CDR Kerubino Kuanyin Bol: An Oscillating Legacy between the National Dream and Multiple Camps of Loyalty – Part 3

By Dengdit Ayok, Cairo, Egypt 

Sunday, August 30, 2020 (PW) —  Akuot Atem de Mayen installed himself as the chairman of the new movement and appointed Samuel Gai Tut as his deputy, while Colonel John Garang was appointed as chief of staff of the army, and this was the beginning of the division between the revolutionaries into groups including the (Bilpam group) later led by Vincent Kuanyand the (Bukteng group) led by Akuot Atem and Samuel Gai Tut, and the (Adura village group) led by John Garang. This split led to a deadly power struggle, which later ended with the assassination of both Samuel Gai Tut and Akuot Atem de Mayen. 

The disagreement was also ideological in nature, as Garang wanted a new united, democratic, secular and Marxist-Leninist Sudan, that is based on communist theories of historical materialism and dialectics, which is a philosophy of reaching the truth by discovering the contradictions contained in the opponent’s reasoning, and by overcoming them; while Samuel Gai Tut, AkuotAtem and others were separatists, who wanted to fight for the separation of southern Sudan as an independent state in the region and Africa.

After the arrival of Kerubino Kuanyin and William Nyuon Bany Machar to Ethiopia, they learned that Akuot Atem had appointed himself as head of their new movement and appointed GaiTut as his deputy; they became enraged and waged a war against them, which resulted into the assassination of Samuel Gai Tut and Akuot Atemin 1984. 

John Garang remained the Chairman of the SPLM and Commander-in-Chief of the SPLA, and Kerubino Kuanyin as Deputy of the SPLM Chairman and Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the SPLA, while William Nyuon Bany Macharbecame the Chief of Staff of the SPLA, Salva Kiiras Deputy Chief of Staff for Security Operations, and Arok Thon Arok as Deputy Chief of Staff for Administrative and Logistical Affairs, and others. Captain Salva Kiir Mayardit arrived in Ethiopia together with Lieutenant Colonel Francis NgorMakiech after their rebellion and their attempt to control Malakal town in 1983, while William Nyuon the commander of (104) battalion led a revolt in Ayod.

In 1986, after the overthrow of President Gaafar Mohamed Nimieri, Sudanese peace efforts continue, and another attempt to bring peace took place, this time at one of the former emperor Haile Selassie’s old residences at Koka Dam in Ethiopia. Along with Awad El Karim Mohamed, Secretary-General of the National Alliance of the Sudan, Kerubino countersigned the declaration as “Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the SPLA and Deputy Chairman of the SPLM provisional Executive Committee”. 

1. Simmering Dissatisfaction within the movement

In 1987, Kerubino Kuanyin led the SPLA forces northwards, commissioned by Colonel Dr. John Garang, and succeeded in achieving glorious military victories and seizing a series of towns in southern Blue Nile, including Kurmuk, Gisan and other areas. He had reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel at the time as Deputy SPLM Chairman and Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the SPLA.

The SPLM/A at that time was internally simmering and dissatisfied with the way John Garang was managing its internal affairs. There were no regular meetings of the leadership. Skeptical incidents took place such as internal anger over the killing of Benjamin Bol Akok and complaints from people who come from Bahr El-Ghazal region that they had been marginalized by the leader of the movement, John Garang. They had alleged that John Garang was favoring his own people from Bor by appointing them into key positions in the Movement, in addition to many other charges, allegations, accusations and claims. 

Kerubino was the main speaker on the marginalization issues of the sons of Bahr El-Ghazal within the movement, and he delivered a speech to the army in Blue Nile in which he spoke about this issue. It was said that his successive defeats of government forces in Blue Nile made him aspire to seize the leadership of the SPLM and its army by overthrowing Colonel John Garang, which was believed to be a plot against Garang. 

He was therefore deceived by inviting him from the war front to the leadership meeting in Ethiopia, so he left the battlefront and went to Ethiopia. When he arrived there, he was arrested and thrown into prison on the orders of the Chairman and Commander-in-Chief John Garang. He spent six uncomfortable years in the roving guerrilla prison from (1987 – 1992). 

Here the observers can notice that Lieutenant Colonel Kerubino Kuanyin Bol withdrew, shifted and transferred his military subordination and political loyalty from John Garang for the first time to himself, for he was ambitious to become a military and political leader of the SPLM/A, due to being unhappy with the liberation policies within the SPLM.

2. Escaping and joining the dissidents

The splinter of the SPLA Chief of Staff, Commander William Nyuon Bany Machar, from the SPLM/A at the end of 1992, provided peace for the political detainees John Garang ordered to be imprisoned a chance to escape. The schism of Commander William Nyuon Bany was a golden opportunity for Lieutenant Colonel KerubinhoKuanyin Bol, Martin Majier Gai, Kawac MakueiMayar, Joseph Malath Lueth, Arok Thon Arok, Amon Mon Wantok, Martin Makur Aleyou, and all the political prisoners to escape. The detention center was opened on the orders of William Nyuon, and all the political detainees, including Kerubino, escaped. 

Kuanyin Bol and Nyuon Bany were close friends, united by their love for themselves, for being brave soldiers with boldness, valor and a common military temperament. They lived in the same neighborhood and were only separated by a wall separating their houses. They had often spent time together in Itang, wearing military uniforms, under heavy security guard, armed with all kinds of weapons that the SPLM/A had obtained in the 1980s.

After his prolonged arbitrary detention, Kerubinoescaped with a number of former SPLA commanders from southern Sudan to Uganda in late 1992, where they were recognized as refugees. From there they made their way to Kenya, where they joined a breakaway faction from the SPLA, formed in August 1991, and led by the former SPLA Commander, Riek MacharTeny Dhurguon, a political movement which was later called the Southern Sudan Independence Movement and its military wing, the Southern Sudan Independence Army, (SSIM/SSIA). 

Here the observer can also notice that Lieutenant Colonel Kerubino Kuanyin gave up his loyalty to himself and his previous idea of becoming a military and political leader, leading a political movement and its army, and offered his loyalty to another leader who broke away from John Garang. This here is to be considered as a shift or swinging and fluctuation in ideas between continuing the fighting for the achievement of the national dream, and relocation of political and military loyalty camps by the late Commander KerubinoKuanyin Bol.

3. Gogrial, the main stronghold 

After his oscillation between the idea of becoming a leader and joining the dissidents in Kenya, Lieutenant Colonel Kerubino Kuanyin returned to southern Sudan, and began to recruit the sons of Bahr El-Ghazal into the ranks of his SPLM/SPLAfaction. He was still using the name: Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Sudan People’s Liberation Army [SPLM/SPLA], because he considered himself as its true founder and leader. He was its Chairman and an overall Commander of its forces. His friend and colleague Faustino Atem Gualdit, a former soldier in the paratroopersarmy unit during President Jaafar Nimeiri’s era, was his deputy, and other officers such as MechamAtem, Madut Cyer Rehan, Machar Bol Yai and many others who were with him.

But the majority of Bahr El-Ghazal’s sons in Gogrial, Aweil and Tonj refused to join him because they saw him as a renegade and a defector fighting against the SPLM/A, led by John Garang and Salva Kiir. The people of Bahr El-Ghazal adhered to their loyalty to John Garang and his leadership, and on this basis, they fought against Kerubino in Abyei, Mabior Angui and other areasin Twic Mayardit: Mayen-Abun, Turalei, AbyinDau, Wunrok Adiang and Gogrial town, which Kerubino took as his headquarters of his political leadership; and a military base from which he launched his successive military offensives in the SPLA controlled areas under John Garang around Gogrial from (1993 – 1997).

The Sudanese government dealt with Kerubino as a friendly force, because he belonged to RiekMachar, but he had had differences with RiekMachar and fell out with him in 1994. RiekMachar dismissed him from his rebel forces, so he re-allied with the Sudanese government separately from Riek Machar’s camp. 

Here the observer can also notice that Commander Kerubino Kuanyin became an independent commander of his forces after his disagreement with Riek Machar, and became loyal to the National Islamic Front (NIF) Government in Khartoum, and here he shifted the camp of loyalty from Machar to Khartoum directly. He had reached the rank of Major General after his alliance with the Sudanese government. There was power struggle between him and Riek Machar.

When Major General Kerubino learned in Gogrialthat the civil leaders, the chiefs who represented the native civil authority in Gogrial, Twic, Abyei, Aweil and Tonj, unanimously agreed to boycott him on the basis that he was allied with the Arabs whom John Garang and Salva Kiir were fighting against, and that they had prevented the youth from joining him, he implemented three dangerous policies: The first one was compulsory recruitment for the people of Bahr El-Ghazal into his army and movement. The second one was the declaration of “scorched-earth policy” in the region. And the third one was starvation policy to starve the citizens in the northern parts of Bahr El-Ghazal, especially in Gogrial region, which includes Apuk, Kuac, Aguok, Awan Chan Nyal, Awan Moun Ring, and Twic Mayardit to coercethem to join him. 

His three policies were relatively successful, and he was joined by many of those who were arrested by his forces in the villages and forcibly recruited, and some SPLA soldiers who committed crimes in the areas that were under the control of the SPLA led by John Garang, joined Kerubino’s forces in Gogrial to escape punishment.

Many youth had joined him during the five years (1993 – 1997) in the areas of Gogrial: Twic, Awan, Apuk, Aguok and Kuac. Fierce wars were fought in the area, in which thousands of citizens died, and those who survived were subjected to severe coercion to join him or get displaced. Kerubinosoon became a striking force in the area and a threat to the presence of the SPLA around Gogrial. The “scorched-earth policy”, “forced conscription” and “starvation policy” continued by plundering the citizens’ possessions: cows, sheep, goats, corns and other crops that the citizens depend on in their livelihood and survival. 

Many citizens in the villages around Gogrial at that time resorted to a trick of digging the ground and hide their corns therein, in order to preserve it from looting by Kerubino’s army and for the fulfillment of their needs for food; because storing it in their homes did not help, but the new joiners who joined Kerubino’s camp as a result of duress, repression and defeat, divulged this secret amongst his army; so his soldiers went out in big numbers and plundered corns and sorghums that the citizens had hidden in the ground, and carried it to Gogrial town. This was done in all villages around Gogrial.

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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