بروفيسور نيابا يرد على فبركات لام اكول

Quote: The Farce that was ‘The Assassination Attempt on the Life of Hon. Dr. Lam Akol’ Dr. Peter Adwok Nyaba, KHARTOUM APR. 27/2009, SSN: Decency demands that certain things are not told or retold for the simple fact that they can cause embarrassment. However, in the tradition of the fascist Goebbels, a lie repeated a hundred times become a truth. I have read the statement released by the three Hon. Members of National Assembly published by the Sudan Vision Daily on April 23rd 2009 and which has been reproduced on this website. The sentence, and I quote “..the targeting has gone beyond politics to attempts of physical elimination–the incident of 22/2/2008 which cost lives of three persons that accompanied Dr. Lam Akol on the Malakal–Anakdiar road..” prompted me to respond. First, I thought that being one of the authors of the statement Dr. Lam Akol wouldn’t have wanted himself associated with a lie that depicted him a victim of an assassination attempt. He was indeed not in the place of the incident. More over the perpetrators couldn’t have known that it was his car flying the route to Anakdiar because it was already dark. Therefore to categorically insist that it was an assassination attempt and make political reference to it appears an absurd witch hunting exercise. Secondly, the Sudanese in general, abhor cowardly violence as in cold blood killings and the like. It would be embarrassing for one to peddle an attempt on one’s life. It turns one into a coward of first order. However, since Dr. Lam insists and those close to him accept it as a fact, then the records must be put straight at least for those who might have been ensnared into believing. Cattle theft has been frequent for a long time in Malakal and its environs. Sometimes it took a combined force of the Police and the Army to retrieve the stolen herds. On Saturday, February 22nd, 2008 a group of cattle thieves drove hundreds of cattle from Malakal. It was about five o’clock in the evening. They drove the cattle in the direction of Anakdiar, southeast of Malakal. That day no army or police tried to follow and retrieve the cattle. Perhaps the authorities were still piecing together a force when the car with Dr. Lam’s lieutenants, one of whom was a senior officer in the National Security Organization posthumously promoted to Major General, pursuing their own objectives was intercepted three kilometers from Malakal, at Ahmed Ajak, and a gun battle ensued. When the police arrived at the spot they found three corpses and a wounded person. The wounded person was taken to the hospital. Dr. Lam Akol went to the hospital and identified that he was not one of his men, who had all been killed. The police then arrested the wounded man and took his statement before he died some two days later. This is what he had to say. “When we intercepted and stopped the car to question those inside, we thought it was Police following us, all I can remember is that I was immediately shot, fell down unconscious, and so did not know what happened after that. Now that I am here in the hospital it only means that my people left me for dead.” Of course as soon as the shooting started from the car, a Toyota pickup, the cattle thieves sprayed it with bullets and killed the three occupants. Reconstructing the scene therefore, it would appear to be common criminal act rather than an assassination attempt against the life of Dr. Lam Akol. When the Intibah Daily carried the story on February 24th just a day after the incident some of us dismissed it as the usual thrash it carried on political developments in Southern Sudan. Little did we know that it was for political mileage. Now that Dr. Lam himself makes reference he should be courageous enough to name the people he suspected. The analysis on the situation in the SPLM by the three members of the National Assembly is nothing but a diatribe against an imaginary group. Dr. Lam Akol immodestly terms himself a co-founder of the SPLM. Yes, history can be distorted and sometimes to one’s whims. But he should be reminded that being a founder or co-founder does not put one above the Movement as to jump, at will, its ranks and file and join hand with the enemy as he did between August 1991 and October 2003. Dr. Lam Akol does not need to be lectured to that any political activity outside the SPLM precincts in collaboration with the NCP as happened in Kenana borders on treason. Does Dr. Lam Akol respect the rules of the SPLM only when he is appointed a minister? Then why shouldn’t he resign his seat in the National Assembly? Who targeted Manoah Aligo? I believed Manoah Aligo got a dose of his own medicine. In 2005, with others they plotted in collaboration with some NCP leaders in the Assembly to have Yassir Arman removed from the leadership of the SPLM caucus. Manoah and others did not see the motives behind the wedge the NCP was driving through the SPLM membership in the National Assembly. The NCP was not comfortable with people like Yassir because of their inner knowledge of the NCP. They wanted to do business with Southern Sudanese like Manoah whose principal objective did not threaten NCP. The strategy of destroying the SPLM from within was first to divide it on North–South basis. Then after that divide it along regional basis posing the Equatorians as opposed to the Nilotics in Bahr el Ghazal and Upper Nile. The final stage would be to divide it along tribal lines. This had to be defeated and those of Manoah lost out until the elections of the Caucus were held in 2007. In the run up to the SPLM 2nd Convention many SPLM cadres and leaders were trounced in their own home areas. Hon. Manoah Aligo failed to become a delegate to the 2nd Convention. He was not blocked by anybody. That is how democracy works and he was not alone in that. The dismissal of Telar and Aleu from the SPLM was an administrative rather than a political action. The Chairman of the SPLM has that prerogative and which can only be challenged in a formal party structure not in the press or private meetings. Now that they have been re-instated into the ranks and file of the SPLM they will have to respect the SPLM and its leadership. The SPLM-NCP partnership doesn’t preclude contradictions in perceptions, policy and practice. It is true that the CPA did not define the policy line during the interim period and the SPLM ministers in GNU have been implementing the NCP political programs. The first hitch was in the area of foreign policy and Dr. Lam must be aware of the wrath from SPLM members he elicited as Minister of Foreign Affairs implementing to the letter what the NCP wanted. The fault could be attributed to SPLM lack of own program but as leaders SPLM, ministers were not expected to be blind to the SPLM vision and political objectives. Endearing oneself to the NCP executing their orders was tantamount to forsaking one’s own political party. Ours with the NCP is a partnership of equals not an assimilation of the SPLM by the NCP. In this relation the SPLM leadership should not be castigated for punishing the recalcitrant or the renegades. Peter Adwok Nyaba, Khartoum, Sudan