South Sudan’s Undersecretary of Culture relates his experiences of torture by the SPLA
This is a piece sent through to Channel 16 on 5 January 2012, written by Dr Jok Madut Jok, the Undersecretary of Culture in South Sudan. This account has also been reproduced elsewhere, but has been subject to minor modification for Channel 16. Views expressed are the author’s own.
In my ‘free country’, South Sudan, there is almost no such thing as freedom. On New Year’s Eve, I arrived in Wau, hoping to celebrate with my family. I had the misfortune of arriving at Wau airport on the same day that our President was also due there, coming from his Christmas holiday in Akon. As soon as I landed and tried to get into the car that was waiting for me, I, and my two brothers who came to pick me up, were attacked by an SPLA [Sudan People’s Liberation Army]unit, supposedly stationed there to secure the airport for our President. I was brutally attacked, my arms tied by several men, a blow to the side of my head with the butt of a gun and several punches straight onto both of my eyes, no questions asked, not even any accusations of wrongdoing. I was tortured properly [even after] I had quickly shown the soldiers my identity card, demonstrating that I am a senior official in the national government, undersecretary in the Ministry of Culture. The ID was thrown away and several men wrestled me to the ground, on the dry season red dust of Wau (for those who have been to Wau), my wonderful blue suit and all.
Here is South Sudan, our new country, the one that could not wait to gain independence: it is here that such actions have become so commonplace. What happened to the good old system, where a soldier, having witnessed suspicious behaviour on the part of the civilian, [asked] him or her to identify themselves, detain[ed] them if need be, interrogate[d] them, or [took] them to court? Torture first, then questions: why?
With my bloodied eye, bruised face and a concussion, I was left shocked and in pain, but I was eventually let go, no explanation, no apologies. The physical pain was unbearable, but it was nothing compared to the pain in the soul of a citizen, whose travels abroad and the abuses we encountered in foreign countries – the Egyptian racism, northern Sudanese prejudices, the abuses of the Kenyan police or immigration officers in Europe - were all endured because of the dream of a homeland, a free one such as have now. We used to beat our chests that we too have a homeland and we will one day return. But with this, the physical pain, the humiliation bears no weight compared to the silent cries, “why, why, at home, in the country I have yearned for all my life?” It is especially painful and worrying that it all unfolded right in front of army officers. forming a jeering spectator of my abuse: the abuse of a civilian being treated worse than one of those thieving dogs that the entire neighbourhood wants to kill. And here I was, someone who is supposedly their colleague, in the service of the same nation, appointed by the same president they were supposedly protecting.
Bearing the responsibility of a senior civil servant, I was being hit, kicked, called a “traitor from Khartoum”, but I expected the soldier to uphold his responsibility. Respecting the uniform of country’s army, an emblem of sovereignty, I did not dare hit back at the soldiers, but the soldiers read it as cowardice or weakness. Now all of this will probably be investigated and apologies will [be] issued, but nothing will take the pain away. [My] physical pain and humiliation on a Saturday morning on New Year’s Eve will surely heal and life will go on. What will remain most unbearable is the pain coming from a sense of worry for my country. If an army, one of the strongest pillars of a nation can treat citizens, the very reason for the existence of the army, in this manner, where is the future of such an army and what is the fate of the nation? If this sort of thing happens to a senior official, what should we imagine happens to ordinary citizens, people who don’t even have ID cards to quickly show who they are?
In South Sudan, pain and all, one can’t help [but] laugh at the same [time], a kind of laughter out of pity for us all. As I was seated on the floor, being interrogated, several drunken soldiers, the ones “protecting” our leader, kept interrupting their officer with really un-soldierly behaviour, and instead of the officer reprimanding them, he told me “you see, they may be drunk, but that is how we liberated this country.” There is that phrase, so commonly used as justification for misconduct. “We liberated it” is now thrown in your face left and right, even if it means taking the liberty to be drunk on the job, loot public property, claim entitlement for a job one is not qualified for, beat or even shoot to kill civilians over nonsense.