By Adia Jildo
The Sensational South Sudanese reggae-dance hall artist Kennedy O. Lorya well known by his stage name Dynamiq has called for a national recognition of the victims of the 1992 Juba Massacre.
On June 6, 1992, the Sudanese government of former President Omar el-Bashir by then rounded up more than 300 intellectuals in Juba for allegedly collaborating with the SPLA/SPLM under Dr. John Garang de Mabior.
The victims included civil servants, traders, soldiers, prison wardens, and police officers under the then Khartoum regime.
They were arrested by the Sudanese military intelligence officers and soldiers and then executed.
Many people suspected to be allies of the then SPLA disappeared; many were taken by the Arab militias to the White House which was “a journey of no return”.
Dynamiq a diaspora based South Sudanese artist performed his soul touching “eyal del” during the memorial, dedicating it to the homeless children who grew up with a lot of tension, anger since nobody has been telling them the truth.
He said there was need to educate the current generation on the massacre that had taken place despite the bad history and impacts it had on the South Sudanese people.
“The 1992 June is now 30 years that we can never forget. The Juba massacre is part of our history though not a good history but it’s a part of us. This happened in June 1992 where so many of our heroes were killed, murdered at Giada,” he said. “We have to know these things and teach them because if you don’t know where you are coming from, you will not know where you are going to”.
He said people have tried to hide the history of the massacre as it wasn’t a good history.
He said the untold story of the massacre is keeping the young ones in a stage of stress as most are mentally affected.
Dynamiq mentioned that the knowledge on South Sudan history of massacre will enable people adapt to the new life as many will be informed of the insurgency than growing up in a life where the truth is hidden.
“If you teach your children the truth, they will know everything and they will start the healing process of what happened early instead of getting it at a later stage,” he said. “Our young ones need to know that there was a massacre in 1992 but, we are still here living and trying to make things better. We all make mistakes but we have to hold people accountable”.
He cited his childhood story asserting that it was a hard moment for him having feeling to grow in the hands of a single parent and having such an experience.
“I was raised by a single parent who is my mother, so I understand how it feels like. These women are all widows; they are mothers who are suffering everyday through pain for 30 years. We cannot undo what happened,” he said.
“These are just a few of them. There are so many people going through a lot” he said.
“We hope we can build a museum one day for people to come and visit it and learn about difficult things that happened. The day is such an important day that we have to remember despite being a bad history,” said the musician.
Dynamiq called on youths of South Sudan to work with the widows by supporting them in all aspects of lives.
“This is far more important than anything to me because these are the parents that gave birth to us, without them, we are no body so we have to show them the most, highest respect possible”.