The images out of Africa of late have been hauntingly familiar, starving children and desperate families, as famine again takes hold in lawless Somalia. By contrast, neighbouring South Sudan is sounding upbeat as it celebrates its new independence from the North after decades of war. As the dust settled on the independence celebrations, Yalda Hakim set out to gauge the mood, as the massive task of building this new nation begins.
REPORTER: Yalda Hakim
CHILDREN SING: God, we praise and glorify you for your grace on South Sudan. For justice, liberty and prosperity shall forever more reign. God protect South Sudan.
Though their national anthem is only a few weeks old, these children know the words well. At this Sunday School in the new capital, Juba, they sing the anthem as a prayer for the future.
REPORTER: Do you know what independence is?
CHILD: Yes.
REPORTER: What does it mean?
CHILD: Independence is our country, South Sudan. There was fighting but now it is good.
Teacher Tabitha Eliaba Kenyi says that, before independence, she grew up as a second-class citizen.
TABITHA ELIABA KENYI, TEACHER: They are going to feel they are first-class citizens in their own country. For me, for example, I grew up in northern Sudan and there I always feel that I am less than them because even the community look at us like we are less than other children of northerners. So that’s what our children know, they are going to feel the same, they will be in the same class, nothing is going to make them feel inferior. They are going to do things with courage.
Tabitha tells me that her priority now is to teach the children about peace.
TABITHA ELIABA KENYI: We put the first step and they are going to follow after us.
This was the scene in Juba earlier this month. In the scorching heat, the largely Christian population celebrated their freedom. They’d witnessed decades of civil war with the North, which claimed at least two million lives and displaced many more. Now this young country faces a stark reality - there’s almost no civil administration and most people are illiterate. They face an uncertain future.
This is the most affluent part of Juba and one of the few stretches of sealed road in the country. We are warned not to drive too far out of the city for fear of land mines left over from the civil war. But you don’t have to go far to see the reality of daily life for the South Sudanese. Despite all the problems, there is no shortage of people willing to work towards the future.
Here, at a popular Juba restaurant, ironically called ‘Home and Away’, I meet a group of South Sudanese who’ve returned from Australia.
ADOL MAKENY DHIEU, STUDENT: Some families have lost people almost their entire family and they end up living abroad or in other African countries by themselves. They don't have a home and it's going to be really hard to come back and re-establish yourself in a country where you feel lost – you don’t have anything.
Adol Makeny Dhieu is a science student from Sydney. She says the South Sudanese government has a big job ahead of it.
ADOL MAKENY DHIEU: Because they haven’t been into this governing system, they lack experience and they don’t have the knowledge, the experience they need to manage the financial bit of the country.
Ayen Kuol is from Adelaide. She is concerned about corruption.
AYEN KUOL: Our people have been in war for so many years. Imagine someone hungry for days. When you bring plate of food in front of them, they try to grab as much as you can, knowing that their mouth is small but wanting to get full. That’s how we perceive our corruption.
Awek Bul Akech says no-one is to blame.
AWEK BUL AKECH: I can’t blame anyone ‘cause there is no-one to blame. We can’t blame the government because they will do a good job. We just have to hope that the next five years aren’t like the last five years. If it’s the same, we have a problem.
In fact, less than a month ago, fighting was still going on between the northern army and Southern Sudanese forces over the oil rich region of Abyei, which is claimed by both sides. It was General Elias Waya’s troops who repelled the attack. He delivers a stark warning to Sudan's President Omar Al-Bashir. He’s prepared to go straight back to war.
GENERAL ELIAS WAYA: If it is decided that all possible means for peaceful resolution of the Abyei issue are no longer there, then we will go for war, there's no way we are not going for war, and we will defeat them! But now, as an independent nation, they are going to get it very rough and tough.
REPORTER: Do you think you are provoking them?
GENERAL ELIAS WAYA: We are not provoking them but we are putting our population to know that war is still…. The enemy is still in Abeyei, chasing our people out of Abyei, and they will fight us any time.
Returnees like Justin Kawac Makuei, from Melbourne, support the general, especially when it comes to the North’s President.
JUSTIN KAWAC MAKUEI: If you live next to a mad dog, then don’t be surprised if you get bitten. So Abyei is being held as a ransom, so what do you do?
ADOL MAKENY DHIEU: The land belongs to the people of Abeyei. It's part of South Sudan and they're southern Sudanese. So, being a criminal, he is holding us for ransom but he hasn't got anything to claim for. If Bashir wanted the oil, he should have said it in plain English or plain Arabic.
William Deng Deng agrees.
WILLIAM DENG DENG: He should put it to the international community that he wants oil from Abeyei and the international community should sit down with the people of Abeyei and decide if he should be given any oil if there is that necessity.
Here, at St Joseph’s Catholic School, in the centre of Juba, independence also represents religious freedom. This overwhelmingly Christian land has been dominated by the Muslim north for decades.
JOHN WANI, SCHOOL PRINCIPAL: I'm a Catholic. I'm a Christian. I'm to teach Islamic history? It is very difficult for us. It is a golden chance for us to have our own independence and our own history.
Good morning.
CHILDREN: Good morning, sir.
JOHN WANI: How are you? Sit down.
CHILDREN: Thank you, sir.
The principal, John Wani, says he wants to imprint on these young minds, the Christian values his generation fought so hard to uphold.
JOHN WANI: We have been in war for 21 years and we have a lot of obstacles and a lot of challenges.
Phasing out the Arabic curriculum and replacing it with an English one is only one of the fundamental challenges the school faces. I counted 90 pupils in this class.
JOHN WANI: If you take the ratio of schools to pupil you will find out one classroom will go over 200. There are a lot of returnees from Khartoum but the main reason is we have a lot of kids and few schools.
The principal tells me St Joseph’s is considered more prosperous than other schools.
JOHN WANI: Generally, infrastructure is zero. In some areas, schools are under a tree, schools are in a tent. We need to create a conducive environment for children to grow and pursue an education. We are trying to emerge from zero upwards.
And it's not just the schools that have been neglected. This is Juba's largest hospital. This hospital is considered privileged. It has more doctors and gets more government funding than any other health facility in this infant nation. But even here, there is a chronic shortage of resources. It's a situation only too familiar to the hospital director, Dr Robert Napolean.
DR ROBERT NAPOLEAN: We have a big problem here because the number of nurses we have is not enough to cater for the patients. Because of the war generally, the war had a big impact, so many health facilities were destroyed.
Dr Napolean tells me this is the only general hospital in Juba. Preventable illnesses like malaria, gastroenteritis and pneumonia are rampant. But with poor sanitation and a lack of health facilities, many die before they are treated.
DR ROBERT NAPOLEAN: Now the hospital is suffering because it is overloaded. Almost all of the patients from around here come to this hospital because this is the only one that is functional. If we had other hospitals doing what this is, I think the load will go down.
In a country where there is a shortage of everything, Dr Napoleon says there’s a lot of waste. He blames Non-Governmental Organizations.
DR ROBERT NAPOLEAN: They bring a lot of consultants from outside, give him a lot of money, like $1,000 a day, for 30 days or maybe 60 days, depending on how long he stays, and he goes back, and comes out with a report that may not be implemented. So what is the purpose of getting a consultant? I could have just gone to the NGO and made a lot of money, but I said “No, I will continue to help our people.” If we don’t do it, no-one else will.
Tonight there is yet another independence celebration. Juba has a vibrant music scene and this gathering has been organised by a returnee from Britain, Anyieth D’wol. She moved here in 2005 just after the signing of a peace accord.
ANYIETH D’WOL: I came here, I lived in a tent for several months, no electricity, no water. I moved to a house that was completely dilapidated and really expensive for a year, and paid a lot of rent for nothing.
Anyieth runs the Roots Project ,which helps empower women through arts and crafts.
ANYIETH D’WOL: We've had peace, we've had peace agreements, we've had reconciliation, but we've always had conflict. This is the one thing that people still worry about, and it's many years of really bad things. People are very traumatized.
Celebrations here cannot obscure a sobering truth -creating a new nation will take decades of hard work.
ANYIETH D’WOL: I never felt I wanted to leave South Sudan because, if it isn't for us to build it, then who will?
Reporter
YALDA HAKIM
Camera
DAVID OLLIER
Producer
VICTORIA STROBL
Editors
NICK O’BRIEN
WAYNE LOVE
Original Music composed by
VICKI HANSEN