Denying the Truths: The Greatest Obstacle to Dr. Riek Machar's Future Leadership

September 10, 2007 - In the modern world, lying to the people for the sake of your tribesmen's interest or denying your own mistakes can be termed as a lack of intellectual reasoning. Some people call it a lack of political will. I call it a lack of patriotism, honesty and vision.

In the case of the Bor-Dinka massacre, there is no doubt or question in my mind that it has become another Jewish Holocaust. For the starters, the Bor massacre was triggered by a coup declaration against the then SPLM chairman, the late Dr. John Garang on August 28th, 1991, by the current vice president of the government of Southern Sudan, Dr. Riek Machar. Thousands of civilians in Garang's home turf, the Bor area, died when Dr. Riek's Nuer forces turned against them and killed them after his failure to topple Dr. John Garang.

Dr. Riek described the incident as "propaganda" and "myth" despite horrific evidence of mass killing shown by bones and corpses in the aftermath of the massacre.  Dr. Riek and some of his hardliners are typical of the radical Islamist Iranian President Mahmoud Ahamadinejad, who is a holocaust denier whose remarks were condemned internationally for calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and for describing The Holocaust as a "myth." That is the exact character of Dr. Riek Machar. He is a genocide denier like President Mahmoud Ahamadinejad. 

In his own word recorded in the video, "Sudan Massacre" posted on You Tube, he said that "most of Garang's troops are wiped out in Bor."   This is ironic and self implicating because it was the civilians who were wiped out in Bor.  Garang's troops which he claimed to have been wiped out in Bor were in deployment in Juba trying to capture the city from the Islamic government.

Dr. Riek was also quoted as saying (Sudan Massacre, You Tube) that "I cannot just say kill the Dinka Bor, no, not at all. They're using it as a human rights violation; I'm aware of that. I think it is propaganda." This is a big lie. If he couldn't say "kill the Dinka Bor," who ordered the killings? Whether Riek ordered the killings or his commanders in the fields did it on their own accord, he should be held accountable because he did not discipline his commanders to respect civilians.

Apart from Riek himself denying the massacre despite enormous evidence recorded in the media and video tapes, Riek's Bor massacre-deniers are trying to hide the truths and are lying to the world while the truth does speak for itself for the whole world. That is so hurtful enough and it is unacceptable for real.  

It is not the first time for me to come across such denial statements of the massacre coming from Riek's blind supporters. Whenever people are commemorating their loved ones or talking about this isolated incident, you will definitely find many responses from his supporters denying the massacre. They don't want anybody to talk about it ostensibly in the name of unity; unity after what?  Is unity at the expense of justice?

Most of the deniers of the Bor massacre are from Nuer community. They think that Riek Machar's name is synonymous with the Nuer's name. What a lack of rationale! The crime that Riek committed against the civilians in Bor is his own crime and it is not necessarily all Nuer's crime. Please let Riek Machar carry his own cross for killing Bor civilians.

Most of the people who either want Riek Machar to to be answerable for the crime or want him to be taken to court are survivors of his massacre. For example, Mading Ngor who has been writing about the massacre survived the massacre when he was eight years old. Today, there are hundreds of survivors of Riek's horrific massacre. Anybody who wants to defend him by denying the truth should bear the burden with him.

Frankly speaking, we have seen several tragedies in various places in Sudan, but nothing is comparable to that of the Bor massacre. My own understanding tells me that there was nobody who didn't lose a relative among Bor people during the massacre carried by Riek Machar. I lost my junior uncle, cousin sister's husband and the same sister was also shot in both arms and leg at the same place where her husband was killed. This woman spent two weeks inside the bush with wounds and her children were stranded without food except wild leaves to feed them. Both men were pure civilians in their home land.

Besides that, my elder brother who is a soldier in the SPLA was about to get married but he could not make it because our cows were taken by Dr. Riek forces. I was in Pochalla of Anuak, Southern part when the massacre occurred.  I went home immediately after the massacre. What I saw all over the places with my own eyes was horrific and beyond human imagination.  You could see humans corpses and livestock lying everywhere on the road, in the fields and in the bushes.

At the moment, I am doing both school and working in order to educate those orphaned children left behind by my relatives. The reason why I am endangering my health (working and going to school at the same time) is to prevent another conflict because if these children don't get education, their mother may tell them that "my children you are poor because Dr. Riek killed your fathers." What is likely to happen will be another conflict because the children may try to revenge against those who killed their fathers and made them poor.

Please, instead of making someone who has lost a loved one uncomfortable, you better just comfort him/her. I can even comfort Dr. Riek first if he wrote his article about losing any of his relatives in any tragedy in case he have one, but it does not mean forgetting the history or forgiving him about the past.

Moreover, the Bor massacre is not a joke.  I see some people defending and have gone too far in associating the Bor Dinka's massacre with other atrocities committed in the name of the SPLA/M during the struggle. Those atrocities also happened to the Bor community. Bor as a community has lost a number of its own people in the hands of the SPLM/A. SPLM as a Movement will bear the responsibility for those atrocities including Dr. Riek Machar.

Any day you guys are taking late Dr. John Garang, late Kerubino Kuanyin Bol, late Tut-Nyang, late William Nyuon Bany, Salva Kiir,  James Wani, and Dr. Lam Akol to the international court of justice for their movements' crimes, I hope the Dinka Bor community will be standing by you to claim justice for its own citizens too.

Riek supporters should take note that the issue of the current vice president Dr. Riek Machar atrocities are totally different from the SPLA/M crimes, because Riek by then was acting as a breakaway rebel against the SPLM/A  leading his own movement, crowded by his tribesmen in the Nuer town of Nasir.

If people are telling the truth, what is the accomplishment of that movement of Dr. Riek Machar? Who do we have today in Juba?  Just to say Dr. John is a dictator who is running the movement like his own property and then you went to Khartoum to join a "democratically" elected President Omar  Hassan el Bashir to give him the so-called Southern Sudan in which formula? Where is the Southern Sudan now?

Some of Riek's Bor massacre-denial managers such as Chuker Nger, Bol Diu Gok, and Lam Gatkuoth have been putting the cruelest level of ignorance in most of their comments. They have done nothing but put in a crude bigotry in at least five to six articles in which they have been blindly defending Riek. This has shown me that they are having a missing link in rational thinking. Otherwise, such a number of people who are seen as " intellectuals" shouldn't have responded like radical Jewish Holocaust apologists, who sprang up blaming President Bush when the September 11th's attack is mentioned.

Dr. John Garang is being used as an excuse for the Bor massacre by these Riek's sycophants. For example, Chuker Nger wrote once the Bor massacre was mentioned in the media by asking "What About Dr. Garang's Genocide of Nuer?" Mr. Gatkuoth Lam also wrote: "What is this So-called Dinka Bor Massacre?"  You guys should know that Dr. John was a leader of the SPLM/A not a leader of Bor people. I don't  see any reason of mentioning him when the massacre issue is raised.  Leave Riek Machar alone to carry his own cross. You are misleading him. He can recognize and accept his mistakes if you do not defend him.

My final concern of writing this article is to appeal to Dr. Riek Machar and to all of you that every body has "recognized" the destructive and criminal nature the Bor Dinka accept of the war machine Dr. Riek Machar. I am sure the victims of the Bor massacre know.

Lack of the word sorry in Riek's and his supporters' vocabularies will be the greatest obstacle to Riek's future leadership unless he cleanses himself early before it's too late for him. I wonder why some diehards would want to support a leader with tainted image. Is it because Riek comes from their ethnic background?

I know today there are very excellent leaders from Nuer that can do things much better than Dr Riek Machar, if these radical guys want a leader to come from their community. Riek failed many times in the past and he has also failed now as Vice president of South Sudan.

He has failed to curb the insecurity in his capacity as vice president of the government of Southern Sudan. For example, in Jonglei State, 56 people lost their lives recently from the Lou Nuer community alone. The same incident happened in Bor were 36 people lost their lives.

You better support leaders from your community such as Sport and Culture Minister Mr. John Luk Jok , Deputy commander-in-chief Mr. Paulino Matiep Nhial and Governor Taban Deng Gai. These are the real people that we should talk about in the future leadership not the Riek Machar who is also a friend of Isamael Konyi of Murle and Joseph Kony of the Lord God 's army in Uganda.