Happy 70th Birthday Anniversary Dr. John Garang de Mabioor!!!
HOW JOHN GARANG MET HIS WIFE, REBECCA NYANDEENG CHOL ATEM
By James Bandi Shimanyula[1]
June 23, 2015 (SSB) — A Dinka like her husband of 29 years, Rebecca Nyandeng was born on July 15, 1956 in Bor, also Garang’s birthplace. Her father, Chol Atem, was a driver with the regional Ministry of education in the Southern provincial capital of Juba, where she was brought up. Her mother, Nyankuir from Ang’akuei, was a peasant farmer much like Garang’s own mother. The couple had six children—a son and five daughters. Rebecca is the eldest. Two of her sisters are deceased. She first met John Garang in 1972 at an aunt’s house in Juba. She was 16 and Garang was 27. “He was a complete stranger. He looked simple. Very simple person. He was a captain in the Anyanya-1 army. Surprisingly, he was wearing threadbare clothes and simple shoes,” Rebecca said, suppressing a smile. Rebecca said, as she sat in her aunt’s house, Garang looked at her invitingly.
“Our eyes met. He shook my hand warmly and said he was attracted to me. I told him I did not feel ready for a relationship with him at that time,” Rebecca recalled, a smile hovering on her lips. She said Garang nonetheless gazed seductively at her and pursued the issue of friendship. “Are you serious?” I asked him. “Very serious,” he replied, gazing into my eyes. “I told Garang, a suitor somewhere had proposed marriage,” Rebecca said, clearly demonstrating that her straightforward way of speaking dates back to her youth. She said Garang was taken aback by the mention of a suitor, “In a flash, Garang gave me a sullen glare.” “Are you sure a suitor has proposed marriage?” he asked me with a tinge of sadness, Rebecca reconstructed. “Yes”, I replied.
She said Garang finally plucked up the courage to tell her in an unequivocal voice, “No, no, no. That suitor you are talking about is a man. I am also a man. We shall compete!” Rebecca paused for a moment and touched her earlobe as if listening to an inner voice before she continued her narration of their soap opera-like early romantic relationship. “I told Garang that the suitor was the first to court me and propose marriage. But Garang would not hear of it. He looked at my girlish constitution and retorted sharply, “I have also made a proposal. If that suitor has not paid dowry, why should you be worried about my proposal?”
To cut the long story short, Rebecca told me, “Between 1972 and the middle of 1976, Garang emerged as a tough courting man, he was determined to get me come what may. He dated me. He pursued me via verbal messages and letters. I spent time with him. Eventually our friendship blossomed into love. My relatives and his relatives met and discussed the issue of dowry.” Rebecca said, finally on December 19, 1976, they got married. She has fond memories of the marriage ceremony. “A great feast was held to bless the marriage. It was a pleasantly merry and friendly occasion. Four bulls were slaughtered and eaten. Garang paid forty head of cattle as dowry to seal our marriage.
Rebecca said she was proud to be a soldier like John Garang. She said she underwent rough military training at Itang, north of Gambela Reserve in Ethiopian. “It was a tough bush training which paved the way for military training in Cuba where I graduated as a Brigadier General.” I asked her why she chose to become a soldier when this was not compulsory especially for women. She gave me an irresistible smile and her answer was straight to the point. “I was trained to protect myself. I was tired of being protected by soldiers. I mean bodyguards from the SPLA ranks.”
Asked if she remembered any special or significant occasions during her career as a soldier with the SPLA, Rebecca gazed up at the ceiling, lowered her eyes and said, “I vividly remember May 16, 1983, when Battalion 105 of the Sudanese army mutinied in Bor. On that day at about 5.30 a.m., I was preparing to wake up, make breakfast and then go to the market to buy vegetables. News spread by word of mouth that a mutiny had taken place. All of a sudden, there was complete mayhem. I saw soldiers running helter-skelter. The situation somehow calmed down for a couple of hours. But later at about 3 p.m., rebel soldiers led by Garang were locked in a fight with loyal government troops. Garang’s group and I left the mutiny area and pitched camp between Duk and Panyagoor. On the morning of May 18, we left for Itang. It was the beginning of a life spent either in the bush or in neighboring states. Rebecca also recalled that when SPLA forces captured Kajo-keji in 1990, she was with Garang in the bush. “At no time did Garang lose hope during the battles to capture towns in the South. He used to tell his fighters, you either lose or win. You either kill or get killed.”
She paused to adjust an embroidered cushion on the sofa, then continued, “Aerial bombardment was a common feature in areas under SPLA control. I was with Garang in some areas, which came under heavy bombardment from MIG-23s. At times we took cover in bunkers when bombs were dropped.” Rebecca said throughout the days she was with Garang in the bush, he never put on the face of a worried man. “There was a time we stayed in the bush for three days without eating anything, only water. I looked strong and Garang, too looked strong.” I asked her if she ever took charge of any unit during the armed struggle. “I was second in command of two Task Forces: Kokab and Gerger. The two forces operated near Juba under the overall command of Mario Muor Muor. Unfortunately, Muor Muor died in a battle.”
The years Rebecca spent with Garang in the bush and elsewhere and the words of wisdom that he time and again told her, must have made a profound impact and deep impression on the Brigadier General. I asked Rebecca to describe Garang the man. “Garang was a natural man. He was a very pleasant man,” she said. “He had a pleasant manner. He was very different from men belonging to our ethnic group, the Dinka. Throughout our marriage, I never raised my voice in anger. He never raised his voice in anger. We never bickered and quarreled with each other.”
When I sought to know how she would best remember Garang, Rebecca was forthright: “I will remember him as a beloved husband, a good friend and a wonderful comrade-in-arms in the struggle for peace and equality. He was a caring father and husband. He loved his children and me. He helped us. He also helped the people of Southern Sudan in their hour of need.”
Underscoring her expression of praise and admiration for her departed husband, Rebecca momentarily lowered her voice just a decibel and said, “I will never see a man like him again. I miss him. Southern Sudanese miss him. He used his brains and energy well more than any person I know on this dear Earth.” Then almost poetically and philosophically, Rebecca concluded, “His time of going to the other world came. He went. Everything has its time. My time will also come. I, too, will go to the other world. I know one day I will join John Garang.” My interview wrapped up, I expected one of my escorts to resurface. No one appeared. Instead, in a display of extreme modesty, Rebecca rose from the sofa and motioned me to the door, walking next to me. She was still with me across the fifty metres yard right up to her gate as she bid me goodbye.
[1] James Bandi Shimanyula, John Garang and the SPLM/A, page 29-33
This is an excerpt from vol. 3 of “THE GENIUS OF DR. JOHN GARANG: TRIBUTES TO THE LATE SPLM/A’S LEADER, DR. JOHN GARANG DE MABIOOR.”
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