I looked around me, and the faces of the boys in the room seemed already to know the fate of the assembled chiefs. Already they were ready to fight. Achor Achor's face was twisted into a terrible frown.
— We tried to plead with the guards, explaining that we were tribal chiefs who had committed no crime. You are enemies of the government, and that is crime enough, one guard said. That is when we knew that our future was in question. But we thought the worst they would do would be to keep us in a sort of peace camp for chiefs-perhaps more severe, perhaps just separated from our people. We expected that we might be detained there for years, even, until the end of the war. But the government had different plans. That night in the early hours, they roused us and pushed us out of the hospital prison and into the night. We were loaded onto military transport trucks, and as we sat in the back of these trucks, finally we were scared. They had tied our hands behind our backs, and we felt very helpless. In the truck, we tried to assist each other, tried to undo our bindings. But the truck was traveling up a rough mountain road and it was very dark. We could see nothing in the truck, and we were thrown about by the winding and poorly made road. Also, many of these chiefs were old men, you must remember, and not very strong. So there we were: we were the leaders of Nuba, and we had no way to help each other. It was humiliating. Achor Achor was shaking his head slowly, tears in his eyes.
— Soon the trucks stopped. Get them out! the officer of the soldiers yelled. We stepped out of the truck one by one, and soon the soldiers lost patience. They threw the last chiefs from the trucks and those chiefs, one very old man, fell hard on the road, for his hands were bound. We all stood on the road and they made us march. The moon was half full and bright. We saw the faces of the soldiers, and among the soldiers saw one Dinka man. I remember looking at him for a long time, trying to see what had happened to him. I assumed he had become a Muslim, and then had been convinced that we were the enemy of his country and his faith. Still, though, I thought I saw him look away from us. I thought that perhaps he was ashamed. But I could be imagining all that. I wanted him to be ashamed but perhaps he was as committed to his task as were the rest of the soldiers.
Achor Achor was the picture of barely suppressed rage.
— We were taken to a ridge on the mountain, and they lined us up. There were twenty soldiers with automatic rifles. One chief attempted to run down the mountain. He was shot immediately. At that point the soldiers began to shoot. They shot each chief, in the back of the head if they could. A few men tried to fight with their feet and they were shot in the chest and face and anywhere else. It was the worst thing I have ever seen, to see such men fighting for their lives, kicking and jumping with their hands bound. This was no way to die. It was a terrible mess, all of it.
— This took some time, the executions? the commander asked.
— No, no. It was all over very quick. It was over in a few minutes.
— But they didn't shoot you. Why not?
The chief snorted.-Of course they shot me! They shot me with everyone else! I was a chief, and I had to die! They shot me in the back of the head, yes, but the bullet went through and came out my jaw.
Some of the boys in the room did not believe this and the chief took notice.
— You don't believe me? Look at this.
He revealed a jagged scar at the corner of his jaw.
— That is where the bullet left me. And here is the bullet. From his pocket he brought forth a rounded and rusted thing, looking nothing like something that could have penetrated a man's skull.
— It didn't hurt. I thought I was dead, so I felt little pain. I lay on the ground, wondering at the strangeness of my sight and my thoughts. I was dead, but I could still see. I was seeing the body of another man, another chief, and I could hear the boots of the soldiers. I could hear the truck starting again. And all the while I wondered why I was hearing all this. I did not expect to see and hear after death like this.
— I thought that perhaps I was not yet dead. That I was still dying. So I lay there, unable to move, waiting to die. I thought of my family, of the people of my village. Here was their chief, lying among sixty-seven more, all dead. All trusting fools. I thought of the shame of all this, all these chiefs dying in one place, killed by these young government soldiers who knew nothing about life. I cursed our stupidity. We were trusting and foolish, as our ancestors had been fifty years earlier. This would be the end of us, I thought. If it was this easy to kill all the chiefs, then certainly killing our children would be a very easy task indeed.
— I did not realize until later that I was still alive. The light came in the morning and I was still seeing and thinking, and this caused me to believe that I might still be alive. I attempted to move my arms. To my surprise, they moved. It occurred to me that there might be a new group of soldiers coming soon to bury us, the evidence of the massacre, so I rose and I walked away. I simply walked back to my village. It took me three days and I saw very few people along the way. When I reached the first village on my journey, I met the deputy chief there and he greeted me with great enthusiasm. He wanted to know how the meeting had gone. I had to tell him that it had not gone well.
— He and his people nursed me and brought me to a clinic nearby, where they sewed the hole in my face. After a week I walked on, escorted by the deputy, back to my village, where they had heard about what had happened. I wouldn't be safe there, so I was kept hidden until I could escape one week later. Eventually I met others traveling to Kakuma. It was decided this would be the only safe place for me.
— Boys, we can never be one with the north, with Khartoum. We can never trust them. Until there is a separate south, a New Sudan, we won't have peace. We can never forget this. To them we are slaves, and even if we are not working in their homes and on their farms, we will always be thought of as a lesser people. Think of it: the end result of their plan is to make the entire country an Islamic state. They plan to convert us all. They are doing it bit by bit already. Three-fourths of this country is already Muslim. They don't have far to go. So remember: we have independence, or we will no longer exist as a people. They will subsume those they can, and kill the rest. We cannot be one with them, and we cannot trust them. Never again. You promise me? We nodded.
— Now fight these monsters! he roared.-I beg you.
Twelve others pledged their support that night. Ten of those ended up leaving with the SPLA on Thursday, along with fourteen more who had not been at the meeting-mostly sons, brothers, cousins, and nephews of SPLA commanders. I cannot say that I ever seriously considered joining the SPLA at that time. I was busy in the camp, with my theater projects and Miss Gladys, but Achor Achor spent two days in turmoil, coming to me each night to help with his thinking.
— I think I have to go. Don't I? he asked.
— I don't know. I don't know if it makes a difference, I said.
— You don't think the war can be won.
— I don't know. It's been so many years already. I don't know if anyone would know if the war was won. How would we know?
— If we had independence.
— You really think that would ever happen? We sat with that thought for a moment.
— I think I need to go, he said.-It's me who should be fighting this war. I'm from Aweil. If I don't go back and fight, then who will?
— They won't station you at Aweil.
— Then I'll get my own gun and go back to Aweil.