I have given the full name of Edward Mustafa Dut Lino Wor Abyei, as I know it, because in our traditional system, names are important as they are a metaphoric core of one’s background and identity. Edward’s full name reflects the elements of Sudanese diversity and is therefore a microcosm of the country for which he struggled so much to liberate, and for which in varying ways he sacrificed his life. The names were presumably given by his father, Ustaz Lino Wor Abyei, a giant educationalist, who was educated in both the North and the South of Sudan, and who introduced modern education to the Ngok Dinka and taught throughout Southern Sudan. Ustaz Lino Wor’s students remember him with the reverence and affection of children for their father. I used to call him Ustaz-na al-Azeem, ‘Our Great Master’, to which he always reacted with characteristic dignified humility, ‘What Great!? Toward the end of his life, Ustaz Lino Wor Abyei wrote me a letter reflecting on his innovative educational work in Abyei in close partnership with our father, Deng Majok, whom he referred to as ‘my brother’, and more generally on his life as an educator. In that letter, he expressed great satisfaction and pride in seeing his students rise to important positions at home and abroad. Edward’s identity also links the country across ethnic divides, his mother, Angelina Kongbuo, being from the Ndogo of Wau; theirs was one of the earliest mixed marriages among our people, now increasingly becoming accepted in Southern Sudan. Angelina’s father, Norberto Kongbuo, whom Edward said was nick-named an-Nur, was one of the carpenters who constructed the ferry boat structure across Kiir River at Akecnhial. As they say, a fruit does not fall far from the tree that produced it; Edward’s service to his people and his country was the fruit of his family background. As I followed with great appreciation the enormous outpouring of messages in mourning the tragic loss to our people and our nation and indeed to humanity caused by the death of Edward Lino, I was once more reminded of the words of William Shakespeare in the speech of Mark Anthony to the Romans, eulogizing Emperor Julius Caesar, who had just been assassinated, words with which I have always disagreed. As I recall, Mark Anthony said, “The evil that men do lives after them, and the good is often interned with their bones.” Quite the contrary, our humanistic instinct always seems to glorify our dead by recalling their good deeds with greater exaltation than was the case during their lifetime. Although Edward Lino enjoyed much recognition and respect in his lifetime, I wish he was able to follow all the wonderful things being said about him after his death, of course all well deserved, but not revealed to him in his lifetime. Knowing Edward’s dignified humility, like his father, I believe he would not have wanted the order reversed. Also knowing his self confidence with due modesty, he probably knew all the good things now being said about him. He might even have said, “I thought you did not know.” And considering the lonely world of his suffering over the last few years of his fight against the terminal illness that slowly consumed his life, it would not have been easy for him to know how much his people and country held him in such high regard. When I last visited Edward Lino in Nairobi and found him sitting in a wheel chair, I saw how much the illness had consumed his physical body, but how much alive his jovial spirit and sparkling interaction with life were still glowing on his face. Ironically, the very day of his death, my wife Dorothy and I were talking on the phone; she was in the United States and I in Nairobi. My family knew Edward well because he stayed in our house when he was representing the SPLM/A in Washington and both my wife and our four sons had become very fond of him. My wife asked whether I had visited Edward. I said I had not because of the social distancing rules of Coronavirus, but that I would visit him as soon as that was permissible. I was not aware that just before I arrived in Nairobi, he had been taken to India for treatment. Almost immediately after my wife and I hang up, I got a phone call from Mustafa Biong to give me the tragic news. Of course, knowing how long Edward had been ill, the eventual end was not unexpected, but that did not make the news any less shocking. It is always difficult to think of such a powerful life as no longer with us. But that is the inevitable destiny for all. Much of what was special about Edward Lino has been said in the messages that have been pouring in, and will undoubtedly continue to pour in, mourning his death. Edward is widely acknowledged as a brave fighter, both physically and verbally, for equality and dignity for all Sudanese, indeed all human beings. This was a principle that underlay his ideological commitment which has been given a variety of labels: communism, socialism, liberalism, ‘leftism’ and other possible ‘isms’, and for which he was often in and out of detention. He focussed this in his unwavering commitment to the struggle for the New Sudan, which he and his liberal colleagues in the University of Khartoum and other institutions in the capital started before the outbreak of the liberation movement, the SPLM/A. Although the intransigence of the dominant Arab-IsLamic Establishment and the stalemate in the war made partitioning the country imperative, Edward Lino was a devout believer in the vision of the New Sudan and the liberation of all Sudanese from marginalization, oppression and domination, irrespective of race, ethnicity, religion, culture or gender. His connection with John Garang and other founding leaders of the Liberation Movement predates the outbreak of the rebellion. Although his activism interfered with his legal education, as he was dismissed for political reasons in his last year in the Faculty of Law, his yearning for knowledge and his activist application of knowledge never ceased. He continued to learn and transmit his knowledge both as a teacher and a political activist. He reflected this in his poetic, analytical and literary works, books, articles, essays and journalistic contributions. His three books, Long Live the Monkeys, John Garang: A Man to Know, and the most recent, Ngok Dinka Versus Missiriya, reflect a combination of poetic, literary and intellectual excellence.. I acquired a great deal of insight from Edward Lino’s book on John Garang from which I quoted heavily in my recently published fictionalized memoirs about my relations with John Garang, Visitations: Conversations with the Ghost of the Chairman. Edward Lino’s book provides remarkable insights into the origins and depth of his involvement in the struggle that eventually became the SPLM/A. I later followed the prominent role he played in the Movement. Although I was not a member of the SPLM/A, I was a strong supporter of the Movement and the Vision of the New Sudan. As I had established and was directing the African Studies Program at the Brookings Institution and was closely associated with several other think tanks in Washington, among them the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Center for International and Strategic Studies, and the United States Institute of Peace, I played an active role in promoting the Movement and collaborated very closely with the leadership, specifically with Dr. John Garang. I was therefore intimately familiar with the ideals, strategies and operations of the Movement. John Garang and Salva Kiir always spoke to me in raving praise for the valorous role played by the Ngok Dinka freedom fighters in the struggle. And of course Edward Lino was among the Ngok Dinka leaders in the struggle whose names were most prominent. One remarkable thing about Edward Lino was that he was never down cast by any hardship. No matter how grave the challenges, how heavy the burdens, or how immanent the danger facing him, Edward Lino always smiled under all difficulties. Even when he was angry, and there was always much to be angry about, he quickly alternated between a fiery fuming face and a beaming vivacious smile. In fact, I rarely remember seeing Edward Lino without his distinctive laughter or his sprightly smile. It was our intention with my co-editors, Dr. Luka Biong and Daniel Jok, to include Edward Lino among several of the Ngok Dinka leaders in the struggle who have contributed chapters to our soon to be published book, Abyei Between the Two Sudans, which has documented through personal experiences the role played by the freedom fighters from Abyei in the political and military struggle of South Sudan in the two wars. Unfortunately, despite his strong manifest desire to contribute to the book, Edward Lino’s deteriorating health condition made that implausible. I do, however, believe that those who knew Edward Lino well and have reflected on his life in their eulogies, have given him the great honor which he so much deserves by highlighting the heroic contribution he made to the liberation struggle. In particular, his comrade in the struggle, Atem Yaak Atem, in his powerful and deeply moving eulogy, has began an in-depth account of Edward Lino’s role in the struggle which he thoughtfully pledged to elaborate into a publishable work. I also hope that the messages that have poured in since the announcement of his death will be collected into a volume that will be published as a tribute to his noble and memorable service to his people and his country. Our people used to say that absence is like death. I now reverse this to say that death is like absence. This is particularly true these days when a combination of devastating crises have shattered our people and scattered them around the globe to the point where many relatives and friends hardly ever meet face to face. Absence and death have become closely twinned. And so, Edward Lino continues to be absent as he has been for many among us, but he will also remain forever present among us in our memory. His heroic deeds and his unwavering commitment to the struggle for human dignity for all will continue to be a source of inspiration for generations to come. Our people do not cry over the death of heroes for they live on in the remembered glory of their immortal deeds. So it is with Edward Lino; he is dead, but he lives on in our memory. May the Almighty God rest his soul in peace among our ancestors and all our departed, whose heads remain standing upright, to paraphrase the principles of kooc e nhom in our people’s spiritual belief system…

Now, a nation that countless people died to free has been fled by many of its citizens, who have ended up in refugee camps.

A vision and mission must have been killed with Dr John Garang. Otherwise, our dear liberators perished in vain, or else the country is ruled by foreign governors as asserted by Eng Chol Tong Mayai.

I am frustrated, bothered, and irritated by the nude pictures of Abraham swimming circulating social media. I cannot understand people who stay to suffer at the hands of the government. Why was Abraham stripped naked? And what does the Act say about privacy and the distribution of nude pictures without consent? On 23 March, Sudan’s chief of justice denied health officials the right to screen his sons for coronavirus at Juba airport, and no action was taken, nor summons from the court in response to this. This demonstrates the unfairness of what was done to Abraham.

According to the picture taken during the first hearing, the room was full of people, which was a breach of social distancing measures, though some people in South Sudan are above the law. Abraham Chol Maketh was not alone, nor did he breach social distancing procedures. Cruel prejudice has proved the country to be lawless. Abraham was locked in the church on Friday by the police under the pretext of COVID-19 breaches. But churches continue to operate, and the court does not observe social distancing rules. I condemn the South Sudan law enforcement sector and law enforcers to summon those involved. In African traditions, this situation creates a taboo that could result in a curse upon those involved. I encourage those who have shared the images of Abraham to take the pictures down from social media. Leaders must repent and offer apologies to all South Sudanese and religious groups, locally and abroad. Declining to do so will bring about another crisis. No human deserves injustice or to be treated as a second citizen in his/her motherland. South Sudan is going down the wrong path, and those who laughed at Chol Maketh will regret it someday.

I implore the law enforcing body to free Abraham promptly, take him for medical evaluation, and compensate him for defamation and the distribution of his naked photos on social media without his permission. By Acting Chief of Twi East Peter Lual Reech Deng

References Why has South Sudan become A Failed Country by Prof Martin Takpiny Lives at Stake South-Sudan during the Liberation Struggle by Halle Jorn Hanssen

 

As the people of South Sudan most likely on Saturday, 22^nd February will see the implementation of the Revitalized Peace Agreement from the summer of 2018 begin, it is worthwhile trying to list the developments that under the rule of Kiir and his henchmen, have made South Sudan a failed and destroyed state.

In this context we must always keep in mind the disaster that hit the people of South Sudan on 30th July 2005, the so-called helicopter accident that killed the liberator, then the President of South Sudan and the First Vice-President of Sudan, John Garang. The International Commission that analysed the reasons for the accident, concluded that it was due to human failure and bad weather.

I have spent hours with the commander from SPLA who arrived first at the spot of the wrecked Russian made helicopter. He found the black box, travelled to Moscow with it and was present when it was opened and investigated by Russian experts. He was then a member of the International Commission that investigated the accident and made the report. The story he shared with me, is fundamentally different from the official conclusion in the report from the Commission. He told me that the instruments of the helicopter had been tempered with and wrongly adjusted. Neither the height meter nor the radar was properly working. His conclusion was clear, it was not an accident, but a refined scheme set up to murder John Garang. The mastermind was to be found with the old dictatorial regime of Omar Bashir in Khartoum, and he had his partners outside and inside SPLM/A in South Sudan. Members of the John Garang’s family have shared similar views with me. Now with a new regime in Sudan, hopefully on its way towards the rule of law and democracy, one day soon some documents may be found in secret archives that will cast more light on how John Garang died.

In the course of 2012 and 2013 the discontent with Kiirs rule both as the president and as the chairman of the governing party SPLM was growing, and if a democratic process within SPLM had taken place before the elections that were scheduled for 2015, Kiir would have been running the risk of not being renominated.

Kiir’s answer to that possibility was the military coup d’etat that he and his henchmen carried out on the 15^th of December 2013. The war that followed, has caused a lot of suffering and destruction:

1. In a country with about 11 million inhabitants, approximately 400 000 lives are lost due to the war that lasted until sometime in 2018.
2. Almost 6 million people have been made homeless, and 2 million of them are refugees in neighbouring countries. In total, more than 6 million inside and outside South Sudan is today dependent on international humanitarian aid for their survival. Neither Salva Kiir nor any of his ministers have ever visited a camp for displaced persons inside South Sudan or a refugee camp in neighbouring countries. The indifference demonstrated, has chocked the international community.
3. Tens of thousands of women and children have been raped.
4. Hundreds of thousands of both sexes and all ages are traumatised for life.
5. Never in the history of the people of South Sudan, not even during the long liberation war, has the educational services been worse than now while the children of the opulent, kleptocratic power elite in Juba attend school in neighbouring countries, paid for with money stolen from the people by the same elite in Juba.
6. Never in the same period has the health and social services been poorer, in fact, they are non-existent for the ordinary citizen, if not provided for by the churches or international NGOs. Whenever a family member of the kleptocratic elite falls sick and needs hospitalisation, they are sent abroad and paid for with stolen state money.

The misrule of Kiir’s government and administration since 2011 and until today has made South Sudan a failed and destroyed state. I list in the following some of the gravest failures and crimes:

1. Kiir has systematically like a blind dictator since December 2013 ruled the country by decree while seeking advice for his political actions from a self-composed and self-interest seeking group that has named itself JCE, the Jieng (Dinka) Council of Elders. The Dinka people like other South Sudanese ethnic groups are the victims of their myopic and sectarian policies.
2. In 2016 in a stark violation of the peace agreement signed a few days before, Salva Kiir changed the administrative infrastructure of South Sudan from 10 states to 28 states and then again to 32 states. Then, he made sure that 12 of 32 states had Dinka governors, and with two other states having deputy-governors and finally, he had his nephew appointed deputy Governor of the Capital, Juba.
3. His own government of today has an 85 percent dominance of Dinka ministers and deputy ministers although the Dinka ethnic group only makes up only some 25 – 30 percent of the total population.
4. With the active support of the president and JCE, the Dinka Council of Elders, a group of Dinka ethnic elements closed to Kiir and other influential people have in different ways taken control of most of the natural assets of the nation in order to enrich themselves while most of the Dinka people continue to live poor lives while they are being misled by their rulers.
5. The power elite in Juba has developed a system of corruption and kleptocracy worse than what one has seen in Zaire during Mobutu and in Zimbabwe or in other failed states in Africa.
6. The oil industries are not properly maintained, but carelessly overused by Chinese, Malaysian and Indian oil companies without any consideration for the pollution effects and the environment. The result is a major disaster for both human beings and for fauna and flora in the areas affected.
7. South Sudan is for 98 percent of its state income dependent on oil. The assessed income for the government from oil in the period from 2005 and until 2020, is at least some 25 billion dollars. More than half of that sum has been spent on war and internal security. Most of the rest has either been stolen or squandered. There are many kleptocrats in Juba, and the leading ones are president Salva Kiir and his family members and their children included, and the helpers of the family like Bol Mel who recently without the least of military background was made a general in the National Army. The stolen money which is shared among some few individuals of the present holders of power in Juba, has been transferred out of the country with the assistance of banks in Kenya, Uganda and Sudan, and it has been hidden i tax havens mainly in Indian Ocean countries and some Arab countries.
8. South Sudan has other rare mineral resources like gold. Concessions to dig for gold have been rendered to international plundering companies from countries like Great Britain, South Africa, China and Israel, and gold mines have been opened mainly in Central and East Equatoria. The work force in the mines are mainly child slaves who are being beaten when they do not work hard enough. Co-owners with the international companies of the mines, are a cluster of leading members of the Kiir Government, the president himself included. The profits from the gold mining go 100 percent to the owners, nothing for the people of the land.
9. The economy of the country has for all these reasons gradually come to a stand-still and is now collapsing.
10. Both many leaders in SPLM and the people of South Sudan were after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005 and even more after the independence of South Sudan in 2011 eagerly waiting for a political and societal development in which the principles and values of human rights, the rule of law and democracy were to be implemented. But they were betrayed. Salva Kiir appointed people to the government who had the hidden agenda to make sure that these principal values for good societal development were rejected. The leading mastermind in this field Is Michael Makuei Leuth who in present-day Africa must be the principal violator of Human Rights, not least Freedom of Expression.
11. Oppression, imprisonment and torture. Kiir’s key man is general Akol Koor Kuc. He is in charge of Internal Security, and he is an unscrupulous person with unlimited resources who has ordered the abduction, arrest, torture and murder of countless fellow citizens. Today he is probably a more powerful man in the Power Hierarchy of South Sudan than the President himself.
12. The awareness of crimes committed by the persons mentioned above has led to UN and US sanctions of a large number of Salva Kiir’s government, including the First Vice-President Taban Deng Gai, the Minister of Cabinet Affairs Martin Elia Lomuro, the Minister of Information, Michael Makuei Leuth, the Minister of defence Kuol Manyang Juuk and other ministers, and the generals Gabriel Jok Riak and Akol Koor Kuc among other military leaders and Mel Bol, Kur Ajiing and the Al Cardinal group in the business sector. They are all high-ranking businesspeople closely connected to Kiir.

The regional body IGAD has been in charge of the peace negotiations for South Sudan since 2014.

But in 2015 for some months, there was a kind of parallel effort, the Arusha Agreement on the reunification of SPLM, and in the summer of 2015 it was to be implemented. According to this agreement, the sacked and banned Secretary general of SPLM, Pagan Amum, was to be reinstated. He, in the company of the Kenyan Minister of Defence, arrived in Juba on 23^rd June 2015. The reinstatement ceremony in the presence of President Salva Kiir took place the day after, and I spoke to Pagan Amum the same evening. He was happy to be back on the job and stated that ending the war and starting a process of reconciliation had to be given priority in order to build lasting peace. But when Pagan Amum went back to his office the day after to begin working, he and the other former detainees who before the summer of 2013 were leaders of SPLM and again back in Juba, discovered that there was a plot to detain and assassinate them. President Salva Kiir had sanctioned the plot and Pagan Amum is reported to have confronted the president with the plan. The President was evasive in his answer.

Pagan Amum and his FD colleagues then had to run necks over heads from Juba, and friends and people inside the system but loyal nationalists, succeeded to push them through the airport, and they escaped onboard a flight to Addis Ababa.

The first peace agreement negotiated by IGAD was finalized and to be signed in early 2015. President Kiir objected to it and only signed after heavy international pressure in the early fall of 2015. The implementation started in the spring of 2016. One key point in the agreement was the reinstatement of Riek Machar as first Vice-President. It ended with a shoot out between the security guard of the president and the first vice -president in the summer of 2016 with many killed. It was followed by a rampage of the town of Juba by elements of Kiir’s forces who stormed an international hotel and raped several women from abroad serving the people of South Sudan. In the aftermath, Kiir ordered the hunt for Riek Machar and hired international mercenaries to assist his own forces. But the hunt failed as Machar escaped into the Central African Republic and was taken care of by UN peace keeping forces.

The IGAD efforts to bring peace to Sudan in the aftermath of the events of the summer of 2016 have been many but have failed. However, in the summer of 2018 IGAD handed over the responsibility to lead the negotiations to the then dictator of Sudan, Omar Bashir with the assistance of the president of Uganda, Yoveri Museveni. They succeeded in making both Salva Kiir and Riek Machar and a few other parties sign a renewed version of the agreement from 2015.

While Omar Bashir was pursuing his interest to continue exploit South Sudan’s oil, Salva Kiir had one other important reason to sign this agreement. There was a very important change from the previous ones on one point, the power sharing between the different parties to the agreement. In this agreement, Salva Kiir together with ministers of his own choice maintain the majority power in all decisions of importance for the people and the country. In addition, the contentious issue of how many states 32 or 10 or another number, was not settled.

The Machar faction and party to the agreement as well as other opposition groups like the South Sudan Opposition Alliance that has not signed the agreement, have stood firm in their demand to Kiir to go back to the original number of states which are 10. Kiir and his government has consistently refused to grant any concession on the matter.

But to the big surprise of South Sudanese as well as others, Kiir last Saturday 15^th February made a statement to the fact that he and his government would accept to go back to ten states. However, he added that he would assign three special administrative areas that would be under de facto the control of the Presidency. One is Abyei. Another of the areas is named Ruweng and is one in which oil is being produced. A third is Greater Pibor which is another area of South Sudan rich with minerals like gold. The President has granted important mining concessions to foreign companies that together with one of Kiir’s daughters are plundering this area for minerals, The reports from the area leaked to the media recently also say that the mining managements are using local militias to terrorize and force people to leave the mining areas. The suspicion is that the president with his family and his henchmen in this way want to continue to control and have unlimited access to the profits from oil and other minerals.

While the Machar faction has applauded the decision to have only ten states, it immediately refused to accept the establishment of the administrative areas of Ruweng and Greater Pibor.

As the new transitional national government is being formed, one has to take note of what are still critical and unsolved issues in the Peace Agreement.

1. The demilitarization of Juba and other major towns have not taken place. This fact represents a constant threat to the survival of the Peace Agreement.
2. The cantonment of forces belonging to the government and Machar faction is far from being fulfilled, and the building of a new integrated National Army is at best in its very beginning.
3. The cease fire agreement which is an essential part of the Peace Agreement has until recently been frequently violated by the government forces, having tried but failed to eradicate the forces of opposition groups like the National Salvation front.
4. There is no indication to the fact that Salva Kiir in the transition period until the next elections whose dates have not been agreed, will give up his power to rule by Presidential Decree, meaning to continue his dictatorial practice.
5. A state of emergency has since December 2013 marked every-day life in South Sudan, and Salva Kiir and his henchmen has not given any indication to the fact that the emergency will be lifted as soon as a new government is in place.
6. There is no indication whatsoever to the fact the Kiir faction holding the majority in a government vote, has any intention to accept and implement the important parts of the Peace Agreement that deal with justice, special tribunes for war crimes and similar.
7. There is no indication to the fact that basic human rights like freedom of expression will be respected by a new coalition government.

There is hardly any hope for any real progress on the six issues listed because it might expose the crimes that first and foremost Kiir’s faction, but also Machar’s faction have committed against their own people in the period since the end of 2013.

The best and decent part of the political elite in South Sudan with a strong commitment to human rights and democracy from before the summer of 2013 who then was chased into the cold, are either political refugees somewhere in the world or they have died in the war or have been killed by Kiir’s assassins.

The political leaders of Africa and the world are tired of the South Sudan, Salva Kiir and his henchmen and their continuous obstruction of all efforts to bring peace to the people of South Sudan. They have at the same time not been willing to apply the kind of power, political and economic pressure and through UN, military force that could have ended the destruction of the state and the suffering of the people.

Now the people pin their hopes on a coalition of two factions that consistently have failed for a decade. But there is a big risk that one will see a repetition of what happened in the summer of 2016 when the two factions clashed, and the war continued

I hope that I am wrong, but I fear that the destruction of South Sudan and the sufferings of its people shall continue. We might have a pause for a few months in the continuing process before the hopes of a people desperately wanting peace, is being crushed again.

Sources:

1. The Sentry report, an American NOGO in partnership with the Enough Project, Not on our watch and C4ADS in USA with George Cloony and John Prendergast being the co-founders of the Sentry Report. It has since 2014 published many reports on the failing of the state of South Sudan and its kleptocratic networks.
2. Amnesty International has also published many reports on South Sudan.
3. The same goes for Global Human Rights Watch.
4. International Crisis Group, many reports and newsletters.
5. UN reports, many of human rights violations and sexual violence.
6. The AU Report from 2015 with Olusegun Obasanjo from Nigeria as the Chair.
7. September 2018. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine report on lives lost in the civil war in South Sudan.
8. Wikipedia on the Conflict in South Sudan.
9. Reports in international media on South Sudan. I have read all reports referred to above from no. 1 – 8 and many news reports from different media sources.
10. I am an old Africa reporter and had my first mission into South Sudan in 1978 and my last in October 2013. I was the Secretary General of Norwegian Peoples Aid, NPA, between 1992 and 2001. NPA took in 1987 a stand in support of the liberation struggle of SPLM/SPLA and provided humanitarian aid and development in the liberated areas for the same period and further. I in published 2017 published the book; LIVES AT STAKE. South Sudan during the liberation struggle (ISBN 978-82-91385-61-7).