Abstract
The epilogue chapter moves beyond the traditional bounds of studies of international relations and diplomacy to explore how rebel discourses shaped the lives of ordinary Southern Sudanese rebels in exile. It shows that rebel discourses were not simply narratives-as-told, to evoke John Peel’s term, but they in fact, in important ways, defined the realities of rank-and-file Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) soldiers. The chapter argues that they experienced camp life in Ethiopia as a laboratory in which the “New Sudan” discourse was engaged and put into practice. It reveals that this new rebel narrative powerfully shaped the political subjectivities of the SPLM soldiers during the 1980s.
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Notes
- 1.
Peel, ‘For who hath Despised’, p. 606.
- 2.
Johnson, SPLM, 54.
- 3.
Jean-François Bayart, “Africa in the World: A History of Extraversion,” African Affairs 99, no. 395 (2000): 217–267.
- 4.
For a critique of this unwarranted demonisation of warlords, as a sub-category of rebels, see Laura Freeman, “The African Warlord Revisited,” Small Wars & Insurgencies, 26, no. 5 (2015): 790–810.
- 5.
Pierre Englebert and Rebecca Hummel, “Let’s stick together: Understanding Africa’s Secessionist Deficit,” African Affairs 104, no. 416 (2005): 400, 412.
- 6.
William Reno, ‘How sovereignty matters: international markets and the political economy of local politics in weak states’, in Intervention and Transnationalism in Africa: Global-local Networks of Power, ed. Thomas Callaghy, Ronald Kassimir and Robert Latham (Cambridge, 2001), 203.
- 7.
Christopher Clapham, “Introduction: Analysing African Insurgencies,” in African Guerrillas, ed. Christopher Clapham (Oxford, 1998), 5–9.
- 8.
Christopher Clapham, “African Guerrillas Revisited,” in African Guerrillas: Raging Against the Machine, eds. Morten Bøås and Kevin C. Dunn (Colorado, 2007), 223.
- 9.
Clapham initially characterised the SPLM as possessing ‘some elements of the reform agenda’ seen in ‘reform insurgencies’, which seek ‘the creation of a new kind of state’. Clapham, ‘Introduction,’ 6–7.
- 10.
Morten Bøås and Kevin Dunn, “African Guerrilla Politics: Raging Against the Machine?”, African Guerrillas: Raging Against the Machine, eds. Morten Bøås and Kevin Dunn (Colorado, 2007), 16.
- 11.
Ibid, 17.
- 12.
Ibid, 17.
- 13.
Clapham, African Guerrillas Revisited, 224.
- 14.
Francis, M. Deng, ed. New Sudan in the Making? Essays on a nation in painful search of itself (Princeton, 2010).
- 15.
John D. Peel, “For Who Hath despised the Day of Small Things? Missionary Narratives, Historical Anthropology,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 37, 3 (1995): 606.
- 16.
For example, Luise White, “Telling more: Lies, Secrets, and History,” History and Theory 39, 4 (2000): 11–22.
- 17.
Jocelyn Alexander. “Telling African Cold War Stories: The Personal in the Geopolitical.” Keynote lecture presented at the Africa, Eastern Europe and the Dream of International Socialism: New Perspectives on the Global Cold War Seminar Series, St Antony’s College, Oxford, 28 October 2016).
- 18.
Filiberto F. de Diego and Carmen V. Ots, “Nostalgia: A conceptual history,” History of Psychiatry 25, 4, (2014): 404.
- 19.
Douglas H. Johnson, The Root Causes of Sudan’s Civil Wars: Peace or Truce (Suffolk, 2012), 90–100, 109–110.
- 20.
Sharon E. Hutchinson, “Sudan’s Prolonged Second Civil War and the Militarization of Nuer and Dinka Identities,” African Studies Review 42, 2 (1999): 125–145.
- 21.
J. Young, ‘Along Ethiopia’s Western Frontier: Gambella and Benishangul in transition’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 37, 2 (1999), p. 323.
- 22.
B. Zewde, History of Modern Ethiopia, 1855–1974 (London, 1991), p. 83.
- 23.
Kurimoto, ‘Politicisation of Ethnicity’, p. 799.
- 24.
‘Joint Communiqué’, 26–18 July 1965 Ethiopian Calendar (2 August 1973, Gregorian Calendar), p. 4, Administration 222, MOD.
- 25.
Human Rights Watch (HRW), ‘Targeting the Anuak: Human Rights Violations and Crimes against Humanity in Ethiopia’s Gambella Region’, 17/3 (2005), p. 7.
- 26.
For a fascinating look into the complex discursive responses of Anuak citizens to the changing demographics in Gambella, see D. Feyissa, ‘More State than the State? The Anywaa’s Call for the Rigidification of the Ethio-Sudanese Border’, in D. Feyissa and M. V. Hoehne, Borders and Borderlands as Resources in the Horn of Africa (Suffolk, 2010), pp. 27–44.
- 27.
Kurimoto, ‘Politicisation’, p. 809.
- 28.
HRW, ‘Targeting the Anuak’, p. 7.
- 29.
E. Kurimoto, ‘Politicization of Ethnicity in Gambella’, in Ethiopia in Broader Perspective: Papers of the XIIIth international Conference of Ethiopian Studies, Kyoto, 12–17 December 1997 (Kyoto, 1997).
- 30.
Young, ‘Along Ethiopia’s’, p. 326.
- 31.
Bayissa, War and Peace, p. 119. Johnson, ‘The Nuer Civil War’, p. 8.
- 32.
For example, in May 1987, local police shot 80 Anwak dead and arrested 29 after the GPLM attacked settlers and the police posts. Kurimoto, ‘Politicisation of Ethnicity’, p. 803.
- 33.
Letter from Kerubino Bol to SPLA Commander-in-Chief, 29 December 1984, p. 1. Campaign File 389, MOD.
- 34.
Ibid.
- 35.
Ibid.
- 36.
Ibid.
- 37.
‘Working Paper’, 5 January 1991, p. 5, Campaign File 627, MOD.
- 38.
I conducted the interviews in Gambella mostly in English. On one occasion, I conducted an interview not cited here with the help of translators who translated Anuak to Amharic, and Amharic to English.
- 39.
Interestingly, the destruction of wildlife and agricultural prospects also featured significantly in the interviews as a pernicious outcome of their hospitality to the SPLM and Sudanese refugees.
- 40.
Interview with Alina, conducted by Sebabatso Manoeli, Gambella, Ethiopia, 15 April 2015.
- 41.
Kurimoto, ‘Politicisation of Ethnicity’, p. 800.
- 42.
Interview with Daniel, conducted by Sebabatso Manoeli, Gambella, Ethiopia, 15 April 2015.
- 43.
See Christian Williams, “Introduction: Thinking Southern Africa from ‘the Camp’”, Social Dynamics 39, 1 (2013): 1–4.
- 44.
Interview with Gabriel, conducted by Sebabatso Manoeli, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2 March 2015.
- 45.
Ibid.
- 46.
See Lilian P. Sanderson and Neville Sanderson, Education, religion and politics in Southern Sudan, 1899–1964 (London, 1981).
- 47.
Ibid.
- 48.
Interview with Wol, conducted by Sebabatso Manoeli, Durham, UK, 7 November 2014.
- 49.
Interview with Jonathan, conducted by Sebabatso Manoeli, Kampala, Uganda, 30 September 2015.
- 50.
Interview with Bol, conducted by Sebabatso Manoeli, Kampala, Uganda, 25 September 2015.
- 51.
Interview with Gabriel.
- 52.
Interview with Wol.
- 53.
Interview with Simon, conducted by Sebabatso Manoeli, Kampala, Uganda, 26 September 2015.
- 54.
Ibid.
- 55.
Interview with George, conducted by Sebabatso Manoeli, Kampala, Uganda, 29 September 2015.
- 56.
Jocelyn Alexander and Joann McGregor, “War Stories: Guerrilla Narratives of Zimbabwe’s Liberation War,” History Workshop Journal, 57 (2004): 80.
- 57.
Ibid, p. 8.
- 58.
Garang, ‘Memorandum No. 5’, p. 5, Campaign File 70, MOD, Ethiopia.
- 59.
Ibid.
- 60.
Interview with Simon.
- 61.
Ibid.
- 62.
Ibid.
- 63.
Ibid.
- 64.
Ibid.
- 65.
Ibid.
- 66.
R. Machar, P. Amun, Alfred L. Gore, and Alfred Akwoch, ‘A Drama for the SPLA Cadets Graduation’, 2 September, 1984, pp. 1–4, Campaign File 389, MOD.
- 67.
Machar, et al., ‘Drama’, 1.
- 68.
Ibid, p. 2.
- 69.
Ibid.
- 70.
Ibid, p. 3.
- 71.
Ibid.
- 72.
Ibid.
- 73.
Ibid.
- 74.
Ibid, 4.
- 75.
Ibid.
- 76.
Ibid.
- 77.
Ibid.
- 78.
Ibid.
- 79.
Interview with Simon.
- 80.
Ibid.
- 81.
Interview with Jonathan, conducted by Sebabatso Manoeli, Kampala, Uganda, 30 September 2015.
- 82.
“John Garang De Mabior: A Background Note,” Horn of Africa, 8, no. 1 (1985): 72. Matthew LeRiche, “John Garang De Mabior,” in Dictionary of African Biography, eds. Henry L. Jr., and Emmanuelle K. Akyeampong (Oxford, 2012).
- 83.
Ibid.
- 84.
Interview with Bol.
- 85.
Interview with Simon.
- 86.
Interview with Jonathon.
- 87.
Christian A. Williams, “Practicing pan-Africanism: an anthropological perspective on exile-host relations at Kongwa, Tanzania,” Anthropology Southern Africa, 37, 3–4 (2014): 224.
- 88.
Interview with Jonathon.
- 89.
David Carr, Time, Narrative, and History (Bloomington, IN, 1986), 59–61.
- 90.
Interview with Bol.
- 91.
Interview with Wol.
- 92.
Ibid.
- 93.
Interview with Jonathon.
- 94.
Interview with Simon.
- 95.
Ibid.
- 96.
Ibid.
- 97.
Ibid.
- 98.
Ibid.
- 99.
Interview with Jonathon.
- 100.
Johnson, “The (SPLA)”, p. 58.
- 101.
Johnson, “The (SPLA)”, pp. 59, 61.
- 102.
Michael. G. Panzer, “Building a revolutionary constituency: Mozambican refugees and the development of the FRELIMO proto-state, 1964–1968,” Social Dynamics: A Journal of African studies 39, 1 (2013): 5–23.
- 103.
Hugh Macmillan, “The African National Congress of South Africa in Zambia: The Culture of Exile and the Changing Relationship with Home, 1964–1990,” Journal of Southern African Studies 35, 2 (2009): 303–329.
- 104.
John Garang referred to the years in Gambella as the SPLM/A’s ‘golden years’. See “John Garang Speech, Chairman’s 22nd anniversary address at a mass rally in Rumbek 16th 2005,” cited in South Sudan: From Revolution to Independence, by Martin LeRiche and Matthew Arnold (London, 2012), 57, 255–256.
- 105.
Peter. A. Nyaba, Politics of Liberation in South Sudan: An insider’s view (Kampala, 2000), 42.
- 106.
To a limited degree, the SPLM, under Ugandan patronage, was involved in combatting the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA); see C. R. Day, “Fates of Rebels: The Politics of Insurgency Survival and Demise,” (PhD, Northwestern University, 2012), 63. James Frkovich, “Limited War and the Ugandan Experience: Implications for African Security,” African Security, 3, no. 3 (2010), 162. The SPLM also fought against the West Nile Bank Front (WNBF) on behalf of the Ugandan state. John Prendergast, Crisis Response Humanitarian Band-Aids in Sudan and Somalia (London, 1997).
- 107.
Johnson, ‘The Nuer Civil Wars’, 11, 26.
- 108.
Interview with George.
- 109.
Deng and Wol, Let’s Speak the Truth, p. 17.
- 110.
Interview with Simon.
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Manoeli, S.C. (2019). Epilogue: Narrative-as-Lived—The Meaning of the “New Sudan” to SPLM Soldiers. In: Sudan’s “Southern Problem”. African Histories and Modernities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28771-9_12
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