File photo: South Sudan Coat of arms.
The ruling party, SPLM, has been widely criticized for dumping its hardworking members for a very long period of time.
The truth which many hold is the sent away of those who are seen to be outdoing others in terms of work performance and tirelessly serving of the people. This practice has prompted to massive corruption and misuse of public resources by the public office holders as noone is to caution the other of wrong doing.
In a short article below, a woman leader recalls her hardworking motive and the sacrifices she made for the great PARTY, the SPLM and the country as well. The article reads:
Everyone occupying public office must achieve results.
In my former capacity as SPLM external relations secretary, Oct 2008-Oct 2015, with ZERO budget, no laptop provided to me, I used my own laptop and began utilizing the wifi 100% to:
- Write concept notes as: a). South-South dialogues series of all South Sudanese political parties in Juba to meet and dialogue to harness common interests development with the ruling party SPLM, Nov 2008 (for trust building/general elections purposes) and Oct 2010 (consensus building/referendum purposes) conferences. B). South-North political parties: using my trust based/good rapport with international partners, they did all logistics/hotels/feeding (they couldn’t trust SPLM…) so all northern Sudanese politicians as the late Dr. Turabi, elder Sadiq Mahadi etc. came to Juba and signed to agree “on the full implementation of the CPA” during All Sudanese Political Parties conference, Juba, Oct 2009. This 2009 Juba conference pushed Bashir to allow the Referendum Act to be passed FINALLY Dec 2009. I had zero financial support from the SPLM GS be it Pagan or Dr. Anne Ito or Yasir Arman then. Our US/Norwegian/Dutch/EU/UN friends did all the logistics directly based on my series of meetings with all of them in Khartoum and Oslo/London (I sacrificed my own personal expenses for the air tickets/accommodation, “why was I blocked from provision of logistics?” a story for another day) & Khartoum, Nov 2008-April 2009. All written emails/memos/letters are safely saved for future documentation/evidence purposes.
- Foreign relations & trust-building: as above, I decided to be brutally honest when dealing African and foreign diplomats in Khartoum & Juba 2008-2011. I went ahead and drafted the 1st SPLM foreign policy without any consultancy or material support from SPLM/anyone else (another story for another day). I used my personal time/weekends/while on air travels/family time…to draft the policy. By Sep 2009 it was ready and I approached IRA (US International Republican Institute in Juba) who helped us validate the policy by supporting transport/feeding/accommodation of about 15 SPLM “think tank” members from the 10 states and the Diaspora who helped me go through the policy and validate it through this workshop, June 2009. This SPLM policy was used to found our nation in July 2011.
- Diaspora: Oct 2008-April 2009, I was on daily/hourly emails gmail groups building trust/teams. We formed a global care taker SPLM teams which I used a “bottom approach” with them by asking specific questions; Questionnaires in forms I developed. This process helped me understand each Diaspora country peculiarity so I could develop a generic one Diaspora policy. This policy was also validated and processed by the above SPLM think-tank team assisted by IRA, Juba. Such policy helped our Diaspora hold its 1st historic elections in Aug 2009. And as such we had officially elected SPLM executive teams globally who in turn were instrumental in organizing our people for both the 1st general elections of March 2009 and our historic referendum Jan-Feb 2011. Remember: for instance in Europe we only had one registration centre in the UK: we negotiated with the UK government to levy visa fees and even documents as passports for we had Junubeen living in eg Italy, Ukraine without passports they traveled by road to France where UK embassy had a special letter approving their entrance to the UK. Our families in the UK hosted them as they couldn’t afford to register, go back and back to the UK for voting. And in Uganda we had infiltratation by Bashir’s NCP, so our good Pan-African friend Captain Mike Mukula of the NRM helped us transport most Junubeen living in Uganda to Nimule to register and back to vote on Referendum day. I wasn’t the one who appeared on TV to receive our Junubeen, but it’s ok. I knew I did the work in the background and got the letter to prove how I initiated the process. After all, I couldn’t be in all the places at the same time, I had to be in Kenya to ensure our vigilante groups were there to weed out any imposters (we had reports that some Kenyan Nubi members were bribed by the NCP to foil our referendum by registering and not voting). I was there 3am-5pm daily by Kenya railway station (for those who know!).
Currently, similarly, as the founder and interim Chairperson of the 1st peaceful movement of unity of We64, Steps, I continue to work on the same way. Without any funding, we were able to draw our constitution, membership rules and policy documents. Equally, to continue to motivate our people, members and leadership alike and groom new leadership always. Likewise with all other think tank groups as Dr. Garang Peace Institute for Women and NESI Network. Wifi and internet is increasingly crucial at this age of COVID19 too.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way. I vouch 100% and live by this motto.
Suzanne Jambo
Former SPLM External Relations Secretary 2008-2015