Tribute to Comrade Edward Lino Wuor Abyei, One of the Founding Members of the SPLM/SPLA

By Atem Yaak Atem, Sydney, Australia

Sunday, 19 April 2020 (PW) — The news of the passing of Edward Abyei Lino Wuor Abyei has shocked his loved ones, colleagues, friends and many people who knew him at a personal level. I am deeply saddened by this great loss. He was to me, as he was to many, a trusted friend and a comrade, who did several acts of kindness, which he offered to me while he never considered any favours of any kind in return. He too, was an embodiment of honesty and humility despite his outstanding contributions in public education about the rights of the oppressed people and the practical means of effecting the liberation process.

Edward Lino as he was known to many people, who has been in poor health for years following a heart surgery died in India, where he was undergoing treatment. His death is an unbearable loss to his family and South Sudan and its people to whom he devoted his entire life. It may sound like an exaggeration to compare the public life of Edward Lino to that of the former South African president, Nelson Mandela. True, Edward Lino was neither an executive head of state, party leader, nor was he sentenced to life in prison for leading a political movement its opponents condemned as a terrorist organisation.

The two men, however, shared the following: they had devoted their adult lives to fighting injustice and indignity the ruling systems in their respective countries had imposed on the majority of their citizens; Edward Lino was constantly in and out of prison or detention because of his political views, which the Sudanese authorities of the day, regardless of their ideological orientations, saw as threatening their hold on power; Edward Lino like Mandela, didn’t oppose the oppressors because they were racially different, but because they used race as a reason for excluding those who were different from them on account of colour and ethnic origin; and finally, when reason triumphed over irrational ideology of alleged class superiority, the two men- Mandela and Edward Lino- readily and sincerely forgave their former tormentors.

Mandela accommodated members of the National Party, the architect of apartheid, in his cabinet; Edward Lino on the other hand, was convinced to his dying days that all Sudanese could live amicably together if a truly democratic and just system governing society could be forged and made a reality. To him, demand for secession before the SPLM/A came into being was a result of despair after the ruling Northern class blocked all peaceful and democratic avenues for redressing grievances and equal share of power and resources.

As I will explain in the expanded version of this eulogy to be published not long from now, Edward Lino was a great man whose contributions to the struggle for justice in Sudan are outstanding and many. To be able to make a summary of those achievements I have to begin from 1971. That was the year I first came to know Edward Lino at the University of Khartoum, where he was an undergraduate at the Faculty of Law; I had just enrolled for an Arts degree in English and Philosophy. Politically, this was not the best of times as the regime of Jaafar Nimeiri, with the backing of the army, was trying to deprive universities and other centres of higher learning of their oxygen and lifeblood: academic freedom of thought, research and expression.

Edward Lino was a prominent student leader at both national and regional level. His dismissal from the African National Front, ANF, an organisation for students from Southern Sudan- revealed Edward Lino’s ideological orientation and affiliation. The reason for his sacking along with Joseph Modesto and a few others, was on the basis that they were Communists. Years later, Edward described himself as a socialist. I would prefer to call his political line as progressive. The use of this label is important as it helps us to understand Edward’s formula for solving national problems. 

Before we return to the subject of ideology, a digression is necessary here. While taking Political Philosophy as an elective in the overall study of Philosophy I realised that my colleagues who took the option were Communists (Katim Adlan, Fatima Hamour and Mohammed Ali Ghawei), students affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood, and four of us from the South (Philip Thon Leek, John Ruach Jal, Job Dharuai Malou and self). We understood the intention of the two groups as a search for objective foundation of what ideology was their needed for defence of their respective positions as well as for recruitment purposes.

The subject took us to the roots of ideological strands, namely progressive, conservative (or reactionary to use a pejorative variant) and something in between in the grey zone. The lesson we learned was that ideologies are likely to cut across race, national and geographic boundaries and even faith. A progressive, especially a revolutionary one, for example, will readily join ranks with a fellow revolutionary progressive across ethnic barriers. Belonging to a group basic its political on ideology, namely revolutionary socialism was the “crime” Edward Lino and his fellow progressives were accused of commuting and for their expulsion from ANF, a student regional grouping that lacked clear ideological underpinnings, other than the amorphous slogan “We are Southerners”.

It was the progressive ideology that Edward Lino had embraced as a lifelong philosophy that became a source of his troubles even after leaving the university; going to the point of being dismissed from his jobs with government of the day, and a cause of his frequent arrests and detentions. Despite leaving uni without a degree, mainly because of his involvement with political activism, Edwin Lino was among those Sudanese with very high learning and knowledge of their country and its diverse cultures.

He was very fluent in Arabic, both standard and colloquial, Dinka, and English. (It is common knowledge that the majority of Ngok Dinka are very good at mastery of mother tongue and preservation of their cultures better than fellow Dinka deep inside South Sudan. To understand the unusual phenomenon I once asked George Bureng Nyombe, a professor of linguistics. To him the answer was simple. People living at border areas like the Abyei Dinka seriously guard their cultural heritage including mother tongue because the fear of loss is a very strong motive).

Edward Lino was at home with all the Sudanese from the four corners of the country. That knowledge of the people and their diverse cultures and amity with them later served him well after the outbreak of Sudan’s second civil war in in 1983, when he and his colleagues in the secret cell right in the heart of system, Khartoum, where they had to pass the message of the rebellion as well as recruitment to the newly formed SPLA/SPLM (later to reverse the order to SPLM/A).

With the exception of very few members of the SPLM/A, little is known by the members of the public about the presence and the role of the cell in Khartoum. Its members took many great risks to educate and recruit people into ranks of the SPLM/A; in collecting intelligence, which they passed it to the movement’s hqs; constantly advising the leadership on both internal and foreign policies; from stopping of refraining from individuals and bodies that were not hostile to the movement, which some commentators had adversely mentioned. One member of the cell even frequent wrote opinions written in Arabic on current affairs, which were read over Radio and SPLA, called “Lenna Kilma” or “We have a word [on the matter at hand]”

In the open, Edwin Lino and his colleagues within the cell took active part in practical politics in Khartoum of the day.  One of these was their alliance with other regional parties representing marginalised peoples, particularly progressive forces. That cooperation paid off handsomely with resounding and humiliating defeat of Hassan el Turabi, the much hated Islamist demagogue, and the election of Rev Philip Abbas Gaboush, the leader of the General Union of Nuba, then renamed Sudan Party. This a test that had proved that united politically the oppressed could turn the tables on their oppressors and their rights through the ballet box.

After the dangerous mission was fully accomplished inside the enemy’s den, Edward Lino and some of his brave comrades reported to the SPLM’s main base, where they trained as soldiers, commissioned and assigned new tasks. The former cell members became an assert to the SPLM/A especially during peace talks with political forces from inside Sudan or with delegations representing the government of the day as well as in diplomatic missions.

While in the SPLM/A Edward Lino was one of a tiny minority who lived an exemplary life of progressive revolutionary, who defined the SPLM/A as a national democratic movement that should accommodate and educate every body- about the objectives of the struggle and how they could be achieved in the long run-progressive or otherwise, and not for Marxist-Leninists as some opportunists had tried to project as a way to capture power for their narrow selfish aims instead of the interests of the movement and the overwhelming majority of people, within and outside it. 

Among Edward Lino’s comrades who lived (modestly and to frugally) one could cite the examples of comrades who were known as Communists: Edward Lino, Gabriel Achuoth Deng, Barry Wanji, Peter Adwok Nyaba, and Alfred Lado Gore.  I might have forgotten others but whoever they were I am sure their number was in a single digit. As a senior officer, Commander Edward Wuor Lino Abyei took part in military operations that cleared Western Equatoria and Western Bahr el Ghazal of the presence of Sudan Armed Forces or SAF.

A humble person Commander Edward Lino was comfortable in any company, addressing everyone, young or old, senior or junior, male or female, comrade. Throughout his life Edward Lino never introduced himself with his military rank even to total strangers. He was always Edward Lino, unlike those who wouldn’t hesitate to append an honorific such “H.E”, “Hon”, “General” or even “Ph. D” beneath a press statement or a personal cheque.

The fact that much of activities Edward and his colleagues were involved in while running the secret office in Khartoum should remain classified (in my opinion) has become a problem in itself. I recall a time when one of his colleagues was appointed to the leadership hierarchy, which at the time was military in composition, those who didn’t know the huge contribution that officer had made before reporting to the hqs began to grumble with questions such as “What has this civilian [the actual word was ‘muathin’, Arabic for citizen or national, not civilian he should have said] done to be made member of the Military High Command?”

Again when another member from the inside group was assigned a senior job by the SPLM leadership and later after independence he became a senior minister someone ignorant about the movement and who was now aspiring to get a government job, had the guts to denounce the minister he claimed was a “priest” who “had done nothing” to merit that post.

Once, a real priest and friend of mine, and who had successfully propagated regionally and internationally the cause the SPLM was fighting for, once joked with me using these words “Will those who worked underground for the SPLM/A during the war of liberation, please raise your hands and be counted?” We laughed. The joke meant that our society remains ignorant of great deeds done by many patriotic South Sudanese and their foreign friends in the cause of liberation. 

There is no point to blame the public for not knowing those acts done on their behalf behind the curtain of secrecy. Divulging them now wouldn’t serve any useful purpose. Countries protect such types of information that could be sensitive classified for many years. That code should also apply to our situation.

Epitaph for Edward Wuor Lino Abyei

Late Edward Lino was a poet and has published his works, poems, a book on John Garang, numerous press articles and interview to the press. They are full of nuggets of wisdom. My choice is a saying from  a press interview he gave to Oliver Mori Benjamin in 2003.  This is the text: “The greatest challenge remains with our youth. “They should keep a watchful eye on the locusts and wild monkeys who at any time will destroy our fields”.

The language is full of symbolism. Locusts and wild monkeys represent destructive forces, more to be external. Another piece of writing and which has been translated into Arabic Edward expresses his concern of Friday sermons by imams affiliated to then ruling National Congress Party, he wrote were preaching and instigating outbreak of civil war in South Sudan, way back before December 15,  2013.

Finally, while I respect the role direct family of the late Edward Lino Wuor Abyei will play in receiving and organising all eulogies and obituaries written and verbally expressed about the deceased I strongly recommend that the final document should be handled by Moulana Rafael T. Abiem and Dr Lam Akol who knew Edward very well and also closely worked with him in the past.

Atem Yaak Atem was founding director of Radio SPLA in 1984. He later with Shield Three and was commissioned captain in 1986. In 1990 among officers- among them Edward Lino- promoted to the rank of alternate commander. When he returned from Australia to Juba in December 2009, he went to the headquarters of the then SPLA at Bilpam (in Juba) to enquire about his rank. The office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Administration told him that his name was not with their records. To this day his efforts to trace that information have failed to yield any positive results.

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