Articles and Analysies
Beyond the Evils of the Devil Tactics: Rebuttal to Rengo Gyyw Rengo, Jr.’s Article By Dr. James Okuk
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Feb 2, 2010 - 10:38:00 AM

Beyond the Evils of the Devil Tactics: Rebuttal to Rengo Gyyw Rengo, Jr.’s Article

By Dr. James Okuk

Hello, Rengo Gyyw Rengo, Jr., wake up from your slumbers to bring into terms the starry sky above with the moral law within us. You don't need to tell your readers that you read some books so that you could attribute by displaced and mistemporal analogy that Dr. Lam Akol qualifies for your acquired psychic cognizance and negative exuberance. Your seemingly witch-expertise in Dr. Lam's political biography as you select and caricature it according to your dislikes, could signify a sinister motive of smear campaigns and elections fever from disconfirming people’s confidence on the bad leadership qualities with non-deliverables from the illegal SPLA 1st Lt. General who is saying he is not retiring because he was retired by the dead and it would be the dead to know that he is retired even if he keeps on his SPLA uniform. So goes around the pointless talks of retiring a retired general. In short, Mr. Salva Kiir wants to exercise liberal democracy in a dictatorial undemocratic manners that suits and satisfies his egoistic sentiments of South Sudanese liberator.

Please brother, don't import the forgotten and forgiven history of dark ages in Europe into modern South Sudanese politics because you might look irrelevance in the face pragmatists with utilitarian strategies, who are far from unrealistic utopianism of 2011 apologetic idealists. You use to be an admirable thematic writer on South Sudanese issues in the near past, but after your undergraduate graduation it seems that you have shifted this role and succumbed to attitude of pay-me-my-salary and I will praise your evil ways to make them look angelic. You have come out with a new face that makes you look like a wizard who points his witch-hunting poisonous arrows and release them into the chest of an innocently conceived wizard rather than the real perceived elephant.

Let me quote your master hypothesis before fitting you where you should belong in the whole political context and calculus at our disposal now: "By all accounts and deposition, Lam Akol is Vidkun Quisling of South Sudan and its people. For all those who are familair with Lam Akol, the path Quisling took is exactly the same except trial and execution which I do not believe would happen. His fate should be left to moods of history, shame and rejection.” (Rengo, Jr. Feb. 1/2010, SSN, Italic my emphasis).

This statement of yours tells which side of South Sudan history-in-the-making you are standing as our dear people get closer to the crossroads towards their desirable destiny of dignity from secured independence without Somalization. Once critical and articulate readers lay their eyes glance on this core quote from your article, all the rest of wordings or sentences become irrelevant to waste time worth reading them. You have locked the door before your invited quest could get in.

Any way, I managed to enter through the window so as to know exactly, without expectations, what you are doing inside that early-looked door. In the inference of Aristotelian logic, the said Mother of all human logics on the planet earth, it is a fallacy to give a hasty conclusion from irrelevant analogies, attributions, and worst still, from non-concrete or biased evidences from fictions. I doubt whether you know anything and everything about the biography of the savvy politician, Dr. Lam Akol, who you are trying to victimize using the support of the semi-totalitarian and openly-tribalistic SPLM governance system in Southern Sudan.

Just to site an example of how I think Mr. Rengo, Jr. got it raw and green on Dr. Lam, is to first laugh sarcastically at this imaginative sentence of his: “Little is to be said about Lam Akol early upbringing except through his father to whom I attributed a positive statement below and perhaps monarchical lineage he hailed from among the Shilluk which explictly depicts him as a non-democrat and which increases his impudence of others.” (Ibid., Italic my emphasis). This statement will look like this if put in an inferential logical form of argumentation:

1.     The Shilluk tribe in South Sudan has  a monarchical lineage;

2.     Whoever hails from Shilluk monarchical lineage is a non-democrat;

3.     Dr. Lam Akol Hails from Shilluk monarchical lineage; and

4.     Therefore, Dr. Lam Akol is a non-democrat.

But will Mr. Rengo, Jr. manage to stand the heat of vying such kind of a terrible fallacious argument even if used for persuasion purposes? The veteran politician, Mr. Adwok Luigi, the veteran ‘liberator’ Dr. Peter Adwok Nyaba, the ‘novice’ politician, Mr. Pagan Amum Okiech, the ‘successful’ SPLA commander, Mr. Oyai Deng Ajak, and also every Shilluk man or woman who hails or have connections with the Shilluk monarchical lineage, cannot foolishly be labeled as Rengo, Jr. would like his readers to believe. Is it really wise to say that any politician who happened to come from the Shilluk Kingdom and who opposes bad leadership and semi-dictatorial governance in the South Sudan is a non-democrat by virtue of his monarchical royal affiliation?

For me and for every straight and right-minded person, the democratic or non-democratic behavior of any politician who happened to hail from Shilluk Kingdom has nothing to do with such tribal affiliation, especially when it has been known that many of the Sudanese or call them South Sudanese politicians from the Shilluk Kingdom, do not have constant encounters with the royal procedures, leave alone the influence of attitude. What I know with certainty is that Dr. Lam Akol hardly lives one month inside any village or near the throne in the Shilluk Kingdom. It is said social or political influence usually comes with frequent exposure and habits (e.g., repeated direct contact), and I therefore, advice Mr. Rengo, Jr. to revisit his natural logic faculty, if not his taught and learned acquired logic and truth in university lecture halls.

Just to bore you and other readers with details of reaction and rebuttal of most of your lazy paragraphs, let me just try to fit into your mental framework and the favorite term “jettison” you seem to have fallen in love with and did a thesaurus research on it in a futile attempt to portray Dr. Lam Akol to others – from your perceive him – as  the most terrible human being than the devil because his strategies go beyond the evil of the devil’s tactics, and thus, deserve to be called Lamakolianism (a combination of ideas and knowledge on Dr. Lam Akol, if you may permit me to help you with a simple definition of your coined term).

Let me remind Mr. Rengo, Jr. too that man does not live or physical force alone but also on the metaphysical mental faculties or categories, to borrow Philosopher Kant’s terminology. So, to rule out the importance of words (used by politicians in their verbal talks and written statements) in the liberation journey, implies denying to human beings living in that part of the World called the Sudan or Southern Sudan, the value of what should be a necessary part of their human nature and behavior. Why does it become significant to jettison bad leaders and is it a political sin to do so? To save the land from curse, and it is a blessing to do so. That is why the idea of jettisoning Dr. John Garang in 1991 became a blessing in disguise that saved many wrongly arrested and imprisoned SPLM/A commanders in the bush, and that made the SPLM/A leadership to adopt a parallel civilian style of governance in the liberated areas with the help from the recommendations of 1st SPLM Convention in Chukudum, Eastern Equatoria from 2nd – 13th April, 1994.

The prove that Dr. Lam Akol, Dr. Riek Machar, Mr. Bona Malwal, and few others re-introduced self-determination into the Sudanese politics can be found in the dishonored twin Khartoum and Fachoda Peace agreements that made Dr. John Garang to confess that even his buttocks got pinched by those rebels within the SPLM’s rebellion who went to negotiate peace with the NCP/NIF Regime, leaving the Mother SPLM with no option but to follow them and join the dance with the song of self-determination for the people of Southern Sudan although spiced with some confusion regarding the so-called liberated areas plus Abyei. (By the way many people don’t know that Abyei was never a liberated area because it was still under control of Khartoum and NCP before the advent of the CPA era in the Sudanese contemporary political history).

The confusion was figured out by mediators and pressure countries like USA, UK, Italy and Norway who identified the problem of SPLM as that of South Sudan with the North, and that the Transitional Areas like Nuba Mountains and Ingassina Hills should be dealt with separately because they happened to have joined a wrong war. Thus, the end result was the undefined Popular Consultation for Nuba and Funj whose sons and daughters died in front of the SPLA hot zone thinking that the New Sudan ideology could save them from the enemy wrath.

However, the Abyei Area got its way out from the deception though it remained hooked up by the definition of who is really supposed to vote for the simultaneous referendum; the residents who include the Misseriah and others or the Nine Ngok-Dinka Chieftaincies alone? Even The Hague-based international Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) could not define this question, except ruling on the historically proven borders of the Area and removing the lands that were wrongly attached to it because of oil business thefts by NIF economists in Khartoum.

Thus, up to now the simultaneous equation is still tough for Abyei gentlemen who still hide under Kiir’s bad rule in the South, keeping whispers and gossips on his dull ears. From my reading, the exercise of self-determination for the Abyei residents might not take place if the Misseriah are marginalized and told ungratefully by their adopted Dinka brothers and sisters to pack and go to I-do-not-know-where after all the good time and affectionate ties they have knotted together based on their grandfathers’ and grandmothers’ deals out of good will where their cats and dogs learnt to eat and lie down together as friends. That is why you hear many Abyei gentlemen appealing treacherously with false assurances to the Misseriah and other non-Dinka residents that their Arab nomadic grazing shall not be affected even if Abyei had to be declared as part of South Sudan through the referendum channel. Their Arab adopted brothers shall not be declared persona non grata!!!

Brother Rengo, Jr., allow me to shoot you with sharp questions if you may bear it: What has the past SPLA/M military zonal commandership to do with the current civilian democratic politics and procedures regulated by the civilian laws and order in the transitional unified Sudan? What is the meaning of multi-party elections if it is prohibited by SPLM internal rules of Salva Kiir and the company that someone else should elbow him in the competition for the top job in the South? What is the sense of democratic right of self-determination for the people of Southern Sudan if it is only a one-way direction of “Yes to Secession”?

I think for the practice of this right to be free and fair, it should be tripolar; i.e, involving three choices of secession, unity and neutrality. Of course the neutrals shall not be bothered to queue up in front of the booths of the referendum ballot boxes as they will only wait at their homes or streets to join the joy of the victors after the votes’ count is announced. If the victors are the unionists then the neutrals will cheer up and toss glasses with them; and if they are the secessionists the same will happen to the neutrals as the unionists wipe down their sorrow tears to come into term with the defeat and victors’ allelulations.

The SPLM is so vague on separation and independence of South Sudan, and therefore, it would be a misplaced attribution to persuade the voters that whoever is competing with the SPLM nominees in the elections is anti-secession of South Sudan. You can only convince a stranger or a novice in South Sudanese political history about this malicious propaganda, as it is known that the SPLM/A shot the first bullet on the separatists and even demanded for their heads to be cut off after death.

I think it is never correct in democracy sociology and political science to define elections as a one-man show without a tough competitor. This can only happen in the land of the blind where a one-eyed man is automatically allowed to be become the king by consensus and without a challenger. Even if we trust the public relations words of the failed SPLM leaders, it is very hard to trust their bad deeds, especially in the South where many things have fallen a part already.

Brother Rengo, Jr., where are the SPLM headquarters and the official residence of the Secretary-General located? Are they not in Khartoum? And where does the SPLM get its fund from? Is it not from the same money printer press in Khartoum where the Finance and National Economy State Minister, Dr. Lual Deng keeps the duplicate of the treasury keys, in case the SPLM falls in needs and wants any time like their CPA partner, the NCP who keeps the original keys in the pockets of Minister Dr. Awad El-Jaz. Please try to lecture to a newcomer into the first-year semester of Sudanese politics of SPLM-NCP’s control of public monies and assets both in the South and North in the CPA era.

Your (a – k) list of Dr. Lam’s charges in the SPLM Kangaroo Court is just based on inaccurate reports of some national security and intelligence personnel who are biasely loyal to Kiir and the company, and whose mindsets are imprisoned in the hangovers of the SPLM/A bitter past. Such guys (not gays) have totally refused or are totally deformed to be liberated from this antiquated rebel curved cave so that they can see the bright light of truth in the civilian politics without military uniforms and commando boots. Get notified that the 1st Lt. General Salva Kiir is already on the heavy side of genuine democracy balance compared to the savvy politician, Dr. Lam Akol, when it comes to leadership qualities.

That is why Kiir and the cronies are not sleeping well these days even with all the sleeping boosters on their tables and under their pillows. That is also why they are so scared to see Dr. Lam and his best team of Alliance of South Sudan Political Parties with some independent candidates going to the people in the South to speak with them frankly about the destiny of the beloved country-in-the-making and the need for a savior leader. And that is why the failed SPLM top leaders in the South do not want to see the reality of free and fair elections occurring because this shall be a threat to their looting spree of public rights.

Truly, if Dr. Lam and his team takes over the top leadership of the South, the free thieves roaming between Juba and abroad will end up locked up behind bars for their crime of killing peace dividends by gearing-down the communities’ development wheel and forcing the villagers to flee into towns as five years went without the GoSS and SPLM taking towns deep down into villages as promised. That is why these days, shouting “SPLM/A Oyee!!!!” even to the maximum of the voice doesn’t appeal to most people any more in the South even in the very village and houses of Mr. Salva Kiir and Mr. Pagan Amum.

Let me give you a brief lecture on how the law courts work. The first thing is to open a case and sue the suspect who shall be treated innocent until proven guilty. If the suspect appears in the court to defend himself by denying the charges and falsifying the given evidences, then the law declares his innocence by acquitting him immediately. If he fails to appear on the judge summon or failed to disqualify the accusation with counter evidences, then the judge proves him guilty and rules in favour of the one who sued him.

This is what happened with the SPLM-DC members when they sued the SPLM and Salva Kiir for the anti-multi-party 9/11/2009 letter written to governors of the South through the GoSS Minister Dr. Luka Tombekana Monoja. The SPLM and Salva Kiir failed to appear in the constitutional court to defend themselves, and thus, the judge who adjudicated this constitutional case ruled in favor of SPLM-DC. Even up to now, Kiir and the group failed to appeal in the court, given their street talks these days that the court ruling was unconstitutional because of similar precedent in 1965 where members of Communist Party where expelled by the ruling government from contesting elections as they were leveled as threat to the national survival of that government. The government defied the ruling of the Constitutional Court by amending article 5 of the Sudan Transitional Constitution (1964) to justify the disobedience.

Indeed, the constitutional court ruling in favor of SPLM-DC led by Dr. Lam is a legal victory, and not only this, but also it is eye-opener to those whose constructional rights are violated in the Sudan, and a successful legal precedent for future reference. Thus, if the SPLM and Salva Kiir think that they have concrete evidences that can implicate Dr. Lam and the SPLM-DC for any criminal accusation, it will be wise and patriotic for them to do it in the court of law, and they will be welcome warmly for this law-abiding attitude rather than using Ak-47 and pistol threats.

The secret and private talks amongst Southerners is that Dr. Lam Akol is tough to the extent that the devils fear him, except God whom he revere with honor as a consecrated and committed Presbyterian Christian who don’t attempt to stand on the way of the truth or fear to challenge the storms of the devil in whatever form it comes or in whatever time it appear. Dr. Lam has been the best whistleblower ever experienced in the Sudanese and particularly, the South Sudanese political theatre.

Brother Rengo, Jr., what is the use of advising a failed government led by an incompetent political deaf who sign his unconstitutional decrees on bottles of beer and whisky? Even if the South Sudan intellectuals invent concepts and devise theories and philosophies to help such a failed government led by a wrong leader, the well researched documents will only end up in shelves and dustbins, even used as toilet papers for cleaning dirty asses (sorry to use American Nigers’ derogatory language). That is why I am keeping my PhD thesis on poverty reduction philosophy for South Sudan in the library of University of Nairobi until the right government emerges in South Sudan who value academic research and scientific advices from the very sons and daughters of land rather than from the international dollar-looters who call themselves consultants.

Come on man! The topics of the informative articles of Prof. Isaiah Abraham, Dr. Justin Ambago, Dr. James Okuk, Mr. Gatkuoth Deng and Mr. Tut Gatwech are so relevance, updated and up-to-dated. The problem lies in your deaf hears and hardened heart that cannot grasp the sense, facts, meanings and truth availed freely in those article. Don’t get to much concerned about the age and birth-cradle of Dr. Okuk. He is from Doleib Hill (Khartoum Teed in Nuer Language), South of Malakal town and with an average age of life span of an African man (i.e., not beyond mid-thirties). To come down to the final business here: what and who do you support for the best leadership of South Sudan? Dr. Lam and his team who are so courageous to challenge the evil encroachments in our dear land or Mr. Salva Kiir who creates and condone these evils? Until then, I will be waiting for your answer(s) as we shall always be there to receive you when you come and when you come again.

In conclusion, after examining with critical-thinking lenses your article, I have no other option but to infer that the theme and substance of this article portrays the cheating attitude of an undergraduate who copy and paste sentences and paragraphs here and there in a MS-Word File Document and print them on a white paper without considering the relevance and coherence. Therefore, my brother Rengo, Jr., you still have a long way to learn the art of cheating by copy and past and making your piece looks original and argumentative, if not politically persuasive. You need to be taught how to respect truth, meaning and logic in the art and ethics of writing, especially when it comes to political themes and position papers infested with politicians’ power survival. Take my reply to you as the first lesson in truthful and critical writing and you may start doing well by scoring a distinctive ‘A’ next time.

Dr. James Okuk is a Political Philosophy PhD graduate of University of Nairobi, he could be reached at [email protected]