Kuol Manyang claims SPLM not to blame for suffering because it is God who ‘cursed’ South Sudanese

JUBA – South Sudan’s senior presidential advisor and former minister of defense Kuol Manyang Juuk has claimed that the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) party should not be blamed for the current suffering imposed on the citizens by the war and power struggle because God cursed South Sudanese in the Bible.

Juuk who was speaking during a thanksgiving event to welcome newly-appointed member of the SPLM party Stephen Dhieu Dau on Sunday, December 18, said Prophet Isaiah said in one of his prophecies that South Sudanese will be punished by God and that what the citizens are facing is that punishment.

“I am not frustrated with the current situation – the wars. I tell people we [SPLM] are not responsible and not to be blamed for this insecurity. This is something prophesied by the prophet Isaiah. God punished Sudan and we are the Sudanese,” Juuk said, according to Eye Radio.

“The prophecy was before even Christ, how do they know that there is the country that is going to be called Sudan at that time, even when we became independent. We clicked on the word Sudan, we don’t move out of Sudan name, and we don’t create a new name and we are Sudanese,” he added.

He continued that: “We knew very well that Sudan has been cursed in the Bible. So, this curse continues to be until the time God will say enough is enough, now then the people of South Sudan become free, I don’t blame us as a punishment of God.”

South Sudan’s civil war broke out in December 2013 following disagreements between President Salva Kiir Mayardit and First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny over who should take the SPLM into elections then slated for 2015.

The SPLA, previously the official name of the country’s army, then divided along ethnic lines and civilians were targeted in Juba triggering mutinies among senior army generals leading to the deadly civil war which has killed at least half a million and displaced millions of citizens to neighboring countries and to internal IDP camps.