"We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, with so little, for so long, we are now qualified to do anything, with nothing" By Konstantin Josef Jireček, a Czech historian, diplomat and slavist.
Joseph Haworu Oduho, activist and politician: born Lobira, Southern Sudan 15 December 1929; founding member and first president, Sudan African National Union 1962-64; President, Azania Liberation Front 1965-67; Minister of Housing, Southern Regional Government, Juba 1972-75; Minister of Public Service and Manpower, Southern Regional Government, Juba 1979-81; founding member Sudan People’s Liberation Movement 1983; died Kongor 27 March 1993.
THE DEATH of Joseph Oduho last week, a victim of the latest fratricidal fighting within the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), has shocked Southern Sudanese throughout the world. He was one of the few survivors of the Southern Sudan’s first post-independence generation of radical politicians, and his death has not only cut a link with that early period of the Sudan’s political development, it has nearly ended any hope of reuniting the factions who have been disputing for power within the Southern Sudan since the fragmentation of the SPLA in 1991.
Born of the Latuka people in Torit District, Equatoria Province, Joseph Oduho was educated in Catholic mission schools and became a teacher in the years immediately leading to the Sudan’s independence from Britain and Egypt in 1945. His first political demonstration in 1953 protested against the exclusion of the Sudan’s Southern and African leaders from political negotiations between the Northern (Arab) parties and the Egyptian government.
He was elected to the Sudan’s first post-independence parliament in 1957, an advocate of political federalism for the Sudan’s underdeveloped regions, until the army took power in 1958. He was one of the first politicians to flee into exile in 1960, combining with other exiles, the late William Deng among them, to form the first exile movement, later known as the Sudan African National Union, in 1962. Together he and Deng published the first statement of Southern Sudanese political objectives, The Problem of the Southern Sudan (1962), in which they argued for the self- determination and independence of the non-Muslim South from the rest of the Sudan.
Oduho spent the next 10 years in exile or in the bush as a leading figure in a succession of Southern Sudanese exile-guerrilla independence movements. He was involved in a number of internal quarrels, and he finally broke with the movement in 1971 when the commander of the ‘Anya – Nya’ guerrilla army, Joseph Lagu, subordinated the political wing to his military organisation. Oduho was sceptical of the qualified autonomy which the Khartoum government of General Nimeiri offered the South at Addis Ababa in 1972, but despite his doubts he accepted the opportunity of peace and joined the transitional regional government in Juba and served as a minister in several successive regional governments.
Oduho’s combative personality never left him, and he frequently quarrelled with his colleagues over what he, and many others, saw as Khartoum’s failure fully to implement the 1972 agreement. He was firmly committed to the unity of the Southern Sudan and opposed the former guerrilla leader Joseph Lagu, when he proposed the dismemberment of the South and a retreat into a separate ‘Equatoria Region’. Shortly after Nimeiri unconstitutionally dissolved the Southern Region in 1983 Oduho once again went into exile and helped to found the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, the political wing of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, under the command of John Garang.
Once again Oduho eventually found himself at odds with the military, objecting to Garang’s subordination of the political wing to the military command and spending several years in detention in various SPLA bases. He was released during inter- factional fighting among the SPLA in September 1992 and went to East Africa, where he was in contact with other anti-Garang leaders in the movement he helped to found.
Last week he flew to Kongor inside the Southern Sudan to meet with dissident military leaders to discuss ways of developing a broad-based leadership. Many Southern Sudanese hoped that, his quarrelsome past history notwithstanding, his position as respected elder statesman would overcome the increasingly vicious animosities which continue to rend the movement. Shortly after his arrival fighting broke out once again between the factions, and Oduho was killed. It is possible that he was the main target of the attack. Pugnacious to the end, he was a man of great humour, courage and political integrity.
Early years 1929-1960
Joseph Oduho was born into the Latuka community ofLobira in what is now Ikotos County, Eastern Equatoria state in Southern Sudan on 15 December 1929. He was educated at Isoke Catholic Diocese Elementary School and Okaru Intermediate School, and became one of the first students at Rumbek Secondary School. He studied in Nyapeya in Uganda, then in Bakht Al Ruda Teacher’s Institute, earning a Diploma in teaching in 1950. Following this he was a headmaster in intermediate schools in Maridi, Okaru and Palotaha.
In 1953 Joseph Oduho led a protest against the lack of representation of southern, non-Arab people in the negotiations over Sudan’s independence.
He was arrested in Maridi after the 1955 mutiny in Torit, accused of conspiracy and sentenced to death. He was released in the general amnesty after independence on 1 January 1956.
Oduho was elected to the first post-independence parliament in 1957. He spoke in favor of a federal organization for the underdeveloped regions of the south. The army seized power in 1958 and Joseph Oduho fled the country in 1960.
Exile leader 1960-1972
Joseph Oduho was a founding member and the first president of the Sudan African National Union (1962-1964).
He and William Deng published the first formal declaration of Southern Sudan objectives in ”The Problem of the Southern Sudan” (1962). In this paper they argued for independence of the non-Muslim south from the Muslim north of Sudan.
Joseph Oduho was one of the leader of the exiles seeking independence. Between 1965 and 1967 he was president of the Azania Liberation Front. He finally broke with the exile groups in 1971 due to disagreement with Joseph Lagu, commander of the Anya-nya guerrilla fighters, who wanted to subordinate the political wing of the movement to the military wing.
Oduho was committed to the unity of Southern Sudan, while Lagu wanted to withdraw into a smaller “Equatoria” region
Southern Sudan government member 1972-1983
On 3 May 1972 the Addis Ababa Agreement 1972 was ratified as “The Southern Provinces Regional Self-Government Act 1972”, bringing a temporary halt to the civil war. Joseph Oduho and Samuel Aru Bol were appointed to the southern executive.
He was given the position of Minister of Housing in the Southern Regional Government, Juba (1972-75).
In 1975, Joseph Oduho was accused of plotting for southern secession and was arrested, but was released in 1976 after an amnesty declared by President Gaafar Nimeiry when the South Sudan Union (SSU) and northern political parties had come to an agreement.
Joseph Oduho ran successfully for election in 1977.
He was appointed Minister of Cooperative and Rural Development (1978-1980) and Minister of Labour and Administrative Reforms (1980-1982). He was a member of the SSU Central Committee.
In 1982 there were disturbances across the south, with some ethnic minority leaders calling for greater decentralization.
Joseph Oduho was opposed to this, consistently advocating southern unity. He though that decentralization and tribalism were being fostered by northern politicians in order to weaken the south
Second civil war 1983-1993
In 1983, President Nimeiry dissolved the Southern Region that had been established following the 1972 Addis Ababa agreement.
Joseph Oduho went into exile again and became a founding member of the SPLM.
When the party was established on 16 May 1983, Joseph Oduho was made chairman and Colonel John Garang, a Dinka army officer, was made commander of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). Later Oduho was deposed by Garang, who made himself leader of the SPLA/M.
For several years Oduho was imprisoned by the SPLA. He was released in 1992 and went to East Africa, founding a movement of opponents of Garang.
In March 1993 he flew to Khartoum to meet with dissident leaders, and then to Kongor in Jonglei State for further meetings with a view to broadening the base of SPLM leadership.
A fight broke out between factions at the meeting on 27 March 1993 in which Oduho was killed (he was killed with Mj. Gen. Kuackang from Nuer tribe) during the fighting between Kuol Manyang and Reik Machar at Panyagor in Kongor
Synopsis of Joseph Oduho’s Bibliography Date: Tuesday, April 08 @ 00:00:00 UTC Topic: Main News
Prepared by Otuho-Speaking Students’ Association (OSSA)
Joseph Oduho Haworu was born in Lobira village, which is about 42 miles east of Torit, the capital of Eastern Equatoria State (EES), in 1927. He is believed to have joined Isoke Catholic Diocese Elementary School, Ikotos County, in 1937.
He was admitted in Okaru Intermediate School from where he excelled to become one of Rumbek’s Secondary School Pioneer Students. He attended a Post Secondary education in Nyapeya in Uganda. Later on, Oduho was admitted in Bakht Al Ruda Teacher’s Institute from where he graduated with a Diploma in teaching in 1950. He worked in Maridi, Okaru and Palotaha Intermediate Schools as a headmaster. In Maridi he was arrested after the mutiny in Torit, accused of conspiracy and was sentenced to death by the authorities in Khartoum. He was released in a general amnesty that was issued immediately after independence on January 1st, 1956.
In December 1960, Oduho, Fr. Saturnino Ohure, Ferdinand Adiang, William Deng, Alexis Bakumba and others crossed the border into Uganda and the Congo.
While in exile, Oduho and his colleagues formed Sudan African National Union (SANU) and became its first president. SANU is a short form of the Sudan African Closed Districts National Union (SACDNU) formed in 1962 under the leadership of Oduho. He amongst others was arrested by the Ugandan authorities after officially launching SANU in Uganda in 1963. He was released but did not abandon the struggle. He crisscrossed the world in search of friends who sympathized and supported the struggle of the South Sudanese people until the signing of Addis Ababa Agreement in 1972.
After the signing of the Addis Ababa agreement in 1972, Oduho was appointed Minister of Housing and Public Utilities in the first Regional Government of South Sudan called The High Executive Council (HEC). He was arrested by the Khartoum and Juba authorities in 1975, accused of plotting to breakaway the South from the North. He was released in 1976 in yet another amnesty issued by President Numayri in the success of the so-called Al Wifaq Al Watani or National Consensus (Reconciliation) between SSU and the other northern political parties. He stood for elections of 1977 and won his seat. He was reappointed Minister of Cooperative and Rural Development in 1978-1980. He was reappointed in another administration as Minister of Labour and Administrative Reforms 1980-1982. Oduho was also a member of the SSU Central Committee.
In 1982, there were discontents from all over the South, reactions to what became to be known as an exercise of tribalism in the HEC government. Equatorians and other minorities in the South called for decentralization of the South so that power could be devolved to the greater regions of Bahr Al Ghazal, Upper Nile and Equatoria. Oduho resisted this move, stressing to all South Sudanese, young and old, about the dangers of decentralization. He said if bought by all, the idea was aimed at weakening the South, which was emerging as a powerful democracy at the time. Oduho told others that decentralization was a self-destruct mechanism carefully designed by Numayri and Turabi. He was a member of the Committee for the Unification of the Southern Sudan. Again Khartoum and Juba authorities arrested him but they released him in 1983.
Having suffered under his government in the South and the authorities in Khartoum, Oduho believed that the country was not yet ready to coexist and prepared to leave. He was smuggled out of Torit by a Good Samaritan to Kenya from where he joined the Bor-Ayod Mutineers under the leaderships of Majors Kerubino Kuanyin Bol and William Nyuon Bany. He became the first SPLM politician to lead the Political and Foreign Affairs Committee of the SPLM. Oduho co-chaired the drafting of the Penal and Discipline Laws of the SPLA in 1984, (He was arrested in 1984 after the return of the delegation which he led to Europe. The delegation was to enlighten the international community on the struggle of the South Sudanese people for freedom, justice and equality. He was briefly released in 1987 but with passport and other useful documents withdrawn from him by the SPLM/A.
He was rearrested in 1988-1989 only that this time he was kept in an isolated area on the mountain top of Jabal Boma or Boma Mountain. He was released in 1991 to come to his home village, Lobira, to bury his late son, Alt-Cdr. Kizito Omiluk Oduho. While in Lobira Oduho realised that he was still under surveillance and his Lobira villagers knew that and prepared to smuggle him out of the village. But before that happened, SPLA soldiers came to Lobira and ordered him down the Lobira Hill. He refused but SPLA soldiers opened fire on the Hill and many innocent lives were lost on both the SPLA and the villagers’ sides. Oduho was then moved by the villagers to a border town called Madi-Opei between Sudan and Uganda.
While in Madi-Opei, he wrote a note to his son, Ohiyok Oduho, to help rescue him or he will be killed by SPLM/A whom, he said, attempted to kill him while in the Madi-Opei Catholic Missionary. Ohiyok Oduho called his maternal Uncle in Canada, Paul Odiong Dominic, to assist. Paul Odiong approached an old friend of the Late Joseph Oduho, Prof. Stores McCall, in Canada and asked him for assistance. McCall responded and about 1,000 USD was sent from Canada and Ohiyok Oduho contributed another 1,000 USD. to hire a Cessna Aircraft from Kenya which landed at Kitgum Airstrip. Ohiyok drove to Madi-Opei, about 27 miles North of Kitgum, and evacuated Joseph Oduho to Nairobi in February 1993.
On his arrival to Nairobi, was taken by his son, Ohiyok, to Nairobi Hospital where he was admitted to the Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU). He had developed diabetes, and had a flat heart, which the Cardiologist Doctor, David Silverstein, said could have ceased from work up on the plane, had the flight extended for a little longer. He was released after four days of intensive care at the ICU.
As a veteran Sudanese politician, Oduho was approached in Nairobi, Kampala and beyond Africa by South Sudanese concerned with the situation at home. His son, Ohiyok Oduho, told him that it was time he retired from politics because politics in the South was becoming dirtier by the day. Oduho told his son that he was the only surviving founder of the South Sudanese struggle and could not feel happy to retire if he did not unite the people of the South for whom he had surrendered his life to. Oduho said it will be difficult to negotiate with Khartoum if there were more factions.
In order to fulfill his vision of reunifying the people of the South, Oduho, through the assistance of a Catholic organisation called People For Peace In Africa, organised a reunification conference in Nairobi in late February 1993. All factions were invited, including Torit Faction or the mainstream of the SPLM/A under the leadership of Dr John Garang. SPLM/A disassociated itself from this reunification conference and instead planned to destroy it. As the reunification conferees converged at Panyagor, in Jonglei State, to organise and announce the reunification of more than four factions that broke away from the SPLM/A mainstream, they were attacked by the SPLM/A mainstream. Oduho was caught alive by the SPLM/A and was executed there and then. The execution of Oduho was carried out on this date and month in 1993.
This information should not be misunderstood as being aimed at dividing the people of the South. The real aim of releasing this information as it is, however, is to correct the distorted information on surrounding Oduho’s death. He wasn’t a simple man and as such the people for whom he sacrificed his life ought to know how he died. His death was and continues to be both strength and loss to the people of South Sudan. Strength because he believed that he would one day die in the cause of the struggle and did not care whose bullet would get him first. Loss because the South needs people like him today to help unite and guide its people.
As heard and read from this short synopsis, Oduho died while trying to unite the struggling masses of South Sudan. OSSA therefore will do everything in its power to work and fight for the unity of the South Sudanese people and certainly cherish such legacy left by a hero this country will never forget for the contribution made by him, and fellow heroes like Fr. Saturnino Ohure, Ferdinand Adiang, William Deng, Aggrey Jaden, Alexis Bakumba and Dr John Garang, just to mention but a few of the many heroes the South and Sudan as a whole has produced.
Leaving Bittterness Behind
Lagu’s counterpart at the time, the head of the movement’s political wing, was a man named Joseph Oduho, and it was the late Oduho who introduced Lagu to the Israeli ambassador and political attache in Kampala, Uganda, where there was a growing Israeli presence in the late 1960s. “We have a common concern, and that is fighting the Arabs,” Lagu wrote in the letter he gave the attaché, asking him to pass it on up through the ranks.
The commander went on to offer a deal: If Israel would support Anyanya, Lagu promised to tie down the northern Sudanese armies so as to prevent them from joining the Egyptians and other Arabs from attacking Israel in the future.
“I waited for a response, but the problem was that Eshkol died. He never even saw that letter,” says Lagu. “But luckily, he was followed by a woman who must have found that very letter and she contacted me. They were interested in the part where I said we would tie down the north, and believed we might even manage to tie up some of the Egyptian forces who would come to the north’s assistance.”
Golda Meir summoned Lagu to Israel, “practically smuggling him in,” as he tells it. And during that first two-week trip to the country and the territories – in between tours to military bases around the country, from the Golan Heights to the Sinai and the West Bank – the Sudanese commander met with the prime minister in her Jerusalem office. They spoke about religion, and Lagu told her how, he recalls, “the Christian southerners considered Jews as the cousins of Christ.” They talked arms. And then shook hands on a deal.
Short-lived relationship
Soon after, a shipment of weapons reached Juba from Israel – mainly two- and three-inch mortars, anti-tank missiles and light machine guns taken from enemy Arab countries during the 1967 war.
“They did not give us new weapons, or ones that were manufactured in Israel,” Lagu explains, “as they did not want to be publicly known to be helping us.”
Later, three Israeli advisors arrived and joined the rebels in the bush: a military advisor, a technician and a doctor. While other arms were coming in from Congolese rebels and international arms dealers, the Israeli assistance, Lagu explains, was what tipped the scales: “This helped transform my movement, and we became a force to be reckoned with. We began to make a real impact in the fighting against Khartoum.”
Speech Delivered by Col. Ohiyok Oduho
Your Excellencies Brig. Aloysious Emor Ojetuk, Guest of Honour, Uncle Bona Malual, Patron of this occasion, Dr Kamilo Oduwa, the Supervisor of this gathering, Your Excellency Mayom Koch State Minister at the GoNU Ministry of Irrigation, Hon. State MPs, State Council and National Assembly MPs, My fellow Otuho community and its leadership, Otuho-Speaking Association (OSSA) Leadership and membership, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen;
On behalf of the late Joseph Oduho’s family and on my own behalf, I greet you in the name of our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ. Please, allow me to extend my sincere greetings and appreciations to you for attendance and to the OSSA for making this day a success.
As a serious students’ body, OSSA has been and will remain to be, with the community’s support, the pride of the Otuho-Speaking Community. This being the case, OSSA needs to be seriously cautious of the politics in the South. There are politicians who are bent on dividing South Sudanese people on tribal lines. You do not follow them. Instead, exert efforts against division and all its vices.
Division is so useless that it could earn you nothing but hatred which likely develops into conflict. Joseph Oduho whose commemoration we are marking today did fight for the unconditional unity of his people. Oduho’s last mission in politics was to reunify fragmented brothers and sisters in the struggle. The fragmentations being referred to were the splits in the SPLM/A in 1984 and 1991. Please browse the Internet and don’t be shocked when you see the amount of information you would get. Thus, as young men and women who have recognised his efforts, OSSA needs to follow one of the noble legacies Oduho left behind: serious effort to unite the people of South Sudan unconditionally. Occasions such as this do unite people and as such must be encouraged in order to perform its wonders.
As a family of the late Oduho, we would like to reiterate to you, OSSA members and today’s honourable presence that we have missed our father; and have done so for the last 15 years and – God knows – we will continue to miss him forever.
However, there is one thing that encourages us as a family to live on as we remembered our father: his unresolved fight against those regimes in the Sudan that thought they would continue unabated to suppress the Sudanese people, especially those from the Southern part of it.
We are aware that our father was a friend to the late Philip Khabbush; with whom he was detained at one time by Numayri’s regime. We are also aware that our father supported and encouraged both Philip Khabbush and Yusuf Kuwa to sustain the struggle of the Nuba people.
We strongly uphold our father’s ideals and shall continue to cherish his legacy of unity. Therefore, on behalf of the Oduho family, I assure you who gathered here today that the Oduho family will continue to fight for the unity of the South Sudanese people.
Even though we are aware that our father was killed by fellow comrades in arms, trying to avenge for his death is foolish. It is only a fool who would think that such an action would bring Oduho back to live. An “eye for an eye” theory is unacceptable because it would leave many without eyes, and one could just imagine how disastrous that would become!
The least we, as family members could do, is to ask those who ended his life to remember him and colleagues like Fr. Saturnino Ohure, Ferdinand Adiang, William Deng, Alexis Bakumba, Martin Majier, Benjamin Bol Akok, Akot Atem de mayan, Nashigak Nyashulluk, Samuel Gai Tut, Kerubino Kuanyin Bol, William Nyuon, Peter Kidi, Garang Agwang, Mario Muor-Muor, Joseph Malath, Martin Kajivura, Pierre Ohure Okerruk, Kizito Omilluk Oduho, Philip Khabbush and Yusuf Kuwa whose forces participated in the liberation of South Sudan, and Dr John Garang who delivered all of us home, just to mention but a few of our heroes.
On behalf of the family once again, I appeal to the authorities in the GoSS to transfer the resources necessary for a serious campaign, that has to be instituted by them with the aim of promoting unity of the South Sudanese people, dealing with tribalism and introducing heroes’ day in the South to appreciate and commemorate the efforts of those who gave their lives for Southern Sudan.
The Oduho family concludes by earnestly urging OSSA to join hands with the rest of the other students’ associations in the South and Sudan as a whole to remember the heroes of this country; those who shed their blood to make the Sudan a country others could emulate.The peace agreements signed between the government and the Western and Eastern Sudan rebels and between SPLM/A and the Sudan government, especially the Comprehensive Peace Agreement spearheaded by the late Dr John Garang de Mabior, the most unique, I must say, of our contemporary heroes, did offer hopes for a comprehensive Sudanese peace and unity.
Finally, I would like to appeal to all the South Sudanese to forgive each other so that we could concentrate on the development of Southern Sudan.
Thank you very much and May God Bless You all?
Col. OhiyokDavid OduhoKhartoum, April 4th, 2008.
IN MEMORY OF MY TEACHER & POLITICAL MENTOR, JOSEPH ODUHO
By Bona Malwal Khartoum, Friday 4th April 2008
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If being asked to stand up to address an occasion as memorable has commemorating the death of a leader is an occasion of honour and respect for those who are asked to do so, then being asked to stand before you today, you the young and the not so young of Southern Sudan is a very special privilege and honour for me. Thank you so much my dear sons and daughters, brothers and sisters from the Otuho community of Southern Sudan, for inviting me.For a country like Southern Sudan, where matters are not as normal as they should be, it is not only tempting to want to talk straight; it is indeed an obligation and duty to talk straight. This is exactly what I am going to do. And I ask for your individual indulgence in advance.
I stand before you with very mixed feelings on this very momentous occasion, because seeing the turn of events in our Southern Sudan Community today; it is very difficult for me to say with clear heart, that my teacher and political mentor, Joseph Oduho, has not died in vain. He spent his entire life struggling and in the end, he died in the hands of Southern Sudanese. We must believe and pray that his blessed soul is now in heaven.
After struggling for the cause of Southern Sudan for so long; escaping death in the hands of the true enemies of the cause of Southern Sudan; escaping the Kangaroo death sentence passed on him by the kangaroo courts of Northern Sudan after the Torit uprising of August 1955, Ustaz Joseph Oduho was gunned down in cold blood on 28th March 1993 by the hand of his own Southern Sudanese children, using the guns Joseph Oduho himself may have helped provide to these children for the liberation of our people from the tyranny imposed on the South by Northern Sudan.
It is impossible, as I stand before you, participating in this glorious occasion, marking the death of Joseph Oduho, to escape the thought that this great hero of the cause of Southern Sudan may just have died in vain.
As we remember Joseph Oduho, we must not forget that without freedom for all who are still alive in Southern Sudan; without total freedom from fear of any kind; especially fear from the rampant lynchmanship in Southern Sudan, in the hands of some of our own; without pride in the way the government of Southern Sudan conducts the affairs of Southern Sudan today, it will be difficult to avoid the bitter conclusion that Joseph Oduho and all the fallen heroes of Southern Sudan have died in vain.
It would be dishonorable for those of us, who witnessed the political life of Southern Sudanese heroes like Joseph Oduho, to see so much that is going wrong in our community today; to see the squandering of the well earned political power of the people of Southern Sudan and the resources of the ever heroic people of Southern Sudan being used for causes that are not of the people of Southern Sudan and not say that things are not well in our society today.
We all need to work together, to correct those who believe that the power of Southern Sudan is their power and authority for them alone, over the people of Southern Sudan. The would be authorities of Southern Sudan today, seem to think that they have the right to use that power unjustly and unfairly against any member of the community of Southern Sudanese. All of us need to stand up straight and firm to be counted against internal hegemony, political bigotry and internal tyranny.
It is not enough anymore, for us to be fed with the falsehood that it is Northern Sudan that is preventing rehabilitation and progress in Southern Sudan. It is not true that Northern Sudan is any more responsible for the mal administration of Southern Sudan since July 2005, since when the present government of Southern Sudan was formed. The current government of Southern Sudan is totally autonomous from the North, almost independent from the North, in its decisions and in its processes.
The North may not be giving the South its total fifty per cent share of the oil revenues from the oil wells of the South. I do not know about that, because if the North is not transparent with the government of Southern Sudan about the transfer of oil revenue to the South, then how transparent is the government of Southern Sudan with its people about how it spends what ever percentage of the fifty percent oil revenue it receives from the North? Are we only entitled, as Southern Sudanese, to know what Northern Sudan is not doing for us and we are not entitled to know what the government of Southern Sudan is doing with our resources for us?
I say these things on this occasion, because I know that Joseph Oduho would not have expected from me anything less. He was always an outspoken frank man. As my teacher in the formative years of my life, I hope I have learned something about frankness from Joseph Oduho. I am proud of that.
Joseph Oduho died struggling for the cause of Southern Sudan. It is ironic that he eventually died in the hands of his own community; a community he so struggled for. It is a great shame on us as Southern Sudanese, that Joseph Oduho did not die in the hands of the enemy of Southern Sudan, who wished him dead on so many occasions in his life.
Joseph Oduho was sentenced to death in absentia in 1955, following the Torit Uprising of August of that year. This is in spite of the fact that Joseph Oduho was a civilian, a teacher and was not even in Torit at the time of the uprising to have been an accomplice.
Joseph Oduho was elected to the 1957 Parliament from Torit as one of the members of Parliament from Southern Sudan. He sought from the floor of the National Parliament in Khartoum, to hold Northern Sudan accountable to the promise of federation, on the basis of which, members of parliament from Southern Sudan voted for an independent Sudan on 19 December 1955.
When Northern Sudan handed power to General Ibrahim Aboud in November 1958, to avoid answering the Southern Sudan demand for federation and in order to let the military repress the South, rather than concede Federation to the South, Joseph Oduho was one of the team of Southern Sudanese parliamentarians who joined the Anya-Nya Liberation Movement, to continue the struggle for the cause of the South. He and other Southern Sudanese did so, rather than to submit to the Northern Sudanese military machinations.
Together with other similar heroes who fell for the cause, like Reverend Father Saturnino Lohure, the Anya-Nya cause delivered autonomy for Southern Sudan under the 1972 Addis Abba Agreement. Joseph Oduho took part in the political and the government leadership of the South under the Addis Ababa Agreement. In the end, the North abrogated the Addis Ababa Agreement in 1983.
It is important for many of you young Southern Sudanese here gathered today, to know that as much as Ustaz Joseph Oduho was a Southern Sudanese separatist par excellence, he was also an unswerving Southern Sudanese Unionist. During the great KOKORA debate in Equatoria, in the early1980s, Joseph Oduho led the crusade for unity of Southern Sudan amongst Equatorians. He and a small, but brave number of leaders from Equatoria, who stood so steadfastly for the unity of the people of Southern Sudan, were treated almost as traitors to Equatoria. Joseph Oduho was undaunted by such classifications.
In 1984, only one year into the SPLA led war against the North, because this was only one year after KOKORA succeeded to split Southern Sudan, most Equatorians saw the SPLM/SPLA as a reaction to KOKORA and stayed away from it. In an open letter to Equatoria, Joseph Oduho implored Equatoria to join the SPLA, not because there was shortage in the personnel fighting the war, but because he saw that history was being made for Southern Sudan. He thought it was important for Equatoria to be part of that history. Equatoria heeded Joseph Oduho’s advice and joined the SPLA in droves.
The yesterday’s leaders of KOKORA are today the leaders of the SPLM/SPLA. It is ironic that the leaders of KOKORA of yesterday are not just the leaders of a united Southern Sudan today; some of them are currently the advocates of the idea of “A New Sudan”.
As a perpetual struggler for the cause of Southern Sudan, even though he was already in an advancing age, Joseph Oduho saw no choice for himself but to join the SPLM/SPLA in 1983, at its foundation, to continue the struggle. It is ironic that he remained a prisoner in the hands of his own people, until he met his death at Panyagor, in Jonglei, in 1993, in the hands of his own children. He was killed at the age of 67, while on a peace mission, trying to reconcile the warring factions of the SPLA
It is impossible to speculate how providence judges atrocities like the death of Joseph Oduho. But I am tempted by my human failing to believe that the always fair Almighty God has put the soul of Joseph Oduho into heaven.
If Joseph Oduho died a tragic death the way he did, it is almost inescapable to believe that Joseph Oduho would love the Machakos Protocol of 2o July 2002, which is the first Protocol of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which gives the people of Southern Sudan a referendum on Self-determination, in the year 2011, to be successfully carried out. Southern Sudan must not allow that noble right of Self-determination, to be subverted by those we currently see usurping the rights of the people of the Southern Sudan for their own anti- Southern Sudan causes.
As a pupil of Joseph Oduho, I am privileged and proud to stand before you here gathered today, to hold those who are responsible for the implementation of the CPA, to carry out Self-determination referendum as the final act of the CPA without deviation.
Joseph Oduho was my teacher and protector at a very young age for me. After completing Rumbek Secondary School, Joseph Oduho became an intermediate school teacher at St. Anthony’s Bussere Intermediate School in 1951. He joined and taught me in my second year intermediate school. He was a great footballer and became our sports teacher. He played in our school team, many times matching us youngsters against his old team of Rumbek Secondary School. He always protected us against older football opponents from elsewhere. He once put us into a football pitch battle in Wau town, because one of our young team mates was kicked in the stomach by an older player. He physically knocked down the offender player and kicked him in the stomach. We became engulfed in football pitch warfare with the Wau town crowd, with Joseph Oduho as our protector.
The Need for Truth & Reconciliation
It is a well known fact of life that in any war situation, there occurs excesses and war atrocities. Southern Sudan was no exception to this. What is important, is how a traumatized society, like the Southern Sudan society, deals with these issues at the end of the war. It is important to tell the truth about who did what against whom, during the war and to reconcile the society before it forgives the excesses of the war and then move on. South Africa and Mozambique have led us in this. Rwanda is going on with the same process at the moment in a very impressive way. With so much internal atrocity against each other during the war, Southern Sudan cannot avoid telling its truth to each other and then to reconcile. It is impossible to assume that leaders like Joseph Oduho have died the way they did and that nobody responsible in Southern Sudan cares to make public how they died.It is necessary for the Government of Southern Sudan, therefore, led by the SPLM/A that was largely responsible for the war atrocities within Southern Sudan, to now establish a truth and reconciliation commission, to lay to rest the ghosts of war and to enable the society to reconcile and to move on.
Southern Sudan cannot afford to have lost heroes like Joseph Oduho in vain and as we falter from the paths and principles for which Joseph Oduho and others lived and died, let us remember that Southern Sudan cannot afford to fail. May Almighty God rest the soul of Joseph Oduho in eternal peace?
PaanLuel Wël is the founder and editor-in-chief of PaanLuel Wël Media Ltd, a news website that covers news, opinions, analysis, history, culture and literature of South Sudan and the world. Founded in July 2011 by PaanLuel Wël to create a platform for free expression and constructive dialogue, the website features articles from various contributors, including columnists, commentators, poets, authors, activists and academics. PaanLuel Wël believes that media can play a vital role in informing, educating and empowering the people to participate in nation-building and social transformation. He also believes that media can foster a culture of dialogue, tolerance and diversity among different communities and groups, and hopes to inspire and mentor the next generation of South Sudanese writers and journalists.
