South Sudan’s Entrance on World Stage Includes Setting up Washington Embassy
View Photo Gallery —From left, Rose Oduho, Abuk Makuac and Apuk Ayuel dance after the South Sudanese president’s presentation Dec. 13. Linda Davidson / The Washington Post
By Emily Wax, Updated: Monday, December 26
In a luxurious Dupont Circle hotel ballroom, Kiir is wearing his trademark cowboy hat, a sign that he’s a man of the people — a resonant gesture in a nation that is still largely made up of cattle herders and farmers who live in mud hut villages with few paved roads and sporadic electricity.
He welcomes the audience, a mix of Sudanese diasporans, U.N. officials and American business leaders interested in investing in the oil-rich nation.
Kiir, a former rebel commander, tells the crowd that South Sudan is now safe. He pauses. “Except for the places I listed earlier.” Some in the crowd laugh — they find his lack of calculated public relations skills endearing, they say.
Then a delegation of Sudanese villagers who were flown in to attend this International Engagement Conference spontaneously interrupt the speech with liberation songs once sung by child fighters. Even here in Washington, the Sudanese tradition of clapping and singing in the middle of a leader’s speech is difficult to tamp down. It’s in such stark contrast to the buttoned-up culture of Washington that, once again, there’s a smattering of laughter.
From the ground up
Unlike many Washington embassies, South Sudan’s does not yet have a high-powered K Street public relations firm. “We are doing everything on our own. But that’s going to change soon,” said Deng Deng Nhial, deputy head of the mission, who was working in corporate America until he was tapped by South Sudan’s leaders to get diplomatic training at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael.
Steady stream of visitors
The mission is in a suite of offices on the sixth floor of a modern office building at M and 20th streets NW. The Embassy of Vietnam is in the same building, as are law offices and a college prep business. It’s only six blocks from the Embassy of Sudan.
On any given day, the new mission of South Sudan receives visits and calls from the country’s storied “lost boys,” children of war who were separated from their families during the violence. Some are living in the Washington area in resettlement programs — and hoping for a job, any job, at the mission. They also field requests from Sudanese Americans who want their U.S. student loans waived so they can move back to South Sudan and use their education to build the new nation.
A former Miss South Sudan — Cecilia Adeng, 25 — stops by to say hello. She used to work for the mission, but she was tapped to move back to the new nation’s capital, Juba, and work in the president’s office.
The mission’s most passionate booster is Emmanuel Jal, a former child soldier who is now an international hip-hop star and activist. Jal, whose harrowing story was chronicled in the documentary and memoir “War Child,” describes himself as a modern-day nomad. He performs around the world and visits South Sudan’s similar missions in South Africa and London. But he says the one in Washington is the most responsive.
Gatkuoth took him out for Ethiopian food during his last trip to Washington, Jal said, and the two spent hours talking Sudanese politics.
“I’m a people’s advocate. If the government’s not doing right, then I am going to say it,” he said. “All our efforts could be lost if the oil money is exploited and causes more fighting. ”
Jal is on hand for the president’s speech, and for a dance party the same evening. Chan is there, too, dancing as a DJ plays Jal’s hip-hop songs about fighting in the African bush as a child.
In the midst of a Sudanese line dance, she stops. She takes in the scene, one she finds amazing after so many years of war. On the dance floor, older USAID officials in suits are dancing with a delegation of Sudanese women brought to Washington for the conference and for a gender empowerment meeting with U.N. Women and the Institute for Inclusive Security.
“All of those women have family who were slaughtered during the war,” Chan said. “They have suffered more than we can understand.
“But look at us now. I’m sad because of all the people we lost. But at the same time, I am so happy. We are in a history-making period now,” she says. “We have something that’s ours. We have to make sure it’s good.”
South Sudan’s Washington coming-out party
Washington Post
South Sudan, which celebrated its independence July 9, was recognized July 14 during a flag-raising ceremony at the United Nations after a General Assembly vote to admit the country. Sarah Chan, whose father was killed in the long struggle for South …
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