confidentially speaking
The Africa Confidential Blog
Pa'gan in London
Gill Lusk
Picture the scene. A score of motley officials, aid workers and
journalists are seated around a table at Britain's Overseas Development
Institute in London. At the head of the table sits Pa'gan Amum
Okiech, Secretary General of South
Sudan's governing party, the Sudan
People's Liberation Movement, and its tough chief negotiator at talks
in Ethiopia with Khartoum's
National Congress Party regime. Before him
on the table is the latest issue of Africa
Confidential.
Pa'gan complains that though Juba had offered 'to work together for
the
removal of sanctions on Sudan',
Khartoum has responded by 'stealing'
the South's oil. The NCP is certainly having difficulty getting used to
the idea that since Southern Independence last year, it no longer owns
that oil. The issue of President Omer
el Beshir calling Southerners
'insects' also hits the fan. The NCP's London Ambassador, Abdullahi
Hamed Ali el Azrag, who, as a former head of the Foreign
Ministry's
Arab Department might have been expected to be more cautious, starts
protesting. Pa'gan brandishes Africa
Confidential.
'You don't have to believe me! Look at Africa Confidential!'
Ponderously slowly, he reads out the paragraph (AC Vol 53 No 9, for
those who may have missed it) recounting how President Omer el Beshir
reminded South Sudanese of the old slave relationship. “Despite our
attempts to make them aware so that they understand and know where
their interests are, they do not understand. God has created them like
that. That is why the best thing to do with them is to pick a stick and
make them behave well'. This refers to a line from a well known poem by
Abu el Tayeb el Mutanabi: 'You
shall not buy a slave without a stick
with him' (to beat him with). The 'rope of unity' appeared in another
reference to the master-slave relationship: 'We will throw this rope
around their necks once again, God willing'.
The Ambassador, who has already struggled to defend the indefensible
('when the emotions were very high') after Pa'gan's talk at Chatham
House that morning, tries to convince us that this was not a reference
to all Southerners. One of his acolytes leaps to his aid: 'This is not
a reliable paper!'
Everyone laughs. Says Pa'gan: 'It was quoted everywhere! It
was
on your own TV!' Many recall that at Chatham House that morning, one of
at least seven Sudanese Embassy officials present had shouted at
Pa'gan. 'You're a killer! You're killers!' This is not what is
expected at the august building in St. James's Square, a stone's throw
from that same Embassy. After refusing to leave, the angry diplomat had
been escorted from the room.
