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*HIV/AIDS in South Sudan: The Diagnosis That Leads to the Murder of Doctors*
*Part One of Three*
When I heard from my youngest sister about the death of my little brother just before 1pm in the afternoon on Wednesday the 28th of October 2015, I was on my way back home...
...from a hospital in Norwich in England. I was returning from overseeing another cycle of chemotherapy for my late Uncle Ambassador Charles Manyang D’Awol. Specialist cancer care that my little brother (Dr. Ding Col Dau Ding Aweer) and my father (Dr. Col Dau Ding Aweer) had...
...commenced for him before my return back to the United Kingdom from Africa.
Upon hearing the news of his death, the immediate thoughts that came into my mind were:
“Who in that God-forsaken hellhole has had the audacity to kill my little brother?”
“Which of those mentally unstable individuals has killed the youngest son of one of the founders of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) and Movement (SPLM); and the youngest son of one of the principal figures that brought about the 2005 Comprehensive...
..Peace Agreement (CPA), with its independence referendum clause?”
“Who has been psychotically deranged enough to murder a grandson of a renowned and respected Dinka tribe Chief, Dau Ding Aweer, and a successful and popular South Sudanese businessman, Haj. Bilal Lual Ayen?”
Aside from grief, I was immediately filled with extreme anger and immeasurable bitterness. Retribution became a must. Vengeance will be complete. There will be no forgiveness.
I recalled having told my father immediately after we heard of the sudden and suspicious death of...
...Dr. John Garang De Mabior in July 2005; “Please, Baba, make sure that whatever happens now, that the damage that will be caused by those people who are left behind, it will not be irreversible damage.” That did not transpire; irreversible damage has been done.
When my father asked me recently, “Why did they kill my son? Why are they obstructing the investigation?” My response to him was; “if they could kill John Garang and cover that up, then they can kill Ding and attempt to cover that up too. You now leave this to me. Let me do it...
...my way. I will get you and Mama the justice and respect that is long overdue. The justice and the respect for every wrong that has been done to you; and after all that you have both sacrificed and selflessly done for that country and some unbelievably ungrateful people”.
My little brother, Ding, was one of the most highly-educated and naturally-gifted scientists that South Sudan has ever produced; and probably will ever produce for many years to come. His achievements I will not go into here - because that is not the purpose of my “personal...
...reflection“; you can learn all that you want to know about him from elsewhere, and from others - but what I will say is that, his killing has already resulted in the premature deaths of others in South Sudan as a consequence of his, and my, absence. More premature deaths...
South Sudan is a “failed state”. The cause of that failure of state formation was nothing natural nor was it accidental. Nor was it inevitable. There is nothing academic, nor overly difficult, to understand regarding how it came about. It is not something that needs to be...
...over-intellectualised by both domestic and foreign commentators. It does not need to be sensationalised with theories and conjecture such as the ethnocentric “The Politics of Fear”; nor “The Liberators’ Curse” or “The Gun Class” social stratification concept.
The failure has been intentionally contrived for an insidious purpose by both felonious South Sudanese and foreigners as its beneficiaries. Fomented with the objective for any unscrupulous individual and/or group from anywhere in the world to be able to engage in racketeering...
...and illicit money-laundering activities. Unscrupulous individuals and/or groups that are ready to commit organised economic crimes within a sovereign jurisdiction that has amenable impunity at its core. Economic crimes that are all under a deceitful veneer of...
...”they are investors”; and “they are our development partners”.
If South Sudan was a “territory” in the south of Italy or a “caliphate” in Syria or Libya, the terms “Mafia” or “La Cosa Nostra”, and “Islamic State”, would be apt to describe the “government” in the country.
South Sudan is a fledgling “sovereign state” whose “territorial integrity” was immediately taken over by an organised criminal group made up of both domestic and foreign individuals who wanted to control “territory”. My upcoming seven-year long forensic investigation’s...
...findings shall address this association between organised crime and political corruption in further detail. But for now - and for a more common-knowledge appreciation - if you go back to the beginning of the formation of the United States when people mention terms such as...
...”the wild west of America”, you would not be far from the truth of what South Sudan is now. In summary, South Sudan is a country that is an unrestricted base for an illicit network. A network of organised criminal groups that are comprised of domestic and foreign enablers...
...who are embedded within the sovereign governance and socioeconomic structures of the brand new country.
Less than 500 South Sudanese people are the cause of the suffering of millions of impressionable South Sudanese citizens. Less than 500 South Sudanese people have taken...
...advantage of over 10 million vulnerable people who are socially and emotionally regressed as a consequence of decades of war, physical displacement, and poverty.
When I first returned back to the then “southern Sudan” in January 2011, I had no intention of opening up a...
...medical facility and working in that country. After arranging to take just a one-year sabbatical away from my specialist clinical work in London, I only returned to accompany and ensure the good health of my father; who had been severely sick for over 4 years.
He became seriously unwell in late 2006 just before Christmas; after being poisoned in the ministerial office of the wife of his late and close friend and “Father of the Nation” of South Sudan, Dr. John Garang De Mabior. He and one other who attended a luncheon in her office,...
...all became sick after being served some ill-prepared fish by a cook who had had an ongoing grievance with Dr. Garang’s wife, Rebecca Nyandeng. She is now one of the five Vice Presidents.
We had returned back on exactly the same day that the south’s independence referendum...
...was taking place. The people of the country were in a state of euphoria; knowing that their referendum was going to result in secession from the north of Sudan. For the people of the country to have reached that stage in one piece, in order to be able to hold the vote, that...
...is still probably their most significant achievement in over 15 years since the signing of their 2005 CPA. “One lonely glint of life and hope; within a void of death and despair”.
But immediately after the referendum in January, I began to observe the serious problems that had been allowed to seed themselves into the autonomous southern Sudan’s governance structures following the sudden death of John Garang over 5 and a half years earlier.
The “irreversible damage” had been done.
Corruption and graft in the running of the country was rife everywhere you went to; and it was a mainstay of day-to-day existence. No sector was immune from this; and in healthcare, the sector that I would begin to know very well -...
...and which my father already knew well since even before the 1983 civil war commenced - it was deeply-seeded. It was this appreciation of the high-level of illicit activity that was taking place within one of the fundamentally critical sectors of normal daily life in any...
...country, that meant that I had to reassess why I was now there in that place. I had to quickly work out a way in which to make sure that my father - who had been seriously ill for so long and almost died - and my mother, aswell as the general good and law-abiding people...
...of South Sudan, had somewhere where they could go to receive adequate healthcare services; even if it meant I would have to pay for it out of my very own pocket to deliver that to them. That is when I decided to establish “Airport Road Diagnostic Centre”.
This I did in late May 2011; almost 6 months after being in southern Sudan, and two months before the south’s secession from Khartoum.
From the very day of opening up my clinic, I became inundated with senior officials from the government and the security sector wanting to be...
...my patients. I never ever wanted “those people” in my clinic because I could see that they were the architects of a looming failure of state formation within a soon-to-be brand-new country on Planet Earth.
I did not want to be complicit in their illicit acts. But no matter how much I tried to make the environment non-conducive for their attendance - by actively allowing “ordinary citizens” to be primarily my patients, and seeing those ordinary citizens first as my priority...
...before seeing any of the so-called “elites” whenever they would come in for a consultation - the senior government and military officials still kept on seeking healthcare services from myself and my staff.
This persistent attendance in the face of obstacles that I had purposefully put in place, would also be something that my little brother Ding would face when he went back to South Sudan to also help after the promise he had made to the late Dr. John Garang before his death.
Unlike myself, Ding was unable to manage those people and “their illnesses” in a manner non-threatening to his person. I told him distinctly; “Ding, stay away from those people. They are not mentally stable.
If they want someone to see them; tell me or Baba, and one of us will see them instead”. Heinously; one particular individual’s “group”, would not accept “no” for an answer from my little brother.
South Sudan is probably the most dangerous country in the world for a doctor to work in. It is dangerous because you can be intentionally targeted and killed for doing your job and helping people.
There are several diseases and illnesses in South Sudan which carry a stigma and are taboo; but the most significant of these is Human Immunodeficiency Virus / Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS). A diagnosis of this disease, is considered a “diagnosis of death”.
Consequently, those who have it, deny having it; and some of those who have it, will take whatever measures that are necessary to make sure that no one else will know or find out that they have it.
They will even ensure that those who are “helping” them in managing their condition, are guaranteed to keep quiet about it at any cost; including “under pain of death”.
A significant proportion of the South Sudanese population - at all of the country’s socioeconomic levels - is afflicted with HIV/AIDS. As a result, many infections are un-diagnosed officially; and those that have been diagnosed, their diagnosis is regularly kept hidden from...
... their families and their sexual partners within a polygamous society. The biggest cohort with this disease, amongst other diseases that are also contracted via unprotected intimate sexual contact, are found within the security apparatuses of the country - and particularly...
...within the national army and the national police service. Consequently, even individuals within the government who are now being referred to as “politicians” - and who too are still members of the military elite from the “liberation time” - are also found within this...
...security apparatuses’ cohort. During the 1983-2005 Sudan civil war, that is the time when most of these sexually-transmitted infections would have been contracted by the most senior military elite. This is why the diagnosis of HIV/AIDS in South Sudan, leads to the...
...murder of doctors.
In the more extensive second part of my reflection, I shall begin to disclose more detail regarding the extrajudicial killing of my little brother. I shall provide insight into the ongoing obstruction of justice (2); and the various efforts to pervert...
...the course of justice since October 2015. I shall explain why a key eye-witness, a policeman named Mathew Aluong Makor, has been protected for over five years by a former Inspector General of Police (Makuei Deng Majuch).
I shall highlight why this eye-witness has not been thoroughly investigated by the law enforcement authorities to date; and why he has not told us for over five years, exactly who brought my little brother Ding’s body back home to our apartment in Juba on that fateful night...
...of the 27th of October 2015.
I shall finally delve much deeper into the healthcare related reasons for my British-born brother’s murder; and I shall begin to elaborate on how his death is inextricably linked to the illicit network of organised criminal groups operating...
...freely within South Sudan. International criminal elements such as a United States’ sanctioned north Sudanese “businessman”, Ashraf Seed Ahmed Al-Cardinal; and north Sudan National Congress Party (NCP) members such as the former Director General of the Sudanese National...
..Intelligence Security Service, Salah Abdalla Mohamed Mohamed Salih (also known as Salah Gosh). And additionally, a Lebanese businessman, Ali Khalil Merhi, who was recently made the honorary consul for South Sudan to Lebanon; and a Malawian “preacher”, Shepherd Huxley Bushiri...
...(also known as Major 1 or Prophet Shepherd Bushiri), who has just skipped bail from South Africa amidst charges of fraud and money-laundering activities in that African country.
Foreign individuals whose illicit activities have been actively facilitated by endemic political corruption and impunity in South Sudan.
*Dr. Dau Col Dau Ding*
(@DauCol)
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Justice For Dr Ding #Justice4DrDing
Justice For All South Sudanese #Justice4AllSouthSudanese
(1)
https://t.co/slSvoy6Gnz (2)
https://t.co/E3bvFEJZXY #SouthSudan
#Sudan
#SSOT
@threadreaderapp, please unroll. Thanks.
