The Secretary General of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) Party over the weekend blamed the leaders of the SPLM/A liberation struggle who ascended to power in 2005 after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the 21-year war for the crises the country is grappling with.
Peter Lam Both was speaking at a function to honor the fallen Lt. Gen. Bior Ajang Duot, a revered gallant liberation struggle hero who later served as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations of the South Sudan People’s Defense Forces (SSPDF), who succumbed to heart complication on 13 August.
In what seemed to be a response to several leaders who spoke at the function and lambasted the government for not looking after the families of fallen heroes and veterans, the SPLM honcho appealed for the unity of the party and appealed to those who deserted to return.
Among the speakers who bashed the leadership was a maverick bush war commander, Gen. Garang Mabil, who became emotional, flew off the handle, and declared that the SPLM Party had abandoned its revolutionary ideals and programs and that it had been taken over by imposters. He wondered if the party was still alive.
For her part, Vice President Rebecca Nyandeng de Mabior admitted that the government had failed in delivering services to the citizens and supporting the liberation struggle veterans.
“The first phase of liberation required different types of skills, knowledge, and experience to be able to fight physically to liberate the country. Phase two is after the independence of the Republic of South Sudan and is about development and offering of services to the people of South Sudan. And that phase two requires a different set of skills, knowledge, and experience and so on,” SPLM Secretary General Lam stated. “Therefore, if those of us or those of you who went to the bush in 1983 believe that phase two has not succeeded it is because it is one of the hardest things to do. Anybody can destroy a building but not anyone can build it. And so, therefore, the skill set required dictates that those who are coming behind you must be able to come in to help you in phase two. So, our veterans, no one has forgotten any one of you, it is the difficulties in which our country is in.”
He added: “If you remember, from 2005 up to 2013, the Government of South Sudan had so much resources, some publications said we had $20 billion between those years, and the people who were in the government who were responsible for development were all the liberators of our country, some of whom are sitting around here.”
Lam challenged that who is to blame if nothing was achieved during the period when the country had money.
“So, if we did not do anything in those good years, who are we blaming, who do we really blame? Is it those who have inherited the disaster or those who started the disaster? So, I think it is important for us to unite together, come together under the SPLM leadership of Comrade Salva Kiir for us to build the SPLM again so that we are able to realize the dreams of our liberation,” he asserted. “When we are scattered the way we are now, we will not be able to achieve anything. Now it has become a culture that if you are in the government, the SPLM is there, if you are relieved, the SPLM is dead. How long are we going to live like this?”
According to the party leader, a true committed cadre of the SPLM is one who even when removed from office sits in his house and remains committed to the ideals of the party.
“And all of you participated in the Government of South Sudan, so, if we created our problem in 2013, let us not blame other people for it. It is us who decided to shoot our foot with the bullets and now we have ended up like this like this,” Lam said. “So, let us return, let us build SPLM, let us be loyal, and let us move forward.”
Interestingly, President Kiir who is the SPLM Party chairman, and most of the outfit’s prominent leaders were at and remain at the helm of the country since the interim period in 2005 through independence in 2011 to date.