CDR Kerubino Kuanyin Bol: An Oscillating Legacy between the National Dream and Multiple Camps of Loyalty – Part 1

By Dengdit Ayok, Cairo, Egypt

Wednesday, August 26, 2020 (PW) — We have witnessed a few days ago, a great and vital national commemoration, the Martyrs’ Day. The importance of this tribute lies in the fact that we pause, as people of South Sudan, to look back at our long, heroic and historical journey. And as we retreat on Martyrs’ Day to contemplate the march, we see a torrent of blood that had been shed in the liberation struggle for the sake of freedom, so that we may become liberated; set free and independent in a country we all love; and we therefore feel our greatness as a people; and become greatly overwhelmed with gratitude for our martyrs, for the countless sacrifices they hadmade and profoundly appreciate them.  

And as we appreciate them, we become cognizant of an absolute patriotic truth; that they are the reason for our existence and the existence of our country, and that they shall and will always remain the reason behind her existence in this generation and the generations to come; in this fine land, from which a human jungle has sprouted against the enemies and usurping invaders.  

It is in the context of this memoriam, that one thought of writing about one of the founders of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLM/SPLA), to honestly say about him the facts that have become rare due to advancement of time, and the silence of people on mentioning them, or mentioning them in a quick way without dwelling on them during national occasions, especially amongst his colleagues and comrades who knew him, became close to him and worked with him. 

As one write about him, it does not mean that one would want to claim that he knows everything about him, and one would not be able to say everything about him. But one would say a little about what he knows about him. 

For the sensitivity of some facts, one shall not say them in a rash or in an offensive manner, but in a rather responsible fashion, with the aim of documenting part of his history, because history is history, and it should be written as a remembrance for him, so as to document his autobiography with all its details: be they positive or negative aspects. 

1. Birth and Upbringing 

Kerubino Kuanyin Bol was born in 1948, one year after the famous Juba Conference, in a simple Dinka Twic family in Bahr El-Ghazal province, in a small village called Payuwai in Adiang, an administrative area under the chieftaincy of Chief Cyer Rehan; one the great leaders and historical icons of Twic Mayardit and South Sudan at large. He was one of the chiefs who have had the privilege of attending Juba Conference in 1947. 

Payuwai ever since until today is a rural and pastoral area where people are engaged in farming and raring cattle. Education in it was a rare thing at the time, and therefore the exact date and month of Kuanyin’s birth is not known, during the last years of Anglo-Egyptian condominium rule in the Sudan.

Kuanyin belongs to “Pabol” clan in Adiang, one of the Twic Dinka sub-sections, with Wunrok as his administrative center, an area that also brings all the sons and daughters of Adiang Cyerdittogether as their capital town.

Kerubino grew up in his early years in Twiclooking after his family sheep, goats and cattle as a little boy like many of his peers. His full name before he acquired the European-Italian name from the Roman Catholic Church is: Kuanyin BolDeng. And while he was ostensibly committed to Catholicism, he acquired a church name for himself, thus his name became Kerubino Kuanyin Bol Deng. His father, Bol Deng, died while he was at a very young age, and so he was taken care of by his uncle Ayuel Deng, who later sent him to school. 

2. School and educational background

Kerubino was enrolled in one of many Catholic missionary schools in Bahr El-Ghazal province at Mayen-Abun. He successfully completed his primary/elementary school, and passed on to intermediate school in Gogrial. Those days were days of anxiety for many bright and promising young people of his caliber, who feared what the future might hold for them. 

Sudan then was about to become the first independent state in Africa, which meant for southern Sudan that a short time was left for the imposition of Arab-Islamic culture on its people, and on the entire Sudanese people, to be culturally integrated into Arab-Islamic identity and culture against their diverse indigenous Sudanese and African identity and cultures. So, southern Sudan had to start preparing for resistance. 

3. Joining the Anya-Nya National Army   

After many years of pursuing his education, Kerubino abandoned his school and went to join the southern Sudanese revolutionaries who mutinied against Khartoum in August 1955 in Torit town, to fight for an independent southern Sudan. He joined the Anya-Nya National Army in 1964, after the Khartoum government made a decision to short down all schools in the south. He received militarily training and became a brave soldier and a valiant fighter in the ranks and filesof the Anya-Nya National Army. 

After the Southern Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM), the political wing of the Anya-Nya, under the leadership of Joseph Lagu Yanga, signed the Addis Ababa Peace Agreement with the government of Sudan, in March 1972, under the leadership of President Jaafar Mohamed Nimeiri, Kerubino was absorbed into the Sudanese Army, with many of his Anya-Nya colleagues and comrades, in accordance with the provisions of the Addis Ababa Peace Agreement.

4. Kerubino’s personality

Kerubino Kuanyin Bol was a handsome, tall and slim young man. He was not as dark in color as many southern Sudanese in his area. His skin color was mixed between black and brown. He had a thick hair. As a young man, he walked in pride, egotism and strength of his youthfulness. He was very satisfied of himself, and he hated insult and humiliation. If he was insulted and humiliated, the offender would be met with strength, power and glory that did not accept bending. 

So, his arm was strengthened, and he emerged out amongst his peers as a young man who hated humiliation, indignity and extremely strong, in Mayen-Abun, Wunrok Adiang, Gogrial and Kuajok. Just as he hated humiliation in his everyday social life, he also abhorred humiliation and injustice by Khartoum governments in the north against his people in the south later, so he fought valiantly to liberate his people from Jallabadomination.  

When he joined the Anya-Nya National Army and received military training in his early youthful life, he was a brilliant, flamboyant southern Sudanese soldier, who was happy with being a soldier who could pull a gun trigger. He was always ready to hit someone who insulted him or his relatives or friends with his hand. But when he became a soldier with his finger on a gun trigger, he did not hesitate to shoot at those who insulted, angered him, or violated his orders. He nicknamed himself (Ma’ngok), and he became famous by this name amongst the SPLA soldiers, especially amongst the Red Army, who loved him very much and admired him the most.

The true meaning of this nickname was taking pride in himself and his nature as a strong and tough soldier. This name is driven from the word (Ngok) in Dinka language, and ngok is a fish (catfish) with three sharp spines: two on its sides and one on its back, which is extremely painful to stab. The meaning of this nickname for Kerubinowas that if he stabs a person, the pain of his stab remains extremely excruciating. 

He was a soldier and a warrior who was not afraid to enter battles and feared no one, and he played his role as a fighter in the wars that were waged by southern Sudanese to restore their dignity and liberate their homeland from the tyranny of central governments in the north. Kerubino emerged and outshined in the war as a kind of a man who was needed in that era, by the testimony of many at the time. He loved the people and the land of southern Sudan so dearly. He had never discriminated or distinguished between southern Sudanese on tribal and ethnic or regional basis. He was for fairness, unity of southern Sudanese and waging the war of liberation against the north. 

One of the things he is remembered for today, is firing the first bullet on May 16, 1983 against the enemy, an act which sparked the second Sudanese revolution, marking the second round of civil war in the Republic of Sudan, in the underdeveloped southern region and the rest of the marginalized Sudanese areas like Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile (Ingessana) and Darfur. 

5. The clandestine movement and the revolution in 1980 

In a radio interview, that was conducted with him after he escaped the prison in 1992 while in Uganda, under the protection of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), Kerubino recounted that he was the true founder of the political movement that led the revolution, which was later known as SPLM/SPLA. 

Looking at his statement critically, one suppose that his statement came out in such a way because there was a great debate within the Movement, between the intellectuals and the soldiers whose educational level did not go beyond the intermediate and secondary school; which led to arguments, sophism and fallacies within the SPLM/SPLA between those who did not had a chance to acquire advanced education, and those who had a chance to obtain academic degrees; and who became elites, theorists and thinkers, about who is the true founder of the SPLM/SPLA with his ideas, theses, and diplomatic relations with the regional and external world by the educated elites. 

Kerubino considered himself as a true founder of the Movement and its army, by the virtue of being the first man to shoot at the enemy in Bor and continued fighting; and beside this, his involvement in the clandestine movement with his fellow officers in the Sudanese Army for the birth of a new political movement to lead the war of liberation. Strange enough, the argument over who is the true founder of the SPLM/SPLA continued then until today. 

The author, Mr. Dengdit Ayok, is a South Sudanese journalist, writer, poet and political commentator. He be reached by dengditayok88@gmail.com

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