Just a few small things – a headlamp, my passport, the medication I’m required to swallow daily. Yeah, when it comes down to it, if I had to run that is really all I’d need. Ryan’s thrown a long-sleeved shirt and some mosquito spray into the quick run bag. Water should be included, but I’m not taking this emergency preparation too seriously.
The occasion? A public holiday. South Sudan has been war free for two and a half years, but tempers can flash over the most innocuous situations, particularly those involving the tribes. And never doubt that here everything is tribal. Today honors the first president of South Sudan, John Garang, who was tragically killed in a plane crash in eastern South Sudan only months after signing the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Accord that officially laid the guns and bullets to rest after 21 years of death, despair, starvation and misery. Garang is as much of a hero as anyone can be in South Sudan. His photos decorate billboards at the Juba airport, they hang framed in stores and offices, and adorn T-shirts worn by the youth who are full of enlightenment and revolution. Nearly every public speech ends with a tribute to Garang. But the enthusiasm for him is somewhat muted here in Yambio. Garang was from the Dinka tribe. Western Equatoria State, however, is the stronghold of the Azande tribe, so much so that it’s referred to as Zande-land.
Yambio authorities decided the day would not be honored as it would throughout the rest of South Sudan with the requisite effusive speeches under the unforgiving sun in Freedom Square. Instead, a football match would be the main event. This did not sit well with the Dinka on the JIU, the Joint Integrated Unit, an armed force comprised of soldiers from the north and the south that are assigned to major cities and sensitive oil areas. So the Dinka issued a decree: If the government authorities did not start making speeches honoring Garang by 3 p.m. they would start shooting.
The compound at which we live is directly across from the police station and Freedom Square. If shooting were to occur on this day, it would occur in the square. So we decided it best to spend the afternoon at the office. It is two kilometers away at the far end of a road that connects to Congo.
Now, at the end of the day, we realize that violence did not visit. But the notion that a day dedicated to a man who helped usher in peace could erupt in violence is, well, hard to comprehend.
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