BF BANKIE:
Lt Gen Joseph Lagu (Rtd), who led the Anya-nya, the freedom fighters of South Sudan, in their fight against the Arab-led Khartoum government, in the first stage, which ran from 1955 to 1972, of the recent phase of the armed struggle , from 1983 to 2005, states in his book ‘ Sudan – Odyssey through a state – From ruin to hope’, quoting from The Anya-nya Manifesto, on family and ethnicity, as follows :-
The enemy is waging a war of annihilation against us; he wants
to destroy us completely so that he can take over our country
for himself. For generations past he was trying to do this, even
carrying away our women and children to sell them as slaves in
foreign lands
On culture and traditions the Manifesto states :-
The enemy looks down upon our customs and traditions. He
believes his Arab cultures and traditions are superior and
should therefore be imposed on us, if necessary by force. This
is just another way, on the spiritual level, of destroying us as
a people. Our answer to this kind of attack is simple: You Arabs
keep your Arab culture and traditions and let us Africans keep ours.
and if you try to impose on us your ways by force, you will
be met by force.
From the African nationalist/Pan-Africanist perspective, on defending Africa, Lagu said :-
Our brothers and sisters in East Africa must realize that
ever since the first Arabs reached Malakal, Juba and Wau,
we, the people of South Sudan, have been defending not only
ourselves but also them from the onslaught of Arab Colonialism.
We have never ceased the struggle against those barbarians and
we never shall until we triumph. The harder and more successfully
we struggle the more our neighbours will recognize the vital
importance of our struggle to them and the more ready they will
be to support us…..Therefore we, the African people and soldiers
of South Sudan, must keep bringing these facts to the attention
and consciousness of Black Africans all over the continent
Speaking on objectives :-
The goal of our struggle is clear and straightforward – the
right of self-determination of our people.
On fighting offensively :-
The Anya-nya Armed Forces are conducting a guerrilla war,
which means a small war. Our enemy is a professional modern
army equipped with everything including tanks, heavy guns and
an air-force. We have only light weapons. If we try to beat the
enemy in battle in the open field, we would do exactly what the
enemy wants us to do because then we would be defeated quickly
by his superior weapons. To avoid this, we chose the guerrilla
method of war which gives us many advantages while placing
the Arabs at disadvantage. And as long as we fight this kind
of war, the enemy will never be able to defeat us.
Summing up Lt -Gen Joseph Lagu (Rtd) advised the Anya-nya liberation Armed Forces of South Sudan :-
That our specifically African – as distinct from Arab – identity
and the common aspirations which unite all our tribes in a common
struggle fully qualify us for nationhood and the right of self-
determination.
That by rejecting the attempted Arabization of South Sudan
and by adhering to our African identity and heritage we exercise
a basic human right which is bound to be recognized by
everybody sooner or later..
The extensive use of quotations from the Anya-nya document of Major-General Joseph Lagu, who lead the armed struggle of South Sudan to the Addis Abba Peace Agreement of Febuary 1972, with the Arab led Khartoum government, makes it clear that the armed struggle was not about religious convictions. It was unambiguously about culture/race. Class was not mentioned in the pamphlet as Anya-nya was not guided by Left ideology. In the Darfur conflict of the 21st century the Islamists in Khartoum have sort to expel the Moslem African groups, such as the Fur, Masaleit and Zaghawa from their traditional lands, in order to change the demography of Darfur, by settling in those lands Moslem African groups, who are more Arabised, such as Taouregs from west Africa.
Reference is made to page 572 of Lagu’s book, which quotes from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/SPLM) Leaflet of the 18th November 1983, quoting the Late Col John Garang de Mabior, Chairman, Provisional Executive Committee of the SPLM and Commander-in-Chief, SPLA at Paragraph III :-
The SPLA irrevocably believes in the unity of the Sudanese people
…we therefore make it very clear in the SPLA/SPLM Manifesto
that our struggle can neither be racial nor religious in any way.
At Paragraph VIII Garang is quoted as saying :-
Because of the oneness of the Sudanese people and unity and
integrity of the Sudan, the armed struggle in the South must
of necessity eventually engulf the whole of Sudan
The decolonization of South Sudan, which cost over two million Southern lives, and which may lead to it becoming self-governing, depending on the outcome of the 2011 Referendum, bears striking resemblance to the obtaining of majority government in Namibia and South Africa. In these countries power was held by a minority, which imposed its language and culture on the majority. In the Afro-Arab Borderlands stretching from Mauritania on the Atlantic to Sudan on the Red Sea, an Arabised/Islamised minority rule and enslave an African majority, imposing Arab culture and Islam, effectively denationalizing the majority population. It is this denial of African nationality which differentiates the Borderlands from Southern Africa, where Africans were able to keep their cultural identity. Both types of colonialism were/are of the settler- type. However that in the Borderlands dates back well over a millennium, whereas that in Southern Africa was some 500 years old. It is these realities which make change, progress and peace in places like Sudan, be it South Sudan, Darfur, Nubia, Blue Mountains etc, slow, complex and difficult.
B.F.Bankie, former Researcher at the Kush Institution, Juba, South Sudan
bfbankie@yahoo.com
This article also published in New Era, Windhoek, Namibia
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The root causes of the war in South Sudan and the Anya-nya armed struggle
BFBankie
Many find it difficult to accept the root causes of the last phase of the protracted war in South Sudan , which ran from 1955 to 1972 and from 1983 to 2005. In order to establish the causes, the book of Lt Gen Joseph Lagu (Rtd), entitled ‘Sudan – Odyssey through a state – From ruin to hope’ is drawn upon. The key to understanding Afro-Arab relations, past and present and the relevance of South Sudan is found in the reasons for the conflict.
Lagu, who is alive and well, spending a good part of his time in Juba, South Sudan, in his pamphlet ‘ Anya-nya Armed Forces – South Sudan Liberation Movement; what we fight for’, issued to fighters in his then capacity of Major-General and Commander-in-Chief of the Anya-nya Armed Forces (A.N.A.F) in January 1972, goes straight to the point and says, amongst other things :-
When in 1954 the British and Egyptians decided to end their condominium rule of the Sudan and grant this country independence, our political leaders clearly foresaw that the South was facing domination by the North. They therefore asked at once for guarantees that would safeguard the interest of the South. Both the British and Egyptians, however, disregarded this reasonable demand because it conflicted with their own interests. Thus was the future of the South recklessly gambled with and the seeds of trouble foolishly sown.
Lagu goes on to state : -
As the British started leaving the South, their administrative posts and
business firms were taken up by Northern Sudanese who previously
had not been allowed to work or settle in the South. The Southerners
began to feel more and more strongly that their country was being
colonized by Arabs and that their great expectations from independence
boiled down to the replacement of one master by another. The Northern
officials looked down upon the Southerners, openly discriminating
against them and on the whole treated them as subject people. Their
arrogance and contempt towards the Southerners soon became
unbearable. They kept on insulting and abusing us, often using the
word ‘abeed’ (slaves) when referring to Southerners.
Further on Lagu says that whilst the British Governor-General and British troops were still in Khartoum and Southern soldiers of the Equatoria Corps had rebelled, the northern Prime Minister of Sudan at the time refused to intervene, so the British were requested to intercede. This was accepted but :-
There was no investigation and no justice. Instead, after the
Southerners laid down their arms, Northern troops were let loose
on them by (the Prime Minister) while the last of the British left
Sudan for good. There followed a blood-bath in which many
Southern soldiers, policemen and warders were killed and the
remainder taken to the North to serve long terms of imprisonment.
…there came the systematic Neo-colonialist and Imperialist
robbing of our country; a genocidal campaign of mass murder,
looting, rape abduction, setting on fire of villages and crops.
Hundreds of thousands of our people including many leaders
either took to the bush or fled to neighbouring countries where
they live as refugees
Commenting on the eight years which passed from 1955 to 1963, Major-General Lagu said :-
Only one thing stood out clearly and this was what the Arabs
themselves wanted then, as they do now: to dominate and
colonize the South. To achieve this they try to impose on us
Africans their religion, language and customs. By this method
they want to turn us into Arabs and thereby conquer our
country for good.
On the rise of the Anya-nya Major-General Lagu stated :-
At the beginning we had to depend on our native weapons –
spears, bows and arrows, but during 1964-65 the bad winds
which blew over the Congo blew good over South Sudan.
Arms belonging to the Congolese rebels passed into Anya-nya
hands and our operations against the Arab enemy soon
became more numerous and more effective. Enemy units
ambushed by the Anya-nya provided us with more weapons
and ammunition. We grew stronger and grew quicker.
The experience of the Southern Sudanese, Darfuri, Nubians and other people of Sudan, marginalized by the Khartoum government and other people living in the broad band of Africa running from Mauritania on the Atlantic through Mali, Niger and Tchad, through to Sudan on the Red Sea, is in many ways similar to the oppression the people of southern Africa underwent before they achieved self-government, when apartheid South Africa held sway in the southern Africa region. The main difference is that whereas settler hegemony and racism in Southern Africa lasted some five hundred years, Arab domination in the Afro-Arab borderlands has existed over a thousand years and continues today, with demographic change and ethnic cleansing going on in Darfur, where a genocide is in continuing implementation.
B.F.Bankie, former Researcher at the Kush Institution in Juba, South Sudan
bfbankie@yahoo.com
Many find it difficult to accept the root causes of the last phase of the protracted war in South Sudan , which ran from 1955 to 1972 and from 1983 to 2005. In order to establish the causes, the book of Lt Gen Joseph Lagu (Rtd), entitled ‘Sudan – Odyssey through a state – From ruin to hope’ is drawn upon. The key to understanding Afro-Arab relations, past and present and the relevance of South Sudan is found in the reasons for the conflict.
Lagu, who is alive and well, spending a good part of his time in Juba, South Sudan, in his pamphlet ‘ Anya-nya Armed Forces – South Sudan Liberation Movement; what we fight for’, issued to fighters in his then capacity of Major-General and Commander-in-Chief of the Anya-nya Armed Forces (A.N.A.F) in January 1972, goes straight to the point and says, amongst other things :-
When in 1954 the British and Egyptians decided to end their condominium rule of the Sudan and grant this country independence, our political leaders clearly foresaw that the South was facing domination by the North. They therefore asked at once for guarantees that would safeguard the interest of the South. Both the British and Egyptians, however, disregarded this reasonable demand because it conflicted with their own interests. Thus was the future of the South recklessly gambled with and the seeds of trouble foolishly sown.
Lagu goes on to state : -
As the British started leaving the South, their administrative posts and
business firms were taken up by Northern Sudanese who previously
had not been allowed to work or settle in the South. The Southerners
began to feel more and more strongly that their country was being
colonized by Arabs and that their great expectations from independence
boiled down to the replacement of one master by another. The Northern
officials looked down upon the Southerners, openly discriminating
against them and on the whole treated them as subject people. Their
arrogance and contempt towards the Southerners soon became
unbearable. They kept on insulting and abusing us, often using the
word ‘abeed’ (slaves) when referring to Southerners.
Further on Lagu says that whilst the British Governor-General and British troops were still in Khartoum and Southern soldiers of the Equatoria Corps had rebelled, the northern Prime Minister of Sudan at the time refused to intervene, so the British were requested to intercede. This was accepted but :-
There was no investigation and no justice. Instead, after the
Southerners laid down their arms, Northern troops were let loose
on them by (the Prime Minister) while the last of the British left
Sudan for good. There followed a blood-bath in which many
Southern soldiers, policemen and warders were killed and the
remainder taken to the North to serve long terms of imprisonment.
…there came the systematic Neo-colonialist and Imperialist
robbing of our country; a genocidal campaign of mass murder,
looting, rape abduction, setting on fire of villages and crops.
Hundreds of thousands of our people including many leaders
either took to the bush or fled to neighbouring countries where
they live as refugees
Commenting on the eight years which passed from 1955 to 1963, Major-General Lagu said :-
Only one thing stood out clearly and this was what the Arabs
themselves wanted then, as they do now: to dominate and
colonize the South. To achieve this they try to impose on us
Africans their religion, language and customs. By this method
they want to turn us into Arabs and thereby conquer our
country for good.
On the rise of the Anya-nya Major-General Lagu stated :-
At the beginning we had to depend on our native weapons –
spears, bows and arrows, but during 1964-65 the bad winds
which blew over the Congo blew good over South Sudan.
Arms belonging to the Congolese rebels passed into Anya-nya
hands and our operations against the Arab enemy soon
became more numerous and more effective. Enemy units
ambushed by the Anya-nya provided us with more weapons
and ammunition. We grew stronger and grew quicker.
The experience of the Southern Sudanese, Darfuri, Nubians and other people of Sudan, marginalized by the Khartoum government and other people living in the broad band of Africa running from Mauritania on the Atlantic through Mali, Niger and Tchad, through to Sudan on the Red Sea, is in many ways similar to the oppression the people of southern Africa underwent before they achieved self-government, when apartheid South Africa held sway in the southern Africa region. The main difference is that whereas settler hegemony and racism in Southern Africa lasted some five hundred years, Arab domination in the Afro-Arab borderlands has existed over a thousand years and continues today, with demographic change and ethnic cleansing going on in Darfur, where a genocide is in continuing implementation.
B.F.Bankie, former Researcher at the Kush Institution in Juba, South Sudan
bfbankie@yahoo.com
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