Independence of South Sudan is Not an Insult to Nuba and Funj

By: James Okuk

Some people may be wondering why Okuk is much concerned about the case of the Nuba and the Funj at this moment.  The core reason is that I see it as a moral duty to be sincere to the unforgettable comrades of this transitional area so that they are not deceived again by some insincere politicians of SPLM and of Southern Sudan political parties.

It is very bitter to realize at the end of a ladder that you have been trapped to climb high to the last step of a wrong ladder. You will need some courage and more energy and time to descend down and then look for the right ladder to climb. This is exactly the current situation of the Nub and Funj people in the Transitional Areas of the Sudan . The Nine Ngok Dinka of Abyei Area may escape this situation if they mobilize themselves well to be the majority in the ballot boxes for the simultaneous self-determination for Abyei Area by all the registered residents in 2011.  

In my previous article about the case of the Transitional Areas and the Independence of South Sudan, someone wrote to me saying "no Southerner was fighting for self-determination but only for survival." But this is a misunderstanding of Southerners' case, which needs correction before it repeated itself to look like a truth.

I know it very well from direct information and experience that despite their massive falling limbs during the hard times of the struggle, many Southerners were determined to separate from the north right from 1982 before Dr. Garang left the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and went to the bush to take the lead of South Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM) and turn it into SPLA/M in 1983 with the help of the Socialists one-man party of Ethiopia; the despot Mangistu. From then Southerners could not spell out their independence desire openly except through morale songs and private discussions; they were afraid of the wrath from Dr. John Garang and his cronies who were passionate for climbing the wrong ladder of New Sudan Liberation. For example the Nuer gallant liberation warriors are known for their morale song of ‘an gor jinub’ (i.e. I want South Sudan ). Also the Collo (Shilluk) are known for their songs of separation like the one composed by late John Adhok saying ‘ango areb wa ki bwony kelog wadh bwony ca nywol wo dhi jinub ba aor’ (i.e. what relates us with Arabs if their Bull is giving birth while the Cow of the South is made barren). This is interpreted as gross injustice in the extraction and use of the valuable resources of the green South to develop the desert of the North.

However, the Nasir Split in 1991 broke the silence and brought the blessings to the people of Southern Sudan to voice out their demand freely for the right of Self-determination. From then many Southerners came to the right understanding that Dr. Garang does not represent the desire of majority of Southerners and so his being unionist for the New Sudan does not make all Southerners unionists for this delusive and vague ideology. Dr. Garang realized this paradigm shift during the process of the peace talks right from the Deceleration of Principles (DoP) to achievement of Machakos Protocol in 2002. He also went under pressure from the international community and accepted to burry the New Sudan Ideology and embrace the right of Self-determination for a time being, perhaps up to the Mid-term General Elections in 2009 where he could have become the president of the Sudan on the ticket of the unity of marginalized communities. But unfortunately God did not allow him to see the light of that day. Notwithstanding, even if Dr. Garang would have to raise up today from the dead like Jesus, he would not stop nor convince Southerners not to go for their Independence .

The desire for the independence of South Sudan should not be misinterpreted and twisted by some run-away refugees of South Sudan in Diaspora and by unfocused politicians as an insult to the great Nuba and Funj people who are well known in the history of the Sudan . Every Southerner who has a right mind and a good heart will always remember the Nuba people when he/she recalls the brutality of the war with the enemy send from Khartoum and morally stripped by bloody money. It is said that "all is fair in love and war." This is because everything brewing from the pits of passion emerges. In war, anything is exempt and deemed acceptable because the warriors become consumed by the rules of the killing games and blinded by survival where logic no longer exists in their mentality.

Yes, the war was so bad and no Southerner wishes to go back to it unless the desire of the majority of Southerners for independence is blocked by Northerners or some opportunistic Southerners from being accomplished in 2011. If at all it has to come again, this war will not be fought with the same tactics as the last war because the SPLA is now a modernized conventional army more than a guerilla. These days the SPLA soldiers do not need to walk distances and hide in the bushes to attack the enemy positions; the SPLA is now capable of attacking the enemy targets from a far away and invisible distance. So this time if Khartoum and their militias’ stooges are not ready to accept the independence of the South in 2011, the South will be well prepared to declare its own independence and protects its territory using all the necessary warfare tactics for victory from the air, on the ground, and underneath the water. South Sudan arm race is already in place for any eventuality against self-determination of the People of this region.

No doubt, the Nuba and Funj people are black Africans by race but it is true that they are not Southerners by geography. Together with Fur, Massalit and Zaghawa, the Nuba and Funj are Northerners according to geographical division of the Sudan into South and North. Unless we want to make another geographical division of the Sudan into East, West and Center, then I do not know where to locate the Funj and Nuba because they may belong to nowhere of these locations. I like what someone wrote to me saying: “I am going to be straight with you James. We all want separation, self-determination, justice, peace, human rights and development in the South. However, without true unity nothing will ever be achieved. The issues of tribalism are going to wash away all that has been fought for. If there is not unity as black African Sudanese as a whole, there will never be any power among us. The Arabs know our vulnerability all too well. They are devious and manipulative.  They know where our weak spots lie and that is in our deeply rooted tribal conflicts…There is no hope without unity.” I do not have qualms with most of this quotation except my doubts in the success of unity of all the black African Sudanese. All of them may be black in their skins and hair but their mentality, feelings and beliefs may not be the same.

If we recall the time of the bitter war, it were the blacks who killed the greatest number of the blacks in Southern Sudan (more than one million blacks have been send to the land of dead by the very blacks themselves). This is a fact not a fabrication. I remember very well the immoral things some of the Funj and Darfuris in the SAF did to the residents of Malakal and Juba between 1988 – 1996 in the name of Islamization Project in the South. Therefore, the theory that the blacks from any corner of the Sudan should unite to topple the browns is an evasive vision that has failed the test of experiment on the concrete ground. This failure may imply that the problem of the Sudan (Southern Sudan included) is not the problem of the blacks versus the browns or the Arabs versus Africans or the Dinka versus Nuer or the Equatorians versus Bahr el Ghazalian/Upper Nileans, but it is rather the problem of lack of fair-mindedness and respect of human dignity in the Sudan regardless of the color, tribe, region or faith in God/gods.

James Okuk is a PhD student in the University of Nairobi . He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.