Mabior Garang says ND is a trick by Jieng Council of Elders to keep status quo

JUBA – The SPLM-IO chairperson of National Committee for Information and Public Relations, Mabior Garang De Mabior, is saying that the National Dialogue is a trick by the Jieng Council of Elders to keep the status quo, two days after Angelo Beda, the co-chair of the National Dialogue said the SPLM has failed the country.

In a statement, Mabior also disputed the claim that the SPLM has failed the country, saying a group of elders in the body of the Jieng Council of Elders (JCE), whose leaders are at the epicenter of the ND, wrongly advised the SPLM leaders which he said has led to the current situation in the world’s youngest country.

“It is mischief for the National Dialogue Steering Committee to blame the failure of the first Republic of South Sudan on President Salva Kiir and the SPLM leadership. It was these same individuals who hijacked the movement  and were the ones advising the leadership to found the state on a tribal basis,” Mabior said.

“The National Dialogue Steering Committee is nothing more than the JCE reinvented, this time with accommodation for token elders from other communities. The agenda remains the same, maintaining the intolerable status quo created by their forefathers – the traditional elite,” he added.

Mabior said the National Dialogue is not sincere in its work, saying it is another mean of power struggle which engulfed the SPLM in December 2013 leading to the deadly civil conflict that has now seen 400,000 people died.

Mabior said an inclusive dialogue should have started with the displaced persons who are currently seeking protection in record numbers in different civil protection of civilian sites across the world’s youngest country.

“The National Dialogue Steering Committee is not sincere, it is another power struggle. The struggle for power which we saw in the SPLM in 2013, has been reborn in the so-called National Dialogue,” he siad.

“If the National Dialogue was a sincere undertaking, it would have started in the Displaced Peoples’ camps and in the Refugee Camps, not in air conditioned halls in Juba,” he added.

The senior opposition official went on to say that “the real national dialogue is not an event, it is a continuous process which will never end. It happens under the trees at the tea and coffee places, cards and dominos places, at the water coolers in the corridors of power and corporate Juba, in the bars and restaurants, in the cattle camps and villages, in public transport and so on.

“It is important for the revolutionary intellectuals of South Sudan to take the initiative from the intellectual mercenaries  and raise the level of consciousness in our national discourse. The national conversation in South Sudan is currently characterized by tribal bigotry and aggressive misogyny, we need to change this. We need to reach a critical mass of correct thinking and banish magical thinking from our land.

“There is no future in the National Dialogue in Juba, it is in fact a national monologue. The future of our country lies in a people driven constitutional making process where we can all agree as Junubeen on the nationality question, the nature of the state and other important aspects of what constitutes a modern nation.

“It is only such an inclusive process which can give us a second Republic of South Sudan that reflects our historical and contemporary realities. A second Republic for the welfare and prosperity of our peoples.”