Alfred Taban: An Inspirational Story of a Patriotic Journalist Who Fought for the Liberation of His People
By Dengdit Ayok, Cairo, Egypt
Friday, May 15, 2020 (PW) — The 27th day of the last month, marked one long year of the departure of a symbol of national journalism, and one of its pioneers, the late Alfred Taban Logune. Alfred Taban died in the Ugandan capital city Kampala aged 62 after a long and bitter struggle against illness. His departure had left a profound sorrow among South Sudanese people at large and the media community in particular.
As we write about him today, we write about a man, who the sun of truth had glowed in his soul, and decided without any fear to speak this truth; while he was in the den of the wild beasts. We write about a man who carried the cause of his people in his soul, sacrificing his entire life for it, speaking about it in all forums.
The story of Alfred Taban, Sirs, will remain as a story of a revolutionary journalist, who revolted through his thought and pen and worked for the liberation of the Sudanese people, especially in South Sudan, Darfur and the Nuba Mountains, from marginalization, repression, violations and atrocities, using his thought and his pen with a far-reaching look that represented his ideas and positions. For this, he paid a high price in the face of a regime which he fought in its own yard.
Alfred Taban’s struggle from within the Sudan was far more hazardous than that of others who rebelled and fought in the jungle. He fought against a regime led by fierce, bloodsucking persons, the fiercest regime Sudan’s modern history had seen.
Alfred Taban was born in 1957 in his hometown Kajo-keji, and finished his schooling in the same town before joining the University of Khartoum to study laboratory sciences. In Khartoum he headed the Kajo-keji Students Union and was active in the University’s politics, a matter that put him in continuous trouble with the authorities until he was dismissed from the University by the end of third year, though he was an outstanding student.
After his dismissal from the University, Alfred received training courses from British media organizations in the domains of journalism and creative writing, acquiring vast capabilities and qualifications.
This training had qualified him as a journalist. In this profession Alfred was known for his daring writing and his strong words, a matter that won him public attention. He managed to influence public opinion and inflamed the spirit of revolution in the marginalized people of the then largest African country, Sudan.
His heroic attitudes had won him internal and external respect. As a result he received two awards: the British Speaker Abbot Award in July 2005 in recognition of his work exposing the slaughter in Darfur. This award is awarded to the journalist who has made the greatest contribution internationally to the “protection, promotion and perpetuation of parliamentary democracy”. In 2006, Taban was one of three recipients to be presented with the National Endowment for Democracy award by the USA President George W. Bush.
Alfred Taban had started his journalistic career in (SUDANOW) Magazine in the 1970s. Then he worked for The Nile Mirror journal, covering limitless events in the Sudan. This vast activity had solidified his professional abilities. As a journalist he was known for his activity and for his love for his profession. He acquired a wide expertise in news reporting and editing and the conduction of investigative reporting on issues of public interest, writing articles and commentaries in keeping with the morals of the profession.
Alfred Taban also served as Khartoum correspondent of the BBC, reporting on the country’s developments in general and the South Sudanese affairs in particular, their politicians, their activists, the conditions of the Southern IDPs in Northern Sudan and the atrocities they were subjected to. He also wrote about the Darfur issue. His BBC service had set him in big trouble with the Khartoum authorities, often arrested, beaten, humiliated and his credibility as a journalist questioned by the authorities. Nevertheless, he did not yield.
Alfred Taban then in 2000 launched the daily newspaper Khartoum Monitor with some Southern Sudanese journalists, after they received assistance from the Christian Aid Organization and the Norwegian Church Aid. The paper continued to publish for ten years until when it was banned in January 2011 after the Southern Sudanese voted for independence.
He had said in a TV interview that he and his colleagues in Khartoum Monitor had aimed to create a forum where South Sudanese could express their thoughts on Sudanese politics. The Khartoum Monitor was Sudan’s only English language newspaper at the time, giving an independent coverage of the Sudanese events.
Alfred Taban’s political views had led him into many problems with the security in Khartoum, repeatedly put under arrest at the state security, at one point incarcerated in jail for six months.
About this period in jail, Alfred says in a TV interview, that it was the best because it allowed him to stay with Northern politicians, including former Premier Saddiq Almahdi and the late Islamist leader Hassan Alturabi with whom he exchanged views on the politics of the country. The group of detainees also included South Sudanese politician Toby Maduot Parek, Arop Madut Arop and Joseph Okel Abango.
Taban said (in the TV interview also) that his political views and positions were in harmony with the Northern Sudanese politicians he lived with in jail, especially the communists who believed that al-Bashir regime should be changed because its policies had put the Sudanese apart in the South and Darfur.
The most serious confrontation was when Alfred said the government, as an Islamic authority dislikes Southern Sudanese because they are Christians, a matter that put Khartoum in conflict with many world bodies. The government reaction was to arrest Alfred, subject him to torture and force him to confess he was lying in what he writes. He used to get out of jail quite exhausted, but more determined to continue writing on the cause of his people who were crushed by the war one year after the other.
He remembers that he was once taken outside the jail and forced to sing a song they wrote for him that says: (I am a liar.. I am a liar..), otherwise he would have been subjected to severe beating. He was forced to repeat this under the sun from the morning to the evening. As a result he lost much of his eyesight, a situation that continued with him until his death.
I came to know Alfred through his column “Let Us Speak Out”. I became fond of what he used to write because it was a translation of our cause. I was a student in his revolutionary and intellectual school. For seven years I used to read for him 2000-2007. Then I shifted from reading to become a writer in the same paper Khartoum Monitor.
Alfred had used to read and admire what I wrote. I had no knowledge of that until I met him and he encouraged me to keep writing, saying” you will continue journalism if something happens to us.”
Alfred officially joined the SPLM in 2007. He announced this through his newspaper column, explaining to his readers his convictions, which drove him to join the SPLM. He said he believed in the idea of the New Sudan and was in support of the SPLM.
In the late 2009 Alfred announced his candidacy for the office of the Governor of central Equatoria state in the April 2010 general elections. But the SPLM Politburo nominated Clement Wani Konga for the post. Despite his disappointment over this move, Alfred refused to run for the post as an independent candidate.
After South Sudan independence, Alfred continued his work as a journalist and renamed his paper (Juba Monitor) and chaired its board. But the SPLM as a ruling body disappointed him when many brave journalists and writers were arrested, beaten, jailed and thrown in cemeteries. Some of them disappeared in obscure circumstances.
Alfred had defended freedom of expression in our nascent republic as he used to do in our old republic. From his vantage point as a prominent journalist and Chairman of The Association for Media Development in South Sudan (AMDISS) he was very disappointed to see the policies he fought against in Khartoum practiced in Juba, contrary to his belief that the new state would live up to the theme of the New Sudan that vanished after the death of John Garang de Mabior.
After the battle for the state house in Juba between the SPLM mean stream and the SPLM In Opposition (SPLM-IO), in July 2016, Alfred wrote a column in his paper in which held both, President Salva Kiir Mayardit and his First Vice President Riek Machar Teny, responsible for their failure to maintain security and peace. He said the two men had moved the war from the jungle to the capital city, Juba, and urged both of them to step down immediately. He was arrested the next day and stayed in jail for (13) days in what is known as The Blue House, next to Jebel Kujur.
In 2017 Alfred became MP for Kajo-keji Constituency, a seat belonging to the SPLM-IO, the faction of Taban Deng Gai. He remained as MP in the transitional parliament and member of National Dialogue Steering Committee until his death.
May his noble soul continue to lie down peacefully in our land with the good ones and the ancestors. And may we the living, continue to remember him and his good deeds for us and for the posterity.
Note from Author: This article was first published in Al-Maugif Arabic daily newspaper where the writer regularly contributes. And because of the impact of Alfred Taban Logune on the English readership in the country, the writer took time to rewrite the article in English for the English readership.
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