July 30, 2022—The sacrificial lambs for the liberation struggle are the best sons of the soil”- *Father Saturnino Lahure Hilang *. By: Stephen Par Kuol
Commemorating the Martyrs Day every year on this calendar date of July 30th is a tinkling reminder that South Sudan is a land of millions of martyrs whose prophecies and memories live on to eternity. Successive generations over the span of a century were clamoring for self-determination for Southern Sudan as a shared dream for independent nationhood from the Jellaba neocolonial State. As the adage goes, do it if you dream it. The existing body of the literature on Southern Sudan National Liberation Struggle educates us that South Sudan was well dreamed by well-meaning patriots who martyred giving it all, including what they valued the most( life). The resolve for that dream stood the test of time, turbulence, and treacheries. Despite all the odds, the indigenous people of Bar Elghazal, Equatoria, and Upper Nile solemnly convinced themselves that the Greater South was an independent nation in the making. Even under the political bondage of that ethnocentric and autocratic Jellaba State, they were mentally free to keep dreaming the noble dream.
Father Saturnino Ohure , a Catholic Priest and Politician who served as a patron for the first movement in Kinshasa, Congo, and confounded Sudan African Closed Districts Union (SACDNU) in Uganda with other veteran politicians including William Deng Nhialand Joseph Odhuho said “the people of Southern Sudan are not asking for separation. Otherwise, nothing under the sun would prevent the independence of Southern Sudan”. “Southern Sudan will be independent one day when the North proved that there is no room left for unity”.The founding fathers consistently exacted that with tenacity over decades culminating in the birth of the Republic of South Sudan on July 9, 2011. Thank the Martyrs of the three movements: Anyanya I, Anyanya II, and the SPLM\A whose blood cemented the foundation of this wonderful nation as well orchestrated in our National Anthem.
Declaring the war on Khartoum for the first time in 1965, the leadership of Snake Venom(Anyanya) stated: “From today onward, we have declared armed struggle against the oppressive regime in Khartoum, we shall give no mercy to their operatives in the South and we don’t expect it from them”. According to the crude and brutal tone of their own heroic words, the founding fathers were committed to martyrdom without any shred of fear. True to their prophetic words, they all martyred with the conviction that the nation in mind was bigger than any single life or a drop of Southen Sudanese blood. Falling by the trailside on that turbulent odyssey ( in the word of Joseph Lagu) was considered a privilege. On that bloody trail, they looked for opportunities to step into harm’s way and die honorably with valorous composure. In the word of Father Saturnino Lahure “the sacrificial lambs for the national liberation struggle are the best sons of the soil”. Being one of those best sons of the land, he was the first prominent leader of the first movement to martyr in Gulu, Uganda on February 22, 1967. At zero hour, the physical risks and death were eminently foreseeable but the struggle had to continue.
The Moonlight Battalion in their mixed Arabic and Thok Nath war song vowed that” the armed struggle must continue even if only two of us are left standing ( cang duoth ni ney rew)” .Even minutes before his last breath on his death bed, Commander Martin Manyiel Ayuel had to send the message through two letters that looked like (S.C) for the Struggle Continues. Mobilizing the troops for an offensive on Jiokow at Itang Refugee Camp in the Summer of 1985, Commander William Nyuon told his troops “ only the most coward among us would contemplate enjoying the fruits of the liberation struggle. Like many other unsung heroes of the Liberation Struggle, he died before the CPA in 1995. Major General Paul Ali Gbatala, the Anyanaya I Chief of General Staff promised ” if I die before Southern Sudan becomes free, I will ask God to allow me to look down and see how my children are fighting”. If I see that they are not fighting well, I will ask God to let me come down and fight alongside my children. General Gbatala resisted the absorption into the Sudanese Army in 1972 and remained in the jungle until the second wave of liberation in 1983. He joined the SPLM/A but later died of old age before freedom was achieved. Like most of his comrades in arms, he did not enjoy the fruits of the liberation struggle.
Dr. John Garang De Mabior ,the founding leader of the SPLM/A said “I joined the movement with total commitment and dedication” I have resolved to give it the ultimate sacrifice, my life but I will not even enjoy the fruit of the struggle”. As he prophesized, he gave it that ultimate price on ( 7/30/2005, just 30 days after taking the oath of office as the First Vice President of the Republic of Sudan and the President of the Government of Southern Sudan.
In a general parade at Old Fangak in 1994, Commander Elijah Hon Top told his comrades: “we shall all die and we don’t even know who will solve the problem behind us but we must die doing it to uphold the torch for the next generation to continue the struggle”.A true hero of the liberation struggle sacrifices resources and power against his own self-interests. The Nyanya Veteran politician, Aggrey Jaden said, “I would rather live a destitute and die a destitute than living rich under the servitude of Jallaba State”. He kept his word and died poor in exile waging a political struggle instead of joining the Regional Government of Southern Sudan in 1972.
General Vincent Kuany Latjor, the Anyanya, I veteran and the founding leader of Anya-Nya Two told his new comrades from Sudan in 1983 that “ we have been waiting here in Bilpham for all of us to come and organize for another protracted liberation struggle that must end the suffering of our people under the yoke of Jellaba State. “Who leads it is not my problem since we know very well that the freedom we have been fighting for does not belong to us as a generation but next generation”. The Supreme Commander in Chief of Anyanya II died in Khartoum on June 27, 2013, without enjoying the fruits of the struggle. Cdr Kerbino Kuany Bol the First Born of the SPLM/A as he used to call himself who shot the first bullet in Bor on June 16, 1983, used to say” it has been dangerous since 1983 but I have resolved to remain Mangoak and I will die Mangoak (hero). He truly died a Mangoak 8 years before the Independence. The martyrs had spoken; their words had compiled volumes beyond the scope of this piece of work.
Having quoted the living words of the martyrs, it goes without defining the martyr and martyrdom. The word has its biblical origin in Greek. The word martus( martyr) signifies a witness who testifies to a fact of which he has knowledge from personal observation. So the martyr is defined as a person who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce a belief or cause. This entails that martyrdom is all about principle. That is why people voluntarily suffer death rather than deny their convictions by words or deeds. This means the liberator or the martyr in question is a principled character whose sacrifice is justified as the mean to the end (freedom).
This brings us to the question of the country the martyrs dreamed of and aspire to have even in their omnipresent sleep. Without any reasonable doubt, they had big dreams for peaceful and a prosperous country at peace with itself and with its neighbors. In his Peace Through Development Vision, Dr. John Dr. John dreamed of a developmental state that connects South Sudan with road networks and takes towns to the people in the rural villages. Well, where are we today? In the tumult and abyss of our own making. In truth, the dream that cost us so much has been betrayed all along with the blood of the martyrs and the country they loved that much. Thus, commemorating this important day in the life of our nation, let us soul search and invoke the spirits of the martyrs to bring about a sustainable peace (not peace in pieces) by implementing the R-ARCSS in letter and spirit to ensure that the martyrs’ dream is practically realized. Otherwise, posterity will not forgive this generation of political leaders. Tributes to all the martyrs.
……………………………………………
1. Lagu Joseph (2006) Sudan Odyssey Through a State from Ruin To Hope page 21(, ISBN99942-570)
2. Enoch Mading Garang (1970-1972) Grass Curtain (ISO4)
3. Peter Martel 2019) First Raise A Flag: How South Sudan won the Longest War But
Lost War.
4. Woundu Steven, Ann Moslely(2002): Battle For Peace
