CDR Kerubino Kuanyin Bol: An Oscillating Legacy between the National Dream and Multiple Camps of Loyalty – Part 2

By Dengdit Ayok, Cairo, Egypt 

Friday, August 28, 2020 (PW) —  CDR Kerubino Kuanyin Bol Deng went on in his radio interview to say that they have had an underground movement since 1980, and that he went to Malakal town in the same year to meet with his fellow officers in the Sudanese army, namely: Salva Kiir Mayardit, Francis Ngor Makiech, Ajuong Makuer, William Nyuon Bany, Arok Thon Arok and others. They held secret meetings, in which they discussed about the revolution and founding a new political movement that would lead the war to separate southern Sudan by the force of arms from the north.

Separation of the south from the rest of the Sudan had always been a national dream of many southern nationalists and leaders, such as AggreyJaden Ladu, Joseph Kuol Amoum, Joseph LaguYanga, Joseph Oduho, Both Diu, Akuot Atem de Mayen, Samuel Gai Tut, Gordon Muortat Mayen, the Southern Front Party and Liberal Party amongst others. 

The idea was conceived in their minds and they took action at that time, as a backlash and repercussion to the political situation that was developing negatively and worsening in Sudan, especially after President Jaafar Mohammed Nimeiri’s statement that the Addis Ababa Agreement was “neither a Holy Bible nor a Holy Qur’an”. This made the political options then for the south very limited, something that the southern Sudanese considered as a violation of the peace agreement signed in Addis Ababa, and as a conspiracy for aborting the realization of their national dream, an independent state in southern Sudan. 

1. Hatching the revolutionary movement

In the meeting, they proposed Elia Duang Arop as the leader of the new movement, a well-educated man who was educated in Britain, and returned to Sudan and worked in the first Southern Sudan Regional Government, and had the required skills and abilities to lead the new political movement. 

Kerubino’s utterances are consistent with those of his widow, Nyandeng Chol Dut, who was recently interviewed during the commemoration of Martyrs’ Day, in which she recalled the start of the revolution in Bor in 1983, and the subsequent events which then led to the war of liberation, in May this year, and the secrets meetings that were held in Malakal.

According to Nyandeng Chol, William Nyuonsuggested in that same meeting another person, Dr. Manyang (his second name not mentioned) a Nuer, to lead the new movement, while ArokThon Arok suggested Dr. John Garang de Mabior, who was sent to study in the United States of America at the time, to lead the new political movement.

Kerubino went to Khartoum to meet Elia DuangArop in 1982 at the Hilton Hotel, and gave him a full explanation about their plan as soldiers to start a revolution, and offered him the idea of ​​being its political leader. Duang Arop commended the idea and the plan, but he was sick and he told Kerubinothat he was going to go to Britain for treatment, and if he returns to Sudan in good health; he will lead the new movement, but Elia Duang Aropreturned to Sudan in a coffin, and he was buried in Wau in 1982. 

After the demise of Elia Duang, the attention of the Sudanese army officers and members of the underground movement turned to John Garang as an alternate leader of their movement. Kerubinohad met Dr. John Garang, who had returned to Sudan at that time in Khartoum. 

After comparison, one found that the details narrated by Kerubino’s widow Nyandeng CholDut in her TV interview, and Kerubino’sstatements in his radio interview consistent with the details that the writer and historian AropMadut Arop recounts in his book. 

When John Garang arrived in Bor town in May 1983, Kerubino welcomed him in the outskirts of Bor as a leader of the revolution with these gentle words:

“Garang, the son of my mother, have you come? Take over the command from here, now. Chagai, my work is finished: give me something to drink and celebrate the start of revolution. Chagai Atem, I said my work is finished here. Let the wise man, Garang of my mother assume the responsibility. Chagai, where is your AK47? Garang will show us how to shoot the enemy”.

Arop Madut Arop, Sudan’s Painful Road to Peace, [p.51] 

2. Commander of Malual-Chat Garrison in Bor

Kerubino was promoted in the Anya-Nya army, as well as in the Sudanese army, after the absorption process till he reached the rank of Major. He was also transferred to many areas in southern Sudan, where he finally settled in Bor town and became the commander of (105) battalion that was stationed in Malual-Chat area, south of Bor town. The battalion (105) and (104) became later the nucleus of the SPLA and was known as Jamus and Muor-muor.  

Kuanyin had already reached the rank of Major in the Sudanese army by the time he was in Bor, and a member of the underground movement that was organizing, mobilizing and preparing to lead the war again against Khartoum. The military force in Bor was deployed in three areas within the town: Malual-Chat in the south, the airport to the east, and Langbar to the north.

On May 16, 1983, Kerubino shot the commander of the military force coming from Juba to arrest him as part of the government’s arrangements to quell the rebellion that occurred in the ranks and file of the army due to delay of salaries, according to the government accounts, in a battle that broke out early in the morning that day, until ten in the morning. That commander who came from Juba to arrest Kuanyin, was the first to fall in that war which took place in the garrison of (105) battalion, with the first bullet fired at him by Major Kerubino Kuanyin Bol personally, and that was the beginning of the revolution that the SPLM/SPLA led later for twenty-two years.

Colonel John Garang, a member of the underground movement and a high-ranking officer in the Sudanese army, was present in the town in Langbar residential area when the war broke out in Bor, after he arrived in Bor from Khartoum via Juba. At ten o’clock in the morning, Major Kerubino was hit by bullets, sustaining serious wounds, and he was straightaway evacuated to receive treatment outside the town somewhere close to the River Nile. Kerubino suffered consecutive fits of coma after being transported out of the town. 

The battle continued shortly after he was taken out of the town, but the forces he was commanding withdrew from the town. Kerubino did like the withdrawal of his colleagues from the battle. He wanted Bor captured and brought under their control. He was not sure of his survival as he was suffering from consecutive bouts of coma, according to his wife’s testimonies, so he recommended to his wife Nyandeng Chol Dut that she should tie his body to a heavy object and throw it into the River Nile, if he died of his wounds, for he did want his body to be used as a sign of defeat by Jallaba. But he did not die despite the suffering and fainting spells. 

John Garang accompanied by a number of his soldiers and his family, left Bor town and headed towards the east to Kongoor. And from there to the Sudanese-Ethiopian border, where he was flown by the Ethiopian authorities in a helicopter to Addis Ababa, after the members of the clandestine movement – the National Action Movement – who were still in Khartoum, informed the Ethiopian Embassy in Khartoum about him and his whereabouts, as recounted by two writers and historians: Arop Madut Arop and Edward Lino Abyei in their books.

3. Accusation, arrest and detention 

Soldiers had arrived in Ethiopia from Akobo in the year 1975 under the command of Lieutenant Vincent Kuany Latjor, a Nuer, and Corporal James Kur Bol Alangjok and Thaan Nyabil (the duos: James Bol Kur and Thaan Nyabil) are  from Collo. Bernard Bakam, from Anyuak, and Joseph Mubarak from the Nuba Mountains, after their rebellion which took place in Akobo that year, and which was later on known as Anya-Nya (II). They founded military training camps in the village of Bilpam inside Ethiopia.

After the fighting that took place in Bor and the withdrawal of the military force that fought there, John Garang arrived in Ethiopia. At that time, the two high-ranking officials who formerly held ministerial positions in Joseph Lagu’s regional government, and members of the ten-year underground movement that had been formed during the autonomous period in southern Sudan, Samuel Gai Tut and Akuot Atem de Mayen had arrived in Ethiopia before the outbreak of the revolution in Bor shortly. They apparently knew what was going to happen.

Instead of joining the Anya-Nya (II) forces that Lieutenant Vincent Kuany had led to Ethiopia since 1975, with their support and assistance, they established a separate camp in Bukteng village. Samuel Gai Tut thought that he had always had great efforts in forming the second Anya-Nya movement during the ten-year peace period, and that he would automatically become the head of the political wing of the Anya-Nya (II) movement upon his arrival in Ethiopia with Akuot Atem de Mayen and William Abdallah Chuol as members of his leadership, according to Arop Madut Arop.

Therefore, he approached Gordon Kong, commander of the Anya Nya (II) forces in Bilpam, to reach an agreement with him to be the president, but Gordon Kong refused to be a soldier who received orders from the politicians. GaiTut’s and Akuot Atem’s supporters who poured into Bukteng village were predominantly Nuer.

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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