That Garang’s people should reciprocate to follow President Salva Kiir Mayardit. I have heard this cheap argument before from people who are educated who should be more politically informed.

These questions should bring your conscience to live before I put my option forward:

1. Did the liberation struggle by South Sudanese start with Dr. John Garang’s era?
2. Did Dr. John Garang fight a personal war?
3. In any case, if Garang’s people have to pay for whatever went wrong in the liberation struggle, then why didn’t they inherit leadership?

As one reels with the above questions, I would like to state my hunch on this emotive subject as follow.

First of all, when Dr. John Garang led the liberation struggle, he did it as a national leader nominated by his peers to lead liberation of his people. There was nowhere or time where people of Twi or Bor were consulted if they approved of Garang’s leadership of the movement. Instead, he had an adversary from his community in the person of Akuot Atem de Mayen… who had different political lineup and approach in mind. Uncle Akuot Atem did not make it..and that was treated as a consequence of his political decision. He died in the hands of SPLM/A and Anya Anya II men. No community took responsibility or offense in his demise apart from personal grieve to loss of his dear life and his potential contribution to the movement. Akuot’s sons remained in the lines of liberation struggle. In fact, I remember his son singing with us, a song that derided Akuotdit. To him, I presume, the vision of Dr. John Garang was stronger than his tribulation presented by the fate that had befallen his father. That was true for most liberators who fell out of favor with the SPLM/A. Their kins and kith stayed true to the cause of liberation struggle. The cause was greater than individual’s predicaments. Moreover, no one had exception in the liberation except those who had chosen to stay by the fence in their comfort to be liberated. Dr. John Garang had his biological brothers, Deng Mabior and Malual Mabior, fighting in different fronts of the New Sudan. I do not think they or any other South Sudanese fought because their brother, relative or acquaintance was in leadership of the Movement. They had contextualized liberation in their own terms..and were thanking Dr. John Garang like most other Sudanese for having articulated the vision, led the war and provided logistics at no cost on our future. And indeed, Dr. John Garang did that without a favour on himself, for the benefits of presidency never acrued to him, his immediate family and or his community.

Yes, uncle Arok Thon Arok, Majier Gai Ayuel and many junior officers from Garang’s constituency found themselves at odd with the movement for reasons that were personal or institutional. They were not treated differently. In fact, Salva Kiir, carried out their arrests. Something that cannot be done today, given how being from President’s family or lineage makes one qualify for presidential treatment.

Garang and by extension, his community never saw the liberation struggle or its agenda as their own. Instead, Dr. Garang saw himself duty-bound to liberate his people not for his benefit but to engender a foundation of a society that avails opportunities to its people without institutionalized constrictions to them, by way of laws or perceptions of their origins, faith, look or creeds. This was system being perpetually advanced and imposed on our people by our archenemies.

So, instead Garang did South Sudanese a favour by liberating them not the other way. A forbearance being begged from him to get them to see the lights of freedom. As Lualdit one time insinuated that Garang was being gaurded so that he could not abandon that weighty responsibility before him. We all knew it, it was Garang and only him in those prevailing circumstances that could liberate us. Now, we have a head of State, National Ministers, Managing Directors of Oil Companies, Millionaires and so forth, thanks be to Dr. John Garang who made this happen.

Any bothersome cheap talk therefore, which insinuates that anybody did Dr. John Garang a favour by following him in the bushes during liberation struggle is foolhardy. Others have even gone further to imply that if President Salva Kiir did not stand with Garang, the movement would have run-out of fuel and crashed on its face. This is simply not untrue. Instead, if Salva Kiir did not stick with Garang, he would not be the President of the Republic of South Sudan. He would have come back to negotiate his reintegration as a militia leader of some kind of outfit with his head down in shame. Commander Salva was never more priced than Kerubino Kuanyin Bol, William Nyuon Bany, Arok Thon or Martin Majier Gai or even Dr. Riek and Dr. Lam. He just happened to be another member of Political Military High Command. He would have been replaced by another more competent officer, for example. Therefore, his responsibility as a head of State cannot be discounted because of his participation in the liberation struggle.

Without sense of contradiction, I would like to state that, no one followed Dr. John Garang as a son of Awulian, Patem, Pan de Ayen. Neither because he was a son of Gak Malual Kuol, Kongor, Padol, Pareng. Not at a glimpse would it be because he was from Twi, Bor or a Dinka. It was his vision and articulation of freedom agenda on behalf of the oppressed that precipitated loyalty and stamina to follow him. Any predisposition otherwise is opportunistic and naive of those that have hijacked people’s cause. Different groups of people had different liberation goals that took them to Ethiopia. Dr. Garang instead coalesced all these predicaments into a bigger cause to address those pigeonholes of injustices.

For example, Anya Anya II led by Bagat Aguek were protesting killings of their own people with impunity by the Misirya and untamed continuous encroachment on their ancestral land. People of Mading Aweil went to Ethiopia to acquire guns to protect themselves against maralhiin, people of Bor went to Bongo to get guns to protect themselves against marauding Murle militias. Panruu and Nuer of Bentiu went to Bilpham to get guns to guard themselves and their properties against Rizigat that were being used as proxies to displace them to create space for Oil exploration and name many more. The elites and students who were politically informed protested different mistreatments of South Sudanese in urban centres. That caused them to flee to Ethiopia in search for arms to turn around state of their perceived or real grievances. Non of them went to Ethiopia to certain Dinka man in the name of Dr. John Garang.

For the record, the movement was first dominated by Nuer followed by Bor and then Apadang upon arrival of 104 and 105 at Ethiopian borders to join elements of Anya Anya II mostly from Nuer, Shilluks and Apadang.

Upon training and graduation of Jamus and Tiger, Bor took numbers superiority which was consolidated by 11,000 recruits that became part of Koryom. The other 2,000 in Koryom mainly came from Bailiet, Panruu, Nasir, Bentiu, Akobo, and Malakal (Shilluks) of Upper Nile.
Anya Anya II fall out with SPLM/A later affected mobilization from Nuer communities in general. It was however reversed after integration of Gordon Koang Chol in 1988.
The 200 students that came with Lual Diing Wol to join Tiger and Jamus, and few Anya Anya II with Peter Bol Ayomnok were the first representatives from Aweil. A good number of students led by ustadh Daniel Ayual Makoi from Rumbek and Yirol responded to the call for liberation to join Tiger and Tumsah. Bol Madut and Malong Awan with their militia groups could not cross to Ethiopia until elements of Jamus under the command of Kawac Makuei, Bagat Aguek, Deng Aloor and Peter Bol went to escort them. Aweil and Gogrial swell their numbers significantly upon arrival of 11,000 recruits that became Muor Muor. At the start of the movement, mobilization of peasants had significant response from Aweil because of Maralhiin, Baliet because of Anya Anya II, Bor because of Murle and Panruu and Bentiu because of Rizigats and the rest had to be recruited over time.
That’s a bit of digression.

The reason for these skechy details, is to remind those with unfounded predilection that anybody did a favour to Dr. John Garang by sticking with him during the liberation struggle. Instead, Dr. John Garang was begged by his colleagues in the underground movement to take leadership of the liberation because of his unique exposure both in Anya Anya and in the United States of America. Garang answered to different frustrations that were being experience by South Sudanese at different corners of the country at the time. We owe him a big thank you, because he answered this call with distinction. The same people should stop bothering Garang’s relatives or community that they should follow President Salva because he stood. Instead, they should thank Dr. John Garang and his family, if necessary because, he has made him rule South Sudan, which his own admission, he did not expect.

Dr. John Garang amalgamated our various grievances into a political cause that was translatable and interpretable in geopolitical and global political terms. It won us unrelated and unconditional military support from allies. It finally gave us sovereignty. Garang’himself, did not earn a month’s salary for the first vice President and the President of the Government of South Sudan. He hunted down an animal called freedom from 22 years until it fell..skinned it, had it cooked and handed it over to junubiin.

People started partying in the spoils without recourse of thoughts. Now, like any other party, there’s a responsibility that comes with excesses and someone wants Dr. John Garang’s community on his behalf to bear responsibility..come on junubiin. Connect your consumption with responsibility, and if I may paraphrase Francis Mading et al, ” Take Power as a Responsibility, not just a privilege.”
When you hold power, be responsible to bear the consequences of it. People will call you names and hold you to account for their grievances, because that power is theirs!
That is the meaning of public Responsibility and Accountability.

BY DENG DIAR-MANYOK

THE WOMEN’S FATE IN SOUTH SUDAN ARE IN QUESTION! The Women are the biggest losers in South Sudan, and time and time again they have never learned to change their status economically politically, socially and educationally. A woman carries your little one in the womb for good nine months and once carried you. They gave birth or some died during the process of delivering. Some make it through the process only to have some ruthless raiders take your baby away and you became childless in the blink of an eye. surprisingly, women don’t speak up, come out and stand up for themselves. In such a terrible incident as having your child taken from you, you can lose your husband or brother in the process trying to pursue the abductors and you lose your immediate family and partner on top of the baby. The horror of the brutality and social injustice continues over and over again. nobody can ask nor is willing to investigate the pernicious physical and emotional effects on such barbaric deeds which leads to untold emotional and psychological damages in women and parents. It is very painful to even imagine that we are facing such a corrupt world. your child most likely will be under the influence to continue the cycle of inflicting pain of untold sufferings to other families that could be his/her own blood. The grief and sorrows will never get cured with what is still happening and will carry over still after you are to your own grave. That’s the painful story of a lawless society like South Sudan, which breaks my heart from its instability and insensitivity in relations between its people. the greed for power has reached its peak. Politicians fights for position in Juba, as being appointed at any level in the government has lost all honorability. I resigned my job at the Ministry of Justice because of the corrupt, unstable politics I witnessed. I could see societies were grossly misinformed and misguided about politics. In South Sudan, poor massive populations are fooled to the point the party they align with results in their own death and before that comes about, they are instructed to dig their own graves. They celebrate with no foundation or understanding of the god given, life encompassing principles of happy living. The only people who can mourn your passing on in such a state are those who can overlook the lies and corruption happening. To all South Sudanese communities both at home, in the diaspora and over the entire World. If you are behind the News or don’t have any clue about the ongoing pernicious activities and Fighting happening, as with Families I posted about and mentioned previously who have had their children abducted and responded in the Murlei Land region. The Conflicts are sparked as revenge attacks. The Lou Nuer youths and the other thousands of the post abducted children and wives families members pursuing their abducted children and wives mission resulted to an invasion of Murlei land as Murlei bandits resisted and caused more casualties to the families of abducted children. Once the child is abducted, the situation appears hopeless. The causes or the genesis of the conflict began, on February 15th, 2020 that, the armed Murlei militias had broken into a Church, where two famous Chiefs daughter and son were getting married in the Church, the wedding ceremony was well attended in Lou Nuer village. The Murlei men Suddenly broke into the church and they started to shooting and slaughtering people including the priests. They also slaughtered the groom and they abducted the Newly wed bride. They left dozens of the attendees killed and dead in the Holy place, Murlei raiders took the bride ’s maids and flower Girls and went onward toward Pibor, the Home of criminals. The retaliation followed and that’s what’s sparked the conflict, I don’t blame the Lou Nuer nor the ten of thousand families of the victims who desperately want their beloved abducted girls restored back to them. From the Human rights perspective, Murlei culture of violence and child abduction is the major crime worldwide. You as a young analyst who had not gone to the school of politics can Make your own rational analysis or judgement as Human being, what would you do if you are one of the newly wed couples? I think you would seek justice and as per the fact, the justice in South Sudan is at hands of the Lou Nuer youth and other affected Dinka sections has a rights to pursuing their abducted children, young girls and wives and should come together for the sole purpose of positive change. The second fear now is Anyidi Payam, Jur Palek who is hosting some of Murlei militias youths, wives, children and elderly people is rising and gaining momentum in the Jonglei State. If I we were among Juor Palek leaders including Leekrieth, it’s useless after all to host in my backyard and protect such culprits as IDPS when holding the abducted newlywed bride who became a widow on her wedding day as hostage in Anyidi Land. As an English proverb said that, what’s goes around comes around, I think it’s now a right time for the Murlei ethnic to cease such a barbaric culture of child abduction and reckless killings of other communities Yom Deng Bul Is A South Sudanese Human Rights Activist, she’s Famously Known for her Human Rights Perspectives Concept to Champions the Children’s Rights and Protection In the Republic of South Sudan. Yom Is A Postgraduate from the Prestigious University Of Nairobi, Yom Is a Founder and A Director of Achut Foundation (A.F), the Charitable Entity. She’s Currently residing in the U.S. as Political Asylee and Basing In Manhattan, New York, United States of America. You Can Follow Me On Twitter @ Yom Deng (Winner) And On Facebook @Yom Deng Contact email: yombul2015@gmail.com

Amos Ajak Garang, Police colonel, freedom fighter and famous composer and singer of popular love songs and revolution has died after bravely battling cancer of the throat for a very long time.
Amos Ajak began singing in the late 1950s as a schoolboy at Abwong Elementary School. Abwong to the east of Malakal, the capital of Upper Nile State. Ajak who was born to peasant parents at Pawuoi village in what is today Twi County (Twic East is a misnomer), showed interest in music. That was the time of religious revival among when Ngok Dinka of today’s Bailiet County, when hymn singing was part of that spiritual awakening. Ajak was also a self-taught drummer.
Christian believers of whom some were affiliated to the Presbyterian Church were composing hymns in the vernacular as well as making rendition of martials in which words had to be given biblical terms instead of their original secular lyrics. One of these was “Bäny-dïït de Pinynhom Cɔk Wo Ɣer”, literally, Lord of the World Make Us White [clean].
Today when the SPLA band plays this march, Dinka Christians with no knowledge of the origin of the tune sing it in Dinka, convinced that it is their own chorus that has been adapted by the army. There is a coincidence in this as will be seen later in this appreciation since late Amos Ajak later became choirmaster of the SPLA Band.
Early years
I met Amos Ajak at Atar Intermediate School in 1961 when he was two years my senior. By age, Ajak was much older, probably by seven years.
A quiet, tall and charming youth, nobody remembers having seen or heard Amos Ajak getting into altercation with fellow students or in trouble with school authorities. He was, however, a common figure on school playgrounds as he participated in football, volleyball and Ping Pong as table tennis is known.
Ajak later added Arabic music of Northern Sudanese to his Church-based hymn-singing. He imitated the popular singers of the day, among them Ibrahim Awad, one of the national stars in those days. By lucky coincidence, when the military governor Upper Nile was going by boat up the Nile to open a new hospital in Bentiu in 1961, decided to have a stopover at Atar- 25 miles away from Malakal the provincial capital- where he and his entourage included Ibrahim Awad, disembarked and went straight to the school hall. The young tall, slim and good-looking entertainer offered just one song- a hit at the time- to the students in the company of the headmaster and his teaching staff. The song was “Habibi Janani”- Arabic for “my lover has made me mad [with love”). The free entertainment by the young and popular performer was over. In less half an hour the governor and company were gone to continue their voyage to Adok and then from there by land to Bentiu.
Ibrahim Awad was one the Northern Sudanese singers whose songs Amos Ajak loved to perform to entertain fellow students.
Good at Arabic, both spoken and written, Amos Ajak who was endowed with a melodious voice, would sometimes spend his leisure time singing while seated on the edge of the sandy quay along the White Nile, not far from the school compound. We used the dockside for swimming early mornings and late afternoons when the heat of the day was gradually dissipating.
The turbulent Sixties
The early 1960s were times of political turbulence in the three Southern Provinces of Bahr el Ghazal, Equatoria and Upper Nile. This was the period of the resurgence of the rebellion against the government in Khartoum. Following the takeover of power by the military under General Ibrahim Abboud in 1958, the repressive policies of his regime against the South directly helped rekindle the nationalistic zeal in the then dormant former participants in the Torit mutiny of August 18, 1955 to organise and conduct a guerrilla warfare.
This development that was largely confined to Equatoria Province soon gradually began to engulf the entire Southern Sudan where defections by policemen, civil servants and students helped to swell the ranks of the new insurgency.
After every strike, which were mostly politically motivated, a number of students would be reported missing; they had gone over to the rebels who later adopted the name of Anya Nya, or the snake venom in the Madi language. The most memorable of all those strikes was the 1960 student protests at the government’s decision to turn Sunday, then a day of worship and rest in the South, to a working day, and Friday, the Islamic Sabbath, was officially declared as a day of rest, instead.
In 1962 students all over Southern Sudan and in what was called English pattern (as opposed to “national” schools where Arabic was a medium of instruction) went on strike. After the reopening of schools, a couple of months later that year, a sizeable number of students, especially those aged 16 and above had found their way into the bushes of Southern Sudan to train as guerrilla warriors. Rumbek led the rest of the students in that nationalistic agitation. These young men were to form the nucleus of Anya Nya fighters or scouts. Amos Ajak was one of the students who did not return to school: he had joined the freedom fighters as the rebels were known to their supporters.
But not all who voted with their feet were able to carry guns: weapons were in short supply, and so were food, medicine and clothing. It was decided by the rebel leadership that very young volunteers had to be assigned some roles to play in the war of liberation. Some of those youths were trained as scouts or agents, who were secretly sent to towns to spy on government’s positions and installations, list and keep tabs on the names of Southern Sudanese collaborators with security agents in the Government of Sudan.
In later years, scouts worked closely with chiefs and other traditional leaders to organise food supplies for the fighters or to help in collection of funds that were taken to the Congo for buying weapons from the defeated Simba rebels. The scouts also worked closely with the secret internal cells and assisted nationalists intending to defect to the fighters. Amos Ajak was one of the active scouts in Bor home district, Bor, after returning from the border between Southern Sudan and the Congo, where he had received military training of sorts.
In mid- 1960s the Anya Nya leadership decided that formal education was so important as part of the struggle that some students were allowed to resume schooling.
Amos Ajak returned to town, but unlike most of his comrades, he decided to work in the North where he got a job in a factory. It is to be recalled that some workers contributed parts of their wages for supporting the rebels and the struggle by means collecting money for buying medicine and facilitating couriers. Ajak and his colleagues who worked in the civil service financed the armed struggle via the underground cells in Northern cities, where there was little fear of government spies to uncover their networks and anti-State activities; the bulk of government’s security personnel were concentrated in urban centres of Southern Sudan. The rural population also contributed food and money for the rebels to acquire weapons. At a later stage in the second half of the 1960s young peasants sold some of the livestock, and travelled to the Congo to acquire weapons; some of them underwent military training with Anya Nya, and later participated in pitched battles as well as ambushes, guerrillas’ favourite method.
While in Khartoum North where he worked, Amos Ajak continued his singing as a hobby, receiving no pay for his labour. It was at that time that he composed his famous song “Abängda Yïn Anhiaar”, which became an instant hit when Omdurman Radio, the State broadcaster, began to play it. The lyrics were so moving that some of the listeners were reported to weep when it was being played. With music arranged and supplied by the station orchestra, the song was rated one of the best in languages other than Arabic. Among Ajak became the darling of the youth of both gender.
A rough translation of the name of the song in Dinka goes “I love you our beloved baby”. In fact, “abäng” is a word without a single nearest equivalent in English as the word stands for what one would call typical classical Dinka and very poetical. Without the possessive “da” (our), “abäng” means young, pure, innocent, beloved, pristine, ethereal, seedling, babe, among many others. Paradoxically, the word gets its clear meaning within the context of mourning. In the past, a mother, for instance, who lost a young child would utter heart-rending wail “Abäng-dï mawoou!” repeatedly. “Dï” is possessive for “my”. In this sense “abäng” symbolises the possible best person, idea or object that could be. For one to refer a sweetheart as abäng was to say she was more than darling or even honey. Singing and poetry in Dinka was getting into a new and unchartered territory, linguistically speaking. Amos Ajak was one of the pioneers in the brave new world of spiced metaphors in lyrics.
From a best man to a suitor
Although Amos Ajak had by then established himself as an accomplished composer and singer, with an electrifying voice, he did not give up his job as a factory worker to become a full time performing artist.
A turning point in his personal life, however, happened in 1968 when his friend Kothia Kuany Mabior Juarwel asked him to be his best man at his wedding to Akeer Gak. The bride had her cousin Duoom Arok Goch as her maid of honour.
Those formal relations later mellowed into a firm love between Amos and Duoom, who in less a year became sweet-hearts, wife and husband. In fact, it appears “Abäng-da Yïn Anhiaar” was a courtship song that predated the marriage of the former best man to the former maid of honour. The couples have five daughters and a son, with their own children at the time of Amos Ajak’ passing.
Amos Ajak the cop
Four years after that wedding an agreement that temporarily ended the first civil war was concluded between the government of Jaafar Nimeiri and the rebels of Southern Sudan Liberation Movement, SSLM, and its military wing, Anya Nya. The accord called the Addis Ababa Agreement, had given the former rebels the right to have 6,000 men to be integrated into the regular forces- Army, Police, Prison Service wardens, and Wildlife Department.
The Anya Nya command kept the lists of their sleepers (intelligence jargon for elements belonging to an enemy group operating clandestinely within the territory of their enemy). Some of these secret agents were taken as officers, non-commissioned officers, (NCOs) and men in the new regular forces of the Republic of Sudan. Amos Ajak Garang was absorbed as a sergeant major in the Police force in Juba. He continued to sing to entertain huge gatherings, and always for free. One of these was when he entertained the President of the High Executive Council, Abel Alier, and accompanying VIPs during the inauguration of new studios for Radio Juba in 1975. On that night of celebration, I had the honour of receiving and escorting the VIPs to their seats, a first for me, and which I exceedingly relished.
Rebel for a second time
When the entire Police force under the command of Colonel Makuei Deng Majuch in Bor, the capital of what was Jonglei Province, rebelled in 1984 to join the rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, the SPLA, Amos Ajak Garang was with the force that soon was integrated into the SPLA. Those elements soon took part in battles before they had been given refresher guerrilla tactics or general military training. At the time of his defection Amos Ajak was a sergeant major in the police force.
While in the SPLA, Amos Ajak was waging the liberation struggle using his Kalashnikov rifle as well as his creative mind and golden voice to keep the morale of his fellow combatants high with his inspiring and revolutionary songs.
His comrades and the rest of Radio SPLA listeners fondly remember to this day Ajak’s memorable “Kapoeta”, a song he composed in standard Arabic mainly for the consumption of the oppressors in power in Khartoum.
Ajak composed this expressive cry from the heart after the capture of Kapoeta garrison by the SPLA in later 1980s in a battle in which some of his comrades fell. In part, the songster wonders why he- representing every oppressed and marginalised South Sudanese- should be hungry and naked- metaphorically of course- in his homeland which is very rich in everything. “Asma’ Sauti ana fi Medina Kapoeta” (Hear my Voice in Kapoeta Town) in reality this is and will remain one of the odes to the cause of liberation struggle and its justification.
Poor health
Amos Ajak was not always in good health despite the fact that he had a well built frame. When I met him in Yei after the liberation of that important town a few months earlier in 1997, he was recovering from wounds he sustained after a vehicle he and his colleagues were travelling in had overturned, killing several of them.
During the SPLM-Church dialogue, which resulted in what was later dubbed Kajiko, after the village of that name, and which was the venue of the conference, after which the two bodies endorsed the “Liberation Theology”, I noticed a disturbing trend in the singer: a desire to sing at every interlude. When I privately complained to a mutual friend about what I had observed, he told me that singing was a form of therapy for Ajak. I agreed. That was the last time I saw Amos Ajak Garang.
From that time until the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, CPA, in 2005, Alternate Commander Amos Ajak Garang was the commander of the SPLA Military Band, a position he used not only as a leader but one for training the personnel of the inchoate military organs of prestige and protocols, all symbols of State in the making. The SPLA Military Band plays our national anthem during State functions.
After the end of the armed conflict in 2005, Amos Ajak was one of the former SPLA who became senior officers in the standing Army of Southern Sudan, and later of sovereign South Sudan. His rank of alternate commander was converted into that of a full colonel. He was later transferred and deployed as a colonel in the Southern Sudan Police Service, where he served until his death.
Ties going back to parents
Late Amos Ajak Garang had several ties with me, some which, sometimes take me to my childhood in rural Southern Sudan. As a former school-mate he was both a colleague and friend. I still remember him as a warm sensitive, kindly human being. During the last war of liberation, we were comrades-in arms. We also had blood ties.
We often used to address each other as “Molën”, an abbreviated Dinka slang for “Mɛnh de Malën” or child of mother’s sister, to translate it literally. His biological mother was not sister to my mother, but his wife Duoom’s mother, Gak Bior Aguer Ajang, was a distant cousin of my mother Nyanluak Bior Aguek. Not only were the two girls- my mother and Ajak’s mothr in law- from Paan-Bior clan related by blood; they too were next door neighbours in the Piom de Wun Aguer village. The pair was dancing-mates according to cultural trend of their time: a pair of girls would dance with a pair of young men; the sets were often close relatives or friends.
Gak’s father, Bior Aguer, known universally within the community by his personality ox nickname of Bäny de Aliap was in charge of the luak (cattle byre) that housed the Kongor Wut (group of clans) totem in the form of a drum called Mayom. The custody of the emblem of the divinity and its shrine was the responsibility of Bior Bäny de Aliap. (Godfrey Lienhardt, the famous anthropologist visited the luak while he was passing through the area in the early 1950s. In his book, Divinity and Experience: The Religion of the Dinka, Prof Lienhardt narrates a short incident about his visit to the luak).
Personal link
The totem’s abode was known as Luaŋ de Lɔ̈ɔ̈r (Luang de Loor) or the Byre of the Drum. My mother’s name was derived from this building. Nyanluak in some Dinka communities is a name given to a girl born in a luak. My mother was not; she was named after the Luang de Loor in the neighbourhood of her family’s homestead.
Alas, that place and its spiritual symbols have gone, thanks to the work of modern barbarians, who in the moment of their madness turned the Big Houses into ashes in the 1990s. Misguided Christians with very little knowledge of their newly acquired faith and lacking in tolerance of other people’s faiths and their symbols, they destroyed what would qualify for the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation, Unesco, world ‘s heritage sites and objects.
Adieu Molën
I have learned that late Amos Ajak Garang was going through savage ravages of cancer characterised by constant and relentless excruciating pain and agony to his loved ones. When an end to such a long and painful condition comes and prevails, with no hope of reversal is in sight, the inevitable, although premature and unwanted end, might be welcome, sadly. In the same vein there is bound to be some sort of relief, mixed with deep and sincere sorrow for the loss of such a great person and citizen, who made a difference for the better for their country and its people.
I say: Adieu Molën! and may your memory live on for a very long time to come. You deserve to be missed and remembered by family, comrades-in-arms and all those who yearn for freedom and justice, norms you and your comrades fought for and won. You and fellow freedom fighters fought a good fight and the crown is the independence, which we, including the former turncoats, now enjoy and celebrate.
Colonel Amos Ajak Garang died in Juba in 2013. He was buried at Sherikat, a suburb of Juba on the eastern bank of Supiri as the White Nile is known in Bari. This tribute was published in the Citizen daily newspaper, in Juba the same week he died.

We are going to reflect on the historical struggle for the people of South Sudan in the fight for independence. South Sudanese people from all the corners of the country endured great challenges to create the South Sudan we know today. The SPLM/A-led struggle that steered South Sudan to independence was a culmination of previous struggles.
On 16 May 1983, Battalion 105 mutinied in Bor. This was later echoed by battalions 104, 106, and 107 in Ayod, Pibor, and Kapoeta, respectively. The message of the people’s struggle was later echoed in all marginalised areas of Sudan.
We are going to reflect on this day not as SPLM/A day but as the day South Sudanese people from all walks of life, regardless of religion, ethnicity, or political affiliation, united against injustice and marginalisation.
The focus of our reflection will be on the suffering we all endured during the struggle. Some special guests will share their experiences of the protracted struggle for independence in South Sudan.
The main purpose of this reflection will be to remind ourselves that our collective sufferings and efforts brought us to where we are today. The people who were born on the day Anyanya One took arms in 1956 are now in their early sixties. The people who were born on 16 May 1983 will turn 37 this year. The SPLM/A-promised seeds (child soldiers/red army) are in their forties and are yet to be sowed. The children born on 9 January 2005, when the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed, are now 15 years old and are either growing up in refugee camps or living at the edge of the country. The children born as South Sudanese people voted in a referendum to decide their final destiny from 9 to 15 January 2011 destiny are now 9 years old and are yet to experience South Sudan at peace. South Sudan has lost generations to war, illiteracy, economic exploitation, and more.
To guide our reflection, a set of questions will be drafted and forwarded to those who have expressed interest in the discussion.

SPLM/A 37th Anniversary Guiding Questions

1) What does this day mean to you?

2) What were some of your most memorable experiences during the struggle?

3) Why did we fight for the independence of South Sudan?

4) Have we achieved the aims and objectives of the liberation struggle?

5) What are the impacts of extended wars on South Sudanese people?

6) When and how will the South Sudanese diaspora contribute to development in South Sudan?

7) How can the South Sudanese Government attract local and foreign investors?

8) What role can technology play in the development of our country?

9) Have regularly updating government systems and departments been established?

9) How do we treat our people in need (people with disabilities, orphaned children, elderly people)?

10) What roles did local chiefs play during the struggle? What roles are they playing now?

11) Hon Chol Tong Myai says, “We are the foreign governors governing you.” What is your response to this statement?

12) How are South Sudanese people perceived by our regional and international supporters?

Please don,t hesitate to send answers to info@africaworldbooks.com

“2020 is a year to stay alive, not a year for making a profit”

-Jack Ma.

The people of South Sudan have chosen the year 2020, aka, (the twin year) as a year of peace, reconciliation, social cohesion, and national healing. Call it a year of hugs and handshakes, if you will. I have been amazed by the humbling gestures of handshakes with former adversaries as we embark on this tumultuous journey of peacebuilding. Alas, those tender handshakes have been short-lived by this pandemic, dreadfully known as Noble Virus (COVID-19)!! The virus has come and the world will not be the same again! The rest is a history of a protracted misery. The monstrous beast has created a permanent climate of terror in which even our own limbs will never trust one another any time soon. Under its gloomy silhouette, dreams are shattered and hopes are dashed. All humanity has taken for granted since times immemorial are painfully compromised.

The deadly pandemic has globally struck through the hearts of all human institutions including those that link us with the high (warship houses). In my case as a practicing Presbyterian, my handshake tradition after every Sunday Service is painfully surrendered to the demons of Corona Virus. Cunning the worlds at will, the noble virus first goes for the elites and nobilities wherever it sets its grips. It has belittled kings and queens as it roams its world in defiance of medical science and modern technology. That way, it has trembled the core of even the most powerful Kingdoms and supper powers of our lifetime. You name it; the Corona Virus has spared no single aspect of human life. Besides the million lives, it has so far claimed globally, the invincible human tormentor has miserably robbed us of the most indispensable values of social life. In an extremely agonizing bout, it has replaced all kinds of social intimacies with an antisocial barrier called social distancing. Even more biologically torturous, it has replaced the natural air for our nostrils with nose numbing and suffocating masks. Any social congregation in the form of weddings, religious gatherings, cultural festivals, and funeral rites become breeding grounds for this invisible predator to spread its poisonous offsprings as it continues to expand its infectious network.

Economically, this pandemic of doom and death has superimposed its own microeconomics situation in which even the oxygen is no longer free as it takes a mask that costs money to breathe and function in public where the human breath is dreaded like the venom of a desert snake. As days turned into weeks, and weeks into months without a glimpse of hope at sight, we are desperately adopting some socially inconvenient ways for life to continue. For the worst part, it is a life without fun and funds. There is no fun without funds, they say in the cooperate world. That is why the alien world where its origin is traced is currently compelled to reopen up and die doing it (die making the funds). As for us in the conflict-ravaged South Sudan, whether we do or don’t, there are no funds to make in our ailing economy. Our socioeconomic capital is in our relentless effort to bring peace back to our country and that is what we must die doing within these social red tapes imposed by COVID 19. Jack Ma has summed it all up by articulating the heart wrecking truth that 2020 is not a year to thrive, but a year to survive. Let us do just that in order to be the fittest in this painful social evolution under the Corona Virus. In my humble book, it is a year to reconcile, build peace without handshakes, and stay alive!!

The author is a freelance writer and the Minister of Peace Building in the Revitalized Government of National Unity (RTGONU). He can be reached via: kuolpar@yahoo.com

While I acknowledge what Malcolm Turnbull may or might have been through, I truly believed that his recent turn of the political bull’s eye to his mates in the Liberal party over ‘the politically infectious African gang narrative’ is an affirmation that some politicians indeed does and continue to wage fear and hate to weaponise on the minority groups. This comes as not a surprise to an average African Australian who bear the brand of this miscalculated mischief and whose lives, careers, and potentially their aspirations are shattered by this unfortunate utterances. This is to reaffirm that we’re caught up in a society where elites intend to go against the nature and use our differences to win the gold just by hurting others. About couple years ago, Malcolm Turnbull’s message to the 25M Australians that young people of the African descent had a gang issue in Melbourne and which he now described as ‘clumsy remarks’ from his then minister Mr Dutton was not only outrageous but equally manifested his inability to protect our multiculturalism. Clearly, this wasn’t an apology and even if it was, then, in the words of Magret Lee, ‘an apology is a lovely perfume, it can transform the clumsiest moment into a gracious gift’, therefore, can this clumsiness be made calmly genuine to offer an apology? Could it be in his written memoir? You wonder if he were to return to politics, will he surely reiterates what he has just alluded to? Will, there be a lesson learned or a change of tone by his colleagues or is it just too little too late? Well, that’s a food for thought! I remember In the summer of 2017 three years ago, we resettled to Melbourne from a refugee camp, we were so elated to be here, and that will always be. We arrived at the time when the gang crime’s issue flooded the TV screens from the “Apex’s gang, to the Africans’ gang and then later to the Sudanese gang lately sugarcoated as Blood Driller Killers aka BDK, all these descriptions were from the lazy tabloids backed up by ‘the clumsy politicians’ to suit their interests, hence the former Prime Minister’s latest revelations is an assurance to Australians that truly African Australians are law abiding citizens who happens to be victims of greedy elites in politics and I’m certainly convinced that the African gang’s narrative as portrayed to be has always been untrue but a political tool. Finally, as much as Australia may be the largest or even the proudest multicultural society on earth, our political discourse must be inextricably linked with our multiculturalism where ideas and policies reflects the needs of the common citizens not those that divides us and gives racism a chance. Be always cautious; racism is an invisible war, it is one of the most tormenting forms of mental torture of the modern society, others might’ve escaped atomic bombs, wars but at times, they may find it more harder to deal with racism. Deng Lual DeNuun is an activist and political commentator, he’s a Victorian South Sudanese.