On 16 May 1983, soldiers of the Sudanese Army's Battalion 105, stationed at the Malual-Chaat barracks in Bor, refused to submit to Khartoum and fought back when government forces moved against them. Within weeks, revolts at Pibor, Pochalla and Ayod had followed, thousands of soldiers, students and civilians were marching toward Ethiopia, and the Sudan People's Liberation Army and Movement (SPLA/SPLM) had been born.
The founding of the SPLM/SPLA was not an isolated event. In the words of the SPLM Manifesto, it was “a continuation of the long history of the struggles of the Sudanese peoples”: a struggle against oppression, slavery, economic exploitation, political domination, and racial and religious discrimination that stretched back centuries before Sudan's independence. This chapter tells how that struggle took the form of the Movement that would, twenty-two years later, deliver the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and, in 2011, the independence of the Republic of South Sudan.
Roots of the struggle
The people of the South resisted domination long before 1983, against the slave-raiding sultanates, the Turco-Egyptian occupation, the Mahdist state and the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium. In 1947, the Juba Conference joined the South to the North against the will of its people. As Sudan approached independence, Southern politicians demanded a federal system as a condition of unity; in September 1955 the Liberal Party called for self-determination.
The first period of organised armed resistance began on 18 August 1955 and grew into the Anya-nya movement, which fought until 1972. That war ended with the Addis Ababa Agreement between the government of Jaafar Nimeiri and the Anya-nya, which granted self-rule to the Southern Region.
The Addis Ababa Agreement unravels
Peace did not hold. The Nimeiri regime began to dismantle, and eventually abrogated, the Addis Ababa Accord, provoking pockets of resistance across the South. The SPLM Manifesto lists the incidents that “provided the seeds for final push for resistance”:
- the popular protest against the Jonglei Canal (1974);
- the Akobo armed mutiny (1975);
- the Juba Airport mutiny (1976) and the Aguet mutiny (1976);
- the popular protest of 1981 against attempts to redraw the South's northern boundaries and annex its oil-, mineral- and land-rich areas to the North;
- the dismissal of ex-Anya-nya soldiers and their transfer to the North, which gave rise to Anya-nya II in Upper Nile and Bahr el Ghazal;
- the guerrilla campaign of the South Sudan Liberation Front, begun in 1982; and
- the total rejection of the imposition of Sharia law in September 1983.
At the same time, prominent Southern politicians, civil servants and students organised underground to mobilise the people against the dismantling of the Agreement, through bodies such as the National Action Movement (NAM), the Movement for Total Liberation of Southern Sudan (MTLSS), the Juwama African People's Organisation (JAPO) and the Council for the Unity of Southern Sudan (CUSS). By early 1983, the Manifesto records, this political resistance had “created the necessary conditions for the armed revolution.” Former Anya-nya officers serving inside the Sudanese Army, meanwhile, were organising to change the situation from within.
“Khartoum seized the initiative and attacked Bor and Pibor garrisons on 16/5/1983… This was the spark that ignited the tinderbox of armed struggle.” — SPLM Manifesto
16 May 1983: Bor, Pibor and Ayod
Khartoum moved first. On 16 May 1983, government forces attacked the garrisons at Bor and Pibor. At Bor, Battalion 105, commanded by Major Kerubino Kuanyin Bol, fought back; at Pibor, the forces under Captain Riek Macuoc did the same. In June 1983, Battalion 104 at Ayod, commanded by Major William Nyuon Bany, attacked the Khartoum forces sent to arrest its commanders.
The battles caused desertions in other units of the Southern Command and even in the North. Students and civilians joined the soldiers en masse, and a stream of fighters and refugees crossed into neighbouring countries, especially Ethiopia. By June 1983 most of the mutineers had reached Ethiopia or were on their way there.
The birth of the SPLA/SPLM
In Ethiopia, the political and military organisations and the officers who had risen at Bor, Pibor and Ayod came together and founded the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM). Colonel Dr. John Garang de Mabior, a senior officer of the Sudanese Army who had made his way to join the revolt, became Chairman and Commander-in-Chief, with Kerubino Kuanyin Bol as second-ranking commander and William Nyuon Bany as third. By the end of July 1983, more than 3,000 soldiers had been brought into the new movement.
That same month, the Movement adopted its first Manifesto (July 1983). Its vision set the SPLM apart from earlier Southern movements: rather than seeking only Southern separation, it argued that Sudan's crisis could be solved only by addressing both the nationality and the religious questions “within the context of a united, democratic and secular Sudan”, a “New Sudan” in which the marginalised peoples of the South, the Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile, Darfur, the East and elsewhere would share power and wealth as equals. The SPLM started by necessity in the South, but aimed to carry its message across the whole country.
Training camps were established in western Ethiopia, and in 1984 the first fully-fledged SPLA battalion graduated at Bilpam, which became a symbol of the uprising. The core values the founders chose, justice, liberty and prosperity, are those still inscribed in the coat of arms and the National Anthem of the Republic of South Sudan.
Dr. John Garang de Mabior, founding leader
John Garang de Mabior was born on 23 June 1945 in Wangulei village, in today's Twic East County, into a poor family. He pursued his education against the odds, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Grinnell College in Iowa, United States, in 1969. He then returned to join the Anya-nya struggle.
After the Addis Ababa Agreement of 1972, he was absorbed into the Sudanese Army, where over eleven years he rose from captain to colonel. During that time he completed a PhD in Economics at Iowa State University (1981). When the revolt broke out in 1983, he joined it and led the new Movement for the next twenty-two years.
Dr. Garang's lasting contribution was the idea that the problems of the South were part of a wider Sudanese crisis of marginalisation, and that a just peace required restructuring power for all the marginalised. That vision carried the Movement through war, division and negotiation to the CPA, and shaped the SPLM's founding commitment to a secular, democratic and multi-ethnic state.
From the bush to the peace table
The SPLA grew rapidly. By 1989 it had liberated almost all of Equatoria and Upper Nile and parts of the Nuba Mountains/Southern Kordofan. Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi's refusal to reach a peace agreement, and the collapse of his army's morale, triggered the coup of 30 June 1989 by the National Islamic Front, which turned the war into a declared jihad.
The Movement was tested again in 1991. The fall of the Mengistu government in Ethiopia cost the SPLA its main rear base, and in August the Nasir faction broke away, a split the NIF regime exploited to fuel ethnic fighting and reverse many of the Movement's gains. The SPLM leadership answered with the Torit Declaration, which affirmed that the people of the South share one common cause, the right to self-determination, around which they must all unite.
From 2 to 12 April 1994, the Movement held its First National Convention at Chukudum, Eastern Equatoria, a turning point that defined the “New Sudan” and separated the SPLA (military), the SPLM (political) and the Civil Authority of New Sudan (civil administration), with a National Liberation Council as legislature and a National Executive Council as executive. Through the IGAD peace process, the reunification of the Movement in January 2002, the Machakos Protocol of July 2002 and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 9 January 2005, the right of self-determination that the founders fought for was finally secured.
Dr. Garang was sworn in as First Vice President of Sudan and President of the Government of Southern Sudan on 9 July 2005, and was killed in a helicopter crash just three weeks later, on 30 July 2005. The SPLM Leadership Council unanimously elected his deputy, Cde. Salva Kiir Mayardit, as Chairman, who led the Movement through the CPA period, the referendum and the independence of South Sudan on 9 July 2011.
Key Dates at a Glance
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1947 | Juba Conference joins the South to the North |
| 18 August 1955 | Organised armed resistance begins; the Anya-nya war follows |
| 1972 | Addis Ababa Agreement grants self-rule to the Southern Region |
| 1974–1982 | Jonglei Canal protest, Akobo, Juba Airport and Aguet mutinies, 1981 boundary protest, Anya-nya II |
| 16 May 1983 | Battalion 105 resists at Bor; Pibor follows. The SPLA/SPLM is born |
| June 1983 | Battalion 104 rises at Ayod under Major William Nyuon Bany |
| July 1983 | First SPLM Manifesto adopted; Dr. John Garang leads the Movement |
| September 1983 | Imposition of Sharia law is rejected by the SPLM |
| 1984 | First full SPLA battalion graduates at Bilpam |
| 1989 | Most of Equatoria and Upper Nile liberated; NIF coup in Khartoum |
| 1991 | Nasir split; Torit Declaration on unity and self-determination |
| 2–12 April 1994 | First SPLM National Convention, Chukudum |
| 20 July 2002 | Machakos Protocol recognises the right of self-determination |
| 9 January 2005 | Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed |
| 30 July 2005 | Dr. John Garang dies; Cde. Salva Kiir Mayardit elected Chairman |
| 9 July 2011 | Independence of the Republic of South Sudan |
Legacy
Every year on 16 May, members of the Movement and the nation mark SPLM/SPLA Day in honour of the founders, the martyrs, and the wounded heroes and heroines of the liberation struggle. The ideals they chose in 1983, justice, liberty and prosperity, remain the SPLM's guide in the new phase of the struggle: building a peaceful, democratic and prosperous South Sudan.