15/08/2025
Opinion Piece
No Borrowed Battles: South Sudan’s Stand for Sovereignty
By Ajak Deng Chiengkou
14 August 2025
The history of South Sudan’s liberation is marked by shifting alliances, changing priorities, and the selective attention of foreign powers over the years. Among these relationships, the one with Israel is often overstated. Evidence shows there has never been a continuous, unconditional bond between South Sudan and Israel. Where support existed, it was shaped by Israel’s own strategic calculus against Khartoum, not by a sustained commitment to the South Sudanese cause.
Our struggle was never meant to be fought as part of someone else’s war. No borrowed battle could define who we are or what we fight for. From the first shots of the liberation movement (1955 and 1983) to the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the SPLM’s guiding principle was clear: South Sudan’s battles must be its own, fought for the dignity, freedom, and rights of its people.
The Southern insurgency that began in the 1950s and 1960s was fragmented and militarily weak. Leaders such as Gordon Muortat and Joseph Lagu eventually consolidated part of the movement into what later became known as the Anyanya One. Seeking support, they approached Israel with a narrative framing their struggle as one of non-Arabs resisting a pan-Arab state aligned with Nasser’s Egypt. Israel, fresh from the 1967 war and seeking to counter Arab alliances, provided training, logistics, and propaganda support to a small number of Anyanya One fighters via Mossad between 1969 and 1971 as part of its “periphery doctrine.” Despite access to weapons, some sourced from Congo, the Anyanya failed to seize any towns or even police posts. Dr John Garang later reflected that borrowed battles often lacked the inner strength for real victory.
As for Israel, the South Sudanese were the answer to the Sudan’s anti-Israel stance. Anyone who once held a Sudanese green passport will recall that, after 1967, Sudan adopted an explicit anti-Israel policy, with the passport clearly stating that no Sudanese citizen was permitted to visit, or be admitted into, Israel.
When war restarted in 1983, the SPLM under Garang introduced the “New Sudan” vision: a united, secular state and later the Right of self-determination if unity failed. When the SPLM adopted the New Sudan vision, they never denounced this policy by the Sudanese regimes, as doing so would have placed the very ideology of the New Sudan in jeopardy. At the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Nairobi on 9 January 2005, Garang called for a Sudan united in diversity, where all were equal stakeholders. During the early phase of the SPLM, alliances included Libya, Ethiopia, and Cuba. These positions placed the movement in direct opposition to both Washington and Tel Aviv, each aligned with President Nimeiri. Nimeiri’s 1983 White House visit secured U.S. military aid that rose from under US$10 million to around US$200 million annually. At this time, the SPLM, the United States, and Israel were openly at odds.
In late 1984 and early 1985, Israel and the United States executed covert airlifts, Operation Moses and Operation Joshua, to evacuate Ethiopian Jews via Sudan to Israel. Sudanese authorities cooperated discreetly, and aid packages were tied to Khartoum’s cooperation. Garang publicly opposed the use of Sudan for these operations. For the SPLM, alignment with this arrangement would have constituted fighting a borrowed battle, diverting from the movement’s own cause.
Following the collapse of Nimeiri’s government in the mid-1980s, Gaddafi withdrew his support, and Ethiopia, under Mengistu, continued backing the SPLM until 1991. Once those alliances weakened, Sudan’s new Islamist regime began hosting jihadists, including Osama bin Laden. The United States designated Sudan a State Sponsor of Terrorism in 1993 and imposed comprehensive sanctions in 1997. Israel, alarmed by Khartoum’s Islamist tilt, shifted its position. Both countries became indirect backers of the SPLA, largely via regional partners, in a strategic, not ideological, realignment.
In the 1960s, Israel’s limited support for the Southern struggle was driven largely by the perception that the South Sudanese insurgency opposed Arab dominance. The SPLM/A later reframed this narrative through the “New Sudan” vision, which was rooted in the concept of Sudanism, a belief in a unified national identity that transcended ethnicity and religion. This vision called for a secular, democratic Sudan built on diversity and equal citizenship. At that stage, Israel and the SPLM were not aligned in their ideological outlook. Dr John Garang’s concept directly challenged the regime’s use of religion and ethnicity to divide the people, and the SPLM rejected such divisions. While Sudanism aimed to unite all citizens under a shared national identity, those opposed to a united Sudan viewed it as a threat to their political ambitions.
To protect the sovereignty of Sudan, and later South Sudan, Dr John Garang understood early on that continuous foreign military or political backing could come at a cost, often in the form of resource concessions or demands that might undermine national independence. He therefore pursued short-term, non-ideological assistance, choosing partners whose support would not come with strings that could jeopardise the country’s future. Nations such as South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Libya, Cuba, and Zimbabwe supported the South Sudanese cause as part of their own principled objectives, without demanding political alignment.
In this case, the Palestinian struggle is distinct from ours. South Sudan is not a neighbour of Israel, nor does it host large-scale migration from the Middle East. The few foreign nationals from that region who reside in South Sudan are business visitors, not refugees or displaced persons. Our people are still struggling to secure their own land. We cannot afford to import a century-old foreign conflict that would only deepen our wounds.
The record is plain. Israeli support for Southern Sudan was episodic and interest-driven: a tactical measure in the 1970s, alignment with Nimeiri in the 1980s, and reversal in the 1990s. Through it all, the SPLM maintained its course, sometimes at the cost of foreign favour. South Sudan must never fight borrowed battles. Our alliances must be grounded in justice, our sovereignty guided by history. Friendship is welcome, but principle comes first. No nation’s conflict should be imported to our soil, and no temporary alliance mistaken for unconditional loyalty.
