Opinion | SPLM should not be left to new, unknown groups: we are the rightful sons and daughters to inherit it

By Abraham Majak Makur

OPINION – I came to Juba on Tuesday, the 10th August, 2021, and found the city precipitated and marred by speculations of this and that causing uncertainties and dilemmas.

Since the dissolution of 32 states and Abyei Administrative Area, I decided to remain home in order to address my social obligations, for I knew politics in South Sudan is by mere luck – not necessary on merits but through numerous unreliable channels. This, coupled with the presence of the power brokering groups between the President and the appointed persons, has made politics a misnomer to rely on.

Worse of all, the SPLM as the institutionalized patriotic and nationalistic body to ensure integrity of the revolutionary virtues had by far failed the veterans and citizens it fought for, in all aspects to an extent of denying our patriotic and heroic endeavours for this country to be independence today and to be enjoyed by them.

Nevertheless, for a nationalistic mind, we need to face the leadership head on then widening the gap because by doing so, you are giving the new groups an opportunity to pursue you unjustly. You can’t leave your home to the stranger. Let him kill you there, your sons and daughters will avenge you. For those who want to eliminate the veterans, let them finish us within the SPLM as to die a dignified death, the world will one day come to know this mistake and I think they will avenge it.

In the bizarre ongoing twists of the events, most of us who had been in the liberation struggle are not leaving the SPLM/A to the unknown groups. We were and are used to the sufferings. We will continue to make things happened within SPLM led government under our Chairman Cde. Salva Kiir Mayardit.

This is to inform our citizens, that the current situations should be approached with care and open minds for a durable solutions to be sought. We don’t want to give the opportunists a window of justification to help them destroy us in the name of being “rebels or oppositions to the Government” at this critical moment.

I call upon the leadership of the Red Army and all its fraternity (Membership) that we are the right people to remain with the SPLM as per the orientation we had from our leaders in which Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit remains as a living witness and one of the commanders of the SPLA Red Army during the liberation struggle.

He knew the Red Army and I believe he knows it very well the role played by the young people during the liberation struggle of this country.

I believe Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit had repeated our historic role in the liberation struggle several times in the national he presided over as President of the Republic of South Sudan and has been supporting the establishment of the Red Army Foundation, the SPLM Red Army League and all those bodies we created and registered. There is no doubt about that.

What was he thinking of these bodies to do for the country? They were to retrace historical facts of liberation struggle; promote the historical legacy of the SPLM/A; to inspire the nation; to participate and be part of the nation’s building and to internalize patriotism and nationalism in the contemporary young generations and generations to come.

Why would President Kiir Mayardit deprive himself of the people he helped trained into young revolutionary soldiers, nurtured, educated and oriented (Red Army) into political seeds of his founded nation under his symbolic  leadership? Is this not historical negligence at best and ignorance at worse?

My appeal to Gen. Kiir Mayardit is provide a ‘political and moral will’ to reform the SPLM, reconsider all the rightful veterans and members of the SPLM and establish merits as criteria for ascending into political and administrative positions in order to deliver to the country’s citizens  based on their felt needs.

To the Red Army fraternity as appalled, disappointed and disgruntled by the deteriorating political situation in the country, the unknown groups that have taken over the political structures of our country and that of SPLM have everything it takes to destroy us before reaching Jerusalem: they have the money and government machinery to use against those they presumed to be against them in order to protect their status quo and this a sure fact to consider. Let us be tactful using Gen. Kiir and few of our well plaved senior veterans with the nation at hearts as the ladder to redress, restore the shattered hopes, and reconsider these fundamental facts for the welfare of the country and more especially for unity of the SPLM.

The only person to come to our aid at the current situation is Gen. Salva Kiir, but given his tainted and deadened relations with those who had been very closed to him and he could turn against them mercilessly made it also another bizarre scenario to critically look at it – looking at it at social, economic and political angles require serious work. He must be convinced to come to our side then to side with the new groups as that would not augur well with him historically.

The way forward is to tell Gen. Kiir Mayardit, either through having audience with or petitioning him to reconsider all what he is doing with new groups and come to term with the realities of the political struggle and unity of the SPLM for a sustainable SPLM, otherwise, it is going to be a “story” not “history.”

I once more call upon the leadership of the SPLM to look back, and expedite the efforts to bring SPLM together especially the Red Army veterans to remain SPLM.

In my personal view and commitment, SPLM should NOT be left to the new groups, for it carries our social, economic and political debts . It must repay all what we lost because of it today.

SPLM OYEE!

God bless South Sudan!

Abraham Majak Makur, was Minister of Physical Infrastructure & Chairman of the State SPLM Executive Caucus (May, 2018 – Feb, 2020), Minister of Information, Culture, Youths and Sports (April, 2017 – May, 2018) of the defunct Eastern Lakes State – Yirol, and formerly National Executive Director of the Red Army Foundation (Nov, 2016 – April 2017), now a political activist. He can be reached via: gadmakuur@gmail.com.

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