Jonglei Twic East County Alcohol Law: The Case of illogicality and lack of Legislation Priorities

This week, the Twic East County Commissioner, Dau Akoi Jurkuch announced during the Paramount Chief’s election at the County Headquarter in Panyagoor that his administration banned the sell and/or the consumption of alcohol at wedding ceremonies and other public gatherings.  It is not clear what relation does wedding ceremonies and public gatherings have to do with the banning of alcohol. But, I suspected it has to do with crimes and/or outbreak of fights during marriage receptions and/or other public functions.

However, even if this was the case, the commissioner decision to ban sell and/or the consumption of alcohol at wedding ceremonies and public functions is unwarranted. Jurkuch’s decision is actually a case of liberty and freedom of choice violation. In addition, the commissioner decision to ban alcohol at wedding and public functions is exactly the tip of the iceberg of how this commissioner is out of touched, lacks knowledge and/or unwillingness to tackle real issues facing the county.

 Making the matter worse, I see this decision as resurrection of sharia in the county in a form of informed commissioner. Think about it ladies and gentlemen, what is a different between Khartoum’s Sharia Law that banned us of alcohol during the old Republic and this so called Twic East County Banned of Alcohol consumption during weddings and public functions? Who knew that Sharia Law-like was going to emerge out of Jonglei particularly in Twic East County?

  Don’t you see the irony here? What a sad beginning for Twic East County in Jonglei state?  No. it should not be the case. People have to stand up to this indecisive Commissioner and his ill-informed policies.  Whoever is advising this commissioner, please tell him to reason with his head. Tell him, if the reason for enacting this law is his fear of crimes or fights during weddings and/or public functions, then, you got it wrong Mr. Commissioner. You have incorrectly defined the problem for these reasons.

First, infrequent fights that sporadically occur during wedding ceremonies and other public gatherings in the county are not all because of alcohol consumption. Instead, it is because of people who don’t control themselves and boredom that that pervaded many people in the county due to lack of jobs or works. If your target is those few individuals who drink and cause problem or fight, you don’t need to deprive majority of people who use alcohol and pose no threat to the public. What you need to do is make police available at every wedding and public function to pick up those who drink and cause problem, throw them to jail and prosecute them to the fullest of the law. After all, is it not the work of the police to maintain civility at public areas?

 Second, stopping or banning alcohol at the wedding ceremonies and/or public functions is not going to prevent fight from happening anyway. You know it in your heart that there are other times that fight will break out among people in the county without alcohol involvement.  No matter what, this law is not the solution. The solution is to hold those who few misguided people who cause crimes and/or fights accountable instead of punishing good citizens or banned older men and women from having few drinks during their daughters’ weddings. You and your administration need to revisit this decision. You are creating bad precedent for the state and the country. What’s next?  Tell people they cannot sleep with were wives on the first day of their wedding?  Are you going to tell us next we cannot eat outside our houses or? Are you willing to turn Twic East County into an enclave of tyranny?

Do yourself and the county’s people some services. Focus your energies, time and skills if any on matters affecting the county like building roads, schools for the kids, hospitals, improving communities’ relationships and attracting investors into the county to create jobs the countless people in the county instead of becoming a wedding police.   

Unfeasibility and shortsightedness of the Four Freedoms’ Agreement between the Republic of South Sudan and the Republic of Sudan

First and foremost, let me be clear here, since the death of the late Dr. John Garang in2005, I have never had doubt about President Kiir ability to lead us through the darkest days and years following the death of Garang and I was right to begin with for good reason like any other true South Sudanese. In fact, I even wrote about my unwavering confident in President Kiir in one of my articles on April 20,2011, titled, “ General Salva Kiir X-Factor” in which I argued how Khartoum might have under estimated him and his ability to fill Garang big shoe. Unquestionably, he has led the people of the Southern Sudan into the Promised Land with care and resolve.  He was a great shepherd during the darkest nights in our journey to the Promised Land.  He made us a proud, free people on his shift, we for the first time called ourselves, South Sudanese under his watch.

  I hope people now have an idea about my stand on SPLM/A and its leadership. By any measure, don’t call me naïve or pessimist, for I believe that our sun is beginning to rise and it is morning in South Sudan. I still believe in the SPLM/A leadership-ability.  However, my optimism, respect, confidence and loyalty to and/or in SPLM/A under the leadership of President Kiir don’t take away my freedom of speech that we all dearly fought to achieve.  Consequentially, the recent developments starting with how Juba leadership dealt with Heglig fiasco got me nervous. Juba and its diplomatic corps did not explain it well to the rest of the world who never knew that Heglig was in fact, a South Sudan’s territory.  But, I understood and so were the rest of the South Sudanese, our government is young and not immune to committing mistakes of which Heglig fiasco was one of them.

That being said, we South Sudanese expect our government to learn from its past mistakes and grow wiser. I see mistakes as not obstacles, but, as a learning experience. However, this seems not to be the case with the Juba government. It is not learning from it mistakes. Instead, it is doubling down by committing more countless rookie mistakes of which this new development is mind boggling and which prompted me to write this opinion article. Yes, I am mindful, not everyone would agree with me on this matter and/ or in substance of which I am writing.

As I was checking the news headlines at sudantribune.com, I came across a news headline that reads, “Sudan and South Sudan ends talks over four freedoms” (www. sudantribune.com).  Basically, the short of it is this, South Sudan and Sudan agreed on four principles both which I see don’t make sense to me given our past experiences with Khartoum under the old Republic and which one expects our government to know or at least able to explain its rationale to all South Sudanese to relieve any speculation like I am doing if I am at all.

For those who don’t get their news from sudantribune.com, let me regurgitate these four freedoms as they are called as well as giving you my account of why I think this Agreement and/or Agreement-In-Principle is a bad idea and one that I thought should haven’t been agreed to by our government. Here are the freedoms, “freedom of residence, freedom of movement, freedom to undertake economic activity and freedom to acquire and dispose property”. In a nutshell, these four freedoms called for both countries to allow their people to acquire permanent residence in each other territory, move freely, work, and establish property ownership each other territory. What?  You may ask? Yes, exactly that was my first reaction when I came across this news headline.

 But the truth is nobody needs to be reminded of our  past ugly encounter with Khartoum.  We all know that part of the reason we went to war starting with Anya Nya I was the fact that equally residence under old Sudan was not possible which makes me wonder what might have changed in the last seven in Khartoum that led Juba believes Khartoum this time would honor South Sudanese and allows them to have equally access to residence, to move freely, own property or dispose one and conduct business equally like everybody else in the Republic of Sudan.

Something is not adding up. First, we all know that there is no way a South Sudanese who wants to run a beer, liquor business and/or brews any other locally alcohol under any circumstance would be allowed to operate in other part of Sudan not to mention Khartoum which has become a Sharia brewer for the rest of Sudan. That is a history which we have lived and which I hope no free South Sudanese should relive it again. Yes, I have faith and confident in the South Sudanese people. I know they might allow Sudanese to live, work, move freely and own properties in South Sudan which in fact, are already guaranteed freedoms for some Sudanese who are now living in the Republic of South Sudan.  Unfortunately, we all know what is being done to our brothers and sisters who are stranded in Sudan. They are living in unbearable conditions that no human beings are supposed to be subjected to.

Second, everything is still murky between Juba and Khartoum. International borders not drawn, Abyei, Heglig, status of Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile are in limbo and each country is actively orchestrating a proxy war. These entire pending issues do not paved a way for a cozy relationship but workable relationship. Instead, it is a time to tackle border issue and oil debacle first.  After that, the two countries can revisit auxiliary issues like these four freedoms and many other diplomatic issues once international borders between two countries are defined and settled.  

 Frankly, I may say, Khartoum has not yet overcome the bitter divorce that just happened. It evident in her actions and is working harder than never before to reunite the country which makes me wonder whether these four freedoms agreed upon are a pretext that Khartoum wants to exploit to further the reunification goal.  I wonder about what Juba’s rationale for entering into this kind of transaction? What if Khartoum sends her agents and or military personnel under the guise of civilians who wants to live, work and do business, but with the ultimate goal of spying, gathering intelligence, infiltrating civil society and/or launching another Islamization with the goal of reunifying the two Republics and God forbids  throwing the sitting government in Juba? 

 And making the matter worse, South Sudan still doesn’t have strong immigration policies and tracking mechanisms to locate whereabouts of all the potential influx of Sudanese who I know will exodus  into South Sudan for one reason or the other if this agreement becomes enforced. How forgettable are we becoming? Don’t we remember that this is how Arabs came to Sudan in the first place? Or is everything else we read in Sudan history wrong? Don’t we read that they came as traders and merchants? And almost two hundred years later, we are still dealing with repressive and brutal Arab regime. With due respect to decent Arabs around the world, forgive my language here, I am referencing to  a heartless regime in Khartoum that over the years has cared less than the rest of humanity in Sudan.

Appointment of Dr. Francis Deng as a South Sudan Permanent Representative to the United Nations

For a while, many South Sudanese have voiced their criticism about President Kiir indecisiveness in how he appoints candidates for public offices. This began when he appointed his first cabinet following his inauguration as president on July 9^th, 2011. Some of the critics argued that he appointed some candidates to oversee ministries that they have don’t have the credentials and/or experiences that justified their appointments to such positions or ministries.

Of course, I have my reservation like everybody else, but, who am I to question the president’s wisdom and/or judgment about who he sees fits to what office. As I remembered, most of the people president Kiir appointed to serve on his cabinet were those who fought alongside with him during the old good and bad days of the liberation struggle.  There got to be something he saw in them that prompted him to appoint these men and women to his cabinet.

Despite all previous criticism of the president on his cabinet appointees, it seems like his critics will have less or nothing to say about Dr. Francis Deng’s appoint as South Sudan Permanent Representative to the United Nations but praises.  So, let me join in applauding president Kiir in his decision to appoint Dr. Francis Deng as a Permanent South Sudan Representative to the United Nations.  President Kiir by making this appointment has given South Sudan a voice at the United Nations.  He has chosen the right man for the right job and I hope people start seeing good intentions in president Kiir instead of constantly blaming.  First of all, he is a man who went to the bush twice beginning with Anya Nya I to SPLM/A.  He is a man who loves South Sudanese and spent his life fighting for it. Second, if he has made small mistakes here and there. Give him a slack. He is a human like everybody else. You may blame him but never question his love of the country. He has already proved that by his sacrifice of which he tirelessly endured the hardship of the bush life like any other of his comrades.

President Kiir’s love of South Sudan is what he again once shown by appointing a competent scholar with an extensive background to represent South Sudan at the United Nations.  Without doubt, this appointment is going to give South Sudan a chance to tell her story to the world. And who is better to tell that story than the only renowned scholar, Dr. Francis Deng.  A man who held different high profiles positions in the old Sudan and has served in the best institutions in the world.

 For those who know little about Dr. Deng, he served as Sudan minister of the state for foreign affairs, ambassador to Canada, ambassador to the United States, Sudan representative to Scandinavian countries, served as Special Advisor to the United Nations Secretary General on Genocide prevention. More importantly, he has written extensively about Sudanese issues as well as on global issues.  A fellow at the Brookings Institute and has taught in American’s prestigious universities including Yale University, Columbia university, and Georgetown university among others. His career list is endless but all pointed to one thing, competency and experience.

How lucky we are as South Sudanese to have such experienced and knowledgeable competent scholar among us. Thank you president Kiir for having at last recognized the importance of the position of South Sudan’s Ambassador to the United Nations.  And thank you Dr. Francis Deng and now a South Sudan Ambassador to the United Nations for taking up the challenge. Your country has faith in you. Our president Kiir has trusted your stewardship to represent us at the United Nations to tell our story to the world. We wish you great luck. We are counting on you sir…..