Auguest 18th, A National Day for South Sudan
By
Steve Paterno
August 30, 2007 — On August 28th, 2007, President of South Sudan, Salva Kiir was at the historic town of Torit to open the newly built Secondary School there in commemoration of Dr. John Garang, the chairman of Sudan People Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). This school is perhaps the best school ever built in South Sudan, given the fact that the South Sudan lacks schools; leave alone the good built schools. While celebrating the opening of the school, Kiir also made declaration by announcing, “since Torit is a town of history, I am declaring 18 August a national day because it will remind us of what happened on the 18th August 1955 when our people mutinied in this town.” This declaration did not come as a surprise to many patriotic Southern Sudanese. They are actually expecting it for the last fifty-two years.
What happened in Torit in August 18th, 1955, is a great part of Southern Sudanese history that will live with the people of South Sudan for centuries to come. By August of 1955, just months before the country would declare its independence; tension in South Sudan was very high. Southerners were deliberately excluded from all aspects of their affairs by the British, the Northern Sudanese Arabs, and the Egyptians. As if that was not enough marginalization, the Northern Sudanese Arabs kept on provoking the Southern Sudanese in certain specific incidents that sparked the Southerners to respond in kind. Among those incidents was that a Southern Sudanese, Member of Parliament, Elia Kuze was illegally sentenced to prison by Northern Sudanese Arab administrators in Yambio. The Southerners demonstrated in front of the court, but unfortunately, the Arab merchants shot to death some of those innocent demonstrators. And then suddenly, only few miles from Yambio, in Nzara, Southern Sudanese workers also went on the streets demanding better treatment and pay, but like their fellow colleagues in Yambio, several of them were shot to death and some were wounded. Sensing the tension, Khartoum began to send in troops to replace the proud and courageous Equatoria Corp, a Southern Sudanese military unit instituted during the colonial rule. Accompanying all these, was a letter from the then Khartoum’s Prime Minister, Ismail Azhari, ordering that his Northern Sudanese Arab administrators should ignore the “childish complaints of the Southerners.”
The Khartoum then moved on with its plan in liquidating the Equatoria Corp unit. The Equatoria Corp (Company number two), which was stationed in Torit was ordered to report to Khartoum on the pretense that they were going to participate in ceremony of the evacuation of foreign troops, which was due to take place during the independence. Knowing that they would be lured in the North then be imprisoned and eventually killed, the Equatoria Corp (Company number two) soldiers disobeyed the orders from their commanding officer who was a Northern Sudanese Arab. This commanding officer, a certain Saleh, became disoriented; he began to issue threats against these brave Southern Sudanese soldiers. As he realized that his commands were ignored and his verbal threats had no impact, he mistakenly took a gun, and shot one of the soldiers. He then jumped into his car, which he set ready, and sped off to Juba and all the way to Khartoum. He would later report to the military headquarters in Khartoum and to Prime Minister al-Azhari, and swear in the name of Allah (the God of Muslim) that he promised he will never again return to the South of Sudan, especially Equatoria, and Torit in particular. As a symbol of commitment for his words, he broke a stick. According to this cultural superstition, if he ever again step his foot in the South, he would die as a result of something like lightening strike, heart attack, a stroke, or even a snake bite.
Anyway, Saleh’s decision of not wanting to return to the South was probably the right decision for him. After he luckily escaped from Torit, the Equatoria Corp went on rampage, massacring all the Northern Sudanese Arabs they could find. They managed to secure the armed depot and dislodged all the Northern Sudanese soldiers from the town. Those who could escape ended up drowning in Kineti River. It turned out that the Arabs could not swim, especially under panic. Few of them who survived took refuge in a Catholic mission, the very Catholics that they will later come and persecute.
The Southern Sudanese response was almost instantaneously, from Torit spreading all over the Southern Sudanese towns. The Arabs were killed, left and right, and all they have to do was to run desperately while they could still run, but in most cases, they cannot even run. Some of them, the nice ones from other towns were asked nicely to pack and leave immediately. It was for the first time in the history of South Sudan since colonialism that the South was virtually set free as all the Northern Sudanese Arabs were dislodged and sent to run desperately for their lives. If some people out there are thinking that the Southerners cannot free themselves, then they are mistaken, because they did not need to be reminded that in 1955, the Southerners did in fact free themselves without the help of anyone, whether it is foreign or the so called marginalized Sudanese of the Sudan’s peripheries.
The Southerners’ hopes and bravery was only to be betrayed by the British. Of course, the Northern Sudanese Arabs could not reclaim the South. Historically, the Arabs have never managed to penetrate the South. The powerful al-Mahdi revolution that drove the Turko-Egyptians and British out of Sudan could not penetrate the South despite all the Mahdi’s mystical powers and the glory of a prophet. And once again the soon to be independent Khartoum government could not recapture the South after the Torit Mutiny. They had to run to the British and beg for support. They requested the British to airlift their troops to the South and asked that the British should negotiate a peaceful settlement with the Equatoria Corp soldiers. Unfortunately the British budged on those request by agreeing to transport the Khartoum troops to the South and convinced some of the instrumental leaders of Equatoria Corp to give up arms on the condition that a full investigation on the incident would be launched and amnesty be granted to all those involved. But that was not to be the case. Of course, the investigation was convened but its recommendations were not to be followed up and those who gave up arms were summarily executed and the most unfortunate ones were shipped north in the labor prison camps where they were expected to rot there.
This however, never destroyed the Southern Sudanese resolve for their liberation. For their inspirations, the Southern Sudanese had Torit Mutiny of 1955. The date August 18th, 1955, according to one author symbolizes, “Southern Solidarity; a symbol of rejection of an alien rule be it British, Egyptians or Northern Sudanese.” He goes on to add that the political, the social and the economic significance of the Torit Mutiny “have developed into a living legend.” The Anyanya, a Southern Sudanese liberation movement could not find a suitable date to officially declare an arms struggle against the government in Khartoum other than the August 18th, 1963. Those Southerners who conspired to form what later to be known as SPLM/A couldn’t look for another inspiring date than August 18th, but unfortunately in their case, their plan to launch a mutiny were betrayed through a leakage, which preempted them to rebelled earlier, on May 16th of 1983. The significance of Torit is countrywide. Even the current President of Khartoum, Omer al-Basher is obsessed with Torit just as Northern Sudanese Arab generations before him were. He had to pulled out of peace negotiation in 2002, simply because the SPLM/A then drove his troops out from Torit. He swore in the name of Allah that he could only return to negotiate when SPLM/A withdrew from Torit. If there is any important place for Sudanese Arab that will evoke them to swear in the name of Allah, it is Torit.
For Southerners, they are not short of supplies when it comes to being inspired. The inspirations are their in huge supplies set by those who bravely and courageously fought during the Torit Mutiny, therefore, no reason to lack inspirations. The motion for liberation was already set during the Torit Mutiny, therefore, no reason to rest. The standard for Southern Sudan freedom was already set when the South was freed during the Torit Mutiny, therefore, no reason to accept anything short of that total freedom and liberation. As the Southerners will be enjoying the celebration of the Torit Mutiny each year, they should remember what it means for them.
*Steve Paterno is a Sudanese residing in the U.S.A and the author of the of the upcoming book, The Rev. Fr. Saturnino Lohure: A Roman Catholic Priest Turned Rebel, The South Sudan Experience.