The head of South Sudan’s Civil Society Alliance Deng Athuai Mawiir spoke publicly for the first time since he was shot by unknown gunman in Juba two months ago.
Athuai alleged that the shooting may have been related to a confrontation he had with government delegates in Addis Ababa.
The civil society leader said that before his shooting he questioned the delegates’ personal and professional stakes in South Sudan.
”I need to know from one of you who are negotiating in Addis should raise his hand up if his family are present inside South Sudan,” Athuai recounted. “Unfortunately no one [raised their hand]. All their children at the moment were abroad.”
“I ask them also, ‘who was not been a minister before among you who are negotiating today?’ Nobody raised his hand up,” Athuai said.
He said that after that speech, people in Addis Adaba approached him and told him not to come back to the negotiations. The next Friday, he was shot in Juba, he said.
Athuai said that the shooting prevented him from returning to Addis Ababa, but that he is “strong, not cowed, and will not give up.”
White clothes
While speaking, Athuai wore white, a symbol of the peace in Equatoria, he explained. He said it was the first time he was able to dress properly since the shooting due to his injuries.
Though these were his first public remarks, Athuai had spoken previously with governor of Central Equatoria state Clement Wani Konga who was the first person to visit him in the hospital and who pledged support to the activist.
An independent civil society inquiry into Athuai’s attempted assassination found that the killing could be related to South Sudan’s National Security.
A leader of the inquiry told Radio Tamazuj that Athuai had tried to remove people from his Addis Ababa delegation who were members of National Security before the shooting.
Athuai said he has criticized the ruling SPLM party—which is now split into various groups including the two armed factions loyal to Salva Kiir and Riek Machar respectively—for some time.
He said he had addressed the SPLM in Juba before the crisis began in mid-December 2013.
“I told them our problem is that we must separate the military from politics,” he said, adding that leaders “must not hold three positions to be a businessman, and lieutenant general in the army, and the same time you are the minister.”
“I said it here…and after two month I got kidnapped by security,” he added.
A problem of the party
Athuai rejected claims by the SPLM party that the so-called stakeholders, which include civil society, religious groups, and others, want to join a transitional government.
“I don’t want civil society to be part of this transitional government because they will not be able to speak the truth and will be part of the corruption,” he said.
“We need our brother Riek Machar, Pagan Amum, and brother President Salva Kiir to sit together and solve their problems inside their own house called SPLM Party. This is not the problem of all South Sudanese. It is the problem of the party called SPLM, a problem of people whom we gave them the mandate of confidence to protect us and deliver the service to the people of South Sudan.”
He said the transitional government should be constituted of people who work positively for the nation. He said that criteria does not include the leaders of the warring parties who should finish their terms to 2015 July before new elections.
“No one will…use the government money or vehicle or even the army to protect you and bring you into the power again, no,” Athuai said.
Radio Tamazuj photo: Civil Society Alliance chairman Deng Athuai Mawiir speaks publicly for the first time since an assassination attempt.
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