SPLM MUST RESPOND TO POPULAR ASPIRATIONS
by Majok Yak Majok,

Extract from page 9 of the Sudan Mirror, Nairobi/Kenya of 14th-24th February 2008

The advent of peace in the Sudan and signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) has ushered in a new era of stability, socio-economic and cultural development. The road is long, tortuous and marred with uncertainties towards CPA implementation. Let me pause a bit and define Nationalism. By simple English Dictionary definition, it is the desire by a group of people who share the same race, culture, language and others to form an independent country or simply the love and wishing of well-being to one’s country.

What shaped Southern Sudanese Nationalism during the pre and post independence

period was the desire to rule themselves and their region but this was denied. In August 1955, just a year before independence in 1956, Southern soldiers mutinied in the town of Torit. They sacrificed their lives there and the rest fled to the bush. The seeds for the long struggle were sown. In the immediate post independence period, Sudanization of the civil service posts after the departure of the British was dominated by Northerners, even in Southern Sudan.

This created great suspicion as to the intentions of the North towards the South. Southern politicians began campaigning vigorously for federation. The few schools in the South at the time became restive. The Northern elite, realizing the situation would spin out of control, handed the then civilian government to the military in 1958, establishing Aboud’s military regime. A dark dawn had set-in for the people of Southern Sudan as the fascist regime began to institute repressive policies in the Sudan in general and in the South in particular. No dissenting voices were permitted. An Islamist, Arabist agenda was unleashed on Southern Sudan. The medium of learning was changed from English to Arabic. Koranic Schools cropped up all over South Sudan, with the dreaded Northern merchants controlling trade in the South, The missionaires who were running the few schools in the South were expelled in 1962, leaving a critical vacuum in education and evangelical work. In 1960, eight Southern Sudanese intellectuals, seven from Equitoria and one from Bahr El Ghazal, William Deng Nhial, deserted their positions and entered Uganda, the war of liberation had begun.


I will not dwell much on details of this war led by the Anyanya Movement, than to say it promoted the cause of Southern Sudan even further. In 1972, the war came to an end after the signing of an agreement called the Addis Ababa Agreement granting autonomy to people of Southern Sudan. It was a reasonable accord that gave the region a relative peace for 10 years but it also had its weaknesses. President Numeiry, who helped bring about the accord, set up a government in Juba but sat in its shadow. Political wrangling, party rivalries, the rising discontent at the time, and the domineering attitude of the North, essentially helped reduce the life span of that government. He ( Numeiry) provided music to this government to which they danced and danced to his tune. He enjoyed it all. In the end, he abrogated the agreement. It died and the scavengers took the coffin to an unknown destination.


The Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) war and the concluded CPA is the principle of the Southern and the marginalized people’s struggle. Is it through bashing the North that qualifies Southerners as nationalists ? Our people have fought and sacrificed their lives for their country in order to regain their rights, dignity and freedom. Taking bashing as one of the components of nationalist expression, then the armed struggle is a stronger component of nationalist expression that renders bashing per se simplistic. Concerning rocking the boat, major wars that have been fought either ended in defeat or in victory or the arrival at negotiated settlement. During the SPLA war, there was an internal, armed opposition of local forces, supported by the North and Northern onslaught on the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM) for 22 years. Natural laws taught to us indicate that a force equal to and opposite to the one above must have been exerted by the SPLA, thereby reaching a threshold enabling it to survive up to the Naivasha peace accords. Suggesting mercy on the side of the National Congress Party (NCP) in Khartoum or other internal armed groups on the SPLA is hard to entertain.


Sensing the mood of the people here in Southern Sudan, it was the most popular move after signing of the CPA. There was a general concern about the slow pace of CPA implementation, delayed ministerial changes in the Government of National Unity (GONU) and the SPLM performance and the discipline of its members. The war in Darfur and conduct of policies especially international politics, on Darfur, headed by Dr Lam Akol, an SPLM member left much to be desired. The SPLM, posing as the champion of the cause of the marginalized in Sudan, should be seen working towards that vision. The woes of Dr Lam are not about his abilities and capabiliries, but should be seen in the light of party adherence and keeping within its guidelines. The walk out from GONU signified a revisit to the grass root. The SPLM must work according to the aspiration of its base. Loss of touch will affect the SPLM’s showing in the upcoming polls in the year 2009 and that will have political consequences. The SPLM must keep its vision, the provision of strategic plans, stewardship, guidance, unity, CPA implementation and democratic transformation.


The area of Abyei [where oil is found today], known as the area of nine Ngok Chieftainships, is very well known to its neighbours to the South and West. In the not too distant past, cattle herders from Aweil East area, some parts of Gogrial and Twic, used to migrate to Ngok, using its western corridor every year around October, avoiding seasonal flooding behind them. They roamed the whole length and breadth of Ngok, they knew the names of the Ngok cattle camps, including the boundaries of their Chieftainships. Their songs are rich with the names of these cattle camps. When we used to go to school in Khartoum, in the late sixties and seventies, we knew where we came into contact with Messiria villages.


Messiria nomads used to and still go to Ngok in the dry season, in search of pasture. The drought of the 1970s and beyond made the area of Ngok even environmentally vulnerable

and the Messiria extended their search of pasture further southwards into deeper swamps.


The author is the Under Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Juba, South Sudan, Government of South Sudan ( GoSS).

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