Working for your enemy is not bad if you do not misbehave like your enemy
By Kuach Deng, Calgary, Canada
Tuesday, 09 April 2024 (PW) — It was during the holy month of Ramadan when a Southern Sudanese man working as a police officer under the NCP government rescued a Southern Sudanese breastfeeding woman who had been illegally arrested and accused of brewing and selling alcohol, a crime that could have sent her to Omdurman federal prison for at least 6 months, with a monetary fine and painful 40 lashes.
This ordeal occurred on a Friday, the holy day in the fasting month of Ramadan, when the police officers in charge of law enforcement dispatched a crew of 15 policemen in 3 cruisers. During Al Bashir’s rule, brewing alcohol in the so-called Islamic State was haram and punishable by law, resulting in police forces raiding suspected Southern Sudanese residents, mostly in displaced camps and shanty areas around Khartoum city.
That evening, the 3 police cruisers in black color sneaked into the area, parked in an undisclosed location, and started to raid family homes to catch hustling women and their clients red-handed. The unfortunate victim was arrested with evidence of selling alcohol, and her clients were drinking in her backyard. The police ordered all the suspects and squeezed them into a fully packed mobile jail truck, forcing everyone to hold their evidence until they reached the police station.
Once at the police headquarters, an investigation began, and the suspects were put into separate jail cells for men and women. The police officers celebrated their heroic arrest of “pagans” who wanted to ruin the holy Islamic month of Ramadan with forbidden alcohol, and they went home that night cheerful, hoping to resume their work the next court day to send these “infidels” to hell on earth for committing unforgivable sins in an Islamic country.
The Southern Sudanese police officer, however, went home and spent his evening happily with his family and friends. Sadly, at midnight, he couldn’t sleep normally because he was haunted by the victim, the woman who had left her one-month-old baby with an 8-year-old sister as the only babysitter or caregiver. Immediately, he woke up and never slept again until the morning.
Driven by a desire to save the woman, the officer plotted a plan and, in the early morning, convinced his colleagues to help free the innocent woman, which they all agreed to. The officer pulled the woman aside from the other inmates and told her his plan, which she agreed to and thanked him for. The plan was to empty the jerry can and fill it with water, then have the woman deny that she had alcohol, claiming she was in the wrong place at the wrong time when the police raided her sister’s house.
When the case went to court, the officer presented his “evidence” of arresting the woman with a large jerry can full of alcohol. However, when the judge asked the woman to respond to the accusation, she stood up and said that the house was not hers, and she was merely passing by to get water when the police raided her sister’s place. She insisted the jerry can contained water, not alcohol.
The judge ordered the jerry can to be opened and checked, and to everyone’s surprise, it was indeed filled with water. Immediately, the judge freed the lady on the spot and blamed the officer for arresting an innocent person.
The grateful woman refused to leave the court premises until the end of the proceedings to express her heartfelt thanks to the young police officer for his heroic actions. When she finally met him, she said, “Ya walidi Sukren lakini! Ita gee amalu shuno hini ma jalaba? Ruha saadu John Garang Ashan ito bithaluo baled ta nina” (My son, thank you, but what are you doing here in the Jalaba government? Why don’t you go help John Garang to liberate our country, South Sudan).
The officer replied, “No worries, but I am here to help people who are oppressed by Jalaba like you. Let John Garang fight Jalaba in the jungle, and I will fight my war here, and we will meet in the middle and liberate South Sudan. Therefore, working for your enemy is not bad if you do not misbehave like your enemy.
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