A brief Account of Why the SPLM/SPLA Took Up Arms Against the Khartoum Regime in 1983

A brief account of why the  Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army took arms against the Khartoum regime in 1983

16^th May 2003: The 20^th Anniversary Celebration for the Sudan Community, St. Josephine Bakhita Formation Centre/Minor Seminary, Kitale-Kenya

By William Tim Monybuny, Kitale, Kenya

Wednesday, 17 August 2022 (PW) — Distinguished Guests, Ladies, and gentlemen: It is a great honour to take this opportunity on this historic day to give you a brief account of why our noble movement took arms against the Khartoum regime in 1983.

Our current movement, spearheaded by the SPLM/SPLA, has valid historical reasons and references. Historically, from 1899 to 1947, the South and North had separate administrations. Southern Sudan had a community-based military and police force that used to be recruited from the local people. The primary objectives were to protect the Southerners from the slave trade and to put in place some forms of government through local chiefs, although the British District Commissioners were still to be the ultimate authority.

This policy gave the South sleepless nights, doubts, and fear that it was purposely meant to create division. It aroused their suspicion and mistrust of the missionaries and Southern elites who were the products of the mission schools. Because of such challenging development in the South, in late 1947, the North proposed an Advisory Council which excluded the South, which at the time lacked competent representatives.

Distinguished Guests, ladies, and gentlemen: On the contrary, three years later, in 1947, the Southerners produced representatives capable of speaking on behalf of their people when the question of unity was discussed at the Juba Conference. The Civil Secretary, James Robertson, admitted that in that same year the Southerners’ representatives were not inferior in any way to their Northerners’ counterparts in dealing with matters which were discussed.

A year later, self-determination between the Anglo-Egyptian government and the Northern political elite opened and went on unofficially with the Southern representatives left out in all the party agreements of 1953 in which the question of self-determination for Sudan was to be decided. Due to such embarrassment, the Southern representatives boycotted the signing of the agreement.

This did not stop the North. So, they kept on being busy with independence arrangements and the prospects of the final shaking off nearly sixty years of foreign rule and of becoming the new masters in the backward South. Ismail Azhari was then elected Prime Minister by the North Parliament in Jan 1954.

Again, the Southerners did not give up. Despite all the humiliations, they still asked for federation, but it was turned down. Because of all these alleged invincibilities, the South was angry and frustrated and feared the Northern elite’s domination and exploitation. As a result, the Southern political destination was left in their hands, and on the 18th of August 1955, they attacked Torit, and that was how Anyany 1 began. This dragged on until February 1972, when the Addis Ababa Agreement was signed, leading to the establishment of the original government in Juba.

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen: Why war after the Addis Ababa peace agreement, eleven years of relative peace in Sudan? The cause of the war in Sudan after the Addis Ababa Agreement in 1972 is a big question mark that demands a genuine answer from the oppressed and oppressors who began the war to end it and restore peace and stability in Sudan.

The SPLM/SPLA went to war as a response to the oppressed people of Sudan. The objective is to bring radical change to the ideological orientation of the political, social, religious, and economic possibilities that have been manipulated by the minority clique in the North. The SPLM/SPLA went into arms struggle against maladministration and turned down of Addis Ababa Peace Agreement on two dimensions( SPLM Manifesto, 1983).

Political dismantling and its subsequent political crisis

As soon as the government of Khartoum assigned the peace agreement, the minority clique regime quickly rushed to disobey it. The Khartoum regime initiated the policies designed to undermine the agreement as follows:

• The determination of the leadership of the autonomous Southern Region by the minority clique in Khartoum;
• The construction of the Jonglei Canal, especially the plan to resettle two and a half million Egyptian peasants along the canal, This plan led to mass unrest in the South, leaving three students dead and many politicians arrested with the assertion that the “Jonglei Canal will be dug even if it passes through the eyes”, as one of the regional ministers allegedly said!
• Unconstitutional dissolution of the people’s regional assemblies and government in 1980-1983;
• An attempt to redraw the borders between the Northern and Southern Sudan, including the oil areas, the rich agricultural land in Renk, and the nickel and uranium discovered in the South as part of the North
• The decision to build the oil refinery in Kosti instead of Western Upper Nile where oil was discovered in southern Sudan. It was later decided to abandon the Kosti refinery and pump the crude to the port of Sudan for export.
• Deliberate neglect of the South in terms of socio-economic development
• The integration of Sudan and Egypt and the conclusion of the planned defence treaty between the two countries
• The Division of the South into more regions to weaken the Southern using the Roman principle of “ divide and rule”

Distinguished Guests, ladies, and gentlemen: When the above attempts were made by the repressive, oppressive, myopic, and deformed minority clique regime in Khartoum to dismantle the peace agreement on the political front, the ball was thrown at the Southerners. As a result, the patriotically prominent and progressive southern politicians opted for the substitution of the Khartoum regime.

Distinguished guests, ladies, and gentlemen: They organized some oppositional groups to resist the government’s crooked plans, which included:

1. NAM: National Action Movement
2. MTLESS: Movement for Total Liberation of South Sudan
3. CUSS: Council for the Unity of Sudan
4. ECC: Equatoria’s Central Committee

In the end, it was, however, realised that it was not only the Southern Sudan that was feeling the pinch from the oppressive regime in Khartoum but also some parts of Northern Sudan, like the Nuba Mountains, Iggessiana Hill, and Darfur, were feeling the same oppression. These regions, therefore, took advantage of the political crises in the South and organized African-based coups against the Khartoum regime.

The military dismantling of the Addis Ababa Peace Agreement and its subsequent crisis

When the Khartoum regime saw that political dishonouring would not favour their plan, and the Southerners were still strong in the army, the regime initiated the following:

• Absorption of 6000 Anyanya 1 Guarilia of 1872 into the Sudanese armed forces, leaving 32000 to be absorbed into unproductive jobs and under special funds. When the fund was exhausted two years later, these 32000 Ex Anyanya 1 guerrillas were dismissed and left in Limo.
• Integration of the 6000 absorbed Anyanya 1 Guarilias into the rest of the Sudanese army within the South Command This policy was fiercely resisted by the absorbed Anyanya 1 Guarilia and resulted in many mutinies, such as the Akobo incident, led by Vincent Kuany and Corporal Bol Kur.
• The elements of these mutinies combined with some of the dismissed 32,000 ex-Anyanya 1, laid off workers and formed what became Anyanya 2. These elements were dissatisfied with the jobs offered to them by the Northern and Southern bourgeoisie ruling elites. So, the absorbed forces organized two revolutionary plans against the Sudan army, not for the South but for the marginalized people of Sudan.

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen: The first plan was to attack and capture Juba, the capital of the South. This plan was to be executed by battalion 105 with reinforcement from Torit and Kapoeta, while other Anyanya 2 forces were to assemble near Ayod and Pochalla. A democratic socialist government was to be established in Juba and measures were to be taken to assist in transforming the situation in Khartoum.

Surprisingly, Khartoum first attacked, displacing and dislodging battalions 105 and 104 from the bases. The two battalions regrouped and reorganized themselves to wage a protracted war for the total liberation of Sudan. It was the attack launched by Khartoum that made things move. Khartoum attacked Bor and later the Ayoda garrison attacked Khartoum forces that were sent to arrest the commander, Major Kerubino Kuany Bol, which resulted in the battle of Bor on the 16th of May 1983, and later extended to Pibor and Ayod under the command of Major William Nyuon Bany.

All these military engagements caused a wider spread of dissertation in the other units of Southern Sudan and the Northern part as well. An exodus of refugees to the bordering countries by the youth started. Commander John Garang,  Commander Salva Kiir and the rest immediately left and went to the Ethiopian Border Town of Itong. In June, Major William Nyuon Bany arrived and Joined the camp of John Garang, Kerubino Kuany, Salva Kiir and the rest of their colleagues who shared the same ideology with them.

On the 30^th of July 1983, the Manifesto was launched, and the movement was now officially formed. The SPLM/A launched its political and military campaigns against the Khartoum government, which continues up to now!

Long live the SPLA, the Unity of the Sudanese people,

Long live the SPLM

Long Live the SPLA

Victory to the SPLM/SPLA and therefore to the Sudanese people.

SPLM/SPLA shall win!

Thank you for listening.

William Tim Monybuny

On behalf of the Sudanese Community in Kitale, Kenya, May 16, 2003.

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