Southern Sudanese please, take no revenge

By Angelo Achuil

September 28, 2007 — Talking about the past, I can say that I do remembered how the Kenyan police in 1990s harrassed Sudanese at the border (Loki), Kakuma, on the way to Nairobi (Kenya) in an attempt to get bribed. I remember how they would up the vehicle and searches Sudanese out and gave them trouble of waiting and waiting under interogations. All the trouble just to get kitu kidogo (little change).

I remembered how some of my friends said “When peace comes to Sudan, I am going to have to sit at Kibeth (Sudan-Kenya border) and wait there and watch out for the Kenyans! They are robbing us here because we are in their home. They are thieves!!! One can not trust any of them with anything including president Moi himself.”
Not many of us liked anything especially the gov’t when we were (1992-2000) there because their police were a terror to us when we took refuge in their country.

I am saying all these so that you may know that most of our host countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Congo, Chad, Libya, Egypt) might have not been nice to us, Sudanese. We ran away from an oppressive gov’t at home only to wound up be oppressed again in the foreign lands.

What I am saying here is that let us forget ALL the plans of evil (if any) of taking vengeance on our African brothers and sisters. No matter what the Kenyan or Ugandan police did to you when you traveled, don’t imitate their evil, but “overcome evil with good.”

To me, people who spend their lifetime taking vengeance on each other are the greatest barriers to progress. The world around them develop while they hack at each other. This is because taking revenge goes on and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on ,,and on till they or their children even forget the original cause of vengeance!!! And it continue on and on and on and on and …. We must stop this foolishness. We must stop lying in wait for our Ugandans and Kenya brothers and sisters to take a two decades vengence on them. I had been reading of Ugandans and Kenyans threatened, rapped, beaten, etc because they are foreigners. Yes, you may get them, but they will get others you or your friends too one day, and then the cycle goes on, and on, and on. It is madness!!! Don’t we have better things to make our country attractive? Who would want to visit a country where foreigners waited for to be attacked? It is very STUPID of us!!!

God is giving us peace again in Sudan, so let’s us be kind even to those who were not so kind to us. Let’s not visit them with evil of long ago. Let’s win them by showing them the hospitality (hostility) they could find only in S. Sudan. We want our country and to develop and that will happen only if we forget about getting even by taking vengeance. And if you see a Sudanese police taking adventage or vengeance on a foreigner, intervene and avert evil. Let’s make our country friendly and attract tourists, investers, educators, doctors, etc. And no matter how far away Sudan may be, all these people will come because they know we are very hospitable and forgiving. This is the way to progress, and anything contrary to this will be in the way of Sudanese progress. The future is here, and only the wise will discern it. It is time to build and attract. One of the greatest weapons in universe is forgiveness. Had you ever experienced forgiveness? What is it like? How do you feel when a person refuses to forgive you? Let’s be a forgiving people so that we too will be forgiven when we need it. And we might need it one day, don’t you think?

The author is based in the USA. He can be reached at [email protected]