I listened to a statement titled “Strategic response of the Transitional Government to the Nasir incident and reinvigoration of the peace agreement” read out by Cabinet Minister Dr. Martin Elia Lomuro who also doubles as the Secretary of the High-Level Standing Committee (HLSC) on Peace Implementation, on Saturday evening with dejection and trepidation because it, in a vulgar way, ethnically profiled the Nuer peoples of South Sudan for ulterior political purposes.
President Salva Kiir’s government effectively categorized areas (counties) with largely Nuer inhabitants as being either hostile or friendly to the regime. I cried! This came after the escalating tensions between Kiir and First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar, who was placed under house arrest following the recent fighting in Nasir between the SSPDF and the White Army.
“The Nuer ethnic group, one of the largest in South Sudan, played a significant and crucial role in the country’s liberation. This community spans and occupies counties divided into four sub-sections. Out of these counties, 9 of them are considered hostile to the government, primarily aligned with the SPLM-IO. These include Nasir, Ulang, Akobo, Nyirol, Uror, Fangak, Ayod, and Rubkona. Leaders from these areas hold influential political and military positions and maintain deep ties with this community leadership, including youth, women, and spiritual leaders,” Minister Lomuro declared. “The 7 remaining counties are deemed to be friendly to the government, including Mayendit, Maiwut, Longechuk, as well as Guit, Leer, Panyijar, Koch, and Mayom counties in Unity State.”
This tribal profiling of the Nuer was orchestrated by select Dinka politicians in the government led by Kiir, and the conceited Cabinet Minister Lomuro, who hails from Central Equatoria, was deftly chosen as a bulwark and political contraceptive against the anticipated backlash the spiteful pronouncement would and has created. Usually haughty, one wonders how he feels now after repeatedly being used as a prophylactic (condom).
How does a supposed leader who administers the very body that supposedly oversees the implementation of the peace agreement allow to be used to drive fissures in the unity of the citizenry? Interestingly, in June 2024, Lomuro, while appearing before the National Legislature’s Committee on Public Accounts, Finance and Economic Planning, confirmed receipt of the equivalent of USD 10 million earmarked for the peace mechanisms but admitted that some of the funds meant for the implementation of the 2018 revitalized peace agreement were diverted to special projects in the president`s office among other expenditure.
It is an inalienable right of citizens to organize and politically oppose the establishment and their leaders, if they fail to deliver; otherwise, what then is democracy? How do people who have not seen any tangible services from their so-called government protest? It is laughable that Kiir expects the people of South Sudan to revere his leadership when his regime has abdicated its role and left the suffering masses to the mercies of international donors, the UN and NGOs, and religious entities among other well-wishers. How do you expect people to love a junta that divides and kills them?
Indeed, in political philosophy, the right of revolution or right of rebellion is the right or duty of a people to “alter or abolish” a government that acts against their common interests or threatens the safety of the people without justifiable cause. The Anyanya 1 and later SPLM/A, under the tutelage of the late Dr. John Garang, did just that. That aside, if the revitalized agreement was implemented, Machar’s SPLM-IO and the other opposition groups would have morphed and registered as political parties by now, and would have promoters and registered members. Would Kiir consider these hostile as well?
It is a known fact that Kiir wants to continue ruling like a tyrannical monarch without catering to the interests of South Sudanese and the country. This has naturally drawn widespread opposition from the populace across the country, and Kiir, a small group of self-seeking Dinka politicians, and their greedy minions like Lomuro, who are in power and hemorrhaging the country to fill their bellies, have now identified the Nuer ethnicity as the biggest threat to their schemes. Which tribe is next after they deal with the Nuer? Where then does that leave people like recently appointed Upper Nile Governor Gen. James Koang Chuol, Labour Minister Gen. James Hoth Mai and other Nuer politicians and military types allied to and working for Kiir and who hail from the blacklisted Nuer counties? What will they tell their people? Even if they are eating in the government, many Nuer leaders will now reevaluate their individual and collective circumstances. In a country where people shift allegiances and defect and redefect on a whim, this will most definitely lead to more anarchy and carnage.
The Nasir disaster the led to the unfortunate killing of Gen. David Majur, the SSPDF commander there, could have been avoided and was going to be circumvented with the input of Nuer politicians and elders in Juba and on the ground who were working to diffuse tensions, but President Kiir and Vice President Benjamin Bol Mel [an expose on him by a syndicate of investigative journalists will be published soon] were thirsty for blood, wanted to massacre Nuer tribesmen and were craving war, if only to prove a point. They used Gen. Majur’s death as a rallying call to annihilate the White Army and bring the Nuer Nation to its knees. At the wake and burial of Majur, several ranking Dinka senior officials, including VP Bol, Defense Minister Gen. Chol Thon Balok, and Defense Chief Gen. Paul Nang Majok, among others, promised to avenge the deceased and deal with the White Army. The few moderate voices included the former governor of Warrap State, Gen. Aleu Ayieny, and Vice President Rebecca Nyandeng. The latter counseled that Majur’s death should not be politicized and ethnicized to take the country back to war. This advice was explicitly disregarded by the president and his bloodthirsty associates.
In truth, the White Army saved the lives of hundreds of SSPDF soldiers inside Nasir Town and surrounding villages during and after the clashes. Many SSPDF soldiers were at the mercy of and lived under the protection of elements of the White Army for days. We saw some of them giving these testimonies on television at press conferences organized by SSPDF Spokesperson Gen. Lul Ruai after being airlifted to Juba. Suffice it to say that Kiir and his military commanders were just hellbent on attacking the Nuer Nation and used the Nasir incident as a scapegoat.
In point of fact, the White Army, which is composed of armed Nuer youth, is a home and cattle guarding generational outfit, and many tribes across South Sudan have their variants. The White Army, like other similar groups, has been in existence for generations and did not materialize after war erupted in December 2013. However, it is also true that large sections of the White Army allied with and fought for Machar’s SPLM/A-IO after the crisis. As a crude but effective fighting force, largely because of their numbers and bravery in battle, and their allegiance to the opposition, Kiir has always seen them as a threat and obstacle to his ambitions to die in office. This informed Kiir’s decision to bring in the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF), ostensibly as mercenaries, to decisively crush the White Army, intimidate and subdue Nuer leaders, and have the Nuer Nation submit to him. However, knowing Nuer stoicism and pride, this will not happen, seeing Kiir’s largely tribal and unmotivated army cannot militarily pacify and control the large swaths of Nuer land even with the aerial, mechanized, and infantry support from Uganda.
Now, Kiir and Bol, and their cronies are pushing a narrative that Machar and his army coordinated the White Army’s actions in Nasir. This is warped, as well-documented tensions had been simmering there between the civilian population and the SSPDF unit for the last few years. The demands by the people of Nasir that the army unit be replaced by a new force, preferably the unified forces, were not too much as they viewed the SSPDF as an occupational force that was hellbent on disrupting their lives and fighting them.
Undoubtedly, the SSPDF unit in Nasir, which was not often resupplied by Juba, repeatedly clashed with local armed youth over harassment, robberies, and fishing points, among other disputes. A showdown was inevitable! This is largely because Kiir purposely refused to implement Chapter Two of the peace agreement, the pivot of the treaty, which specifies Security Arrangements, including the retraining, unification of forces, and their deployment as a national army under one command. For him, unification of the forces merely means integrating the opposition forces into the SSPDF, especially those he can buy and or strongarm.
Speaking at the same press conference, the perennially coarse and often callous information minister, Michael Makuei, despite being a trained lawyer and former judge, contended that Machar can be removed from office if the investigation committee (whose members he did not name) finds him guilty and prescribes that he must stand trial. One wonders how a learned person can argue that an investigative committee can return a guilty verdict instead of a competent court. Procedurally, in the event he is indicted, Machar would be stripped of his immunity and suspended from office to face trial in a competent court. If found guilty, then he can be sentenced; if not, then his suspension can be lifted. It now seems that in our country, a suspect is guilty until proven innocent. Little wonder prisons are overcrowded with remandees awaiting court trials across the country!
South Sudanese law stipulates that a suspect must be presented before a court within 72 hours of arrest. So, Dr. Machar’s continued arrest under the guise of investigating the unfortunate events in Nasir leading up to the death of SSPDF commander Gen. David Majur on 4 March are premeditated by Kiir and his regime to buy time to fragment the SPLM/A-IO, manipulate its internal processes, and find a replacement for Machar who they can work with. It also aims to bamboozle citizens and the international community into believing that all is hanky-dory and that the implementation of the peace agreement is on track. Why was Machar not taken to court, charged, and either released on bail or remanded to prison, or returned to his house arrest, considering the gravity of the charges? This is roguish, and the masses, who are now woke, have seen through these collisions, and it is likely to backfire and lead to more fighting similar to maneuverings in July 2016, which dubiously elevated the sly Taban Deng Gai to the position of First Vice President.
Conversely, if Kiir and his gofers in the sinister complot against Machar and the SPLM/A-IO have had a collective Pauline conversion and now believe in the rule of law and justice, they should start by allowing and facilitating the swift setting up of the Hybrid Court to try war crimes, crimes against humanity and other misdeeds against the people of South Sudan since independence. This will be the ultimate embracing of justice that will bring closure to South Sudanese.
Over the years, from the CPA interim period (2005-2011) and after independence on 9 July 2011, Kiir and his political allies have been defiling, raping, abusing and desecrating the ailing body of South Sudanese democracy, and on Saturday, summarily executed it and nailed it shut in a coffin. They will soon bury it in the full glare of South Sudanese and the world if their machinations to hang Machar and obliterate his SPLM-IO and other parties deemed oppositionist come to fruition.
Ultimately, Kiir and his lot want to create a one-party state, a practice that was favored by most of the avid dictators in post-colonial Africa. In their ‘wisdom,’ they will, of course, let a few paper tiger political parties and briefcase entities operate to give Kiir’s SPLM Party a semblance of legitimacy. The script is old as it is archaic. Kiir and his handpicked Vice President, Bol Mel, new designs do not bode well for South Sudan.
Kiir has been meticulously working to torpedo the 2018 revitalized peace agreement, like he did the August 2015 Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (ARCSS) in July 2016. He was clear from the get-go that the peace agreement was crafted in such a way that it could never be implemented. He has gone ahead to make sure it is not implemented by putting deliberate roadblocks and frustrating its execution by repeatedly and brazenly violating the terms and clauses of the pact. These abuses have been well documented over time by observers and the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (RJMEC). RJMEC wrote a letter to Kiir on 11 April 2025 under the subject “Reported violations of the R-ARCSS and the appeal for urgent intervention to de-escalate tension in the country and initiate corrective measures,” which detailed the latest serious violations of the agreement by the president’s party. The latest violations started with the SSPDF attacking several SPLA-IO positions in different parts of the country and peaked in the illegal invitation of the Ugandan army to South Sudan by Kiir without concurrence within the presidency, and culminated arrest of SPLM/A-IO officials and the placement of Machar under house arrest. (Insert pix of letter)
Machar is no angel either and has been known to use his Nuer tribesmen to further his unchecked ambitions to rise to the highest office in the land. A Machar presidency is anathema to Kiir and gives him sleepless nights. Indeed, even before the tensions in the SPLM Party and the eruption of war in December 2013, Machar’s office was solely staffed by his tribesmen, and the Nuer language was the ‘lingua franca’ or official language there. The only non-Nuer in the office is the current Speaker of the Council of States, Deng Deng Akon. Machar has often fondly talked of democracy in rosy terms and said all the good things politically right from the time he split from the SPLM/A in 1991, but seldom put them into practice. It has been his political character trait to offer and stop at lip service. Machar is often also wont to lose control of forces he has mobilized in the past, who then run roughshod and wantonly kill. Like Kiir, his nemesis, Machar is politically damaged goods, and the duo have outlived their usefulness to the people of South Sudan and cannot get the country out of the quagmire and abyss they have let the country slip into.
However, democracy should be cultivated, watered to thrive, and the people should be allowed to choose their leaders through credible elections. I can guarantee that in the event there is a free and fair election, Kiir and Machar and most of their cronies will be outrightly rejected by the people across the country. This is why Kiir is petrified to hold polls and has set out to dismantle the opposition, starting with Machar and his SPLM-IO. Dismantling the SPLA-IO is not going to be a walk in the park, however, even with the bringing in of foreign mercenaries. That is why Kiir, VP Bol Mel, and the others in their camp are now buying off the SPLA-IO commanders they can reach and eliminating the difficult ones. Kiir’s UPDF mercenaries have already committed war crimes and crimes against humanity by providing air cover and bombing innocent civilians in the dead of the night using incendiary bombs.
Lomuro and his ilk in Kiir’s cabal should know that their leader uses and discards people at will and acrimoniously? Let them look back at the power wielded by the likes of King Paul Malong, the former Chief of Defense Forces, Gen. Akol Koor Kuc, the former Director General of the notorious Internal Security Bureau (ISB), and others who were close to Kiir but sadly discarded in the dumpster when he was done with them. Even seasoned war heroes, venerated veterans, and SPLM/A historicals like Gen. Kuol Malong and Gen. Awet Akot, who are more vocal and think they are more deserving than some of their colleagues who were cast off, cried foul when Kiir deliberately turned his back on them, even when they serve as senior presidential advisors. The disillusioned duo gave press interviews to the effect that the ‘mighty’ SPLM had indeed made mistakes and that Kiir was avoiding them, and that there was a need to rethink the trajectory of the country.
Those who think they are close to Kiir must know that some of the latter’s former confidants and allies, like Generals Paul Malong, Akol Koor, Marial Chinoung, Lual Wek Guem (aka Lual Maroldit), Jok Riak, among many others, who tortured, maimed, incarcerated, and killed people for the ham-fisted leader, were used and later pushed out into the cold. Some of them were sanctioned, others became pariahs, and others are hated by their victims, who lived and despised by the families of the victims who were killed. Nothing lasts forever, indeed!
When the time to account to the people of South Sudan comes, even the money they have stuffed away will not save those who abuse people’s rights, loot public resources, kill, mutilate, defile and rape, steal futures, set communities against each other and deliberately commit other ills.
For Kiir and his cabal, what is the cost of keeping South Sudan perpetually in turmoil as juxtaposed to creating a democratic country? What happens when you are ejected by force, die in office, or leave peacefully? Have you all stopped to think what will happen when you cannot protect your ill-gotten wealth? What will be the fate of your children, some of whom are momentarily involved in pilfering public money and live in luxury? Interestingly, even some of the leaders in the region who are currently friendly will abandon ship when power is lost and form new alliances.
Dictatorial African leaders seem to have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing from the fate of the many tyrants who came and fell before them. Where is the wealth amassed by the likes of Mobutu Sese Seko, Amin Dada, Hissene Habre, Siad Barre, Charles Taylor, Sani Abacha, Muamar Gaddafi, and most recently Omar el Bashir, among others? Monies, suspected to have been looted from their countries, and even what was genuinely earned, were taken away by the governments of the countries from the children and relations of some of these fallen dictators. Is this not a lesson enough for our despotic leaders in South Sudan? Or do they think it cannot happen to them and their families? We are patiently watching!
Those who forced, and others who cajoled Machar, to go to Juba to implement the 2018 revitalized peace agreement and gave him assurances, must now come to his and the agreement’s rescue to avert more chaos and the continued suffering of the stoic people of South Sudan who are about to reach the breaking point.
Clearly, from the onset, Kiir never intended, and has no plans, to implement the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS) of September 2018.
God Bless South Sudan!
The author, Koka Lo’Lado, is a journalist and can be reached via kokalolado@gmail.com
The views expressed in ‘opinion’ articles published by Radio Tamazuj are solely those of the writer. The veracity of any claims made is the responsibility of the author, not Radio Tamazuj.