Nine-day Revolution: the Meteoric Rise and Fall of Kerbino Wol and the 7th October Revolution

Photo credit: Wol's FP

Revolutions generally aim to restructure society either partially or completely. Whether they would be short-lived or go on for a longer period depend entirely on their composing doctrines and on the reception by the general public upon which the revolutionary benefits befall. Revolutions, in the actual sense of the word, seek to force a change through. Few revolutions in history could be said to have been peaceful. Many were bloody and had left behind trails of historic destructions of both property and human lives. Revolutions, some argue, are all-around giant monsters that feed on the targeted victims but would suck in the initiators if not carefully managed. This is precisely what happened with The 7^th October Revolution.

On the 15^th June 2020, news flooded in that on Sunday 14^th June 2020, the leader of The 7^th October Movement, Kerbino Wol Agok, was killed in action by government forces in Ayen Mayar village, in Amongpiny. The area of the alleged battle is in Eastern Lakes State, central South Sudan. The battle rendezvous is somehow controversial as those conversant with the area point out that Amongpiny and Ayen Mayar are two separate villages, several miles apart.

Kerbino’s death came nine days after his famous Voice of America’s South Sudan in Focus interview with John Tanza, in which he announced his intentions to oppose the government through armed insurrection. Despite conflicting reports on the nature of his killing, it was evidential he and many of his men were killed in their maiden and final week of military operations. Thus, the time it had taken the creepy joint operation between South Sudan Peoples Defence Forces’ (SSPDFs) and the local Agar Gelweng to eliminate Kerbino Wol and his newly assembled force will go down in the history of South Sudan as the speediest time in which an armed insurrection had been located, vanquished and terminated. Two other incidences occurred before but were handled differently. The first was George Athor who launched his rebellion following irregularities in the gubernatorial elections in Jonglei in 2010. His eleven months insurgency ended with his killing in February 2011 in a confusing scenario. Before his killing, the government entered into peace talks with him. He was killed while on a mission to explore ways to end the war with the government. He was posthumously framed in a way that fit the narrative: that he was on a recruitment mission in Equatoria where he was intercepted by government forces. The story was nightmarish to be believed. The second, whose mentioning here serves as a control to Athor and Kerbino, was the capture of Major General Stephen Buoy Rolnyang. Buoy was arrested in May 2018 after defying orders to report to Juba. His action of moving his forces to Mayom was deemed a rebellion. He was charged with treason but was later pardoned. 

Many critics who hail from the Dinka Community have, to this point, reluctantly accepted the much-touted argument that it is dangerous to be a rebel if a Dinka. It's an argument too hard to dispute for one crucial observation, visible in the government's response to disgruntled members of the opposition hailing from the community. The cases of Athor and Kerbino are good examples. Paul Malong was another; he only avoided danger by accepting to return to Juba from Yirol. Had he proceeded against the advice offered to him in Yirol, Rumbek East would be counting two. What does this story portray? The story portrays to the rest of the citizenry what's left unsaid. It also paves the way for interpretation that the government's military razzmatazz doubly serves as a warning and as an announcement to certain citizens to either stick to the fold by default or be treated as castaways. The consequences are dire.

The mysterious Kerbino

The name Kerbino was not on the revolutionary radar in South Sudan. It could not be located on the list of known grandmasters in the art of rebellion and militia. He never held a ministerial post, never been a general in the army, and had not self-appointed a commander in the country’s ever-teaming militias. Like a meteor that splashes across the sky, he appeared and disappeared leaving behind questions to be explored. Some learned about him after his death, leading to mixed reactions and confusion at a time when the country continues to face issues of peace implementation. Kerbino was mysterious. Unlike other warlords who would pull huge security dilemmas, create impossible scenarios, kill with impunity, and trade their dangerous selves for government positions, all without harm, he was a minor in the field of mischief. Taking to the bush when all the known strong warlords were in town scheming for political domains, amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, made him a sitting duck.

Worst still, his rebellion was cantankerously formed; it was high on emotions and bitterness. The 7^th October Revolution did not adequately scan their terrain of operation. They did not weigh the tenacious might of South Sudan Peoples Defence Forces and the securitization abilities of intelligence agencies that protect the seat of power. Due to this lack of the existing military realities and foresight of what they were dealing with, the revolutionists were located on the same day they went on air and were tracked successfully to the last day of their destruction. If there was something that the 7^th October Revolution misjudged, it was the reluctance by South Sudanese masses to enthusiastically take up arms as it used to be during the wars of liberation of 1955 and 1983 with the Sudanese governments. The revolution could not be embraced enthusiastically. South Sudan is a changed country. It is not that euphoric anymore. Little binds people together. The nationalism that used to hold everyone together had sunk to ethnic or tribal sub-nationalism. A few nationalists that there are, have come to associate any military struggle to individualism. Also, there seems to be general awareness sweeping across the country, an awareness that perceives any wars post-2011 as wars of individual interests. A politically conscious South Sudanese will tell that the ruthlessness with which the country self-inflicted since 2013 far outshone gallantry demonstrated in all previous wars of liberation.  It was total madness, a death dance of ego rather than of substance. Nobody really wants to see the repeat for a simple seat distribution in Juba. Citizens now know that the slow pace of public infrastructural development, low investment in the health sector, abject poverty in the rural areas, and annual endemic starvation, which is habitual during rainy seasons, are indications that violence had played a prolonged destructive role. How could Kerbino Wol miss that glaring reality? Some may point to frustration, irritability, and the sense of humiliation he felt after coming out of prison.

Kerbino the Jesh el-Amer

Kerbino was a lost boy. Prior to his invisible name of the lost boy assigned to him in the West, he was part of the Red Army of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army. He was not lost. He was known but then, like his colleagues, vanished intentionally and dramatically. A young man born in 1982, at a time when Anyanya Two roamed the rural areas of Sudan, Kerbino falls within what in the West is the Generation Y or the group fondly known as the Millennial Generation, or Millennials in short. This is the dot-com generation born between 1981 and 1996 into the world of the Internet, multimedia, and presently, social media. Now, adults, the Millennials are nerdy young men and women with tight shirts and pants and confidently chatting away on phones and boasting about their social media followers.

Unlike in the West, children born in this space of time in the then Sudan had little education and technology due to the adverse nature of the surrounding in which they entered the world. They were born into the war, grew up surrounded by dangers, and always fleeing from something, real or apparent. Oftentimes, they are the danger themselves. Many of them had quit fear and adopted resilience and adaptability.  Like Kerbino who joined the liberation struggle at the age of twelve, they refused to be the subjects in flight but on assault. Kerbino bravely walked to Dima, Ethiopia, where he must have trained as a revolutionary child soldier. He later went to the United States where he built himself educationally and professionally and returned to South Sudan to complete what he started: build a prosperous nation through hard work. Like all South Sudanese in the diaspora, the yearning to return home and to make the country a better place through one’s personal involvement remains a preoccupation and a craze. Since independence, multitudes with disparate capabilities and intentions streamed home. Some tried to revive their old rural lifestyle but were overwhelmed; others got caught in the roughness of the political situation and escaped back to the diaspora. A great majority toured the country, got dissatisfied with the overall progress, and left to contemplate their next trip.  

Kerbino the Entrepreneur and Prisoner

After returning home, Kerbino established a multimillion-dollar security business and philanthropy. He employed many young people and influenced many others to work harder. He enjoyed the country of his dream until he was awakened through arrest in April 2018 by the security forces and kept in Juba’s infamous Blue House for months without charges. In prison, they protested. He was alleged to have led the riot on the 7^th of October 2018. This day would later form the name of his revolution. It was after the riot when the government was heard in his arbitrary detention for the first time.  In jail with him was Peter Biar Ajak, an academic who was summarily arrested at the airport in July 2018 and held without charges in the same premises with Kerbino Wol. Holding people without charges is nothing new. During the war, SPLA soldiers used to joke that, ‘we arrest the person before committing the crime, then they commit one.' Kerbino was handed a ten-year sentence for a crime in jail; the charges were terrorism, sabotage, and treason. He was later pardoned by the president in a general amnesty and released into the world in which his bank accounts were frozen and assets and business unaccounted for. He hit the road a confused and bitter man.      

Kerbino the Revolutionary

Kerbino announced the formation of the 7th October Movement on June 5, 2020, seeking to bring about change in the country. He died trying. The death of Kerbino Wol Agok, like the death of late Commandant, Kerubino Kwanyin Bol on the 9^th of September 1999, occurred in the open and in the most horrifying circumstance. Unlike Kwanyin Bol, Wol Agok died in the hands of the free, the South Sudan People’s Defence Force of the independent Republic of South Sudan. Unlike Commander Kerubino Kwanyin Bol whose death could be attributed to the connivance of the long-time enemy in Khartoum, Kerbino Wol had all the privileges, mercies, humanity, and nationality that should have saved his life. His 7^th October Revolution, which sounded like a students' uprising, was just a budding movement of the distraught and the restless youth, protesting for a right. If the government was keen on keeping him alive, Kerbino would have lived. Barely two weeks into the rebellion, and without having launched any attacks, one wonders what the rush to ending his life was for? No one would be convinced that all avenues for negotiations were exhausted on Wol and his movement. No deadlocks were necessary for a two-week rebellion. A lot was not done before humanity was turned off. Kerbino was young, ambitious, and talented. The country stands to benefit from people of his caliber and would have benefited from him had he been coolly tamed and brought back to the fold. He was not that dangerous.

Hurdles in the Formation of the Transitional Government of National Unity in South Sudan

South Sudan is gearing up to the climax of the Revitalized Agreement on the Restoration of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS). The climax is supposed to occasion the formation of the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity (R-TGONU). But this looks to be in limbo despite the dramatic hopes that peace, in its real form, lands on Saturday, 22 February 2020.

The past plays the future in the R-ARCSS

The R-ARCSS and The Agreement on the Restoration of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (ARCSS) are one and the same. It was the failure of ARCSS that brought about its revitalization. In echo to the political climate during the August 2015 signing of the ARCSS, political wobbling has resurfaced in earnest among the antagonists. President Kiir and his government are desperate to accommodate Dr. Riek Machar and the SPLM/A-IO group but the latter has no hurry. Dr. Riek Machar wants all the stipulations in the agreement to be implemented accordingly. Thus the formation of the government on 22 February 2020 will likely be blighted with problems of exclusion (by the government in Juba) or pull out (from the rebel opposition).

Up to this point, the path to an all-out peace is nothing less than a thorny case and Dr. Riek Machar is clearly not making it any easier. It was clear in his timely rejection of the Final Resolution of the Meeting of the Presidency on the Number of States and Boundaries issued on February 14, 2020. The resolution was rushed in favor of his movement and was grounded on a good gesture to give peace a chance. He should have jumped to that gesture promptly. However, he quickly issued his rejection on February 15, 2020, chastising the government on the statuses of the three administrative areas of Ruweng, Pibor, and Abyei. Perhaps, he was calling to mind the unfortunate past experiences.

Five years ago in August 2015, president Kiir reluctantly signed the ARCSS at the last minute and attached several pages of his own demands, and forwarded it to the mediators. It was a clear signal that he had little trust in the agreement. It could be argued that such action contributed to the later collapse of the agreement. Riek is still aware of that as well as the nasty security corollaries that ensued. If he was not petrified this time around, then he was rather more cautious not to take the same dangerous political highway. He probably did not want things to repeat themselves unpleasantly. No more confusing and dangerous 'annexes' or 'appendices' as it was in the beginning in 2015 agreement; which led to the 2016 J-1 shoot-out and heightened in an uncalled for 40-day escape marathon to the Democratic Republic of Congo; is now when President Kiir is again toying with the number of states and grooming too many VPs to counter his weight; and ever shall be conflict without end.

The ARCSS syndrome

The ARCSS lives in the R-ARCSS. Like ARCSS, it is proving even more problematic to implement. Since it was signed in September 2018, it has been pushed from side to side with all parties unable to reign in their differences. The formation of the TGONU was expected in May 2019 but, to no one’s astonishment, was deferred due to disagreements over security arrangements and territorial issues emanating from the government's creation of the new states. It had been the rebel opposition that contentiously argued against all actions and compromises made by the government. The government on its part has not been true to peace protocols as it kept changing goal posts whenever implementation drew near. The six-month additional time given did not help, forcing IGAD mediators in November 2019 to add yet another 100 days or three months up to February 22, 2020. The IGAD threatened consequences if the deadline was missed. Since IGAD is toothless but still feared, the approach of the deadline has emboldened the rebels who pressed harder for their demands. They hope to benefit in the fray if any punishment is handed down, thinking they have nothing to lose. The whole point of dragging the feet has come to center heavily on the number of states and the three administrative areas.

The Three Administrative Areas

Apart from Ruweng, the other administrative areas have been part of every agreement in South Sudan. Abyei is the baggage from the partial failure of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Greater Pibor Administrative Area was part of the 2016 government in which the SPLM/A-IO was a key ally. If anything is new, it is Ruweng, and it had been threatening and her rhetorical monologue had been loud enough for all to hear. But it is unreasonable to blame the people of this region for being too sensitive and skeptical when all they see and smell around them is death. History is still too raw for the Ngok people on this eternal frontline to be asked to forget. The atrocities of Malakal in which even the unborn children were pulled out from their dead mothers’ wombs and macheted still traumatize people in the area and countrywide. If the Ngok people of Ruweng believe governing themselves as an Administrative Area offers them a break from the cycle of atrocities, then the presidency could make good on this arrangement by surveying the land and establish permanent boundaries with their neighbors or work on the past problematic maps of colonial Sudan and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan to bring about a permanent solution to this area.

Pibor, as stated earlier, is a case older than the SPLM/A-IO. The Cobra Militias of Pibor under David Yau Yau share a discontent with the Late  George Athor's Movement, both of which emerged from the gubernatorial election shambles in Jonglei state in 2010. The Pibor armed group was there when Dr. Riek Machar was a vice president. Peace with David Yau Yau was reached before that with the SPLA-IO. Throwing this in as part of the problem means that the SPLM/A-IO expects wide-ranging conflicts to flare up in the country.

With Abyei, the SPLM/A-IO must come out clearly as a national political player and states its position rather than lumping it within the meaningless Anglo-Egyptian boundaries and districts that served no good to South Sudan but isolated the region from the rest of the world. The clash of modernity and ruralism in every South Sudanese today is a result of the Closed District Ordinance. As much as arguments in its favor point to the temporary stoppage of the slave trade, its adverse impacts far outweigh what was purportedly being controlled. Failure to resolve the Sudanese problem in Abyei is the responsibility of all South Sudan political stakeholders. Leaders must remain true to the course of the people. 

The 32 States then and now

The government’s decision to redividing the country into 28 states and later 32 states at the time was reactionary in nature. It did not want to be stuck in the past because the rebels, during the negotiations, were calling for more states and especially the 21 colonial districts; a call that would reintroduce memories of the time of the Anglo-Egyptian proxy rule. Many have come to believe that Dr. Riek wanted to win the favor of the UK, the former colonial power that is part of the Troika countries supporting the peace process in the country. The government also realized that the August 2015 ARCSS was inclined on awarding oil-producing areas to the rebels in the Upper Nile Region, thus ethnicizing the country’s natural endowments and making the region even more contested. It thought it right to correct the misconception since some international and regional powers were erroneously keen to associate the rebels with the oil. It also perceived that the ARCSS, signed in August 2015, attempted to split the country into two strong domains, one controlled by the government and the other by the armed opposition.

The division was, therefore, partly to place the resources where they belong and to dissuade those who might be thinking that the government was just sitting on an empty eggshell. The reaction was immediate and bloody. As the weight of the decree reverberated across the country, it began to be understood in the rebel corners and among the anti-ethnic hegemony in the country post-independence that the action, by its very design and execution, placed all major oil wells within the Dinka territories and further annexed a few patches of land here and there, particularly the Nuer lands and those of the Shilluk Kingdom. As much as the division of the country into 32 states was good for enabling people to locally develop their immediate areas, the circumstances in which it was introduced have created new geographies of ethnic enclaves where land wars were, in the process, set to become real and eternal.

Fear of Elders

It was in the division that many believed emerged the powerful Jieng Council of Elders (JCE). This assemblage of tribal sages, many of who were, and still are, seasoned politicians from the days of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan until now, have members hailing from all tribes and territories of the Dinka. They stand accused of having influenced the government in redrawing the borders and continuously providing a leaning rod to the government in dire political and military situations. Minus the elders, the opposition believes it can outwit the government to win the population to its side. The JCE has since become a catchphrase for anyone who has a bone to pick with the government. Others go as far as castigating whoever is working with the government and delivering services to the people. Seeing the government fall has become a preoccupation of some desperate tribal cliques and hateful individuals who did not benefit in peacetime, never benefited in the bloody chaos, and have no heart left for the country except welcoming a recolonization in dubious forms, hoping a mysterious master will have a lofty handout.

Beneficiaries of 32 States

No one can predict that the return to 10 states, plus, 3 administrative areas will not have its own casualties. The level of political confusion has grown wild in the country. It is plausible to state here that in trying to speed up the formation of the government, meant to consolidate peace or bring about it in the first place, not every citizen will be euphoric. Given that some happy and joyful people of yesterday have been denied states and local administrations today and without proper consultation and heavy hearts, returned to old places for peace to descend upon them, makes it clear that peace will have enemies from its recipients. Collapsing the government by reducing it from the operational 32 states to ten or thirteen – if we add the three administrative areas thus created - would not be a simple return of the tidal waves. The Juba government will now have more on its plates to deal with. That includes numerous public officials who have been made redundant or have lost their jobs in the big calculation for peace, many citizens trying to come to terms with the sudden dispossession of their new states, lands, and territories, and bitter others who have lost friends and dear ones in the commitment to make the new states operational to deliver services. Some of these dissolving states have already put up new public infrastructure in the shortest time possible and were happily making them fully functional to their respective people. These are the groups that will eye both the government and the SPLM/A-IO with fully rolled-out eyeballs.

In all this, it appears Dr. Riek and his SPLM-IO wield enormous power to enable things to move or stall them. Since the war began in 2013, no major developmental plans have been initiated in the country simply because people have to deal with the war first. The government and its machinery seemed to enjoy this deflection from public scrutiny and have relaxed the commitment on many important projects such as building a lasting road network. The pre-occupation of the government had always been how to stop the war first. Any criticisms or meaningful analyses of the situation in the country have often been pointed in the direction of the war.

The SPLM/A concept of peace through development has become a thing of the past. Dr. Riek has got what he never used to get during the bygone days: waiting for him. The SPLM/A mainstream has no history of waiting for people walking on the sidetracks. Dr. Riek knows this. When the ‘theatrical coup’ of 1991 occurred, the remaining SPLM/A took a giant leap of faith and initiated many projects and redoubled war efforts such that by the time he came back to the fold in 2002, he had no idea where to start. The SPLM/A was a real, undeclared four-by-four vehicle without reverse gears. It was completely divergent from the one in sight today. William Nyuon Bany confirmed this when he returned to the movement after his stint in the bush within a bush. He was said to have put it that the SPLM/A seemed weak when one was inside but an impenetrable strength and a progressive movement when one viewed it from the outside.

Riek and the Dragon Behind him

Why had Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon become a bone that cannot be swallowed nor expectorated? It leaves many to say now that if Riek Machar and the SPLM/A-IO were a genuinely registered political party, devoid of the threats of use of arms and bloodshed that often ensue, South Sudan would have announced her democratic strength in her unyielding opposition. But, to all South Sudanese both at home and in the diaspora who have been yearning for peace and the resultant progress that follows, Dr. Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon is undeniably holding everyone hostage. People have been reduced to begging him to come home. It is a slap in the face to all by the man who was essentially chased away and nearly lost his feet while running. He was humiliated but has now returned the slap of humiliation slowly and painfully with the determination of a stalking Panthera. To his political opponents and to all citizens of South Sudan, it is a damning warning. South Sudanese are not always tolerant of any individualistic leader. They have disowned many leaders who exhibited such characters. But Riek Machar Teny keeps coming back more powerful than each time he left. No one knows exactly the dragon in the shadow of the man. That’s what scares the government, the people, and President Kiir in particular.