Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 13:47, 1 September 2011

• Liberator Aggrey Jaden

Aggrey Jaden Ladu was born in Loka village around 1927 – 8 and attended Loka Church Missionary Society CMS Elementary school in the period 1936 – 1944 and proceeded to Nabumali secondary school in Uganda where he studied from 1945 to 1949. He joined Khartoum University in 1950 and graduated in the school of Arts in 1954 and joined Sudan administration and was trained as a sub – mamur administrator in 1955. at independence, on 01st January 1956, he was accused of refusing to lower the British flag and replacing it with the new Sudan independence flag. He was transferred to Malakal in 1957 but got dismissed from the Sudan civil service in 1958 after the coup de ‘tat of General Ibrahim Aboud. He left the country in search of a job and managed to get employed by the East African Railways Corporation in Kenya. He left this lucrative job to join the Liberation movement in 1963 in the company of Fr. Saturnino Ohure, Joseph Oduho Awuro and William Deng. He was elected President of the movement Sudan African National Union (SANU) after Joseph Oduho in 1964. He led the movement delegation to the Khartoum round table conference in 1965 and then returned to continue with the struggle. Following the signing of the Addis Ababa agreement in 1972, Jaden was the first to denounce it as a sell out because his objectives for the struggle were by far much higher. The agreement didn’t handle the issue of self – determination as a t the Khartoum round table conference of 1965, and the agreement was not witnessed by any international observers. Aggrey Jaden decided to dishonor it and remained in exile. Many southerners tried to convince him to return home and join the Southern Regional Government. But, he stuck to his choice of a simple, quiet life, materially poor, full of self denial but rich in intellectual nourishment. His was a life to be spent entirely for his only dream; however, eventually returned to Sudan in 1978 long after Addis Ababa agreement was signed. He returned an angry man and despite a lot of persuading, he refused to dirty his untarnished political career by participating in the government. In 1983, his rejection of Addis Ababa agreement was vindicated when Nimeri tore the agreement forcing southerners once again to take to the bush for the second struggle for the liberation of the Sudan under Late Dr. John Garang de Mabior. The best recognition to Late Aggrey Jaden was when the SPLA leader Dr. John Garang granted safe passage for the transportation of his body to his village Loka, for burial in 1987. Quoted from “Sudan Mirror” September 23rd 2007 in “tribute to Jaden 20 years after demise” … “Uncharacteristic of some southern Sudanese politicians, Jaden didn’t waver in his political objective. That became the cornerstone of the struggle of the people of southern Sudan. He was so resolute and rigid that he created enemies for himself even among his own comrades sparking a power struggle in which he was unseated twice as head of the external faction of SANU and of the South Sudan Provisional Government”. Part of the biography of Aggrey Jaden Lado was taken from “A Troubled History of Southern Sudan Struggles 1821 – 2011 by Serafino Wani Swaka, 2009, Juba” and from “Shaping a Free Southern Sudan – Memoirs of our Struggle, 1934 – 1985 by Severino Fuli Boki, 2002, Nairobi, Kenya”.