08/06/2026
SOUTH SUDANESE STUDENTS’ PROTEST IN OCTOBER, 1974 AGAINST JONLEI CANAL PROJECT IN THEN SOUTHERN SUDAN:
In November 1959, Egypt and Sudan signed an agreement for the full utilization of the waters of
the Nile. In 1960, a Permanent Joint Technical Committee was formed with four members from
each country. Sudan’s members were from the Ministry of Irrigation and there was no representative from Southern Sudan. The Technical Committee had several projects on its
drawing board – draining the Machar marshes, a bypass scheme for draining the tributaries west
of the Nile, and the Jonglei Canal. Its other activities included taking the river’s readings,
regulating each dam against actual withdrawal and evaporation.
In February 1974 the Permanent Joint Technical Committee agreed on the project of circumventing the sudd area by digging the Jonglei Canal. There was no one to reassure the South Sudanese that the projects would not negatively affect their water resources. Water from its many rivers and streams is a vital resource in South Sudan beyond the sudd.
The toich (swamp) is the critical component of the grazing cycle for cattle and wildlife in dry season. Through the River Nile, the Dinka and Nuer are able
to combat famines through dependence on milk, grain and fish. The social bias of the people in
favour of cattle is partly a result of these environmental conditions.
In February 1974, Sudan Government Ministers of Irrigation and Agriculture, Yahya Abdel Magid
and Wadie Habashie respectively, came to Juba and met Abel Alier, President of the High Executive Council (Regional Government of Southern Sudan) and a special meeting of the High Executive Council was arranged during which the ministers explained the Jonglei Canal Project Besides Egypt and Sudan’s needs for water, they talked of the socio-economic development of the canal area, diversion of only one-fifth of the sudd water, and generous compensation to citizens whose farms and homes would be affected by the canal totaling 18,000,000 Sudanese pounds.
The cabinet of the Southern Sudan Regional Government led by Abel Alier was informed that
appropriate socio-economic development strategies would be implemented in the Jonglei Canal
area. These included the construction of all-weather roads, navigable canals, cash crop schemes,
clean drinking water and drainage to stop seasonal floods. Besides supporting Egypt and Sudan
with water, the canal was partly intended to support large scale sugarcane growing and processing
in Mongalla, Melut, and Galhak (Jalak) in South Sudan.
When the Jonglei Canal Project was made public in a press release, rumours started circulating in
South Sudan that two million Egyptians were going to settle in the canal area. It was rumoured
that a total of 132,000 Egyptian soldiers, 6000 for each district, would be moved to South Sudan
to guide the canal. This rumour had its base partly in similar military support for canal schemes
by the British and French governments for the Suez Canal and the Americans for the Panama
Canal. It also reflected local understandings of Rai el Misri, the Egyptian camp in Malakal, which
was highly segregated from the local community.
The rumours of a transfer of about 2.5 million
Egyptians to South Sudan to settle were understood as the creation of a state within a state. Egyptian teachers and eleven British engineers who were in South Sudan at that time were mistaken for the Egyptian officers’ corps. Also, the canal was rumoured to drain all of the water, fish and other aquatic life for the benefit of Egypt.
A paper by an anonymous author referring to himself or herself as a “Stout Nationalist” alleged that there should be two canals running parallel as a single canal will increase the speed of the flow of water and drive all the fish to Lake Nasir in Egypt. The intended plan of the canal was also rumoured to make wildlife in South Sudan immigrate to neighboring countries or become extinct due to lack of water.
The tribes along the canal feared being poorly resettled like the people of Wadi Halfa during the construction of the Aswan Dam in 1960. Other allegations include the turning of South Sudan into a desert because evaporation in the sudd region is what brings rain to the area.
There were rumours that Paul Howell, the Chair of the 1952 Jonglei Canal Team had said that the current money earmarked for compensating the Dinka and Nuer for alternative livelihoods was practically nothing. In response to these rumours, school children exploded into massive demonstrations in Juba, Malakal, Bor, Torit, Yambio, Yei and Wau.
On 13th October, five Juba Commercial Students’ representatives – Stephen Gwang, John Juliano Luak, Aluk Akok, Kawach Anei, and Isaac Baby – took a letter to the Minister of Education Philip Obang and to the Deputy Commander of the Sudan Armed Forces Southern Division Andrew Makur Thou, requesting permission to demonstrate against the Jonglei Canal Project.
Andrew Makur asked whether it was going to be a peaceful demonstration and the students’ representatives replied in the affirmative. Andrew Makur Thou then asked Major Kamilo Adong to see to it that the demonstration was peaceful.
On 14th October 1974, students from Buluk Junior Secondary School, Juba Commercial ,Senior Secondary School, Juba Girls Intermediate Secondary School, Addis Ababa Girls
Intermediate School, Juba One Intermediate, and all primary schools in Juba assembled at Juba Commercial Secondary School.
Tartisio Philip Lado was between nine and eleven years old and in primary four at Kator Primary School. He recalled how he actively participated in mobilizing Kator Girls and Boys primary schools for the strike. As they left their schools at 6.30am they
shouted ‘Down, down Jonglei canal, away with Egyptians’; at Buluk slogans such as ‘Down, down
with Jonglei canal, down, down with Egyptian policy’ were written on the walls of school
buildings in both Arabic and English.
From Juba Commercial Senior Secondary School, students walked to Mobil petrol station and then to the High Executive Council. A total of 22 representatives including junior and primary school children were chosen to present the petition to the Council of Ministers. The Minister of Information informed the students’ representatives that the Sudan Socialist Union (SSU), the ruling political party during the reign of President Nimeiri, will brief the students the following day.
According to Stephen Gwang, Secretary General (SG) of Juba Commercial Senior Secondary Students’ Union, students dispersed peacefully in anticipation of the SSU briefing the following day.
The next day, 15th of October 1974, students refused to go to class, saying they were preparing for the meeting at the SSU centre, opposite the present Central Bank of South Sudan, at 5pm. but at 3.30pm the Acting President of the High Executive Council sent a message that the 5pm meeting was cancelled. All the same, by 4.00pm students were on their way to the SSU centre.
When neither Abel Alier nor Hilary Paul Logali came to address them, the students made their own speeches. Nyiker Okoth Awin, then Secretary General of Rumbek Senior Secondary School
Students’ Union, talked against the digging of the Jonglei Canal. He argued that Egypt and Sudan
did not care about the people of South Sudan, only its water, and by allowing the construction of
the canal, the people in the canal area in South Sudan were bound to suffer. All the speeches at the
SSU centre repeated the rumours about the canal; other speakers linked the Nasir area in Upper
Nile with Egypt’s Gamal el Nasser and claimed that Egypt had long plans to take over part of
South Sudan’s soil.
After many speeches, students dispersed in a disorderly manner and vented their anger on vehicles and buildings. Buluk Junior Secondary School students returned towards Buluk shouting loudly, throwing stones at houses, and beat up a teacher called George from Juba One Intermediate
School. Some of the students went into the streets of Juba and caused more destruction of
property and assaulted the police.
Pasquale Teiberius Moilinga was in primary two at Juba One Primary School when the students’ strike took place. He (Pasquale) recalled how he was carried on the shoulders of bigger boys to the
demonstration ground and placed in front to carry placards denouncing the Jonglei Canal. He
recalled how students were warned that an Egyptian could eat up to 20 loaves of bread a day.
In the absence of enough food, they would turn into cannibals. That was the first time the heart that the word kulabantu (Luganda word in Uganda for cannibals). After five years, they were also told, the two million Egyptians settled in the canal area would outnumber the South Sudanese. They were
also reminded of the Egyptian enslavement of South Sudan during the reign of Muhammad Ali
Pasha in the nineteenth century. So, it was resolved that the Jonglei Canal Project be rejected by
the people of South Sudan.
The next day on 16th October 1974 at about 5.30am, the rioting schools were surrounded by police and prison warders. Students were stopped from leaving and nobody was allowed to enter. As
Buluk Junior Secondary school was not fenced, students were able to break through the police and
prison warders’ lines, and they ran towards Juba Commercial Secondary School. When they
reached the Juba Secondary Senior School playground, they were met by many more police and
prison warders. As the students were accompanied by many other civilians, the security forces
were outnumbered.
In the process a fracas broke out and police First Lieutenant shot William Pancol, a second year student of Buluk Intermediate Junior Secondary School. 60 Students took Pancol’s body and marched shouting to Juba Teaching Hospital, then on to Malakia, Atlabara, Yei Park, and the Check Point. The aim was to go with Pancol’s body to the High Executive Council but when they reached the west of University of Juba, the armed forces had hidden in the grass and started shooting in the air. Students and civilians ran in different directions, abandoning the body of Pancol. Another boy was shot by a stray bullet and became the second fatality.
At 12 noon that same day, all the schools were closed indefinitely. The captain and commander of the operation declared a state of emergency and a curfew from 6.00pm to 6.00am. Albino Mungu, a
contractor of the Ministry of Education, was asked by the Minister of Communication Ezboni
Mundiri to transport all students back to their homes. By 19th October 1974, all students had left their schools except those who were under police custody.
In Juba, 22 students were detained at Buluk Police station for seven days, and then were released but made to report to Buluk police station once a week for one month. Two days later, on 18th October, there were demonstrations in Torit, Yei, Bor, Malakal and other towns in South Sudan. In Malakal the Regional Government was accused by demonstrators of being an Egyptian stooge, and a Regional Minister sent to calm the situation was booed and taunted.
Martin Marial Takpiny, Vice Principal of Malakal Institute of Education, reported that on 19th October 1975, students of Malakal Senior Secondary School demonstrated and were joined by students of Malakal Institute of Education. They moved towards Dangar Shuffu village, probably to collect students of Jonglei Intermediate Secondary School, where they were dispersed.
Authorities then arrested 41 students, eight of them girls. All schools were closed and a state of emergency and curfew were and state of emergency and curfew was declared.
When Juba students from Yambio returned home, Yambio Junior Secondary School students learned about the Juba strike. They immediately called for a strike. Led by Arabic-language pattern students, they refused to go to class. On 23rd October 1974, at 6.30 am, students marched to town shouting slogans. They broke into the school canteen and took away food. They called on Yambio Girls Primary School and two other primary schools to join them in the demonstrations and classes were interrupted in all schools. The children walked to the Local Government office and made general demonstrations. This prompted the Inspector of Local Government to close all schools in Yambio and Nzara and declare a state of emergency.
The Regional Government of Abel Alier took the students’ demonstrations seriously. According to Stephen Gwang, who was the Secretary General of Juba Commercial Secondary School Students’ Union, students knew the Jonglei Canal’s advantages and disadvantages through their geography teachers.
They knew that the canal was going to benefit Egypt and Sudan as they drove to expand their agricultural sectors. Many South Sudanese politicians took the Regional Government’s silence seriously, knowing that the history of canals had already caused many issues in the contemporary world.
A little known political organization called The African Revolutionary Movement in Sudan wrote a letter to Abel Alier condemning the killing of the two students in Juba and threatened to kill some South Sudanese politicians.
Besides the closure of schools and declaration of states of emergencies, arrests were made in Juba and Malakal: some Members of the Regional Assembly such as Stephen Ciec and Simon Mori were detained until 6th December 1974 when Abel Alier asked Natale Olwak, the Minister of Regional Administration, Police, Prisons and Legal Affairs, to release them. Other detainees were Tarcisio Ahmed and Gabriel Awoth.
According to Tartisio Philip Lado, Clement Mboro, a veteran South Sudanese politician and former Sudan Minister of Interior who served under Sir Khartim Khalifa's unity government, was behind the students’ strike but escaped arrest. Some Members of Parliament went into exile.
Hon.Abel Alier, the President of High Executive Council (HEC) then sent some members of his cabinet to the provinces to explain the history and benefits of the canal. On 19th October 1974, Abel Alier held meetings with religious leaders and a delegate of Women, Youth and Workers groups to explain the genesis of the students’ strikes. He instituted a commission of inquiry led by Sabino Saverio which found the police innocent given that they had no crowd controlling machines – tear gas, water hoses, and so on – but were shooting in the air.
When President Jafaar Nimeri realized that, something was misunderstanding about Jonglei canal national project, he abruptly appointed the National Council for the Development of the Jonglei Canal Area (NCDJCA) charged with “formulating socio-economic development plans for the Jonglei area” a Jonglei Executive organ (JEO) responsible for conducting studies of the effect of the canal, and development projects for the people of the canal zone. No sooner had the JEO begun its task in 1976, the Jonglei canal came under a withering assault from impassioned environmentalists.
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If we compared the political leadership from 1972 to 2011, what have you learned about Democratic ideals in building social contract with citizens of the country?
In September 2023, I attended training at Or-Tambo Political School of Leadership with some of my comrades in the SPLM where we attained so many lectures about political, economic and social aspects of the country.
Interestingly, Montlante, the former Vice President and later Acting President of South Africa had lectured us about "Challenges of Incumbent Government", in other word, Authority in Power or Ruling.
The former President mentioned some few important things to us including Maladministration, Corruption, Tribalism, Nepotism and Statecapture e.t.c that all led to dysfunctional system of government.
All in all, Democratic Guarantee of Rights of Citizens to question the state of Affairs would help Authority in Power to correct incumbent Challenges.
Gen. Nemieri and Molana Abiel Alier had corrected what was questioned by citizens and in particular students of then SOUTHERN SUDAN where Jonglei Canal Project was stopped and future of today South Sudan was then protected and secured.
Long Live South Sudan
CREDIT:: Mading Chol Chayor
