Darius Makuja will never forget July 9. It was the day the Republic of South Sudan became an independent country, and the day, as he tells it, that he became a free man.

‘It was awesome, overwhelming,’ Makuja said. ‘I just could not believe I was a free man, completely.’

It’s been three months since South Sudan separated from Sudan and became independent. While the separation has been acknowledged since 2005, a referendum made the independence official, according to a July 14 United Nations news release.

More than anything, Makuja said, he believes the past three months have allowed the notion of freedom to sink in for the South Sudanese people, both in the country and in the city of Syracuse.

‘We are experiencing freedom for the first time,’ Makuja said. ‘People are very, very joyful that we are independent, but it comes with a lot of challenges.’

Makuja, a professor at Le Moyne College, was born and raised in southern Sudan. He came to the United States in 1996, pursuing graduate studies. While Makuja said he has enjoyed studying and teaching in the United States, South Sudan will always be his homeland.

‘That is where I belong, and that is where my family is,’ Makuja said.

On a trip back to South Sudan in June, Makuja said he could see the people yearning for the freedom to be their own country.

‘The Sudan independence is something we have longed for, for 50 years,’ Makuja said. 

Makuja was in Syracuse the night South Sudan’s independence became official. He said he and other South Sudanese people in Syracuse celebrated until after midnight.

‘Everybody in Syracuse was excited,’ Makuja said. ‘To see it all celebrated here and to be a part of it was so, so, so thrilling.’

But in the past three months, the excitement has started to wear and the enormity of what lies ahead for the new country has started to sink in, Makuja said.

‘While we are independent, while we are free — that’s great — there are very real challenges that are happening,’ he said. ‘The people and the government are starting to feel the pain now because it is not very easy.’

Independence came about after many years of conflict. The North and South fought a civil war that resulted in more than 2 million deaths, according to a U.S. State Department website about Sudan.

Peter Castro, a professor in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, has studied and written about Darfur, located in western Sudan. Castro said the war took its toll.

‘It was a long-term process involving considerable conflict and human costs,’ Castro said in an email.  

The war ended with a peace agreement in 2005. In January, an overwhelming majority of the population voted in a referendum to secede, according to a South Sudan profile on the BBC website.

The South Sudanese people voted for an independent state in July, said Dominic Mathiang, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan who now works in Syracuse. The United Nations officially recognized their independence in July, according to the U.N. news release.

Mathiang said all South Sudanese people were allowed to vote, wherever they were living at the time.

‘We in the U.S. had participated in the voting exercises, some of us went to Washington D.C., and some went to Boston,’ he said in an email.

Mathiang, like many Lost Boys, was taken from his family at a young age and forced to work in a refugee camp.

Despite agreements, violence is still an issue in the country. A recent study from the London School of Economics and Political Science found that many proposed solutions to violence have been unsuccessful.

The report also suggests that the country’s nation-building process has been marked by some confusion, Castro said.

‘My feeling is that this sort of confusion is to be expected after decades of civil conflict and years of uncertainty and mistrust generated by it,’ Castro said. ‘However, the LSE researchers are probably correct in emphasizing the need for specific, tangible improvements in infrastructure and services at the local level.’

The John Dau Foundation is a nonprofit organization that aims to develop and sustain medical clinics in South Sudan, according to the foundation’s website. John Dau, president of the foundation and refugee from South Sudan, came to Syracuse in 2001 and began studying for a bachelor’s degree in policy studies at Maxwell after receiving an associate degree from Onondaga Community College.

Dau was not available to comment because of health reasons.

Tom Dannan, executive director of the foundation and former project manager for the Duk Lost Boys Clinic in South Sudan, spent several four- to five-month periods in southern Sudan between December 2009 and June 2011 to work with the people.

Dannan said he believes the independence means a lot to the South Sudanese people.

‘It’s huge, it’s close to people’s hearts I think,’ Dannan said.

Dannan said he believes people are excited about independence, but he said the past three months have not been marked by significant improvements.

‘Practically, on the ground, not a lot has changed,’ Dannan said. ‘Things are still really bleak. The government still lacks a lot of capacity — both material resources and especially human capacity.’

Dannan said the main challenges are getting the government to a place where it is able to run the country. Other challenges include improving education, increasing access to medicine and building infrastructure.

He said many of the issues the country faces will be hard to solve because there is no concept of statehood. Dannan said that across Africa, there is no notion of putting what’s good for the state above your family.

Although Dannan said he believes there is much the country has to work out, he is optimistic for the future.

‘There’s this eternal hope and optimism for a lot of things that runs through South Sudan,’ Dannan said. ‘For me, it’s not doom and gloom so much. There is hope, but it’s going to be tough.’

mjfahner@syr.edu

Published on October 24, 2011 at 12:00 pm