OPENING TC 00:00:00
Burnt out vehicles
SPLA soldiers riding tank
Soldiers marching
The Sudan People's Liberation Army, the SPLA, has been at war against the Muslim fundamentalist government of Khartoum since 1983. Recently it has scored a series of punishing victories against the better equipped government forces.
ASTON TC 00:29:15
Commander Nyon Kwach Char,
The Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA)
“Ahead there is a destroyed enemy tank. Behind that tank is the presence of the enemy.”
TC 00:40:24
soldiers walking through field littered
with dead, decaying bodies
The battlefield near Kit River about 60 kilometres from the southern town of Juba is littered with the bodies of government soldiers and Muslim militias, who believed they were waging a holy war to islamise the Christian and pagan Africans here in the south.
TC 00:57:23
Sign
CU soldier with gun
sunset
Since the attempted assassination of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak last year, Sudan's neighbours have increased their support for the SPLA. In addition the SPLA signed a pact with northern Sudanese opposition forces, the National Democratic Alliance, to topple the government of Omar el Bashir in Khartoum.
ASTON TC 01:17:14
Commander Peter Wal,
Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA)
“We are now working with the National Democratic Alliance. We are working with the whole of the regional group in the North who are joining our efforts together and we are hoping, and we will, overthrow it. The new Sudan cannot be created under the present government. We in the SPLA are aiming for the NDA to take over power and we can then go into negotiation with the NDA for the creation of a New Sudan.”
TC 01:50:10
SPLA soldiers
CU soldier playing stringed instrument
Tank surrounded by soldiers
Yet only eighteen months ago, weakened by internal divisions, the SPLA was on the brink of defeat, driven back to the Ugandan and Kenyan borders. However, their fortunes changed dramatically when they launched their recent surprise offensive, with a strength suggesting outside assistance.
TC 02:10:00
White car driving through track, hills in
background
Now the SPLA controls most of the vast East Equatoria province here in southern Sudan. In the village of Kachanga, in newly occupied territory, the rebels have for the first time allowed outsiders to visit prisoners of war captured in their latest offensive.
TC 02:29:18
POWs chanting
“We are Mujahidin. We are fighting for our country, and if we die we will go to heaven”'
Several of the prisoners, including a group of Mujahed or 'holy warriors', admit they volunteered for service, but were told, they say, by their government that hostile neighbours were about to invade Sudan.
ASTON TC 02:46:17
Fatah Raahman El Amin
22 yrs, Mujahed
TRANSLATION
'Our main objective was to islamise the South. Before coming here to the South the government told us that Sudan was about to be invaded by Uganda and Ethiopia. That is why we were sent here just then. It was to defend South Sudanese territory.
TC 03:08:06
POW Hafiz Ahmed Amdan - skinny with
shirt open and ribs showing with other
POWs
Others, such as nineteen-year-old Hafiz Ahmed Amdan from West Fasher, have a different story to tell.
ASTON TC 03.14:00
Hafiz Ahmed Amdan,
former GOS soldier, 19 yrs
TRANSLATION
I was fetching water in my home village one day, when a group of government soldiers detained me. I was taken to the military barracks where I was held. I was given military training there. After a while I was taken to the South, to the military barracks in the town of Juba. Then we were sent to the front at Kit, and that's where I was captured.
TC 03:32:30
POWs chanting
Long live SPLA!
Long live New Sudan!
Victory is imminent!
TC 03:41:05
PoW camp - man praying on
mat - soldiers watching him
Although the prisoners are made to chant pro-SPLA slogans, they are at least allowed the dignity of practising their religion, in keeping with the SPLA’s commitment to a secularised and multi-religious Sudan.
TC 03:55:21
Two men preparing food -
cutting vegetable with knife
Preparing geal tree leaves
The prisoners have to cultivate or gather their own food. Here they prepare leaves from the geal tree, which they will pound and mix with water. A diet normally associated with famine.
TC 04:12:40
Young men with guns
Close ups faces of young men
The conflict in Sudan - Africa’s longest running civil war - has become an issue of regional, and perhaps of even wider implications. While these Arab northerners have been sent South to spread Islam and to contain an alleged invasion, their increasingly isolated government in Khartoum has been training various rebel groups in neighbouring countries and using them in its war against the SPLA.
TC 04.37:25
Commander Peter Wal,
Sudan People's Liberation Army
“Here in Equatoria we are fighting the elements opposing the government of President Yoweri Museveni. We have here in Equatoria the Lord's Resistance Army which has been recruited, equipped and trained by the government of Sudan. The other, the West Bank Nile Front, most of which are composed of Aringa tribe, Lugwara tribe, Kakwa and Alur tribes. These tribes have many Muslims - it was a base for Idi Amin when he was a ruler in Uganda. During Amin's time, Amin succeeded in islamising most of the people at that end. So they are dreaming of the time of Amin.”
TC 05:34:00
Back of army truck on road
Gulu barracks
solemn looking teenagers sitting on ground
These two rebel groups backed by Khartoum are now pushing Uganda to the brink of civil war. At Gulu barracks, in Uganda, recent teenage deserters describe how they were abducted from their villages in north Uganda by the LRA and made to become guerrilla fighters inside Sudan.
ASTON TC 05:57:20
Jennifer Lakang
14 yrs, former LRA fighter
TRANSLATION
“I was abducted from my home when I was harvesting maize. We were made to walk for two days. We came to Sudan, where we were taken to Palataka camp. I was held there for a year and taught to assemble weapons. After heavy fighting inside Sudan (with the SPLA) we started moving back towards Uganda.”
TC 06:34:16
Michael Ojok,
19 yrs, former LRA fighter
TRANSLATION
“A group of us tried to escape when we were in Palataka (Sudan), so they put us in 'prison' for a week and gave us nothing to eat. Then we were released and they gave us back our guns. That was the day before Christmas. They said that to punish us, two of us were to be killed and that two of us were to do it. Then they chose the victims. Everyone else was made to gather round to witness it. Two were killed, I was one of those who did the killing.”
TC 07:17:13
Arms cache laid out on ground
Witchcraft and terror, once the LRAs main weapons have now been supplemented by arms from Sudan's Islamic régime. Here an arms cache, just one of three taken from the rebels is displayed by the Ugandan army. The Ugandan military appears now to be losing patience with its northern neighbour Sudan, and is preparing for a possible war.
TC 07:44:20
Brigadier Chefe Ali
Ugandan People's Defence Forces
(UPDF NB new name for NRA, Ugandan army)
“They have been shelling our positions. And of course it is they who have aided this group to come in and they have been aiding another group, the WNBF to come through the West Nile. They are now on a war footing. All indications show that they will attack us.”
TC 08:10:00
Old woman walking with stick along track
An old woman walks along a track in Labone refugee camp, South Sudan. In Sudan there has been war between the Arab North and the African South for all but eleven of the forty years since independence. An estimated 1.3 million Sudanese have already died as a result of this conflict. Most people in the South are now displaced, many have had to flee from the fighting on countless occasions.
TC 08:40:17
Mayok Aguer working in field
Mayok Aguer, originally from the town of Bor, has been a refugee in four different refugee camps since 1991.
TC 08.49:19
Mayok Aguer, Dinka refugee, Labone
TRANSLATION
“When my family left Bor it was because we were fleeing from the enemy. First we came to Torit. After we fled from Torit we came to Ame refugee camp. There was no food there. Hunger killed three of my children. Because things were so bad in Ame we left for Aswa camp near Nimule. Hunger struck again and two more children died. So we left and finally came here to Labone. ”
TC 09:15:00
Refugees walking down track
Refugees like Mayok Aguer may have to move on yet again, as Sudan's bloody and seemingly interminable civil war, threatens to escalate and spill across its borders and into the neighbouring countries.
TC 09:30:10
ENDS
Burnt out vehicles
SPLA soldiers riding tank
Soldiers marching
The Sudan People's Liberation Army, the SPLA, has been at war against the Muslim fundamentalist government of Khartoum since 1983. Recently it has scored a series of punishing victories against the better equipped government forces.
ASTON TC 00:29:15
Commander Nyon Kwach Char,
The Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA)
“Ahead there is a destroyed enemy tank. Behind that tank is the presence of the enemy.”
TC 00:40:24
soldiers walking through field littered
with dead, decaying bodies
The battlefield near Kit River about 60 kilometres from the southern town of Juba is littered with the bodies of government soldiers and Muslim militias, who believed they were waging a holy war to islamise the Christian and pagan Africans here in the south.
TC 00:57:23
Sign
CU soldier with gun
sunset
Since the attempted assassination of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak last year, Sudan's neighbours have increased their support for the SPLA. In addition the SPLA signed a pact with northern Sudanese opposition forces, the National Democratic Alliance, to topple the government of Omar el Bashir in Khartoum.
ASTON TC 01:17:14
Commander Peter Wal,
Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA)
“We are now working with the National Democratic Alliance. We are working with the whole of the regional group in the North who are joining our efforts together and we are hoping, and we will, overthrow it. The new Sudan cannot be created under the present government. We in the SPLA are aiming for the NDA to take over power and we can then go into negotiation with the NDA for the creation of a New Sudan.”
TC 01:50:10
SPLA soldiers
CU soldier playing stringed instrument
Tank surrounded by soldiers
Yet only eighteen months ago, weakened by internal divisions, the SPLA was on the brink of defeat, driven back to the Ugandan and Kenyan borders. However, their fortunes changed dramatically when they launched their recent surprise offensive, with a strength suggesting outside assistance.
TC 02:10:00
White car driving through track, hills in
background
Now the SPLA controls most of the vast East Equatoria province here in southern Sudan. In the village of Kachanga, in newly occupied territory, the rebels have for the first time allowed outsiders to visit prisoners of war captured in their latest offensive.
TC 02:29:18
POWs chanting
“We are Mujahidin. We are fighting for our country, and if we die we will go to heaven”'
Several of the prisoners, including a group of Mujahed or 'holy warriors', admit they volunteered for service, but were told, they say, by their government that hostile neighbours were about to invade Sudan.
ASTON TC 02:46:17
Fatah Raahman El Amin
22 yrs, Mujahed
TRANSLATION
'Our main objective was to islamise the South. Before coming here to the South the government told us that Sudan was about to be invaded by Uganda and Ethiopia. That is why we were sent here just then. It was to defend South Sudanese territory.
TC 03:08:06
POW Hafiz Ahmed Amdan - skinny with
shirt open and ribs showing with other
POWs
Others, such as nineteen-year-old Hafiz Ahmed Amdan from West Fasher, have a different story to tell.
ASTON TC 03.14:00
Hafiz Ahmed Amdan,
former GOS soldier, 19 yrs
TRANSLATION
I was fetching water in my home village one day, when a group of government soldiers detained me. I was taken to the military barracks where I was held. I was given military training there. After a while I was taken to the South, to the military barracks in the town of Juba. Then we were sent to the front at Kit, and that's where I was captured.
TC 03:32:30
POWs chanting
Long live SPLA!
Long live New Sudan!
Victory is imminent!
TC 03:41:05
PoW camp - man praying on
mat - soldiers watching him
Although the prisoners are made to chant pro-SPLA slogans, they are at least allowed the dignity of practising their religion, in keeping with the SPLA’s commitment to a secularised and multi-religious Sudan.
TC 03:55:21
Two men preparing food -
cutting vegetable with knife
Preparing geal tree leaves
The prisoners have to cultivate or gather their own food. Here they prepare leaves from the geal tree, which they will pound and mix with water. A diet normally associated with famine.
TC 04:12:40
Young men with guns
Close ups faces of young men
The conflict in Sudan - Africa’s longest running civil war - has become an issue of regional, and perhaps of even wider implications. While these Arab northerners have been sent South to spread Islam and to contain an alleged invasion, their increasingly isolated government in Khartoum has been training various rebel groups in neighbouring countries and using them in its war against the SPLA.
TC 04.37:25
Commander Peter Wal,
Sudan People's Liberation Army
“Here in Equatoria we are fighting the elements opposing the government of President Yoweri Museveni. We have here in Equatoria the Lord's Resistance Army which has been recruited, equipped and trained by the government of Sudan. The other, the West Bank Nile Front, most of which are composed of Aringa tribe, Lugwara tribe, Kakwa and Alur tribes. These tribes have many Muslims - it was a base for Idi Amin when he was a ruler in Uganda. During Amin's time, Amin succeeded in islamising most of the people at that end. So they are dreaming of the time of Amin.”
TC 05:34:00
Back of army truck on road
Gulu barracks
solemn looking teenagers sitting on ground
These two rebel groups backed by Khartoum are now pushing Uganda to the brink of civil war. At Gulu barracks, in Uganda, recent teenage deserters describe how they were abducted from their villages in north Uganda by the LRA and made to become guerrilla fighters inside Sudan.
ASTON TC 05:57:20
Jennifer Lakang
14 yrs, former LRA fighter
TRANSLATION
“I was abducted from my home when I was harvesting maize. We were made to walk for two days. We came to Sudan, where we were taken to Palataka camp. I was held there for a year and taught to assemble weapons. After heavy fighting inside Sudan (with the SPLA) we started moving back towards Uganda.”
TC 06:34:16
Michael Ojok,
19 yrs, former LRA fighter
TRANSLATION
“A group of us tried to escape when we were in Palataka (Sudan), so they put us in 'prison' for a week and gave us nothing to eat. Then we were released and they gave us back our guns. That was the day before Christmas. They said that to punish us, two of us were to be killed and that two of us were to do it. Then they chose the victims. Everyone else was made to gather round to witness it. Two were killed, I was one of those who did the killing.”
TC 07:17:13
Arms cache laid out on ground
Witchcraft and terror, once the LRAs main weapons have now been supplemented by arms from Sudan's Islamic régime. Here an arms cache, just one of three taken from the rebels is displayed by the Ugandan army. The Ugandan military appears now to be losing patience with its northern neighbour Sudan, and is preparing for a possible war.
TC 07:44:20
Brigadier Chefe Ali
Ugandan People's Defence Forces
(UPDF NB new name for NRA, Ugandan army)
“They have been shelling our positions. And of course it is they who have aided this group to come in and they have been aiding another group, the WNBF to come through the West Nile. They are now on a war footing. All indications show that they will attack us.”
TC 08:10:00
Old woman walking with stick along track
An old woman walks along a track in Labone refugee camp, South Sudan. In Sudan there has been war between the Arab North and the African South for all but eleven of the forty years since independence. An estimated 1.3 million Sudanese have already died as a result of this conflict. Most people in the South are now displaced, many have had to flee from the fighting on countless occasions.
TC 08:40:17
Mayok Aguer working in field
Mayok Aguer, originally from the town of Bor, has been a refugee in four different refugee camps since 1991.
TC 08.49:19
Mayok Aguer, Dinka refugee, Labone
TRANSLATION
“When my family left Bor it was because we were fleeing from the enemy. First we came to Torit. After we fled from Torit we came to Ame refugee camp. There was no food there. Hunger killed three of my children. Because things were so bad in Ame we left for Aswa camp near Nimule. Hunger struck again and two more children died. So we left and finally came here to Labone. ”
TC 09:15:00
Refugees walking down track
Refugees like Mayok Aguer may have to move on yet again, as Sudan's bloody and seemingly interminable civil war, threatens to escalate and spill across its borders and into the neighbouring countries.
TC 09:30:10
ENDS