Uncovering the Hidden Forces Behind South Sudan’s Tribal Conflict

My beloved fellow South Sudanese, those living at home, and those in the diaspora, I hope you will read this plea. Once again, the Nuer, Dinka, Murle, and even Shilluk of South Sudan are killing one another. Once again, we are shedding our brothers’ and sisters’ blood. Why? Why do we attack one another? Why are we picking up guns and knives? Who benefits from this chaos? Indeed, it is not the people struggling to survive, working to raise their crops and herd their goats and cows, or the young men desperate for a life, who are doing the fighting. No, the bloodshed will not, bloodshed wife, will not buy them the cows they need for a bride price, and will not help them get ahead. Still, some preach violence, stoke anger, and encourage killing.

What is in it for them? As one who cares about South Sudan, I have concluded that those instigators, those suppliers of weapons. They are not our friends. They are not on our side. They want us dead. They want us to kill one another so that we will be unable to defend our homeland. There was a time when we joined to fight for our independence.

We won that battle. How proud we were when our nation was proclaimed. But the enemies of our independence, the enemies of our homeland, have not given up. They want to take over South Sudan. You may wonder who and why. From my perspective, those villains are the ones who covet our real national wealth. What is that wealth? It is the SUDD, the great swamp of water that provides over a third of the water of the Nile.

That water makes life in Sudan and Egypt possible. It irrigates the delta, where much of the food of Egypt is grown. It brings stocks of fish and drinkable water to our neighbors. Control of the source of the Nile is essential to them. That importance has always existed. It is why the British, having won at Khartoum, decided to march south and establish a city, Juba, from which they could watch over the headwaters. To this day, water is the lifeblood (and the curse) of our country. Our enemies would have us kill one another and weaken our people so they could come up the White Nile and take control of that precious water, our precious water. We, the people of THE SUDD, must resist their greed.

We must join to use the water with respect and care, to fuel a tremendous aqua-cultural nation, a source of food not only for ourselves but also to be traded throughout the world. We must find ways to work as one to raise all manner of foods and to sell the excess to our neighbors. And, in the end, we must treat the water responsibly so that as it flows north from our land towards the sea, our neighbors cannot argue with us. Are we not the caretakers of the great river? This, then, is my call to all: Lay down your weapons, embrace one another, and join in the effort to make our land of THE SUDD a place of plenty.

As we do that, as we replace envy with cooperation, we will make it possible for all our people, especially our young men, to have enough: enough to eat, enough to love, enough to herd, and sufficient to live.

~by Deng Mayik Atem, Publisher of Ramciel Magazine and Author of Jumping Over the Ram