How South Sudan’s Traitors Edged Bona fide Liberators, Assumed Central Role of National Affairs
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Dr. John Garang, William Nyuon Bany and Salva Kiir, during the war of liberation
By Chol Duang, Nairobi, Kenya
Tuesday, June 02, 2020 (PW) — For far too long, young and veteran South Sudanese have watched from the sidelines as decisions affecting their lives are made, often behind closed doors and by vindictive individuals who were in bed with our enemies. During the liberation struggle, which I wasn’t part of, participants would tell us how a prosperous future was awaiting many of us who, as children, were still taking our studies in a violent environment.
My elder brother Chan Duang, who died in KiiRiek’s power war, and immediate cousin Victor Duang Deng had joined the struggle – both as children — purposefully to acquire arms for defence of our territory, then under the Arab hegemony. I would later learn they were forcefully enlisted by the SPLA guerrilla. My uncle, now a veteran, had returned to the village after traveling to Bilpam to receive military training, several years earlier. In the village, he was the only man with a radio that transmitted BBC or VOA in this remote world of ours.
Every evening, we huddled around him to listen to strange voices of English presenters on radio from a faraway land, as he told us about Bilpam stories and personalities leading the movement. Uncle Atak Gop was the first person from whom I heard of the SPLA/M, and this was recently in 1999. He was also the most enlightened figure in our area, having received basic education in Khartoum before fighting later in the Sudanese civil war.
One afternoon, he led me to the river bank, along with his son who’s my age mate. While strolling by the river, he asked me what I wanted to become in the future. “Journalist,” I said to him in Dinka. Struck by the answer, uncle Atak asked: “ Why journalist?” “To tell the world our plight,’’ I responded. He must’ve been greatly astounded.
Back then we’re taught by 7th or 8th graders, who volunteered as teachers — although doing so was risky due to Sudanese state policy that criminalized secular education throughout Predominantly Christian South. Fishing would absorb young boys while girls helped on the farm and with house chores. Schooling was a taboo; No future was in sight except bombardments strafing villages perceived sympathetic to the SPLA/M cause.
My mother told me of some people she’d heard were collaborators, who helped raiders with direction during their armed expeditions across Northern Bahr Ghazal. Notwithstanding those tumultuous events, we still succeeded in school studies; we went on to start life and become independent of our parents.
NCP/NIF Saboteurs Arrival in Juba
When South Sudan announced independence from Sudan in 2011, traitors, turncoats, who had sought asylum elsewhere, landed right immediately in Juba. They applied ‘divide and rule’ policy. Through this strategy, the NCP/NIF acolytes managed to make inroads in government, influenced decisions and policies, thereby positioning their own at the heart of South Sudanese political and economic affairs. Who are the losers? Youth! For whom freedom struggle was waged.
As I write this article, 70% of the young population is in opposition leading social reform campaigns and calling for democratic process in the country.
Chol Duang is a TV journalist, political campaigner, literacy activist, traveller and opinion writer. He’s previously worked with a state broadcaster as news and current affairs reporter, anchor and show presenter. He can be reached via his email: chol Abuk <cholabuk211@gmail.com>
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