South Sudan News Agency

By PaanLuel Wel

July 18, 2011 (SSNA) -- Everyone falsifies history even if it is only his own personal history. Sometimes the falsification is deliberate, sometimes unconscious; but always the past is altered to suit the needs of the present. The best we can say of any account is not that it is the real truth at last, but that this is how the story appears now.—Joseph Freeman

With the advent of South Sudan’s independence on July 9th, 2011, many South Sudanese will find ample time now, given the peace, to look back at the trail of their arduous struggle and try to make sense of it in the most possible way they could. They will strive to understand the what, the where, the how and the why of all the events and occurrences that had either graced or marred their long crusade from 1955 to 2011.

South Sudanese will try to understand, among other things, why it took them so long to execute their political compaign and to achieve their freedom. Firstly, they would press hard to comprehend: why the 1947 Juba conference opted for united Sudan instead of two separate countries which would have welcomingly avoided the agonies of the past 55 years on both sides of the wars; why the 1955-1972 arm struggle waged by Anyanya One that delivered the Addis Ababa agreement failed to secured the freedom of choice—referendum clause—for South Sudanese as did the CPA and whether or not the dishonoring of the Addis Ababa agreement was a deliberate sabotage from the north under President Jaafar Nimeiri or was as a result of bitter wrangling between Joseph Lagu’s camp and Abel Alier’s.

Secondly, it would be very interesting for many South Sudanese to know how Dr. John Garang, who did not initiate the Bor’s mutiny, somehow ended up leading the rebellion that he was sent by Khartoum government to quell. Moreover, many people would be relieved to know too why and how Dr. Garang and his rebellious guys—Kerubino Kwanyin Bol, William Nyuon Bany etc—ended up quarrelling and murdering the Akuot Atem Mayen and Gai Tut camps when it was logical that the two groups would join up forces to fight the common enemy they had rebelled against.

Thirdly, many South Sudanese are still in the dark over how and why the leading founders of the Movement—Kerubino Kwanyin Bol, William Nyuon Bany, Arok Thon Arok, Martin Majier Gai Joseph Oduho, etc—ended up either in jail or in death at the hand of the very SPLM/A they had helped founded or of the very people they had gone to the bush to liberate.

Of similar ambiguity too: it would be great to find out how and why Dr. Riek and Dr. Lam led a rebellion against the SPLM/A only to end up collaborating with the Khartoum government which was worse than the “dictatorial” SPLM/A. How and why did Dr. Riek and Dr. Lam break up later after the unsuccessful Nasir Coup of 1991? Of particular interest also would be as to why Dr. Riek and Dr. Lam didn’t open up a second formidable front-line at Malakal—on the grand march to Khartoum or Juba depending on their end goal, while the SPLM would finish up with Juba and Wau—the only two remaining cities in the South by 1991 besides Malakal—on their own grand march to Khartoum as was their end goal of New Sudan Vision.

Added to that would be the rationale that informed the displacement and the subsequent massacring of Bor Dinka civilians at the hand of Nasir Camp—how did the two doctors who aspired to be leaders sanctioned the displacement and the killing of innocent civilians over whom they would rule over?

Fourthly, how and why the SPLA soldiers did commit heinous crimes against civilians under their own control during the war? What was the 2004 SPLM/A meeting in Rumbek all about? Did Dr. John Garang actually wanted to replace his long time deputy—Salva Kiir Mayaardit or was it all rumors as it was explained away? Was the 2010 South Sudan general election rigged by the SPLM as alleged by its detractors? Why would George Athor Deng rebel against the very Movement he had been boldly defending during bad days?

Why haven’t we seen any kind of economic development in South Sudan in the last seven years of autonomous rule by the SPLM in spite of the oil money precisely meant to accomplish that purpose: where has all the oil revenue been channeled to and why?

And lastly but not necessarily the last, who killed Dr. John Garang and why, and what would have happened to the aspirations of the marginalized Sudanese on the whole and South Sudanese in particular were he to be here today? Would Sudan have been transformed politically and hence preclude any southern secessionist moods or would it have inevitably ended up as it is today under the leadership of President Salva Kiir?

To attempt to answer any of those above-mentioned questions or any other unstated query is to toy with a field of study called history in academic circle. History, of all fields of academic undertakings, is the most controversial subject owing to the fact that much of its underpinnings is informed by sheer prejudices mostly from the victories side. As Mark Twain—the great American author and humorist—remarked, “the very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.”

Since this co-habitation of prejudices with historical facts of South Sudanese noble struggle would oft-time distorted and discredited almost all that we can claim to know about the history of our struggle, it therefore compel us to seek remedy in the historical lens or context under or upon which those historical events occurred.

The historical lens or context is when the history of our struggle is skewed to fit events or political thoughts and ideologies of the time period those events took place. With that slanting in mind, we can then draw on a historical lens to view and explore the historical analysis of South Sudanese long political struggle from 1955-2005 without the anxiety of falling victim to the bigotry that inspire much of today world history.

South Sudan’s historical lens, therefore, are the political, religious, social, cultural, and economic settings, conditions or circumstances under which the causes, evolution, revolution and the general trajectory of the struggle are seen playing themselves out from 1955 when the first uprising emerged to 2005 when the last war ended. In order to better understand South Sudanese long arduous social, racial, cultural, religious, economic and political struggle in history, we must look at its context—those things which surround it in time and place and which give it its meaning and propel it progress till July 9th, 2011.

Seen and taken through such neutral prism, South Sudanese can better understand, gain and appreciate, among other things, a sense of how unique or extra-ordinary their long struggle was in comparison to other political struggles around the world or within the African continent. For example, a historical lens would be to take the 1947 Juba conference as it was, basing opinion on the time period and the events that were taking place at that particular era without involving the present circumstances or information. That is to say that it does not involve comparing current times to the past or including our present political experiences or present day information about the past which the long-ago generations might not have had accessed to, or knowledge of, during their political deliberation.

Similarly, without this ability to connect to the expectations of the time in which the 1991 Nasir Coup took place or even the time in which it was just brewing, South Sudanese will, more often than not, view the actions of the Nasir group as irrational and unbelievable—one that border on betrayal and subversion. But to understand that the 1991 Nasir coup occurred after or in the wake of the detention of Kerubino Kuanyin, Arok Thon and Martin Majier, among others, would provide the historical context under which that particular event took place and aid in the understanding, though not necessarily the justification, of the event itself.

View through the historical lens, many fortunate or unfortunate events that happened during our long political struggle are as right or wrong as much as they are seen and compared within the circumstances, within the time and within the conditions under which they occurred. Any attempt to see, to interpret and to judge them by our present day events, circumstances, knowledge or standard is not only a misplaced judgment but also a dangerously misleading expedition.

Nevertheless, historical lens is by no mean a tool to preclude passing valid and sound judgment on our historical struggle which was sometimes messy and shameful. Rather it is but a mean to restrain passing misplaced judgment which usually judge and condemn the past by present laws and standards while neglecting the past wherein the events occurred, and hence, ending up not only distorting the events but actually misrepresenting them.

Therefore, we can successfully employ the historical context to help us in plotting the narrative sequence of our struggle: to explicate the factors and conditions that influence and underpin various events or happenings, to evaluate the socio-political and economic thinking that gave birth to them, and to show interrelationship and causations between events that eventually constitute our present day history of the war. The historical analysis through historical lens would enable South Sudanese to better comprehend, appreciate and apply some learned valuable lessons from our past to help solve today pressing issues and needs.

The essential goal in using historical lens is to bring together diverse phenomena of our long political campaigns and to make them meaningful and usable to our generation. Consequently, the application of historical lens, one that is expressed in the embodiment of all events that bedeviled or accelerated the war of liberation, would helps us in the understanding, appreciation and usage of our political struggles.

You can reach PaanLuel Wël at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , Facebook, Twitter or through his blog at: http://paanluelwel2011.wordpress.com/

By Eric Reeves

July 15, 2011 (SSNA) -- A new report from the Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP) concludes that available evidence "corroborate[s] claims that the Sudan Armed Forces troops are systematically hunting and killing civilians" in Kadugli, capital of South Kordofan (North Sudan). Moreover, the evidence demonstrates beyond a reasonable doubt that there are mass graves in Kadugli, as has been reported for weeks by Nuba sources, including eyewitnesses who have escaped to South Sudan. The SSP report combines four independent eyewitness accounts with satellite photography to reveal the existence of three mass-grave sites. As the report grimly notes:

"Digital Globe satellite imagery analyzed by Satellite Sentinel Project shows no discernable activity at the alleged mass gravesite near Tilo School on 17 June. However, as of 4 July, three excavated areas measuring approximately 26 by 5 meters are visible less than 1 kilometer south of the Tilo School."

White bags of irregular size, but consistent with human body dimensions, are conspicuously heaped near these gravesites, according to both satellite imagery and eyewitness accounts; they are almost certainly body bags containing the remains of other victims. Given the dimensions of the three gravesites---each approximately twenty-six meters by five meters (eighty feet by sixteen feet)---they could certainly contain thousands of corpses, perhaps many thousands if the graves are deep enough. SSP does not speculate on this issue, but does note the presence of heavy earth-moving equipment.

The SSP report implicitly provides a timeline, which begins with the June 5 commencement of large-scale military activities in South Kordofan by the northern Sudanese military (SAF) and militia groups like the notorious Popular Defense Forces (PDF). The SSP reports that mass slaughter began almost at the very moment that Khartoum gave the go-ahead to its military and militia forces:

"Four eyewitness accounts communicated to SSP allege that SAF and Government of Sudan-aligned forces began as early as 5 or 6 June to search house-to-house for SPLM supporters and others, reportedly killing those that they found. As of 10 July, according to one witness, the house-to-house searches continue to occur."

An eyewitness who has since escaped reports to SSP that on June 8,

"SAF killed an unknown number of civilians because of their suspected support for the SPLM in Tilo village, near the Tilo Secondary School, in Kadugli on 8 June. The SAF troops arrived at Tilo in light trucks with machine guns mounted on the back of the vehicles, according to the eyewitness. Five SAF soldiers allegedly held down one civilian while one of the soldiers slit the civilian’s throat. The same witness also reports seeing and hearing SAF soldiers seal the doors of houses in Tilo and set the houses afire, burning alive civilians trapped inside."

A second, separate eyewitness reports to SSP that on the same day,

"...at least two pits were dug...less than a kilometer south of the Tilo School in Kadugli and approximately 100 meters from a radio tower. The eyewitness reports seeing a yellow-colored earthmover being driven by someone dressed as a civilian. The vehicle had a 'bucket with teeth' on the front of the machine. The bucket could move from side to side, and it would lift up earth and deposit it elsewhere. The eyewitness estimated that the apparent size of the pits measured approximately 10 meters long by 5 meters wide, but the individual could not confirm the site dimensions."

This same witness reports that by that evening,

"...SAF soldiers, apparent Government of Sudan-aligned militia, men in brown uniforms consistent with those worn by prisoners at the local prison, and individuals dressed in a way consistent with Sudan Red Crescent Society (SRCS) workers were seen driving in large, green trucks in the vicinity of the site. Given allegations that Government of Sudan-aligned intelligence officers had been reportedly posing as SRCS workers near the UN Mission in Sudan compound last month, it is unknown whether or not those individuals in SRCS-consistent dress, including a white apron with a red crescent, were in fact affiliated with the SRCS. Impersonating a Red Cross or Red Crescent worker can constitute a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Large green trucks were moving back and forth from the site. The eyewitness claims that dead bodies had been picked up from the market area of Kadugli and from El Gardud and Tilo villages in Kadugli around that time."

SSP also reports that "a third eyewitness account [received June 12] also alleges the presence of a mass grave at Tilo School."

These eyewitnesses report further

"...that Government of Sudan-aligned forces are putting dead bodies, in some cases, in what appear to be white plastic tarps or other body bags. Another eyewitness alleges that people were taken and killed by SAF troops and police officers in front of their houses near the Episcopal Church of Sudan (ECS) facilities around 6 or 7 June. On approximately 7 or 8 June, the witness saw what he called white 'Mitsubishi trucks' picking up bodies south of the ECS guesthouse in Kadugli. "

A month later, the horror is continuing:

"Dozens of white-colored light vehicles are seen in areas throughout Kadugli on 4 July. Heavy trucks consistent with white-colored transport trucks are visible as well. These vehicles appear consistent with SAF and Government of Sudan-aligned militia vehicles previously observed by SSP at Government of Sudan-aligned encampments and those described by multiple eyewitnesses as being present in Kadugli town. On 4 July, a pile of white bundles is clearly visible in Kadugli town near the ECS facilities, just south of the church and guesthouse. White-colored vehicles consistent with those used by SAF and Government of Sudan-aligned militia are present in that area. Tracking consistent with the presence of heavy vehicles is visible there as well."

There is nothing in the SSP report more recent than July 4, except the compelling report by the Nuba survivor that these "house-to-house searches continue to occur"; we certainly have no idea how many have been imprisoned, killed, or interred, in the past ten days and before.

The implications of these reports are clear: evidence of genocide was clear only three days after Khartoum began its military major military actions in South Kordofan; this strongly argues that planning must have occurred well before the date the assault began. In short, these accounts strongly suggest a carefully orchestrated campaign of ethnically targeted destruction, and a follow-up effort to hide the evidence from international witnesses. If men in Kadugli dug these ghastly scenes of atrocity, it was in Khartoum that the digging was ordered, by men who knew full well that the graves would be filled with Nuba people.

Genocidal intent here is terrifyingly conspicuous, as it is in the report of "Yusef," a Nuba resident of Kadugli who told Agence France-Presse that he had been informed by a member of the PDF militia that they had been provided with plenty of weapons and ammunition, and a standing order: "'He said that they had clear instructions: just sweep away the rubbish. If you see a Nuba, just clean it up. He told me he saw two trucks of people with their hands tied and blindfolded, driving out to where diggers were making holes for graves on the edge of town."  Versions of "Yusef's" account have echoed in countless reports from those Nuba fortunate enough to escape Kadugli and its environs.

But if genocidal intent is clearest in the targeted destruction and burial of the Nuba people in Kadugli, it is most consequential in the regions away from the capital, particularly in the form of systematic denial of humanitarian access to desperately need African populations in the Nuba.  As I have argued previously here, indigenous people in the Nuba Mountains have been terrorized into fleeing their homes and their crops, living in the hillsides with only the shelter of caves; this enforced flight comes at the most critical moment in the agricultural cycle for planting and tending.  Without a harvest in the fall, and given the total obstruction of the UN World Food Program and other humanitarian organizations who have distributed food in the Nuba, famine and starvation will again stalk the people of this region, as was so brutally the case in the 1990s genocide.

"Crime Scene: Evidence of Mass Graves in Kadugli" should end all skepticism about the nature of the human destruction in South Kordofan. Such skepticism, expressed by U.S. special envoy Princeton Lyman and others in the Obama administration, stands revealed as having accommodated Khartoum's genocidal ambitions. The SSP report contains key eyewitness accounts that confirm, independently of each other, what has been widely reported by many other Nuba and some Western eyewitnesses: the execution of Nuba and others with "Southern sympathies" has obliged the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and its Arab militia allies to engage in the grim and massive task of covering up the evidence of slaughter that has claimed an untold number of lives.

The SSP report suggests a terrible fate for some 7,000 Nuba civilians who had sought refuge with the UN in Kadugli. On June 20 the Associated Press reported:

"Sudanese intelligence agents posed as Red Crescent workers and ordered refugees to leave a UN-protected camp in a region where Sudan's Arab military has been targeting a black ethnic minority, according to an internal UN report obtained Thursday [June 23]. The report said agents from the National Security Service donned Red Crescent aprons at a camp in Kadugli, South Kordofan and told the refugees to go to a stadium for an address by the governor and for humanitarian aid. The refugees were threatened with forced removal from the camp if they did not comply.

"The report...does not say what happened to the camp residents after were forced to leave the camp."

This the world must know; there is no turning away.  For those watching from afar, there is only the question: "does it matter that the world knows?"  Likely answers don't bear much close moral inspection.

Eric Reeves has published extensively on Sudan, nationally and internationally, for more than a decade. He is author of A Long Day's Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide.

By Dr. James Okuk

July 14, 2011 (SSNA) -- I would like to take this occasion to congratulate the Republic of South Sudan for being admitted today on 14th July 2011 to the membership of the United Nations. This day completes my happiness of the 9th July as I see the beautiful flag of my beloved Motherland hoisted high amongst other flags of nations in the UN compound at New York.

Congratulations to President Salva Kiir Mayardit for being recognized worldwide today as the First President of the Republic of South Sudan. Congratulations to the Vice-President Dr. Riek Machar too for making history at the UN building in New York as the first South Sudanese highest authority to address the U.N General Assembly.

Nonetheless, the speech read by VP Dr. Riek was poorly drafted. Shame to the Ethiopian Nuer called Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth who represent temporary and informally the Republic of South Sudan at UN for such an amateurish work full of must, must, must and without any touch of diplomatic language.

Shame to Mr. Ezekiel too to dance in a Nuer style in front of the holistic South Sudanese flag as if it is a tribal celebration in New York. This shows how incompetent he is!!!

It is high time for real Southerners to represent their country. Let Mr. Ezekiel go back to Gumbela in Ethiopia or remain in U.S where he is naturalized. His term is just over and it must be ended in order to avoid South Sudanese being perceived as incompetent in future, especially at dignified gathering like in the UN Headquarters.

Dr. James Okuk is reachable at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it