Back in South Sudan
It was all set-up. The contacts were made, the logistics organised, and the story there. Conflict has been raging in Blue Nile state in Sudan, following the fashion of South Kordofan.
But then things fell through, and this trip to South Sudan turned into a waiting game. And an expensive one at that.
Juba is not a place to live cheaply, and as I paid $85 a night for a bed in a container—the smell of the local abattoir wafting over—I was given plenty of time to reflect on how fast this city is developing. I was last here in July, covering the independence celebrations. Roads are transforming from dirt to tarmac, buildings are going up, and businesses are opening.
The main basketball courts have been refurbished—basketball is the national sport here in the land of six-foot-plus being the “average” height—and tonight, it was full. Two former NBA stars were here to promote sport and peace.
But in many parts of South Sudan and its borders, peace is still far from arriving. And so was I. Funds have run low, plans have fallen through and promises not kept. An empty-handed return to Nairobi looks likely. Whilst the city is developing, much of its bureaucracy and procedures are not. Things take a long time here
South Sudan Int’l
The first game of South Sudan’s international squad. Admittedly, not a fully international fixture, for they were playing a Kenyan team, Tusker F.C.
The newly rennovated Juba stadium was packed. People pressed up against the wire fences, sitting on walls around the grounds. Every seat in the stands was taken.
South Sudan got off to a good start, scoring the first goal. The final score was 3-1. The South Sudanese had scored three! Unfortunately, two of them were in their own net.
Pole, pole, as the Kenyans would say. “Slowly, slowly.”
South Sudan’s Independence Day
As the crowds swelled below the podium where AFP had a spot and a very long lens, the scene lay out below me reminded me of the history books. Of the black and white photographs of African independence from the sixties. The Colonialists handing back the countries they had taken, and ravaged. Here in Juba, Omar al-Bashir, the president of the previously unified Sudan, was in attendance, ready to hand over South Sudan to Kiir and his men.
Thousands had come out, and sat through the day under a baking Juba sun. The lines of soldiers, many who had fought through the long, bitter war with the north, occasionally had someone drop amongst their ranks. The sun taking its toll as Red Cross stretchers whipped away the feinted.
The armoured vehicles of South Africa swept in, their gunmen training their huge rifles on the thousands gathered as Jacob Zuma made his way to his seat. Museveni’s entourage seemingly went on for almost as many years as his rule.
I had had two hours sleep since last night’s celebrations, little water and less food. We wrestled with the over protective security, freshly laminated badges hanging around our necks. Elbows were out. Tempers were fraying with some of those around me who were fresh to South Sudan and its protocol.
Everything was inevitably delayed. Speeches went on. And on. There were not enough seats for the dignitaries; but the generals of this army chivalrously gave up theirs for these fresh-faced “guests of honour”, amongst them, Britain’s own foreign secretary. (We heard rumours that someone had the unenviable job of advising him to wear a cap to cover his balding head from the Sudanese sun.)
But I felt immensely fortunate to be here, six months after covering the referendum and its subsequent results announced preliminarily in Juba and then formally in Khartoum. Honoured to be here at this moment in history, to be one of the (many) photographers to capture this moment and leave a record on the history books.
As the sun dropped, I jumped on the back of a motorcycle and sped across the eerily empty streets of this new capital, a dash to file my images.
Tables of exhausted journalists sat around our usual haunt, and despite resolves for an early night, a few of us stayed up until the following sunrise, high on the adrenaline of the day.
As the clock strikes twelve
I had been worried that it would not be so.
Juba is increasingly on lock-down ahead of tomorrow’s independence celebrations, with more heads of states coming to town than the city has ever seen, and the eyes of the world on this fledgling nation.
The previous evening, walking back home at around one in the morning along an unlit, dirt street takes me back towards the Nile, a group of soldiers had emerged from the shadows. “What are you doing here, at this time?” they demanded. It was not the first time. The police seem to have adopted the curfew imposed by the United Nations and American Embassy on their staff, thinking it is city-wide.
Would people be out on the streets at midnight, celebrating the moment when this fabled day, the 9th of July, comes into being?
The answer was a resounding yes, and the heavy-handedness I feared from the police, was instead smiling, uniformed men, illuminated by the flashing sirens of their cars, as people danced and waved flags around them. Long live freedom.
As candles and car headlights provided the only illumination in this city of few street-lamps, groups marched down the thoroughfares, rolling on the tarmac (where it exists), car horns mixing with vuvuzelas.
Injury came to me by my own stupidity. I had spotted a slow moving car with women hanging out of the windows. I jumped on the back to try and capture them in motion. But when the car sped up, and not wanting to be carried into the darkness of outlying streets, I jumped off. My legs could not carry me as fast as I thought, and so I ended up spilling down onto the asphalt, tucking my camera into my chest and rolling over my exposed forearm.
A policeman ran up to me, and I thought “I’m in trouble now…” But he was more confirmed by my well-being than my traffic misdemeanours. “Kulu-shay tamaam” I assured him. Everything is fine. And it was.
Tomorrow, I will wake in two hours from now, and walk towards the show-ground, ready to watch South Sudan become the world’s newest nation.
South Sudan Independence Preparations
The army is marching, but it is not on its way northwards. Having returned to Juba from the war in the Nuba mountains, it is easy to think that the Nuba were right: the South has forgotten them.
Here in the southern capital, the trumpets are warming up, the choir rehearse the (rather terrible) new national anthem, as do soldiers their march, and people are out in the street celebrating. Deservedly so. They have suffered for decades, and many thought this moment would never arrive.
Tomorrow, heads of state will sit on the (still being constructed) stands outside the John Garang Memorial, the band will play and South Sudan will secede from the north.
And we, the international press, our numbers swelling by the day, will be running around taking pictures, absorbing the atmosphere, collecting quotes and recording speeches. If the day doesn’t end in sunstroke, I’ll be surprised.
