap of support for the SPLM. We do not see in which way he may do so. The position of the SPLM on many issues including democracy is known to many Sudanese. The support it enjoys across the country does not support Mr. Bona’s uncouth ideas.

Mr Bona made it clear that his paper is an expression of frustration of nearly three years and of what they believe to be a public responsibility. He claims he is alarmed by the conduct of government business in the glare of the public media, with threats and, hence, a matter of public concern. In consequence, he said he had to make this document public in the hope that it will serve as a public caution about how we conduct ourselves in the future, more civilly and more co-operatively.

Our comments : We are apprehensive of such claims. Mr Bona’s many previous anti-SPLM utterances which this paper reinforces may make it difficult for many from the marginalised world to listen to him. We do not see it as public caution. It is public betrayal. Since he went on rampage in 2000 against SPLM leadership and agenda, leading to his capitulation to NCP-controlled Khartoum even before the signing of the CPA, his going on record as a unionist rather than separatist through his writings in NCP-controlled papers, Mr Bona may seem to have no more people whom he can pretend to address, antagonise or mobilise. By his paper, which many may find phobic and compulsive, Mr Bona has finally distanced himself from the cause of our people whether as a South or as marginalised people. By rejecting those angels of justice from the north who stood with us shoulder to shoulder during our difficult days, Mr Bona has shown to be an unprincipled lot. This is understandable for a man who is ready not only to reject but sell his own kith and kin like the Ngok Dinka of Abei. Mr Bona has chosen to reject the South, and we do not see why the South should not reject him. He has rejected the Ngok Dinka and, we see no reason why the Ngok Dinka should not reject him. He has betrayed the cause of the marginalised people and, we do not se see any sense that would make sense if the marginalise receive him with olive branch.

Mr Bona's knockout punch against the SPLM may be summarised in his claims that the SPLM had trumped up this crisis and was making war preparations for northern and an unjustified invasion since no more northerners were still in the South to fight, winding it up in a treacherous cynicism that perhaps the invasion is the beginning of the war for the ‘New Sudan.’

Our comments: Mr Bona knows none of these claims is true. Yet, he went ahead to misinform the world. This is not for nothing and must be understood as such.

Mr Bona also blamed SPLM leadership for boycott, calling it a theatrically-staged plot to induce external intervention, to attract something and scare the NCP. Mr Bona concluded his takeaway high points that all such tactics have failed besides the fact that the NCP knows what we have and do not have and were unlikely to respond positively to what he calls ‘empty threats’.   In view of what he calls ‘NCP's ‘public knowledge about our ability and inability’, Mr Bona thinks the SPLM have only few options left. One such option is for the SPLM to persevere on with the implementation of the CPA and without further boycotts or threats. He reminded us of reasons why this should be the case. The people of South Sudan have had enough of war and no more of it may be justified or accepted by the South. Though not satisfied with the performance of their government under the SPLM, and have few options, they want it to continue. Another option is that the people of South Sudan want the SPLM to safeguard, through its performance in government and co-operation with the NCP, that they will have the chance to vote peacefully, in their Self-Determination Referendum, in the year 2011.

Our comments : We do not differ in Mr Bona’s desire to have the SPLM try to avoid war. The SPLM had already assured us of that though they said they reserved their right to self defence. We disagree with his accusations and putting an unfair blame squarely in the hands of the SPLM. This is not the case. Mr Bona has fabricated all these for known reasons. Very few from among Mr Bona’s people take his accusations seriously on a positive note. Many know he is in chains if we take all he wrote and said prior to this paper. Besides, he must be seen to say these things for him to be trusted and rewarded on the other side of the fence.

Conclusion: Mr. Bona has bothered the South too long. In spite of this, the South has always treated him with respect. He has now moved further into no-go areas in total disregard of our feelings and political aspirations. Whether he must continue to deserve the respect of our people is something worth reconsidering. His views as spelled out in this paper are intolerable. They do not merely say what is wrong. They hand us over, bone and flesh to the enemy. Mr. Bona and the trend of betrayal he has finally chosen in the interest of his pension rather than in the interest of our people must be resisted and defeated. Having followed him and his messages since he broke away from the SPLM in 2000 and, after he developed an understanding with the NCP, leading to the reversal of his separatist credentials, Mr. Bona is no longer part of us in both political and spiritual terms. Southerners as well as the Solidarity of the marginalised must keep their distance from him and his monstrous ideas. Many should have known him since then and finally through this paper. If he still thinks we do not know him and his trappings, he is mistaken. He is the full glare of the South and the marginalised world. He has no where to hid and cannot hide.

Given our people’s knowledge of and about him in addition to the humble points we have highlighted in response to his disinformation and campaign against the SPLM, we hope our points of view may help sober Mr Bona and make him see sense and behave reasonably and rightly in line with the consensus of the marginalised people including the South.

Authors:

1. Martin Mou Mou, Norway.
2. Dr Kuel Maluil Jok, Finland .
3. Martin Mapour John Majak, Sweden .
4. Sabrino Majok Majok , Canada .
5. Kimo Ajing Aba , United States of America , USA .
6. Daniel Deng Mayen , USA .
7. James Kur Muorwel , Sweden .
8. Deng Barac Atem , Netherlands .
9. William Vito Akuar , Netherlands
10. David Mai Tang , USA .
11. Aurelio Madut Danto , Canada .
12. Marko Deng Dut Kiir, Finland .
13. Dr Etin Erib , Finland ,
14. Philip Deng, Sweden .
15. Thomas Amudeng, Finland .
16. Elizabeth Manal, Finland .
17. Orad Nyikangayaor , Finland .
18. Sarah Kassiba, Finland .
19. Rex Rino, Finland .
20. Gisma Rapael Mou , Sweden .
21. Mary Arkangilo, Finland .
22. Anwar Batali , Finland .
23. George Chol Anwan , Sweden .
24. Juice Ando , Finland .
25. Malish Festo , Finland .
26. Federiko Abraham , Finland .
27. Salome Gorenwa, Norway .
28. Nyanok Adibo Tito , Finland .
29. Jok Manyin Machol , Finland .
30. Madut Bak Deng , Finland .
31. Peter Kuek , Finland .
32. Anyuon Deng Kuol , Finland .
33. Abraham Mangeth Maleth, Finland .
34. Silbano Chol Gwaj , Finland .