“Sorry man. Gotta be tough.”
“You got it. Imagine telling two twenty-year-olds that they’re kicked out of school for at least a year.”
“Sounds like they have bigger problems.”
“Can you believe that my entire career hinges on the decisions made by a bunch of immature kids?”
“Didn’t we have this conversation twenty years ago?”
“We did. And nothing has changed.”
“Sign Sooleymon. He’ll make you a genius.”
CHAPTER 13
In 1979, Chevron discovered oil in the southern region of Sudan and soon realized that the country had the third largest reserves on the continent. After a few years, the Sudanese ruling party in Khartoum nationalized its oil fields, kicked out the Americans, and signed a lucrative deal to sell all its crude to China. By the mid-1980s, $12 billion a year was flowing into Sudan. With various civil wars raging throughout the country—North versus South, Islamic versus Catholic, tribe versus tribe—the oil riches only intensified the conflicts. In 2011, South Sudan was given the right to choose independence, and it did so overwhelmingly. Supported by billions in foreign aid from the U.S. and Europe, and propped up by oil revenues, South Sudan became the world’s newest country and its future seemed bright. Most of the money, though, remained in Juba as the ruling elites siphoned off billions and feasted on the unlimited cash. While they stashed it in Swiss banks, and bought apartments in London and mansions in Melbourne, and sent their kids to the Ivies, and armed their soldiers with an astonishing arsenal of guns, tanks, and helicopters, the people suffered even more. The money was not used for schools, hospitals, roads, or infrastructure.
The peace was fragile and temporary. Ethnic rivalries grew more bitter as half a dozen warlords and strongmen jockeyed for more of the money and a seat at the table. In 2013, yet another civil war erupted and the new country spiraled into violent chaos. Tribal lines were fortified as heavily armed militias attacked and burned villages, then waited for retaliation. The atrocities shocked the world. At least 400,000 people were murdered. At least four million, mostly women and children, were displaced and forced to scramble to safety in sprawling refugee camps.
Peace agreements came and went. The best way for a guerrilla commander to get the attention of Juba, and a bigger slice of the pie, was to burn some villages, commit some atrocities, and leave the rotting corpses in the mud for the benefit of Western cameras. After some of this mischief, Juba might offer another peace deal, with cash and arms to boot.
* * *
·?·?·
Among the proud villagers who watched Samuel and his team on the big screen were some spies, sent in to take the measure of the town.
Just after midnight, the gunfire erupted. Beatrice heard it first, woke Ayak from a deep sleep, and yelled for the children to put on their shoes. The sickening Tak-Tak-Tak-Tak of the Kalashnikovs was a sound they had heard before. The family ran outside and joined their neighbors who were trying to determine where the gunfire was. It seemed to be coming from everywhere, and plenty of it. People were yelling, pointing, and running in different directions.
Suddenly, lights appeared and a military truck rumbled down the dirt street. Soldiers jumped out, brandishing their Kallies. One look and the people knew they were rebel soldiers, not regular army. They fired at random into the air and began yelling for the men to form a single line. A fourteen-year-old boy, a neighborhood kid well-known to all, broke and ran toward an alley, and was gunned down like a stray dog. His mother screamed and his father started toward him when a soldier knocked him down with the butt of his rifle.
“Hands up! Hands up!” the commander barked at the other men.
Tak-Tak-Tak-Tak. The gunfire was horrifying and more soldiers swarmed through the village, grabbing men and older teenage boys.
Ayak managed to say to Beatrice, “Run! Take them and run to the bush.”
Other women and children were scurrying about, not sure which direction was safe. Was anywhere safe? A gasoline bomb was tossed into the hut across the street from the Sooleymons’ and it was quickly engulfed in flames. Then there were fires everywhere, up and down the street.
The men were marched in a group toward the center of town, passing other burning homes. A fifteen-year-old girl was wrestled away from her mother, stripped naked, and shoved to the rear of a troop truck. Near the church, men from throughout the village were streaming in, all with their hands up.
“We’re just having a meeting,” a commander kept yelling through the mayhem. “Hurry up! Hurry up!”