By Taban Tom Henry
Bor community members who are leaders in the government have been accused of facilitating the cattle herders to reoccupy the land in Equatoria region and committing atrocities against indigenous farmers.
Otim David Okot, a former member of parliament and the Secretary for Information and Publicity for Agoro Council of Elders accused the Bor community leaders for facilitating the cattle herders to go back and reoccupy the land in Equatoria.
“The leaders in the government are facilitating the cattle herders to go back and reoccupy the land in Equatoria,” he claimed.
“This is very unfortunate, it is not in the spirit of the peace agreement and the ideals of the liberation struggle because we fought to liberate this land, it is event against the bill of rights in the constitution,” he said.
Otim called on the government to clear out those people who are instigating the youth to go and reoccupy the land in Equatoria adding that they must be brought to account for their actions.
He said the Acholi council of elders in Agoro including all the other clans will not go back to the refugee camps saying “We have got the right for self-defense” citing that “they are going to defend the land from these invaders”.
“We have the government, no vacuum is left in this country; I am a member of the SPLM party but why should a fellow member of the SPLM party do an illegal act to displace their own fellow community, so this is unacceptable, this not an isolated incident,” he lamented.
The former MP said “Some of us have studied the fermiology of the Dinka cultures and this is one of the richest cultures where they follow their hierarchy of the leadership. The youth follow their elders so they cannot do anything by their own mind,” he added.
Otim hinted out that their leaders are working very hard to restrain their youth not to cause any further problems with the peaceful Dinka Bor youth but the leaders of this Community (Bor) are not reaching out to their youth to restrain them from what is happening.
“We have this key leader in the government like Mama Rebecca Nyandeng, Deng Dau, Michael Makuei, Kuol Manyang Juk this are very eminent leaders why are they not talking to the youth people like Gen. Jok Riak who is the former chief of defense forces of which there is no vacuum in this community, why should this happen at this time. So, if there is an issue of climate change yet this are issues to be handled by the government you cannot go on rampage and occupy people’s land,” he explained.