Dear South Sudanese Journalists,
I write to you today, using a title similar to Ken Saro Wiwa’s letter to Zole in “Africa Kills Her Sun.”
Comrades, in our struggle for freedom of the press in South Sudan, I doubt not for a single minute that the cause to which my comrades at the Union of Journalists of South Sudan and I have dedicated our time would triumph in the end.
What we desire for our country is right to an honorable life for journalists, to dignity, to independence with no restrictions.
I have heard some complaints from some of you comrades, some genuine ones, however, some are totally baseless accusations.
Some of you say trainings for journalists are benefitting colleagues from only a few regions, that’s totally untrue.
UJOSS with support from United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) have conducted trainings across the country on reporting on constitution-making process and elections.
The combined trainings have benefitted between six hundred to one thousand journalists.
We established offices in all the states and two administrative areas except in Abyei.
The presence of our offices in the states has made coordination of activities including addressing issues of arbitrary arrests and violations of rights of journalists much easy.
With support from IREX, we have conducted trainings in Kapoeta, an activity in Wau and Juba.
With support from Resilience through Agriculture in South Sudan (RASS), Norwegian People’s Aid, Non-Violent Peace force, Norwegian Embassy, Swiss Cooperation, United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), UN Women, UNMISS-Human Rights Division among other organizations, we have conducted a number of trainings across the country.
There have also been engagements or trainings of journalists outside South Sudan, there are two categories of activities outside the country; there is engagement outside the country meant for UJOSS leaders.
This is normally for meetings such as those organized by the Federation of African Journalists, Federation of International Journalists (IFJ) or exchange visits for purposes of understandIng how similar organizations like UJOSS in other countries work and emulate best practices from those institutions.
Training of journalists outside the country, this targets all journalists, we usually consider many things among which are; states, gender, and media houses where a journalist works, the first person that UJOSS sent to Egypt for training was from Western Equatoria State in 2022, and in 2023, UJOSS gave the opportunity to Western Bahr El Ghazal, unfortunately, the person chosen did not meet one of the criterions set by the organizers, instead the chance was given to Upper Nile State, air tickets were bought but the person chosen had some challenges at the eleventh hour and did not go, this year the opportunity has been given to Central Equatoria Sate.
There have also been trainings in Japan; we have sent people from Warrap and Unity State.
In China, we have sent people from Upper Nile, Northern Bahr El Ghazal, Eastern Equatoria and Central Equatoria States, some of the people from those states were selected from Juba.
The opportunities given to UJOSS for training outside South Sudan are limited thus, we have not yet covered the whole country but as more opportunities come, we will give chances to all states.
It’s therefore false to say that the trainings organized by UJOSS is benefitting only journalists from a few states and leaving others.
UJOSS has continued to advocate for protection of journalists but with very limited resources meant for the same.
We have instances where I had to carry some colleagues who are in danger in my car, drive with them to other countries, sometimes crossing borders at night.
We have looked for money to keep those colleagues in hotels and feed them in countries where they sought refuge until such a time that they were able to fend for themselves.
UJOSS and its partners have spent considerable amount of money on paying legal fees for journalists who have been at conflict with the law or those who were arbitrarily arrested.
We have acquired land for UJOSS in Torit and Bor, we are in advance talks with UNMISS to build a structure for us in Bor under quick impact project.
We are very optimistic that the construction work will begin before the end of this year.
We are yet to get a partner to put up a structure in Torit and we continue to urge all those who have the ability to come in and help us build. These are infrastructures that we hope to leave for the future generations.
In Juba, we have a partner willing and able to build, unfortunately, we are yet to get a piece of land, we have requested Central Equatoria State government for land, and we are still following up on that request.
We have legalized our status as members of the Federation of African Journalists as well as of the Federation of International Journalists (IFJ), paying our yearly membership fees promptly and actively involved in activities of those entities.
With support from partners, we have managed to procured a few equipment for our state offices. We continue to ask donors to provide more support that go to our state offices.
Comrades, in the past three years the Union of Journalists of South Sudan (UJOSS) has made tremendous strides in improving working environment for journalists in the country.
One of our biggest achievements is the journalism Excellence Awards 2023.
We managed to organize the awards with four thousand five hundred U.S Dollars only ($4,500).
The contributions were from UNESCO, NILEPET and Stanbic Bank.
Out of that money, we printed accolades, bought air tickets for a representative from the Union of Journalists from Uganda to come and return to Entebbe, paid accommodation for a representative from Kenya Union of Journalists who had to come almost a week earlier before the awards because of unavailability of seats in flights on days closer to the day of the awards.
We also had to pay at least $50 per participant who came from the states because they needed that money to pay for their dinner for the days they spent in Juba.
Trinity Energy printed for us certificates for the awards. Oxfam transported our representatives to and from states, it also provided them with accommodation.
JICA took care of venue, food and stationery. At the end the awards went successfully.
For the first time since UJOSS was formed, we have hired an audit firm in early 2024, the firm conducted financial audit, another milestone for the institution.
I have also heard a call for a General Assembly Meeting, which is genuine.
When we came to UJOSS in 2021, there was no money, time came when we did not even have an office, the situation in UJOSS can be compared to a situation where you have a family with no money, no house, children don’t go to school and also don’t have enough food to eat, upon getting money, the logical thing to do would be to get a house, buy food, send children to school, that’s similar to what we did, we got money, got an office, hired staff, begun work and stabilized our institution and here we are.
Comrades, you have been contributing SSP 3,000 per person as annual membership fees, this year, the fee is SSP 4,000, per person, we thank you for this, however, due to inflation and the loss of value of the South Sudan Pound against the United States Dollar, that money is barely covering the cost of the membership card.
The cost of the cards, the ink for printers, computer maintenance takes all that money, we cannot count on it to organize a General Assembly Meeting or AGM.
I and my comrades at UJOSS headquarters don’t have a reason other than lack of money not to hold AGM, an AGM is a meeting where the leaders of an institution report about funds generated, what the funds were used for, plan for the future and if there is any other business, it’s discussed.
I would like to say that with support from the Chinese Embassy in the Republic of South Sudan, we are now in an advanced stage of organizing the General Assembly Meeting.
We thank the Chinese Embassy in the Republic of South Sudan for coming out to support this because there was no donor that was able to support this meeting, which explains the reason for the delay in having the conference.
I have seen and read defamatory statements against me and my colleagues who currently lead UJOSS.
There have been individuals, claiming that we in UJOSS leadership are corrupt, criminals and members of a cartel and the military intelligence.
We continue to ask these individuals to provide evidence to support their claims. We have involved an arbiter such as Media Authority to compel the complainants to produce evidence, so far, no evidence has been brought forward, we have asked those colleagues to desist from breaking the law, to stop defaming us, they have refused to listen and now we have filed a case against one comrade.
Comrades, some of you call our offices in the states, telling our colleagues in those places to reject trainings organized by UJOSS. We have recordings of some of the voices of those individuals talking to our colleagues, asking them not to cooperate with UJOSS headquarters.
Some of those individuals say they are doing all the damage to UJOSS’ current leaders because they want to take over leadership of the institution.
Our comrades in the states, I urge you to ignore allegations made by those callers, now you know why they are making the allegations against us.
I stand with my head held high, unshakable faith, and the greatest confidence in the destiny of our organization UJOSS.
An institution should be run by rule of law and flexibility based on realities on the ground.
UJOSS promotes democracy, whoever wants to contest for a position in UJOSS in June 2026 should prepare their manifesto, when the time comes, they should tell journalists what they want to do for them (journalists) and if comrades are convinced, they will be elected to lead UJOSS, accusations against any of us should be backed up by facts that are admissible as evidence.
For now, what some of the comrades are doing is what I call, South Sudanese Journalists Killing their Sun, the sun will always be there, UJOSS will always be there, the current leaders will leave UJOSS at one time but the institution will continue as long as journalism profession exists in the country.
Oyet Patrick Charles
Chairperson-Union of Journalists of South Sudan
E-mail; oyet@ujoss.org.ss/oyetpatrick12@gmail.com
