30/09/2025
“Bona Malwal Madut Retires from Politics, Urges Young Leaders to Serve the People”
Bona Malwal Madut Ring
Khartoum, 21 June 2011
As the people and government of South Sudan prepare to declare and celebrate their independence on 9th July 2011, I wish to make this public statement: as of that date, 9th July 2011, I will step aside from active South Sudan party politics.
At over 70 years of age, and after 46 years of active political engagement, it is time for me to diversify into other areas of my professional training, such as research and writing.
Although I had been somewhat politically active from a very young age, I was truly thrust into active politics by the events of October 1964. At that time, I had just returned from professional training in the United States of America, under the American Aid Programme (USAID), which had awarded me a generous scholarship to study Journalism.
Upon returning to Sudan in 1964, the country was ripe for a popular revolution. Without fully realizing the path I was about to embark upon, I was propelled by the events of the October 1964 Popular Revolution into active political engagement. The Abboud military regime had been in power for six years, and the rebellion in South Sudan was at a critical juncture. Terms like genocide and atrocities against civilians were not part of the political vocabulary at the time, yet the Abboud regime inflicted untold suffering on the people of South Sudan, claiming it was maintaining law and order.
All repressive regimes exploit crises to suppress political dissent elsewhere. Northern Sudan too was dissatisfied with its political lot under the Abboud regime. In such circumstances, I became an activist politician during the October 1964 uprising. I never had the chance to look back. South Sudan was in the throes of rebellion, and Khartoum openly committed atrocities against its people.
The Southern Front Movement was founded in Khartoum during this period, and I was at the center of establi