Two decades have passed since the dark era of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement regime, the worst in our modern history. Death and the shedding of innocent blood became commonplace, and the suffering of citizens, which reached unprecedented levels, became the cornerstone of its rule.
As a result, innocent lives are lost daily across the country, either due to state terrorism or the negligence of those responsible for running the government in fulfilling their vital duties, which should have contributed to reducing mortality rates by providing safe and free healthcare services throughout the country.
Today, under Salva Kiir’s oppressive regime, the cost of the dignified life of our people is extremely high and confined only to the circle of executioners who have opened the gates of hell on our people, which cannot be extinguished by wishes or by burying heads in the sand.
The disasters that befall our people from time to time, and the suffering they endure daily, are a direct result of their inaction in the face of this bitter reality. This places us before a moral responsibility that compels me to ask: “Are we really our own enemies?”
Honestly, I did not raise this question with the intention of raising doubts or anything of the sort, but rather to urge the people to play their national role in putting an end to the oppressive regime and turning the page on the dark chapter of our history, where the independence we have always dreamed of has become a heavy burden on us.
Economically, the plundering of public funds and state resources, along with the high cost of corruption, has directly contributed to the exacerbation of the economic and social problems facing citizens today. Poverty is pushing thousands of them toward a slow death—morally, spiritually, and physically. Unemployment is robbing young people of their dreams and making them vulnerable to numerous diseases and moral decay. Not to mention the hundreds of children forced onto the streets due to the state’s prolonged failure to pay their parents’ salaries.
In South Sudan today, under the current state of political, economic, and moral bankruptcy, the provision of essential services such as health and education has declined significantly, leaving thousands of citizens at the mercy of circumstances, the cost of which has become very high, especially in light of the deteriorating economic situation in the country.
Socially, the situation is perilous due to the high crime rates and the diminishing role of the government in confronting and curbing criminal individuals and groups in a country that represents a haven for them, where they enjoy full protection and impunity with the support and backing of the oppressive regime that acts like the real criminal, protected by the power of the law and the constitution, in addition to the power of weapons and the media, and a divide-and-rule policy based on tribal affiliation.
In this context, we cannot ignore the ongoing efforts of the new separatists (SPLM in the government) in keeping South Sudan in the lowest depths of tribalism, which is the most serious threat to the existence of a unified state entity that is being redefined tribally through practices that cannot be hidden, such as discrimination based on tribal affiliation in the streets of cities, especially in Juba, and within state institutions dominated by the new separatists who are obsessed with control and domination of power, and the unbridled desire to falsify the history of our people’s struggles to impose a hateful tribal tyranny!
From a security standpoint, this is a major catastrophe. Providing it under independence has become a sword hanging over the necks of our people, who pay a heavy price daily as result of reducing the role of the security services and confining them to providing security and safety for (Kiir) and his family and all those who serve him under the failed state based on state terrorism, tribal hegemony and overwhelming chaos, with which, the SPLM in the government is moving its failure in managing the country, which is mired in tribal arrogance and corruption of all kinds.
South Sudan, as a chaotic and failed state, has no institutions outside the chaos that is happening today, under which, only delusional people would expect a dictatorial regime based on state terror to provide them with security!
Politically, apart from wars and the loss of opportunities in its flames, nothing good looms on the horizon in the current chaotic and failed state, in which many of the components of a decent life, such as freedom and dignity, are being taken from us daily in an effort to re-establish the fifty-six state (Old Sudan) that we fought against for nearly five decades.
Honestly, under the Salva Kiir regime of mass destruction, we cannot expect to live in a stable and prosperous country in any way. The neo-colonialism practiced by Kiir and his cronies poses a grave existential threat to our nation unless the people rise in revolution to end the tyranny of Salva Kiir’s regime and establish a second, federal, democratic republic on the ruins of the tribal republic that exists today against the will of our people.
The question of the new year that should be asked here is: how long will it take for our people to get rid of the slumber of the divide-and-rule policy that has distanced them from their pivotal national role in rescuing South Sudan, which is being drowned daily by the SPLM gang in the clutches of their continuous failures in running the state?
This question becomes even more crucial, especially at this time, where freedom, independence, justice, dignity, development, and other essential components of a decent life lose their meaning under a repressive regime that has produced predatory elites who thrive on the bloodshed of our people. These elites are the ones who periodically incite the tribal, clan, and regional conflicts over state power, targeting the unity and cohesion of our people as the most powerful weapon.
How can it be that in the land of heroes, Kiir and his family can manipulate the freedom of our people, whose pivotal role has been reduced to glorifying these predatory elites who are fortified with the criminal regime that has transformed our country into a vast prison and an endless graveyard? If the situation today is far worse than it was before 2011, what awaits the people?
The truth must be made clear here; when the right to a decent life becomes a lifeline for the new tyrants, then life has no meaning outside the scope of resistance and mobilizing the people to confront the existing tyranny and injustice, which the SPLM gang has adopted as a method of governance since the first day it seized power.
There is no doubt that our wounded nation, which today groans under the weight of the failure of the criminal SPLM regime to govern South Sudan, needs someone to get it out of its current dark tunnel. The national task that our people are still waiting for in the new year, through which they will prove that they are not their own enemy, especially as we left 2025 burdened with the suffering and anxieties of the continued oppressive regime’s failure to govern the country.
In conclusion, although just yesterday we bid farewell to another disastrous year, we have entered another year, 2026, filled with renewed hope for restoring our freedom and dignity, and then moving forward in building modern South Sudan on a foundation of science, justice, equality, and the rising values of our nation.
This year, we must move forward united to prove to ourselves and the world that we are not our own enemies by putting a definitive end to Salva Kiir’s oppressive regime and restoring our freedom, dignity, and glorious independence.
The writer, Sokiri Lojuan Lojökudu, is a concerned South Sudanese. He can be reached via sokiril8@gmail.com.
The views expressed in ‘opinion’ articles published by Radio Tamazuj are solely those of the writer. The veracity of any claims made is the responsibility of the author, not Radio Tamazuj.