Johnson,

Hilde F., Waging Peace In Sudan, Sussex Academic Press, Brighton, 2011.
Corrections of Errors
1. On John Garangs last trip to Bor, the author says: Sent from Khartoum to negotiate with the mutineers, John Garang, then a colonel, instead defected and went with them to Ethiopia.(p.2). This is inaccurate in two basic facts. First, Dr John Garang was never sent from Khartoum to negotiate with the rebels. He went on holidays to Bor and on arrival there he never engaged in such negotiations. In fact, on his way to Bor, he had met in Juba Major-General Siddig Al Banna, the Commander of the Southern Command, who advised Garang not to proceed to Bor because of the impending operations there. By that time the decision had already been taken to attack the rebels. Second, Dr John Garang did not go with the rebels to Ethiopia, he followed them at a later date and got them there. This fact turned out later to be one of Kerubino Kuanyin Bols misgivings toward him straining relations between them and, with the help of the Ethiopians, leading to the latters arrest. As it is well known, Major Kerubino commanded the rebellion in Bor. 2. In reference to the Addis Ababa Agreement 1972, the author claims that The rebels were supposed to be integrated into the national army, but were not. (p. 5). This is incorrect. In fact, the Anya-nya rebels were integrated into the national army at numbers more than that stipulated in the Addis Ababa Agreement (See: Abel Aliers Too Many Agreements Dishonoured). The problem that arose later was due to the haste the North wanted the integration to be completed. Whilst the Anya-nya rebels were integrated into the Sudanese Armed Forces, they were supposed to stay in the South for a period of five years. By 1975, only three years into the agreement, SAF had advanced plans to transfer some of the Any-nya units to the North, a move that was resisted by the former Any-nya officers, and was the driving force behind Bor mutiny in 1983. 3. On the civilian government of 1986-1989, the author avers: Backed into a corner by military failure in the South and a collapsing national economy, that government was on the verge of signing a preliminary peace deal with the SPLM/A when it was overthrown in 1989.(p. 5). As the Chief Negotiator of the SPLM/A at that time, I know that it was not true that the government was on the verge of signing a preliminary peace deal with the SPLM/A when it was overthrown in 1989. The truth is that their delegation and ours were to meet on the 4th of July 1989 to discuss the steps needed to hold a National Constitutional Conference which will then discuss the problems of Sudan and reach a final peace agreement. The preliminary agreement on the steps leading to the holding of the NCC was conditional on the parliament in Khartoum adopting a resolution on the freeze of the Sharia law, something the Prime Minister, Sadig al Mahdi, ruled out. So, nothing drastic was going to happen on the 4th of July 1989. Of course, the claim became NDA propaganda in order

to portray the NIF as having scuttled the peace process when it made its coup detat in June 1989. It, however, has no basis in truth. 4. The author ventured into a controversial territory when he writes: The SPLM/As manifesto, calling for a New Sudan with equal rights for all, had little apparent appeal to Northerners, .(p. 7). As a matter of fact, the SPLM/A Manifesto 1983, never mentioned the phrase New Sudan let alone defining what it meant. The document is available. Actually, it was the Northern leftists and liberals who got excited about the phraseology and appealed to them enormously. The Southerners were never impressed by the concept of New Sudan, including members of the Leadership of the SPLM/A, a fact Dr John Garang had to admit in New Site in 2004. 5. The authors assertion that It was Abel Alier,, who had given Garang the opportunity to go to the US to study et seq. (p. 10), does not tally with the known facts. Garang did not interact officially with Abel Alier. He was under the command of Major-General Joseph Lagu who was the Commander of the Southern Command. In fact, the scholarship to Fort Benning was arranged by the late Lt. General Yousif Ahmed Yousif, the then SAFs Deputy Chief of Staff for Administration, and later on, when he retired from the army, a prominent member of the DUP. He had met Captain John Garang during the integration of the Anya-nya in 1972 and was impressed by his academic qualifications and wanted him to progress in the army. They remained good friends ever since. It was when Garang completed his military course at Fort Benning that he contacted Iowa State University, where he had earned a Bechelors degree in 1969, to be enrolled for postgraduate studies. Again, Lt General Yousif was instrumental in letting him go. I got this version from both Dr John Garang and Lt General Yousif Ahmed Yousif, with whom I maintained good relations. The transfer of Captain John Garang to Busere (near Wau), and not to Rumbek, was effected by his military superiors. Maybe Abels invisible hand was behind the transfer, I do not know. 6. On page 16, the author has the following to say: Ali Osman Taha, who, as president of the Student Union in the late 60s, had played the same role. At that time, another student, Col Ding had also joined in. John Garang and Col had been similarly active when students at Rumbek secondary school struck to ptotest the policies of the Nimeiri regime.(p. 16). In the first place it is not clear what Col Ding had also joined in. Chol Dau Diing was never a student in the University of Khartoum nor was he a part of the 1970s riots. The riots were against the Nimeiri regime in which Abel Alier, Chols mentor and brother-in-law, was Vice President. Chol could not have been involved in any way. Chol Dau Diing and John Garang were students in Rumbek secondary school in early 1960s and could not have struck to protest the policies of Nimeiri regime. In fact, Nimeiri came to power when Garang was in the USA. When the famous Sunday Strike took place in 1962, both were junior students. Those who led the strike, such as Matthew Obur Ayang, were arrested, tried and sentenced for organizing that strike. 7. The authors statement that Salva Kiir Mayardit had been in the bush with John Garang since the very beginning in 1983, the only survivors of the first group that defected.(p. 44), misses the mark. 2

First, they were not together from the very beginning in 1983. John Garang joined the rebels in Itang, Ethiopia in July 1983. Much later Captain Salva Kiir defected from Malakal after a tip-off that the security were after him. He was with Lt Col(PSC) Francis Ngor. Both then walked to Ethiopia to join the rebels. That they are the only survivors of the first group that defected is a myth. Many of those who took part in the battle of Bor in May 1983 are still alive and active. For example, Alfred A. Akwoc was a Captain at that time and remained in the Movement ever since, he was up to 2010 the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Wildlife in GOSS; Garang Ngang and Chagai Atem Biar who was with John Garang in the car he took from Bor to Upper Nile, just to mention a few. This statement has always been a propaganda ploy meant to deny the role of others. 8. On the origins of South Sudans demand for Self-Determination, the author opines: They [Southerners] insist that a promise of self-determination was made after World War II by the departing colonial rulers, Britain and Egypt, a commitment later broken by northern Sudanese in connivance with Egypt.(p. 47). In spite of the many broken promises the Northerners had made, this is not one of them. History tells us that it was after the Second World War that Britain decided to unite the South, which till then was administered separately, with the North. The pressure for uniting the two entities came from the Northern elite (mainly the Graduates Congress) and Egypt which hoped for the unity of the Nile Valley (Egypt and Sudan). James Robertson, the then Civil Secretary admitted that he alone decided on that unity (See his book: Transition in Africa). He convened the Juba Conference in 1947 to declare this policy to the Southerners. After that Southerners were asking for guarantees in a united Sudan and later on, in the 1950s, for federation. Self-Determination came to the fore in 1964 when the Southern Front championed it. Southern Front was by then the only Southern political party before William Deng Nhial defected from SANU outside the country and went to Khartoum in February 1965 and established a party under the same name. Self-Determination was tabled by the Southern Front at the Round Table Conference in 1965 but was totally rejected by the Northern political parties. 9. The authors claim that in 1997 Taha went instead to Nairobi to meet Lam Akol, and tried from there to arrange a meeting with Garang.(p. 73), is incorrect. I never met Ali Osman Taha nor was there an arrangement to meet him in 1997. The last time I met him before that date was in 1993 in Nairobi when he was heading a delegation of the Sudan Government to meet an SPLM-United delegation led by Commander Kerubino Kuanyin Bol to negotiate peace. I was part of the SPLM-United delegation in my capacity as Secretary for External Affairs and Peace. 10. On page 168, the author makes the following serious statement:While the negotiations were going on, SPLM team under James Kok worked full time on this, approaching the factions with offers of support and positions if they decided to join. Riak Machar and his group rejoined the SPLM/A early 2002; Lam Akols SPLA-United in October 2003; and the Equatoria Defence Force, a faction around Torit, came on board in December 2003.(p. 168). This baseless claim is as insulting as it is false. In my case, the history and dynamics of our unity talks with the SPLM/A and eventual reunification in 2003 is too long to narrate here. However, it never involved offers of support and positions nor was the so-called James Koks team involved. The last 3

time I had a meeting with Garang was in a hotel in Nairobi in April 2003. James Kok, on the side of Garang, might have helped organize the meeting place. But that was all. In that meeting, Garang and I discussed the reunification of the Movement and what needed to be done by both sides to arrive at that. I may add that he thanked me profusely for having helped in persuading Dr Riek Machar to reach agreement with him the year before. We never discussed the issue of what my position would be should unity become a reality. Indeed, those who followed the politics of the SPLM then would confirm that the first time John Garang discussed with me my position in the leadership of the Movement was in July 2004 offering that I become number 15 (after Abdel Aziz Adam El-Hilu) in the hierarchy of the Leadership Council! I rejected the offer for many reasons and told him that I was ready to serve the Movement as an ordinary member. If there was an offer of a position a priori, I would have reminded him about that. Everybody in the SPLM/A knows that up to the death of Dr John Garang, I had consistently refused to serve as a member of the Leadership Council as he offered. For me it was a matter of principle. After his inauguration as First Vice President and President of GOSS, I accepted Dr John Garangs offer in July 2005 for me to serve as the Administrative Supervisor (caretaker Governor) of Western Bahr El Ghazal because this was a government, not a party, position and does not require observing the hierarchy of the Movement which I did not accept. The author should have crosschecked her information on such sensitive matters. 11. On the population census in the South, the author asserts that There has been no census since 1955, so we did not know how many people there were(p. 179). For the information of the author, South Sudan, as was the rest of Sudan, had had censuses in 1955, 1973, 1983 and 1993. The last was done during the war and was controversial. However, the 1983 census was quite credible. Even the SPLM/A was using the figures of that census for planning purposes. When we were allocating seats for the Legislatures in the interim period, it was the results of the 1983 census that were our guide as Administrative Supervisors of the States. 12. On the plane that took Dr John Garang to Khartoum, the author claims that After a lot of back and forth, it became clear that the Americans were unable to organize transport quickly enough. Norway then offered to help, and hired the plane of the Nuba Mountains Joint Monitoring Mission.(p. 194). We never saw this plane of the Nuba Mountains Joint Monitoring Mission. I was among the last group to leave Rumbek. Two planes belonging to the BADR company in Khartoum were sent. We took one to be followed by the other on which Dr John Garang was. Having transported Dr John became a source of pride to the company and it branded the plane as the Peace Plane. One wondered then where the national carrier, Sudan Airways, was. 13. The SPLM/A delegation in Khartoum was headed by Nhial Deng Nhial and not Yasir Arman as the author makes out (p. 195). 14. On page 213, the author makes the following derogatory remark: At this time a few cracks began to appear on the South-South side. In October 2007 Lam Akol, the former guerrilla leader of Western Upper Nile who had been made Foreign Minister, left office. Many had seen in his performance a reflection of National Congress positions, not those of the SPLM/A.(p. 213). The insinuation is clear.

In answer, I begin by stating that I have never ever been a guerrilla leader of Western Upper Nile. I never served in Western Upper Nile which is the current Unity State. By so saying, no doubt the author wanted to send a message that I was an outsider to the SPLM/A made Foreign Minister. Let me humbly, inform the readers that I was a founding member of the SPLM/A. In 1983, I was the member of the Central Committee in charge of Organization and, based in Khartoum, I was actually responsible for disseminating the Movements political platform and recruiting into its ranks. Most of the current leaders in the SPLM/A were recruited by myself (James Wani, Yousif Kowa, Malik Agar, Daniel Kodi, Abdel Aziz Adam El-Hilu, Daniel Kodi, Telephone Kuku, etc. The list is long). When I left Khartoum, I served as: a member of the Political-Military High Command since 1986, military Commander of Northern Upper Nile (1986-1988) and Southern Blue Nile(1990), Chief Negotiator of the SPLM/A (1988-1991), Director of the Office of Coordination and External Relations, OCER, (1988- 1990), and Chairman of the Commission for Production and Services, COPS, (1988-1990), among other assignments. I was not just a former guerrilla from nowhere brought to be made Foreign Minister. How I became SPLMs candidate for Foreign Minister is interesting. The candidate for the position, according to what Salva Kiir told me, was Nhial Deng Nhial who he believed was the one Dr John Garang preferred for the same position. However, he went on, Nhial had declined to serve in the national government preferring to serve in the Government of Southern Sudan. Given my background in Petroleum Industry, the leadership of the SPLM was unanimous that I take up the Energy and Mining portfolio which they assumed was SPLMs. Now, when that docket did not go to the SPLM and due to Nhials position above, Salva Kiir decided to shift me to Foreign Affairs, an area that was not new to me either. Hence, it was not a whimsical decision as the authors remark would suggest. Of course, immediately after the appointment, some colleagues in the SPLM embarked on working to undermine my position. They employed disinformation, fabrications and falsehood so as to achieve their aim. She might have been a victim of that intense propaganda. They were the same people who were lobbying the late Dr John in 2003-2004 to place me junior to them or their buddies in the Leadership Council. They were the same group that spread the propaganda nonsense that my performance as a Minister was a reflection of National Congress positions, not those of the SPLM/A. If I can excuse them for their ignorance in how government policies evolve, it is difficult to find excuse for the author who has been a Cabinet Minister, at least twice. Expressions such as many had seen are a tacit endorsement. Foreign policy, like other government policies, evolves through discussions in the Council of Ministers. The role of the Minister is to help formulate policy proposals to be presented to the Council which is subject to give-and take in the Council, but once a policy is adopted, this becomes government policy which the Minister has to implement. There is nothing like a position of SPLM, NCP or DUP for that matter, as far as government policies are concerned in a coalition government such as the Government of National Unity. What I found unacceptable and dishonourable was to allow myself to be used as an extension of policy objectives of other countries some of which policies were not for the interest of Sudan. For example, when the US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa recruited some SPLM Ministers and party stalwarts in January 2006 to work against Sudan assuming the chairmanship of the AU, my position was absolutely clear. There is no way I can betray my oath of office to serve my country. It was simply unpatriotic. This episode was to repeat itself on the issue of UN troops in Darfur which was rejected by the Presidency in a meeting in February 2006 that included the First Vice President. I have all the documents that attest to those decisions, and the parliamentary hansard is also there showing me and Yasir Saeed Arman, as chief Whip of the SPLM parliamentary caucus, defending that position as instructed. I was actually in Algiers and was only informed about the decision the very morning I 5

arrived Khartoum to address parliament the same day. I was surprised to hear later some leaders of the SPLM claiming that the SPLM has always been for the deployment of UN troops in Darfur!! I do not doublespeak as some of my colleagues are in fond of doing. In respect to my commitment and party discipline, I suffered quietly. Several times I suggested to Salva Kiir to resign my position, but he had always supported me as I have been consulting him on my work in the ministry. Several meetings of the Political Bureau prove how he stood in my defence on this matter. At the end he could not withstand the pressure from powerful quarters and I had to leave. I do not regret that. I feel proud that I have served my country, especially, the South, with diligence and commitment. The strike of the SPLM Ministers in October 2007, had one objective, not dissatisfaction with the CPA process (p. 207), as the author puts it, but the removal of Dr Lam Akol from the Cabinet. Forget about the so-called matrices, or credible commitments to implement the key CPA provisions (p. 207), reached in December. They brought nothing new to the issues under discussion and were a face-saving formula for the SPLM. They went back to the Cabinet when Dr Lam Akol was out of the way and members of the clique said this much in the press. When the meeting of the Political Bureau of which I was a member was called early October 2007, I was in New York representing Sudan in the UN General Assembly. It was so timed, as many previous meetings were, so that I do not attend. The original decision did not call for a pulling out of the GONU. After the meeting, the group followed Salva Kiir in his house and somehow the decision was changed. By then I had already persuaded Salva to relieve me from Foreign Affairs. He later nominated me to be Minister for Cabinet Affairs. After the new reshuffle was made public, the group insisted that the Ministers do not take oath until the list was again changed. This duly took place by dropping my name to be replaced by one of them. I thought the chapter was closed but they never rested until I was pushed out of the party altogether two years later. These are the facts and the people involved are still alive to testify. Lam Akol, PhD, D.I.C. 20 August 2011.