Editorial

May 4, 2008 (The New Sudan Vision Editorial) - As we mourn the tragic death of two of our prominent figures and veterans, it’s also important to reflect on the aftermath of their unfortunate demise.

It may be that the crash that killed South Sudan presidential advisor Justin Yaac Arop and minister for SPLA affairs, Dominic Dim Deng was an accident. What killed Garang in 2005 too, may have been an accident. No question. But is that going to be our leaders’ fate from now on?

It may be wise not to point fingers. But still, at the end of the day, we’ll have to. There’s no such a thing as a free lunch. There’s too no such a thing as ‘no one can be blamed in this’ without investigation.

Unfortunately, the Government of South Sudan’s response to this tragic crash has been rather mediocre, if not down right irresponsible. Continue reading »

The New Sudan Vision Editorial - With the dawn of peace in Sudan, many Sudanese, and South Sudanese especially, are able to breathe with some comfort. But one thing remains damning, damaging and worrying: a big dragon, and a monster named corruption.

As Reuters recently reported, about 90% of South Sudanese consider corruption a very big problem. But without efficient and instrumental methodologies devised to tackle graft issues, this monster, as big as it is, will always eat a darn sizeable chunk of our national coffers and could eventually frustrate our development efforts.

The GOSS has always prided in fighting corruption; professing zero tolerance. In a big claim to fight corruption, the GOSS arrested Arthur Akuien, former minister of finance and economic planning, in March 2007.

Akuein was accused of charging the government more than the prices the vehicles requested were worth. Continue reading »

Abyei is a topic that makes many of us nervous. A few of us could focus on historical mistakes that led to Abyei being part of Northern Sudan. These mistakes include naivety, low self-esteem and unrealistic and phantasmal hopes.

However, a good number of us would want to see resolution that will see Abyei annexed to South without any further bloodshed.

When SPLM pulled out its ministers from the government of national unity in October last year, citing reluctance of National Congress Party in implementing CPA, Abyei was part of the list.

But NCP officials are slick. They know what they could do to pacify the disgruntled SPLM officials. Continue reading »

Withdrawal of Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) from the South should be seen as the first best thing to ever happen in Sudan’s known history. It is a making of history as Pagan, SPLM secretary general said. One would still remain skeptical but hopeful. Unlike the blackmail of 1972, such withdrawals, at least, give a glimmer of hope to South Sudanese that the struggle has not been in vain. It’s still a struggle but it’s a struggle that has got clear direction. The voices have been heard, and the north has seen the seriousness of the people of the land. ‘We don’t hate you, but we need you to treat us with the deserved respect’. This is what every South Sudanese wants from the North. Is it hard for the Northern Sudanese? It looks that way, but should it be? No! Absolutely no! Continue reading »

The Editorial, NSV - After four years of agonizing pain and loss of exceptional lives, taken at the totality of genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, the talk about all those PRO-PEACEKEEPING resolutions by the United Nations Security Council is now officially over.

Whether or not it is coincidence, the International Peacekeeping forces, today on January 1, 2008, landed on the bloodiest soils of the death-stricken Darfur region, ending one and opening another chapter in what may go down in history and genocide as the greatest attempt in bringing justice to humankind in Africa. Continue reading »

"We order the legitimate sons of the people to open their camps... not to declare war but to be ready," declared Omar Bashir on the 18th anniversary of his religious militia, National Popular Defence Forces in the town of Medani.

"We will not seek war, but if imposed on us we are ready," al-Bashir told a rally in Medani.

On Abyei he said, "We will not give an inch, not so much as an ant's body," in a televised address in Arabic. "We say Abyei's border is the border of 1905."

Here we go again, the language of detrimental religiosity and duplicitous being of a dichotomized ancient heart! The disingenuous heart thinks it has been disenchanted with what is enforced on it, the coercion of the strong, "monsters and tyrants." Continue reading »

The late American President Reagan once said that the “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” Perhaps SPLM can make this problem the solution. Let’s echo what others have been lauding about SPLM’s dissatisfaction with NCP perception of the "southern mind." 1947, 1972, 1997 and here goes 2005. The North has always thought it going the same way: “They haven’t yet developed the guts.”

We have seen the unfolding drama in the Sudanese politics, with interest. Most would see it remarkably momentous for the masses in the south of the country, but to some, it’s a complete political bickering stirred up by naivety and the ‘foreign influenced.’ However one sees it, it’s a change few thought possible. Continue reading »

“Victory in war is not measured by casualties inflicted, battles won, or lost, or territory occupied but by whether or not political objectives were achieved” - Excerpt adopted from the War as Instrument of National Policy.

The old adage that politics stops at water’s edge may or may not have relevance in Sudan’s NCP and SPLM handling of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Since the signing, and right from the moment the government of national unity was born, the NCP has been working hard to bring nothing but total discredit to the document (the CPA) that literally means so much to both the dead and the living.

From appearing as the “con artists” during the initial distribution of key portfolios, and by gradually suffocating the breathing spaces for implementing key protocols, the gullible elements of the NCP did not know what was coming as all the chills of non-implementation were being felt across Sudan. Continue reading »

When the late Garang died in a mysterious chopper crash in 2005, an investigation committee was swiftly established to investigate the nature of the death because people were suspicious of what transpired when the crash happened. The chopper crash was followed by a deadly riot in Khartoum and major Sudanese cities which resulted into the death of over one hundred people.

This was because people smelled a rat in Garang's death. To the surprise of the Sudanese masses, the investigation findings blamed the crash on pilot error. There was no much contradictory reaction to the result of the investigation committee until Madam Rebecca Nyandeng de Mabior dropped a bombshell that her husband was assassinated. But what raised an eye brow across the region was a dramatic remark by Former State Interior Minister Mr. Aleu Ayieny Aleu to Arabic daily Akbar Alyoum that: Continue reading »

Three days have gone by since President Salva Kiir returned from China and as usual, there are more questions than answers.

At the invitation of Chinese Vice President Zeng Qinghong, Salva Kiir Mayardit paid an official visit to China from July 17 to 22.

Aside from the following ambiguous statement by the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang to reporters that “the two sides will exchange views on strengthening bilateral relations and other issues of common concern, including the Darfur issue," no concrete details emerge of Kiir’s motivation to tour China. Moreover, it was great to see Mayardit being accorded grand red-carpet welcome by the communist country, the first of its kind for a leader from one of the “marginalized“ parts of Sudan. Continue reading »