Tombura clashes plot to remove Futuyo, claims activist
JUBA – A civil society activist has said the ongoing ethnic violence in Tombura County of Western Equatoria State between two neighboring communities was “politically motivated” to derail Governor Alfred Futuyo’s administration.
In an interview with City Review in his office Monday, Edmund Yakani, Executive Director of Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO) said the violence in Tombura was politically motivated to remove Mr. Futuyo from office.
“The problem is that political elites who are undercover, use ethnic armed groups and let them fight then they say that is a failure of state leadership,” Yakani said.
“The atrocity which is happening in Tombura now is meant to remove the governor from his position,” he added.
“This is a new culture that is coming up, Tombura is suffering from that when political elites start using violence as a way to claim political powers. They take huge lives of innocent civilians, displacement, destruction of farms, and man-induced food insecurity,” he stressed.
Earlier in June, Futuyo accused four politicians of supporting the ongoing violence; these were Jemma Nunu Kumba, Speaker of Reconstituted Transitional National Legislative Assembly, and Patrick Raphael Zamoi, the former governor of the defunct Tombura.
Others accused were two Members of Parliament; Pascal Bandindi and Saleh Sayid Uku of fuelling ethnic violence in Tombura County.
The governor was later pressured to apologize for revealing the identities of those he accused of funding the conflict. The four also denied being perpetrators of the violence and vowed consequences against the governor.
Growing crisis
However, the conflict has displaced thousands of people leaving them in dire need of humanitarian assistance, most of whom are women, children, and elderly groups with houses burnt, properties looted, and increased lawlessness in the area.
Last week, the Western Equatoria State Minister of Information William Baiki Adriano appealed to humanitarian agencies to provide urgent support to the IDPs in Namatina Payam under the SPLA-IO control area.
“Number of IDPs keeps on increasing daily, many of them were still expected to arrive on the same day (Sunday) to the area already hosting an influx of IDPs, that is why we are urging humanitarian agencies to urgently save lives by delivering assistance to them,” said Baiki.
According to Yakani, the death toll has risen to 50 from both sides of the warring communities following the renewed clashes that have claimed the life of the county’s former commissioner, Charles Babiro.
“The case in Tombura is politically motivated, violence with the pretext of using ethnicity as a cover by taking advantage of illiteracy among the ethnic groups of Tombura,” he said.
“Some political elites want to change the history of Tombura. The history of Tombura has been known that Balanda and Azande have been peacefully coexisting, in the history, Balanda and Zande have disputes and normally elders resolved the dispute because it never reached to violence,” said Yakani.
The conflict which has taken shape of ethnic violence has also been blamed on the presence of forces loyal to Gen. James Nando and SPLA-IO.
In June, the First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar called for the immediate relocation of the forces from Source Yubu and Namatina Payams respectively to allow the government to control the situation in Tombura. But it seems the directive has not been honored.