SOUTH SUDAN IN ‘MARIALYSIS’ AND KIIR’ISIS: (Marial’s Diplomatic Paralysis and Kiir’s Domestic Crisis)
WHY I HEREBY WITHDRAW MY DEDICATED POEM TO DR. MARIAL BENJAMIN!
Six years ago, at the height of the referenda propaganda craze, Hon. Barnabas Marial Benjamin did so well to the extent that he won a space in my heart; in the heart of my poetry book: The Black Christs of Africa. Poem #24 of Chapter 2 (My Leaders for My Readers) reads: ‘Marial, a Ministerial Material’. Today, March 22, 2016, it reads: Marial, No Longer a Ministerial Material! I mean, with the powers conferred upon me by the constitution (Bill of Rights) of the Republic of South Sudan, and also by the constitution of the ‘Republic of Literatia’ (literature), I have unilaterally sacked Dr. Barnaba Marial Benjamin Bil (BMB). He has taken our nation aback beyond the days I (with the people of South Sudan) gave him this honour. If Kiir fails to dismiss him, I withdraw my poem that places him among the heroes of my nascent nation.
FROM NOW ON, THE HEADING OF THIS POEM MUST READ: ‘Marial, Not A Ministerial Material’!
There is a plethora of reasons for de-honouring Hon. Marial Benjamin. He mismanaged our diplomatic wealth that was accummulated over several decades of our freedom struggle. He is corrupt, and it shows. He is nepotic, we know this. He sold Abyei to the Jallaba with a single signature!
However, he is jointly to blame with President Salva Kiir. They are the Biblical Issau that sold his birthright for a single meal of the day. Power struggle over position is so temporary that no sane native of South Sudan would think Deng Alor’s upcoming ministerial position that Marial Benjamin is losing is equivalent to Abyei. Or why would he disown the citizens of Abyei, just like the way Kiir has sacked all of them from the government fo South Sudan, indicating that they, Abyeyans, are now ‘foreigners’, a shockingly negative reinforcement to the pending case at the Hague-based court of arbitration (PCA).
For, Dr. Marial Benjamin was sacked the day the letter was leaked back from Geneva 10 days later. As if that is not enough, I would also send him back to his profession i.e. to open a medical clinic since he is an MD, and has proven beyond doubt that he is a self-styled old rebel diplomatic but not a modern one.
He was sacked in January this year by the parliament, but Kiir kept his usual cool. Since the TGoNU is almost being formed, I think Kiir may not sack Marial, who may also not wish to resign, before naturally handing over to Deng Alor (whom he is hiding from behind over the Abyei alienation). Methinks, Kiir may even sack Dr. Marial for public political gimmick with an assurance that he will soon appoint him back as a ‘Special Envoy’ or rapporteur on Foreing Affairs. Kiir is unpredictable. He also cannot sack such a loyalist, otherwise, he would have done it long ago from the following recommendations by the parliament:
“In our recommendation, we have mentioned that the ministry of foreign affairs is considered the weakest; our foreign missions have failed yet [it gets] $8.5 million per a month,” said Hon. Philip Thon Leek, chairman of the committee for foreign affairs in the NLA. http://www.eyeradio.org/nla-summons-dr-marial-unqualified-personnel/
MY OLD ARTICLE ON ABYEI:
THE SO-CALLED ‘VIP DONATION’ FOR MINISTER MARIAL BENJAMIN
On October 31, 2013, I joined other sympathetic citizens to welcome Abyei back to South Sudan by recognizing the outcome of their unilateral referendum. Unfortunately, Salva Kiir, Marial Benjamin, Makuei Lueth, and their cohorts turned down the results. No, they did not just shrug off the referendum results but also sacked most of the Abyeyans from the government positions in the South, prompting me to comment on my Facebook page:
“This evening (31/10/2013), citizens of Abyei and I, and my like-minded Southerners, are celebrating their mini-referendum, just as the supporters of ‘Salbashir’ (Salva + Bashir) are partying overnight with Halloween costumes and drinks from this zombie economy. This will haunt them throughout history now that they seem to worship the devil (Halloween) by the time they should be worshipping our nation (Abyei)…”
Secondly, I posted two poems: one composed there and then, and the other one composed in 2006 as a claim on Abyei. Here they are.
THERE IS YEI IN ABYEI
Our own referendum thoroughly through it went!
Oh no! Rather, our Ngok’s folks do still rent
Their very own soil by her oil and toils,
As the governments enjoy the spoils.
So why shamelessly say oyee in Yei,
Yet, what is taken away is Abyei?
To the very remote north from Yei,
What in fact separates our own Abyei,
Is nothing but our patriotism in deficiency,
Which is out of sheer leadership inefficiency.
Abyei’s sale for a piece of peace will boomerang
Upon the angry liberator incarnate in form of Garang!
Source: Kiirgyzstan
A SCREENSHOT FROM THE BOOK ‘The Black Christs of Africa’
Poem #16
OUR DEAD LINE
Lies somewhere there
In between
Them and us.
Our dead line
Has lain dead
For ages and ranges,
Marrying them into us.
Our dead line
Is our death line,
With millions of lives
Donated to retrace it.
Our dead line
Is not our dead lie,
For it has a deadline
By which we’ll redraw our date-line.
Let them withdraw their dead lie,
Of turning into their history our ancestry line,
The Ngok chieftains, all Nine; Nuba Hills tribes, ninety-nine,
All mine: plus the major Beja, darling Darfur, southern Blue Nile…
QUOTE
The truth for which we are killed is this: the salt of our land, soil like salt…
We are not sojourners pillaging a foreign land/ we are the real owners of the country.
The soil which has taken our blood, will mend our wounds/the land will come to our rescue;
Is there a soil which does not know its owner?/The country resembles us…
Let us call upon God to join us on earth/God who created human kind and gave each their own land,
And created boundaries upon the earth/so that we become free by ourselves/now and forever, and ever.
A revolutionary hymn by Mary Aluel Garang,
Translated by Rev. Marc R. Nikkel (1955 – 2000)
Dinka Christianity (Paulines Publications Africa, 2001)
