By
Steven Wondu,
Garang’s
Boys: John Garang’s Orphans Beyond his Natural Household
This is
an excerpt from Ambassador Steven Wondu’s book: “From Bush to Bush: Journey to
Liberty in South Sudan.”[1]
John
Garang’s prophecy
October
15, 2016 (SSB) —- On 29th July 2005, information came that a helicopter Dr.
John Garang was travelling in had disappeared. It left Entebbe late afternoon
but had not landed at its destination in New Site in Eastern Equatoria. Its
whereabouts and fate were unknown. The next day on 30th July, we were told that
the helicopter had crashed somewhere in the Imatong Mountains. All passengers
and crew, including our leader, had perished. The news of John Garang’s death
was devastating.
I was
angry, confused and broken. I blamed him for not having been more careful. Did
he not know that he had many powerful enemies out there? “We told you…oh
foolish man…why did you not travel with Bior Ajang, Deng Alor or any senior
officer who could stop you from travelling at night in bad weather? You gave
all your life and energy to the struggle and now you allow yourself to be
killed at this moment! What happens to the peace agreement now?
My response,
As I came across your article or part of your book, I calmed
myself down to clearly comprehend your thoughts after years I haven’t heard
from an elder, I met before. I asked
Jacob J Akol before and he told me where you worked, but I didn’t know your
residence or contacts to track you down.
When I heard the news of Dr. John Garang, I was still in a New Zealand
Reception Centre with other South Sudanese who were resettled in New Zealand in
2005. I remember Adut Jok and other
South Sudanese who went to NZ before us came and told us that Dr. John Garang
died in a helicopter crash. It wasn’t comprehensible when Adut explicated it,
but I was shocked afterwards when I read and saw his image in a NZ newspaper
brought to us by staff workers.
After a few days, South Sudanese in NZ gathered in a
memorial service to remember and pay tribute/ homage to our greatest late
leader Dr. Garang de Mabior, the Hall was filled up with South Sudanese, New
Zealanders and other Africans. When Abraham Mamer gave the speech, I couldn’t
hold my tears, I cried slowly because it wasn’t the right time for him to go. It was a traumatic moment and that was the
first time I felt emotional and snivelled for a leader, I knew things will be
hard after Dr. Garang as understood.
Personally,
throughout Africa, we had seen boring leaders, but Dr. Garang was full of
extraordinary charisma ideal best to lead and bring people to see innovative,
he was knowledgeable to develop a nation to a prosperous road. I’m not saying
here that Dr. Garang was the only born and trained leader among numerous
African or South Sudanese, but his absence left a big vacuum hard to be fill. I
wouldn’t be sure how South Sudan would look like if Dr. Garang was alive,
needless to say, no single leader come close to late Dr. Garang his position
and ideas he would bring if he was here. To me, Dr. Garang understood deeply
how he would tightly use his managing styles to fix South Sudanese problems, keen-sighted
left and right with the aims to change the face of our beloved country.
Why did
you not form the government of Southern Sudan at least? What future does
Southern Sudan have without you? Oh…! Oh…! Chairman! You knew that airplanes
are not good; we almost crushed in Dakar, you escaped death in a plane that
plunged into the ocean in Abidjan a few years ago! Why did you not drive,
walk…anything? They got you! They got you! They got you! We are finished! O
God! How can you be so cruel to us?”
My response,
Dr. Garang his death was well planned by our enemies as they
did in 17/01/ 1961 when they killed Patrice Lumumba of Congo, this was the work
of Congolese who geared up with Belgium until they assassinated him unjustly.
In 2002, Belgium apologised for their callous part as they participated and
eliminated Patrice Lumumba, when the country needed him to unite and develop
his nation to be equal to other world nations.
Patrice his death was planned and came out after 50 years later, it’ll
surface who killed Dr. Garang as many questions will be ask why they murdered
him. I won’t blame the weather because
late Dr. Garang was murdered by the enemy and this will be known to public when
it’s out. As it happened to our late leader, William Deng Nhial, his assassins
were revealed by Sadig El Mahadi as he was the Prime Minister when William Deng
Nhial was killed on 5 May, 1968.
Dr. Garang zealously played a pivotal role during the brutal
struggle without irrefutable toward his action as understood from long years of
war in the history of Africa. Now without Dr. Garang, did our leaders use our
resources to develop South Sudan? Do we have democracy? Do we have freedom? Do
we have equality? Are we united?
Our
group in Pretoria had to come to terms with the reality that John Garang the
man was no more. With the encouragement of Professor Shadrack Gutto, an expert
on the Sudan; former Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide, a great admirer
of John Garang, and other friends, we decided to continue with the training
programme. We wanted to demonstrate our determination to sustain the
legacy
of our leader and the thousands of other heroes who fell on the road to the
Promised Land! At the end of the course, I went to Juba to find out what my
role would be in the post-war interim government.
My response,
If Late William Deng Nhial, Dr. Garang, Joseph Oduho, Joseph
Garang, Philip Obang just to mentioned a few, if they emerge from their graves,
what questions will they ask from current leaders? The same internal riven by
conflict before and badly after Dr. Garang, I’m not sure where we’re heading. Those
who have known you wanted to see you given a position to exercise your own
right to the nation you loved and to your fellow citizens of South Sudan, but
what happened was unpredictable. My
question is this, do we have real leaders?
In Sudan, we had seen racial activities, religious,
cultural, linguistic, Arabization, Islamification and many other things I
haven’t mentioned, where is the unity of South Sudan after independence? our
citizen should contribute to the nation building and teach our children
cultures of South Sudan as they deprived of their right. Without doubt, we love
and cherish South Sudan as our mother-land, ultimate sacrifices made by our
people, alive and those who were killed during the vicious conflict, but we’re
not doing enough to remember them.
I soon
discovered that the death of John Garang had created orphans beyond his natural
household. The centre of power had shifted past Salva Kiir to elements not well
known for their loyalty to the fallen leader and the central agenda of the
SPLM-SPLA. The “Garang Boys” as his closest aides were mockingly renamed, had
been sidelined. Things were a lot worse for those of us who lacked aggressive
tribal bases.
A
person I had regarded as a friend during the struggle proudly told me that he
had vetoed my appointment as Auditor General in the Government of Southern
Sudan. The same person or other friends of mine deflected my nomination as
Minister of State in the Government of National Unity to a candidate of their
preference. They said I was ineligible because I was not from the right tribe.
My response, it shocked me and failed to understand why it
exist in our society acting like they don’t want change to occur for us to
propel ahead. It painted us a bad image
and dangerous for South Sudan, if some get appointed because they come from
larger tribes, than our backwardness won’t disappear overnight. President Kiir
Mayardit should pay attention to those people who talk like they own South
Sudan, I would report this person to him if I were you, it’s unacceptable. Naming South Sudanese politicians and leaders
who fought a ruthless war, is indecorous and those who brought the name did
helped destroying South Sudan economically and constitutionally.
During
the war, we were one body, the SPLM-SPLA. After the agreement, ethnicity became
the defining factor in the allocation of public offices. During the struggle,
each member of the SPLM-SPLA was a servant of the motherland. After the
agreement, the motherland was tossed up for grabs, and grabbed it was. If a
person hailed from a small feeble community, the country could be deprived of
his/her service. Only the future will tell if this ideology will stand the tide
of democracy and the challenges of nation building.
My response,
I agree with you Uncle Steven Wundu, during the liberation
struggle, South Sudanese geared up selflessly to end oppression done to them by
Northern Arabs. South Sudanese succeeded it as they separated from Khartoum
dictatorial regime and became independent with the aim to unite as sixty-four
tribes and build South Sudan.
Having
seen what was happening after Garang’s death, I went to Washington only to find
that I had been replaced without the common courtesy of notification. I packed
one bag and returned to Juba in February 2006. I did not want the crisis to
force me into exile in the United States. I wanted to be home to witness the
carving of the carcass of the elephant, share stories with colleagues and gulp
beer to palliate our pain.
My response, it was unethical that you were replaced in your
absence and this is a work of nepotism and those who are milking this
government did not participated when people like Garang boys and President Kiir
Mayardit fought a brutal war. Personally, I had seen President Kiir, giving
jobs to people who will continue to robe this nation, they’re not doing good to
our nation. All South Sudanese had true obligation to work, develop, unite,
show togetherness, treat themselves equally, share our true nationhood and work
to own it. Those who always made it to made it or given task by President Kiir
are lucky, but South Sudanese are working daily to pass their own judgement.
We
adopted a common name at the orphanage—places we used to congregate in Juba.
Everyone was called Abau Jadau Nesitu (Rejected, Discarded, Forgotten). It was
not all ‘idle garrulous talk’ at the orphanage. We had to device a strategy of
how to return to the centre. The guiding principle in our discourse was to
ensure the survival of our most cherished achievement; the peace agreement and
our gradual recovery of power to ensure its implementation.
My response, I see a desire itched in our hearts that South
Sudanese fought for a freedom, Marginalization's, nepotism, discrimination and
now there are people, who are discarded and forgotten. I know that those
leaders who lack discipline will turn their focus on the wrong side, they
always pass on wrong information to those who employ and give powers to
excluded others. Juba is totally divided and Dr. Garang was right. Currently,
some leaders would show allegiance to the country because they owned
businesses, build big houses, given ranks to their own clansmen, send their
relatives on scholarship in East Africa and a cross the globe, what does it
tell us?
We
could not trust some of the characters who had taken advantage of John Garang’s
death and seized the front row in the chamber of leadership. They did not know
the fine print and the silent provisions of the peace agreement. John Garang
had said that during the interim period, the people who created the agreement
must take full responsibility for its implementation.
Importantly, President Kiir Mayardit should understand that
those behind him are misleading him politically and this pushed true leaders
away to be far from him, I blamed Kiir Mayardit’s advisers.
SPLM meeting in Rumbek 2004
Dr. Garang’s own words:
CDR. Salva Kiir and I have been
together in the movement for 22 years, and have been close friends, and we will
continue that way. 22 years of friendship can’t be thrown away by rumours; CDR.
Salva will be with me now until the end of the interim period and beyond, and I
will cite what was said when I visited Malual Kon and the “Luak” of the family
of CDR. Salva where I entered the house to show comradeship and a long
cherished friendship. At a meeting while visiting there we were told, “You are
the two orphans” left because the original members of the High Command died,
both of us will carry on to bring peace
Fundamentally,
Fundamentally, in retrospect from what late leader Dr.
Garang mentioned above, one could imbibe it into mind for many years to come,
he was a true leader and I’m inspired by him each day I watch his YouTube
speeches. A great thinker would have a clear
view of late Dr. John Garang his leadership was remarkable, as he had gone to visited
Kiir Mayardit’s home and paid respect there. Dr. John Garang was a leader who
inspired millions South Sudanese, a leader recognised by Africans and the world
at large. A very extraordinary leader, his contributions is massive that no one
will fit his shoes keen-sighted from what’s happening in South Sudan, it’s a
big pain.
They
were the ones who knew where the obstacles were and how to circumvent them. He
gave the illustration of a man sleeping in a dark room. If he is the owner of
the room, he can find his way to the door without stumbling on the furniture
and breaking the glasses. A stranger would not be able to find a safe way to
the door. On the basis of this logic it was our duty
to pull the strangers out of that room before dark.
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