16 May, 1983 — 42 Years Later: South Sudan’s Day of Reckoning and the Unfinished Business of Freedom

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

— African Proverb

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Prologue: The Longest War, The Longest Wait

On 16 May 1983, in the dusty heart of Bor, a spark flickered and soon burst into the longest civil war in Africa’s recent memory. The air trembled with the cries of the bold and the terrified, the hopeful and the hopeless. The Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) was born not out of sheer ambition, but out of desperation, dignity, and a stubborn will to be counted, to be free, to be heard.

Today, 42 years later, the guns have mostly fallen silent, but the questions are deafening. What have we learned? What has been won, and crucially, what remains shockingly, shamefully undone?

Let us not mince words, for our fallen heroes did not die for euphemisms.

I. The Ghosts of May: What Does This Day Mean Now?

Every year, South Sudanese at home and in diaspora mark 16 May with songs of struggle, tales of valour, and bitter tears for the millions gone. The world sees survivors. We see stories cut short and a country that, instead of soaring like a phoenix, limps along like a wounded gazelle.

Commemoration is supposed to offer balm, but it feels more like salt in an open wound. We remember the men and women who gave everything, and yet, we look around and wonder: for what?

“Independence!” some will say, but independence is not an end. It is a beginning, a blank page. Ours is still nearly blank, stained only by lost potential.

The Mirror Nobody Likes

On this day, those of us who carry South Sudan in our bones must look into a terrifying mirror. What do we see?

• Leaders who have outlived their liberation purpose but not their appetite for power.

• Citizens who queue for water as if they’re queuing for jobs.

• A diaspora that sends home more in remittances than the government spends on all basic services.

• Young people who know more about Kalashnikovs than calculus.

The commemoration must not gloss over the gaping wounds. Instead, let it provoke us, anger us, embolden us, not just to remember, but to demand, to question, to riot (peacefully, of course) against this new enemy: stagnation.

II. Statues That Never Stand, Roads That Never Run

Let’s play a little thought experiment.

Picture a child in Juba, or Aweil, or Bor itself, walking to school. They pass no statue of Dr. John Garang, no monument to the nameless SPLA soldier who fell in the swamps. They pass no shining hospital, no humming power plant. Sometimes, they don’t even pass a school, because there isn’t one. They step over puddles and garbage and bones of old dreams.

Where are the testaments to our heroes? Where is the physical proof that their sacrifice mattered?

In most functional countries, heroes are immortalized in stone and steel. We are a land of invisible giants.

Is it any wonder that the South Sudanese soul aches for recognition? Our martyrs are not just unburied; they are unremembered in the very earth they liberated.

Infrastructure: The Ultimate Eulogy

True tribute is not just a statue. It is a road that connects two mothers. A school that teaches children to dream bigger than war. A hospital that delivers babies safely, so the next generation is not stillborn in both body and promise.

Yet, our roads are mud, our schools are shells, our clinics are bandaged tombs. Our oil is shipped out as crude, our gold smuggled in secret, our diamonds never even see the light of our own sun. Why?

Where is the cement for our own foundations? Where are the refineries that turn black gold into prosperity? Where is the clean water that should flow not as a luxury, but as a birth right?

If infrastructure is the ultimate eulogy, then we have written none.

III. Smuggling the Soul: The Looting of a Nation

They say everything in South Sudan is for export, if not legally, then illegally. Oil goes to foreign refineries. Gold to hidden buyers. Even cattle and fish are smuggled past hungry children.

Corruption has become our unofficial state religion, the only faith practiced by all denominations.

But what is really being smuggled is not just resources. It is the future. Every barrel, every nugget, every illicit deal is a brick stolen from the house we meant to build.

Our leaders lament “lack of funds,” but South Sudan has been rich, richer, per capita, than many countries in Africa. But that wealth has flowed out like blood from a wound that will not close.

What do our heroes think, gazing down from whatever heaven they earned, watching the loot caravans disappear into the dusk?

IV. The Question Nobody Wants to Answer

Is this the development our heroes fought for?

Let us be clear: No.

They did not die so that Juba could build walls and palaces while the countryside withers. They did not die for children to drink from potholes, for mothers to give birth in darkness, for sons and daughters to flee to Nairobi or Cairo or Minnesota in search of hope.

They did not die for a country of contracts and cronies and quiet despair.

So then: how do we even celebrate 16 May when everything is stagnant in South Sudan?

V. Satire of Independence: Are We Really Free?

Let us interrogate the word freedom.

• Are you free when your stomach growls and the government is more interested in politics than potatoes?

• Are you free when your passport is a badge of suspicion, and your currency is worth less than a promise from a corrupt official?

• Are you free when speaking the truth is an act of heroism?

• Are you free when the only exports are your brightest youth and your darkest minerals?

South Sudan is officially free, but true freedom lies not in flag-raising, but in life-raising. In the dignity of work, the luxury of clean water, the miracle of a classroom, the assurance of a hospital.

It lies in leaders who serve, not rule.

VI. The Reckoning: What Should the Leaders Do?

Here is the unvarnished list, the to-do that history demands:

• Build Monuments, But More Than Statues - Yes, erect statues for Garang, Kiir, Majier, Riek, Nyuon, the unnamed, the uncelebrated. But more importantly, build hospitals, universities, and technology parks in their names. Living legacy, not just sculpted memory.

• Invest Oil Revenue INWARD - Oil must become roads, clinics, water pipes, and schools. Not mansions in Nairobi or bank accounts in Dubai.

• End Corruption Not with Words, But with Prosecutions - Let anti-corruption commissions have teeth and use them. Prosecute the untouchable, no matter the uniform or family name.

• Create Jobs Based on Merit, Not Kinship - Nepotism is the poison of all progress. Hire the talented and let the lazy and connected find their own meals elsewhere.

• Deliver Clean Water, Power, and Clinics to Every County - This is not charity; it is justice.

• Finance Small Businesses and Farmers - Let the average citizen build wealth. Grassroots growth beats trickle-down grand schemes every time.

• Open the Books - Publish every government deal, every barrel sold, every nugget mined. Transparency is the sunlight that kills corruption.

• Honour the Fallen In Word and Deed - Not just by singing anthems, but by ensuring every family sees the dividends of freedom.

• Educate for Peace and Progress, Not Just War - Invest in STEM, business, arts, and critical thinking not just military science.

• Repatriate Diaspora Skills - Invite home the best and brightest sons and daughters, not just their remittances.

VII. How Do We Repay the Fallen?

We do not repay the dead with speeches, but with a better life for the living.

We owe every fallen soul a future that was bigger than their sacrifice: a vibrant, safe, and prosperous South Sudan, humming with laughter, industry, and innovation.

Let us turn 16 May from a day of mourning into a day of reckoning a rebirth.

The Parable of the Broken Drum

There is an old proverb: “A drum that is not beaten is soon filled with spiders.”

Our country is this drum. We cannot be content with silence and stagnation, for the spiders of corruption and despair are quick to move in. Let us make noise not just on 16 May, but every day. Demand more, expect better, refuse to be quiet.

VIII. The Irony: Laughter in the Shadows

Let us allow ourselves a moment of laughter, even as we weep.

For what else can we do, when the only permanent thing in South Sudan seems to be impermanence? Even the potholes seem to be fixed only when it rains. Even the statues are built only in speeches, not stone.

There is a certain absurdity in celebrating progress in a land where the most reliable thing is the resilience of the people not the plumbing, not the power lines, certainly not the politicians.

But perhaps, this is our weapon. The Sudanese sense of humour: forged in adversity, sharper than any spear. May it keep us sane until the roads are paved.

IX. The Cheerful Insurgency

What then, shall we say to the young child in Bor, Yambio, or Torit, or Bentiu, or Wau, or Juba, who asks why the world looks this way?

We say: It is not finished yet!

We are not fated to remain prisoners of our own liberation. If the first generation could rise from the ashes to win independence, then the second must rise to build what was won.

We must become insurgents again not with guns, but with books and bricks and broadband. Let us storm the barricades of indifference.

X. The Emotional Reckoning

The pain of 16 May is not just national; it is intimate. It is the empty seat at the family table, the grandmother who still weeps for a son who never came home. It is also the pride in survival, the hope that things can get better.

Let us mourn, yes. But let us not settle. Our mourning must be a movement.

XI. When Will Change Come?

Let us answer plainly: Change will come when:

• Citizens demand it loudly, continuously, without fear.

• Leaders are held accountable, not just applauded for old wars.

• Every resource is harnessed for every citizen, not just the chosen few.

• The diaspora returns, not just for funerals or holidays, but to build.

Change will come when 16 May is not just a memory but a mission.

Epilogue: Freedom’s Unfinished Symphony

On this 16 May, as we light our candles and sing our anthems, let us pledge:

Never again will we settle for statues in speeches, roads on paper, and freedom as a flag alone.

Let us build that South Sudan for which over 2 million souls paid the ultimate price. One where the only thing smuggled out is pride and the only thing imported is hope.

The war for independence is over. The war for dignity for a South Sudan that is not just free, but worth living in begins anew every day.

Let’s pick up our drumsticks. It’s time to beat that drum and let the world hear that South Sudan is still alive, still fighting, still unfinished but still dreaming.

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And to the child walking barefoot in Bor: the road may be mud today. But tomorrow, if we all act, it will be paved with the promise kept.

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Happy 16 May. Let the reckoning begin.