STATE LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

J. D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION

OH 839

Full transcript of an interview with

ANGELO DIING DHEL

On 12 December 2007

By Alison McDougall

Recording available on CD

Access for research: Unrestricted

Right to photocopy: Copies may be made for research and study

Right to quote or publish: Publication only with written permission from the State Library

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OH 839 ANGELO DIING DHEL

NOTES TO THE TRANSCRIPT

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J.D. SOMERVILLE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION, STATE

LIBRARY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA: INTERVIEW NO. OH 839

Interview with Angelo Diing Dhel recorded by Alison McDougall at the State

Library of South Australia on 12th

December 2007 for the State Library of South

Australia Oral History Project.

TAPE 1 SIDE A

This is Mr Angelo Diing Dhel being interviewed by Alison McDougall for the State

Library of South Australia. The interview is being conducted at the State Library

on Wednesday, 12th

December 2007. Angelo arrived in Australia as a refugee in

2000. He was born and grew up in the Sudan but became a refugee due to the war,

and today he will share his life story till now.

So first of all thank you so much, Angelo, for agreeing to come here today and

share your stories with us.

Thank you, Alison.

Can you tell me first of all your date of birth?

Yes, my date of birth is 1st January 1977.

And what ethnic group did you come from?

Yes, Dinka, mainly from Northern Bahr al Ghazal State, Aweil, in Southern Sudan.

And whereabouts there were you born?

I was born in a village called Nyinboli, and in Australian context it’s a suburb like

Maylands where I live, it’s just the same as that. It’s called Payam, Payam is a

suburb in Sudan context.

So what was the population of the village you were in?

The population is approximately one hundred thousands.

So it’s more of a town rather than a village.

Of course.

Yes. Can you describe it as you remember it as a young child?

Yes. I’m brought up in a family, my dad is Dinka, one of the Dinka chiefs in the area

and I was brought up by Mum and Dad. My mum was an intermediate school leaver

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student and my dad was in the Any ANA army before he was a chief of the Dinka.

So my dad married my mum and five others, my stepmothers, so it’s quite big family.

Since I was born I never eat a plate alone, I was in the middle of my stepbrothers,

sisters, and I was happy as a kid because my family, I cannot call it rich, but in terms

of cattle they are rich and were farmers, they have their own farm, they have their

own cattle, and I was brought up in that life [of country town].

What was your father’s name?

My father’s name is Jacob Dhel Diing.

And your mother?

Regina Amir Awach.

Tell me a little bit about your father being in the army.

Yes, it is the first war that my dad – since 1956 when the British left Sudan the Arabs

took on the arms to impose Shaira Law on Southern Sudanese Christians to become

Muslim and my dad is one of the chiefs in the area, he resist the Islamisations. So he

think that to join the army it was the only way to fight [for] the freedom of Southern

Sudanese Christians and later on, in 1972, the peace agreement was signed and my

dad came back and resigned from the army and took on his leadership as a chief.

And what kind of duties and role did he have as the chief?

He has the role of domestic violence and marriage problem issues, family issues, and

crime issues that he address in his court. It’s a system that is quite a little bit

complicated in it is not a modern kind of system, it is the African kind of system, that

is it look like monarchy system: that if my dad, for example, died I will take over to

be the chief because that leadership doesn’t go somewhere else. But what he does in

that area, because Dinka has the belief that to be a leader you have to be a wealthy

person so that you cannot take some people’s money or cattle, so he was prepared

because his father was the chief before him and he was the son that was selected, was

prepared by the population to be the successor of his dad. And likewise to me now in

the Western way I don’t agree with him but he’s really calling me to go back there

and take over the leadership. But for me it is a little bit, you know, very small in

terms of the way people want to rule or to lead people, so we need to introduce a

different thing altogether.

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So your father would act as the judge in that community.

That’s correct.

And is it necessarily the oldest son that becomes the chief or you’re chosen?

Someone is chosen. Among the sons he will choose the appropriate son that people

would accept in the community. I can be choose by my characters and sociality with

the community that I live. For example, if I live in the village there they would know

me how my characters are and how popular I am to the people, how nice I am, how

polite I am. So that is how they choose. And also my relationship with my dad, if

I’m a naughty person or a naughty boy he wouldn’t give me the chance to take on this

responsibility. It’s a trust sort of transition or successor.

Would you have a choice at all?

Yes. As long as I live – (laughs) I have lived in the West now for seven years and I

would have a choice because what I want to see thing a change of way of thinking

and in that I would prefer to be a parliamentarian in the future if I go back to Sudan.

But because I don’t know what the future holds at the moment because I’m in

Australia and I like being here, I enjoy being in Australia, and I think I have become

an Australian citizen, and in that case it is very difficult to decide to be a chief in

Dinka land at this moment, so I am not thinking of that.

And how many people would fall under your father’s rule?

It’s about fifty thousand because the area has got two chiefs and fifty thousand people

fall under my father’s rule.

How old were you when he appointed you his successor?

Well, that time I was eight years old and before our village was attacked I used to go

in the courtroom with him and then I will be sitting down next to him and listen to the

cases as a part of my training. And later on, when we go back home, he would ask

me my opinion how did I observe the judgment and the two cases, to compare and

contrast, which one is the most likely to win the case and why do I think so, so as a

part of training so I do that analysis at the end of the court and when we go home we

sit down and he talk to me as leadership training sort of things.

That started quite early for you, really.

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Yes, it was, because you have to be trained while you are still young to believe and to

be a critical thinker rather than just a person who is a successor and don’t have the

ability to judge correctly, because you have to judge correctly with the sort of jury

system. There are others, twelve sub-chiefs that would be there, sitting there, and the

verdicts would be not only the chief would do the verdicts but also you will hear

opinion from the rest of the twelve sub-chiefs so that you deliver the good judgment.

How did you feel about being chosen?

I feel proud and honoured in fact, but of course my level now is quite different what I

want to do if I go back to Sudan. I would like to see a transformation of the system,

which is democratic system to be introduced in the Southern Sudan, and to let

everybody be free, especially for young girls and women, they are being oppressed in

terms of education and the duties that they take on are not appropriate at this level in

the twenty-first century, so I think I would be some sort of human rights activist or, if

I make myself known to be elected as a member of parliament, I can argue their cases

for each and every young girl and woman to be free and have their own choice and

not to be married early before their teenager’s life has been. In that case I prepare to

do that, to free all Southern Sudan rather than just help Dinka.

How old was your mother when she married your father?

My mother, at the time she was fifteen when she married my dad and because she

was orphan and she was taken by missionaries and she live in the boarding school,

which is the missionary school, and later on my dad came and because he was

responsible for his youngest brothers, about nine of them and himself ten and one girl

– they were from the same mum so there were eleven – and he took on that

responsibility, when his mother died he was looking for a woman to take the

responsibility of his brothers, and that’s how he negotiate with my grandfather on my

mother’s side. So they agreed and my mum was given chance to turn seventeen later,

when she was taken for the wedding to take place.

And so this marriage was arranged?

It was arranged marriage, yes.

What are your early memories of your mother?

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My mother, she’s a nice, caring woman, as I can remember, and she’s not only caring

for her own children but she embraced the whole community. As I told you before, I

have never had a chance to eat alone. It means that even though my youngest

brothers or my stepbrothers are not around I would be with other children in the

district. But my mum would cook for them and we share the food together, and my

mum’s role has been very critical in terms of giving things to the needy. She’s been

very instrumental in looking after the poor people. Most of the time people come to

my father’s house and she would give away a lot of things to address the poverty as a

part of supporting the leadership of my father, and they have to do that, that is the

way how you are the leader in terms of there is drought and some people don’t have

something to eat, they don’t have food to eat, then they would really distribute some

assistance of their own because there is not any collective store that they would assist,

but their own wealth, they would distribute some of that to the village people or to the

district’s needy people, and that my mum has been very instrumental in [giving to the

poor].

What were living conditions like for you as a child?

As a child, I knew only to go out there and play, the morning and the afternoon go to

the farm and stay there to protect the farm from monkeys and other animals that need

to destroy the farm. And later on in the evenings I will come back home and I will go

with my dad to the courtroom and that has been my life. I enjoy playing with the

district kids, my colleagues, they were very good, and I think I was a bit lucky to be

in the family that is responsible for the whole district, so I was very proud to be a son

of the two, my mum and my dad, so I was very proud of them.

So tell me a little more about what you would do out at the farm.

Yes. As you know, when is the time for pruning, for example, I would go there to

monitor the workers, people who are working on the farms, and also give their

salaries – and I don’t give money because there is a system that was introduced by

my dad. Worker can have some kilos of salt and tea leaf and other items that are

needed, for example soap, for the consumption of the person because if they came in

the farm and they asked me I would do a piece of land from farm and I would take

two to three kilos of tea leaf, then I would measure that and then he will work in the

farm and later on I will give him those things that he demands. If he need money

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then I will transfer them to my elder brother Deng to go and give them money. But

somebody who’s in need of items, I would give them in the farm because I have got

the room there and the store to deliver the service that the worker need.

What kind of produce did you have on the farm?

We did have sorghum and millet and groundnuts and simsim1.

What’s that?

Simsim I think it’s called here sesame. We call it simsim. It is made to produce oil, if

it is ground it will produce oil and that would be used for cooking and other things.

And how many people were employed on your farm?

It would not be less than sometimes two thousand, sometimes one thousand. It

depend on different days. If they are busy in their own farm it might turn out to be

three hundred, four hundred, but if they’re not busy in their own farm they will come

and work because the farm was very big and because there was some money to gain

on that, so that’s how people who are in need of money or in need of items that

they’re lacking they would come and work for my dad.

So it was a kind of social security, in a way, for them or a back-up?

Yes, it’s a kind of back-up because there was not much work in the district so the

only work that is there is the farm work and not only my dad has the farm but even

other some businessmen they do, but they prefer to come to work in my dad’s farm

because they get a better service and also it is a farm that would help someone if they

run out of their own food, they can come and they will be helped; but for

businessmen, they can help them but when they run out of things and they don’t have

money the businessmen wouldn’t give them. But my dad would really help them in

time of need.

How far was the farm from where you lived?

The farm was about thirty minutes’ walk to go to farm, and that’s how we do it. I

used to walk because we didn’t have a car and with all this we don’t have cars and so

1 Simsim Arabic for sesame

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we used to walk by foot to go to farm, my elder brother used bicycle but at the time I

was too young to use the bicycle so I walk.

Would you go alone?

I walk with some people to guide me and my safety on the way and then I will be

staying with someone there, a close relative or from extended relatives, so someone

might be with me, might be escorting me to the farms.

What was the climate like there?

Well, in the southern part it sometimes reach 30 degrees, 32 and 40 when it is in the

summertime, and when it is winter it goes 19, 18. That’s how I can remember it,

because at the time I didn’t have the ability to guess what degrees it is, but now I can

really estimate at the time and even now I can see in the news how degrees in

Southern Sudan, so been estimated the temperature.

You mentioned about the situation of females, women and girls. Can you explain a

little more about the restrictions on their lives?

Yes. Southern Sudan is really a little bit backwardness is there. Since Adam and Eve

Southern Sudan has never been developed and due to that they have been cattle

keepers, especially Dinka. What they know only is to – if you have a girl, it mean

that is seen as an income in terms of getting married. She would really bring dowries

and head of cattle, sometimes they go to hundred and fifty head of cattle. If she’s a

daughter of a chief, for example my dad, they would go two hundred head of cattle

because you need to be a part of that family and the person who married to such a

family would really pay heavy dowries and that has been the traditional system; and

they are denial not to go to school. They are introduced to the household jobs like

looking after people, cooking for the boys, if she’s a girl with the boys in the house

she would be looking after them and that’s how they are trained. And the boys would

go to school but they wouldn’t go to school, and when they go to their houses they

are there to do the household work and that’s it. They don’t have a say, they don’t

have that freedom that they can decide what to do. They have to be told to accept

somebody whom the family has accepted, which is quite different to me now but

before I didn’t know the difference, but now I know the difference because at the

time it was very strange to see such a thing happening and because in the twenty-first

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century Southern Sudan now has got a different look altogether and because of that

we need change and the change will come with people like myself.

What schooling did you have before you fled your town?

Yes, I was in sixth year two[?], which is primary school, and that was mix of Arabic

and English. And since then, when I turn nine years old that’s when the troubles

started and I didn’t really go on again. So even the letters of Arabic now I can’t write

them, but I kept going on with English because I have picked it up in different places

in my journey.

What language did you grow up speaking?

Mainly Dinka is spoken widely and Arabic as a second language for Dinka people,

but it’s the first language, it’s the national language, Arabic; and English was

regarded as second language in terms of national languages. But Dinka is mainly

spoken by Dinka people and that was my first dialect, actually.

What language was used in the school for teaching?

The two languages: the Arabic and English.

So were you allowed to use Dinka at all at school?

No, Dinka was not taught in school; it’s only spoken.

What sort of health facilities were there?

Well, there was a missionaries clinic in the district, it was an Italian missionaries, and

they just treat people and when it is a critical thing then you will be transferred to

Aweil town where there is a hospital for admission. But most of the cases, some

people died because they need more attention for medical help, so they can’t really

make it to Aweil. Aweil is a distance of five hours, six hours drive from Nyinboli

where I come from.

And you grew up in the Christian faith?

Yes, I grew up in the Christian faith and my family, they’re all Anglican. I have been

to different place where I was baptised in Catholic Church and later on I’ve decided

to join the Uniting Church, now in Australia I go to Uniting Church, and that was my

choice to choose where I would go for prayers. But mainly I was baptised as

Catholic.

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Was that your family are Catholic?

No, my family, they are Anglican, but I have got different church altogether so I

choose my own, I’ve been very independent in the beginning.

And how did being Christian affect your day-to-day family life?

Yes, that is a very good question because if you look at Sudan War you might think it

is only based on the wealth sharing; but also it is a religions and ideologies sort of by

racial[?], because Christians of Southern Sudan, they have been suffering for their

faith because they have accepted to be Christian, and that was done by missionaries,

they came to Southern Sudan and they were British colony, they treat Sudan in two

different categories. The Southern Sudan were called closed districts of which if you

are from Northern Sudan you need a permit to go to Southern Sudan, and that

administration was introduced by Britain, and the old Southern Sudan were Christian

and that remained the legacy there and people didn’t have any other religions, the

only religion that they know is Christianity despite the African belief that were there,

they are still existing but mostly the population is Christianity is the leading religions

in Southern Sudan.

Tell me about Sundays when you were a child.

When we go to Sunday we are taught a lot of things as a kid: you go to Sunday, later

on you are told to go to a different room that you will be taught about the stories,

bibles and other things and enjoy playing there. There’s something that you can play

and that is how we enjoyed – singing also, we were having a group of singers in the

church and we would enjoy going there with them and try to sing while we were

learning. So I was enjoying it very much.

How many people would go to your church on a Sunday?

Approximately sometimes it’s four hundred, sometimes it’s three hundred, and on

Christmas Day you cannot count, it’s just everybody’s there as some sort of

celebration that people prepare to celebrate, even those who’d never attend the

church, they’d come on the day and celebrate Christmas with the Church.

Were women involved with the Church?

Yes. My mother, as I can remember, she was one of the leaders in the Church and

even up to now she’s – what they call Mother’s Union, she’s the leader of Mother’s

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Union in the Anglican Church and she still plays that role up to now. She got that

promotion within the Church. And many other women are very active in terms of

organising and prayers in the village, goes to pray in the clinics and other places – in

school, and in the houses when somebody’s sick and it’s just been very strong since

the war. If you go to Southern Sudan now you might see in the documentaries

everybody carrying a cross. They believe that God would, when you are having that

cross, you have that strength of God that would protect you and that is what you

believe in, each and everybody carrying a wooden cross.

Did your father have a role in the Church there?

Yes. He had a big role, he was in the Board Committee in the Church, and they are

the people who would donate things to support the church life and he’s been very

involved in the first place. I think he did make a good Christian with his role and

supporting the Church to survive in the area because that is what he thinks the war is

all about and people have to face the reality of being Christian.

Did you have Sudanese minsters in the Church?

Yes, we got Sudanese ministers and some of them now I think they are not alive,

during the war some of them were killed, but there are now young people who take

on the roles. They are now the current priests, especially in the Anglican Church, and

there are new ordinations that took place to spread the word of God and they are

doing well in terms of preaching the word and not only the Anglican Church now,

even the Uniting Church. There in Sudan it’s not called ‘Uniting Church’, it is

‘Presbyterian Church’, and they are doing very well, and Church of Christ and

Catholics and Lutherans. There are a lot of denominations involved in Southern

Sudan and especially in the area that I come from in Southern Sudan.

You mentioned singing at church.

Yes.

Do you still like to sing?

Yes, well, when I love (laughs) go to church here in Tea Tree Gully Uniting Church

it’s really how you sing a lot because I like singing and when I sing I feel, like I’m

really free. If I didn’t go to church on the day I will sing a song. If I didn’t attend

Sunday, what I usually do I sing in my own house in my free time, and singing song,

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we believe in Dinka that if you sing one song that is more than attending the church,

and you sing one song, that is three times than going to the church because you are

singing, you are feeling emotionally in touch with the song and your heart is there

expressing that feeling.

That would have been a very sustaining thing for you over the years – – –.

Of course it is, and because it’s been strengthened since the war seemed to be a

religions war because we are hated because of being Christian, and that make it more

even interesting for people to be part of this and make it a reality rather than just a

religion, faith, they make it more a sort of political game in civil war of Sudan.

So is that a very strong statement of your beliefs – – –?

Of course.

And when you were a child, Sudan has had a number of famines, were those

conditions there when you were young?

Yes. There are some years that there was famines. Once when I was about seven

years old, other was big destruction that was caused by flood and everywhere was

water – in the farm, all the crops died away and that caused a lot of disaster in terms

of whom you can really help and there was no relief in the area and the government

was not doing anything because it is a Northern government and if Southern Sudan

have got a problem they don’t care if they died or not so they don’t even come and

see what is going on. And that time it was a very critical year that many of my

father’s cattle, many of them were taken by the village people. If the cattle were

released to go to grazing you would find that one cattle is missing. It is missing

because they kill it for consumption, and when they did that my father don’t arrest

people. He said, ‘When things change later on in the year they will refund that cattle,

when they are stable enough to repay that cattle back. But let it just go.’ And it

happened for the whole year because people need to live and to do that to come and

ask for help maybe you will be given some food that will not be enough, but if you

kill a cow it means that you will sell some of the meat in exchange for sorghum and

millet and rice and then the rest would be used as a dry meat and life continues. So

they prefer to kill cattles rather than come and say, ‘We need help’, to be given

maybe a little bit of food to take away that doesn’t help a lot, so they prefer to do that

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and my dad said it is because of disaster and he can’t do anything about it, he just let

it go and said when things get right he will be happy to ask them to repay the cattles.

Was there any external aid from other countries at that stage?

No, there was not any external aid because the government, if the government declare

the emergency in the country, that is when the world attention would be drawn, but if

the government is blocking the help from outside then nothing’s done to solve the

problem. And that’s what was happening because in Khartoum, which is the capital

city of Sudan, there were all embassies in Khartoum but they don’t want to publicly

announce that Southern Sudan has got a disaster of flooding so they just keep quiet

and they don’t want to do anything about it. When disaster, they treat it as a minor

thing, the government can handle it, and they never turn up.

So yes, they were almost using it as an instrument against the South.

That’s correct.

Now, you said when you were nine years old the war resumed?

Exactly, that is 1986 and the war – we heard about it in 1983 but in 1986 that is when

it touched where I lived. But in 1983 we hear there is a rebel group from Southern

Sudan who are now in Ethiopia and they want to fight the Sudan Government, and

that is what we hear on the radio. And later on it become a reality in the village. So

the war spread out throughout Southern Sudan and that is when I really realised there

was a lot of things going on around that I didn’t know of.

Did you have means of communicating beyond the borders or even within the

country?

There was not any means of communications. The only communication people had

was to use telegraphs – that’s what was there and that’s only for the administration in

the area, district commissioner’s office, and that was the only communication in the

area. There was no telephone, there was not any other communication. Even post,

also post was not there.

So really listening to the radio was the only way of getting information?

Yes, exactly.

Or newspapers?

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No newspapers, only radio.

So what then, in 1986, what started to happen in your region?

Well, it was in the morning that one day there was rumours that the militia of Arabs

tribes would come and attack the village and people didn’t know what would really

happen. After the government of Sudan called on all chiefs of Southern Sudan to go

together with the government and they were told that Sudan would be ruled by Shaira

Law. And the chiefs of Southern Sudan said no and the politicians of Southern

Sudan said no, ‘We are not a part of Islamic Shaira Law because we are Christian and

we cannot obey these rules.’ And from there the meeting just left with no consensus

on agreement, and later on that is when we heard there is a plan for militia that was

armed by the government and they would come and attack the Southern Sudan

village and attack people, the government would be involved, and that’s how it really

happened.

That morning, before that morning in the evening there was helicopter dropping

the bomb and then in the morning it happened to be horsemen, men on the horse,

came and everywhere you can see them and people were starting to run and those

people were having guns. For example, my father was having guards and those

guards start shooting and people were running and I was really frightened to see such

things. I never saw a horse with a person on the horse with a gun. I usually see the

horse alone with a normal person, but when it is a time of war it was different. It is

very wild and I saw that it was. I run away and I hide and my dad was really being

protected by these guards and they were running also. Because it is just something, it

was just like surprise, it come accidentally and everybody was not prepared to see

where the children are or where the members of the family are so we were scattered.

That’s when they caught my grandmum and my granddad and with other people,

including children, about two hundred of them. They were chained and put in the big

hut and they were burned alive. That’s when I came back after they left, everybody

came back in the village, and people everywhere, people were crying that people

were shot. And when we see the bodies of people who have been burned alive you

cannot see even once again. We just saw it.

You go crying and the first thing you can say is, ‘Where is the government here?

Where is our rights here?’ And you ask yourself so many questions, and my question

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was to ask my dad, ‘What is happening?’ Really because I don’t understand the

politics, I don’t understand why is it happening. So he told me, ‘Young man, it is a

result of our meeting and we really didn’t agree on this sort of Shaira laws, and

Shaira laws are imposed on people and we are Christian and we don’t want to

become Muslim by force. So religion is free of choice. If someone needs to be

Muslim he can go by her own choice.’ And I said, ‘What will happen next?’ He

said, ‘I have got no idea what will happen next but I just want to assure you you will

be safe because I will make a decision what to do with the family.’ And I said,

‘Okay.’

From there really I spent about three months and I decided, I told him I wouldn’t

stay here. I told him I would go to follow the rebels of Southern Sudan and join them

and be trained to come and fight the enemy. He told me, ‘You are too young to go

and you can’t do it.’ Then I decided to steal myself and disappear, and I went away

with other people and other boys who were really feeling the same thing. Their

parents were killed and because my granddad was very friend to me and my

grandmum so I really felt [?tired and vulnerable?] not to do anything and I’m a male

and I’m also in that village leadership as part of that family, so I feel I should do

something about it. But I was too young anyway to decide, so that’s how I start my

journey to go to Ethiopia, that is where there was a rebel group.

Just backtracking, can you describe how things were in the village for that three

months before you left?

The village was really – everything was taken away. The cattle, the sheep and goats,

every belonging, every item was burned down. All the houses were burnt to dust.

Nothing that you can live on, actually. But because that Southern Sudan was likely to

have a big sort of bush or forest that is there around there were some fruit that people

can live on for that period of time and those who are left with some cattles were able

to provide food for those who lost their cattles and those who lost their belongings

and their stalls were burned down, everything that was lost. So they have to at least

help each other to cope with the situation, but it was getting very worse because

everything’s running out, there’s nothing. People go fishing, that’s when you can at

least have a meal that has got no – just only soup that has got no anything, no bread,

nothing.

17

What kind of shelter did you have?

What kind of what?

Shelter, living conditions.

I can say just some sort of grass-top roof that was built with mud brick, sometimes

built with just mud without bricks, and that is how the houses are made. As I told

you before, since Adam and Eve Southern Sudan has never been developed so it has

been there and they just made their own sort of houses that they have designed and

that’s where I was living.

And were there other raids during that time?

Yes, after three months that I was there, there were some other raids somewhere

nearby, but after I left the village to go to Ethiopia there were so many raids after that

so I cannot count them. It has been continuing until 2001, it has been a continuing

thing in the village.

And during the raid where did you hide?

I was hiding in the bush. There is a big tree with a lot of small trees under it, so I

went there and lay down and I hide, and they pass by by horses, you can hear the

sound of horses. If I did wake up I would have been one of the slave children now, if

I did frightened to run away in that bush I would have been caught and taken as slave

because my mates, my colleagues, were taken on that day and they were slaves to

Arab Northern Sudanese people.

What did that mean for them?

It mean that they are slaves to work for the Arabs, you work in the farm. Sometimes

you are not even given food, sometimes they give you food, and that’s it, there’s

nothing. You are kept there, you can’t go anywhere and you can’t talk to anybody.

You will be guarded[?] to stay in the farm, that’s where your life is. You are kept

there until you are old or die.

Was this up in the North of the country, then?

Yes. They come in the South and kidnap and then they take them to the Northern

part of the country to keep them there.

You said they were militia, so were they an official part of the government army?

18

Yes, they are official part of the government. They were trained by the government

and they are armed by the government, and even the trade slave usually go even to

the city where the government is. They take some of the children, they take some of

the cattle that they have looted. The government was very involved because they just

want to destroy Southern Sudan, they didn’t want people on that land is what they

were planning, because they see them as an African and in the Northern part it was

mainly Arabs.

We’re getting towards the end of the first sound card so we’ll take a break there.

Thank you.

END OF DISK 1: DISK 2

This is sound card two of an interview between Angelo Dhel and Alison McDougall

at the State Library of South Australia on Wednesday, 12th

December 2007. Now

we’ve been talking about that horrifying time for you –

Yes.

– of when the militia came through your village, and you talked about hiding and

having the horsemen come very close to you.

Yes.

Can you remember what was going through your mind at that time?

Yes. I was thinking two things: one was to run again and two, if I did they would

see me. And I was telling myself, ‘I’d better hide here. If they come and get me

that’s fine, but I think this place they cannot see me because it’s too dark inside this

big tree bush.’ So I did stayed down laying and just they come past by and they are

shouting, ‘Come out! We are seeing you, come out, come out.’ And I thought that

they really just want to let people come out while they are not really looking at me, so

I thought, ‘No, if they are looking at me they will come and get me, so I better stay

down, and then after all they shout and pass by running toward the bush.’

How long were there, hiding?

I hide there for five hours in the same place, no movement. I just lay down and quiet,

my chest down where’s my head and lay down still for at least five hours, because I

thought if I move maybe I will touch a tree or something different that would really

make a sound and they would see me where I am. And I was to stay there until when

19

I don’t hear anything, and that time was around four p.m., that’s when I really

realised that the sound is really going down and the bush become dark and there are

wild animals in the bush so it was another scary sort of thing so I thought, ‘Yes, now

I’m hiding here, but the sun is going down so what can I do? Maybe these people

they are gone so I have to wake up and keep going and hiding.’ So I keep going in

between the bush and between the big tree I would attach myself to a tree and look

very carefully on the road and I see nothing then I go on. So hiding, and I don’t go

through the road, I really walk along the roadside to avoid any further attack or

capture. I want to make sure that the road was clear and I walk beside the road till I

came home.

What happened when you came home?

I saw people crying and everybody was gathering there. Some people lost their

mothers, dad and children, some people lost their husband, some people lost their

children, some people lost their grandfathers like myself. And because the worst

thing that they were burned alive it make it even worse because people see that this

war really is not a war that is between one country, if it is why people are burned

alive, why they don’t capture them and take them to prison? But burning human

beings alive, including children, they think that there was not any forgiveness

between the two sides of the country. The Christians thought that Moslem

Government was very evil and being that that’s not contrast with the bible, so they

become shouting ‘Allah Akbar!’ [meaning that God is great]and they try to find ways

for next attack of Dinka town to kill old men and then destroying the whole village.

So the men in the village or the town were gathering and they are trying to buy guns

and try to protect these when there is another attack. And that is how they thought

because they said this would be continuing so we the men buy guns and protect the

village rather than seeing people being burned alive and children are killed, so we are

not worth living while we are not protecting our families. This is where the men who

are talking like, you know, decisions and they have to make a big decision including

my dad, or they have to see a way that they can gather money and send someone to

..... and buy guns from there.

And how long was it before you could find your parents?

20

It was not long. After I came back it’s just a matter of some hours so after I came

back I found them at home and they were surprised me turning up, they thought that I

was among the people who were burned. They didn’t know that I had run and I hide,

and when they saw me they were really happy but not really happy because the

situation was already a mess-up, so they are happy that they see me but they are not

happy because they lost other family members. So they just hugged me and they’re

still crying. I can’t tell that they were happy – I know in my heart they are happy to

see me, but also they have been touched by the other lost of all thing that occur in

front of them.

So you stayed on for three more months.

Yes.

Then you made this decision to run away and join the army?

Yes.

Can you tell me what happened on the day that you decided to do that?

On the day I decided to do this, because I asked my dad before, in between these

three months, what to do and I told him, ‘I will join the army’, and he said, ‘No! You

can’t do it because you are too young, and walking from here to Ethiopia you would

encounter a lot of things on the way. There is big rivers that you cannot swim or you

cannot cross and because of that reason you can’t go. Secondly, there are a lot of

things on the way like wild animals and the distance is almost three months’ – that is

what he told me, because he’s been in the Anyanya 1, which is the movement that

signed peace in ’72. He told me, ‘No, you can’t do it because it is too risky for a

young person like you.’ So that’s when I decide, ‘Okay, he is telling me not to and

staying here is one of the two: either to be caught a slave or to be killed, so I’d better

go.’

The day I left, only the person that I told her is my mum. I said, ‘Mum, I know

you love me and I know that I am one of your favourite sons, but I am going because

this would not end. As you see, everybody’s killed and next time maybe it will be

my turn or you guys’ turn, and if you are killed then I would remain orphan and I

wouldn’t live a good life, so I’d better go and join the army and be trained.’ And my

mother’s saying, ‘Well, look, my son. I’m very happy that you have that bravery but

21

you are too young to do anything. If you want I can go with you with the whole

family to Ethiopia.’ And I said, ‘No, I don’t need all the family to go to Ethiopia. I

will go myself.’ And therefore I told her to prepare me some things for my going and

she did, and the day I steal myself, I took things after my dad was in the other

stepmother house, so that night I steal myself and I went. In the morning when he

came home he asked me and Mum said, ‘I don’t know. He was here, he was sleeping

in the house before so I don’t know where he went.’

And later on, when I reach to the base of the rebels, I told them to inform my dad

that I am alive and I’m going to be training to be a child soldier and I will fight the

Northern government. So that’s when he hear I was still in the region but I wasn’t

with the army, and he didn’t have anything to do again because he was very critical

movement to think that if you can come it mean the family would remain alone, so he

then wrote a letter to the person who was responsible, ‘Take care of my son and I

hope if all the family happen to be killed he would be the seat of my family that

would remain. If he’s happen to be the one who is killed, then the rest of his brothers

here and sisters might remain in the family. So I just want to say that take care of

him and I know he’s one of the bravest sons that I have in the family. I know he’s

responsible and he’s very social, he can live with anybody even though he don’t

know them, I think he would make it to the top if he’s alive.’ That is his comment in

the letter. So from there we start our journey.

So tell me how did you get to the base, first of all?

The base was based in a place called ..... just in that place, the Southern Sudanese

rebels who went to Ethiopia and they were trained, they have been armed, they came

and they want to fight the Arabs and because there were very few they don’t really

face the big mass of the army from militias that were trained, there are so many. So

sometimes they fight, sometimes they hide. And that’s the base that I joined. I heard

of them and I joined them and that’s when the first lieutenants told me – he’s one of

the ..... son – he told me that, ‘Yeah, you can stay here for a few days and then you

will be escorted to Ethiopia.’ He gave us four armed people with guns and he said,

‘These people will escort you to Ethiopia.’

How far was the base from your village?

It’s about four hours’ walk to the base.

22

And how did you feel walking there, was that dangerous?

Well, it was not that dangerous but it was because that we got to walk hiding we used

to walk at night and that is how I did it with other village kids. So we walk at night

to go to the base because if we walk on the daytime it might be that we are a target,

we can be seen by militias and maybe they will attack us. So we used night to sort of

walk and it also served for not having water it will be good to walk at night-time.

And what did the commander say to you when you arrived at the base?

They say that, ‘You are here because of the causes of the war. We know many of you

are still young, probably you will be trained and taught how to shoot in Ethiopia

when you are there and maybe some of you will grow up to be teenagers and

therefore you will make a good army to liberate your country. And because you guys

you have voluntarily come to join SPLM/A,2 we don’t need children but if you

volunteer yourself to say “I will serve for the cause of Southern Sudan” we accept

you, we don’t deny anybody, because that is what you want. But we will make sure

that you are kept in safe hands unless the whole army of SPLM are not existing. If

they are, you guys cannot go in frontline.’

And so you had several days there.

Yes. I got about two weeks there for the arrangements to go on, because going from

the base to Ethiopia it would be a three-month walk, so they were looking for

gathering some cattles to go with us because (laughs) ..... ..... time we have to kill one

cattle for consumption of a week and if we kill one we will carry those meats with us

and walking, and this is for army personnel would be escorting us because there are

lions on the road and in the bush and a lot of things, other wild animals. And that’s

why they select these four guys to escort us to Ethiopia.

And how many of you were there in the group?

I can remember we were no less than eight hundred and that eight hundred includes

big guys, real men that were older, older men and medium men and the young boys

like myself and other teenagers. And my group were the youngest ranging from eight

2 SPLM/A – Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army.

23

years to nine and ten. We were kept alone, we were not mixed with these big people,

we were kept alone and we were cared for.

In what way?

We would not cook. They would find some woman to cook for us, what we only do

is to eat, and then we would be escorted to a place where we – because these four

personnel, army personnel, they were mainly guiding these young people, not to

really – if somebody’s walking and is very tired and can’t walk, they would get an

older person, maybe three or four, to carry him or her in the journey, because it

happened that many of the children get very tired and they don’t want to walk no

more and they have to be carried.

Were there girls as well as boys?

No, there wasn’t girls in that time because it was the start of such a move to take on

and there were no girls in that period of time that we went to Ethiopia.

So describe a typical night’s walking.

Well, when we walk at night we were expecting a lot of things. You know, it is a

bushy road and you will walk there at night some, as I told you, wild animals out

there. Despite having four army personnel there weren’t enough to protect each and

every person because the number was big. We go by line, one army is in the front,

one army personnel in the middle and the other one in the middle, the other one in the

back. Despite all this, a lion can grab one kid here and disappear with it, that’s it.

And it happened, since we left it happened several times. But what you have is that

you pray that it wouldn’t happen to you. That is the trust only because each and

every person is scared. You walk quietly and just by being quiet also it doesn’t help

because lion is just there and it walk at night, and because we don’t prefer the

daytime – the Sudan Government would bomb us if they see us walking in the day,

they see a big number of people. They know that people were going to Ethiopia to

join the army and come and fight, so in the daytime they go round with their

Antonov3 and helicopters to oversee Southern Sudan, who is walking to go to

3 Aircraft manufactured in the Ukraine.

24

Ethiopia. So that’s why we walk at night and despite that still there is a risk of

animals.

And you said it took you three months because you came from the western part of

Sudan –

Yes.

– and Ethiopia was to the east, so what happened when you reached the Ethiopian

border?

When we reached the Ethiopian border we were welcomed by Ethiopians and from

there we were taken to a refugee camp and the army personnel, those who were

escorting us, they went to their base in Ethiopia and we were organised in a group. A

group consists of a thousand young children – they called it ‘Red Army’ or they

called it ‘child soldiers’ – and we were kept there for about six months. Later on

there are a lot of problems. In the first place we couldn’t get enough food. It was

very critical. You can see human beings walking as a skeleton because there is no

meat in the body actually, it is really somebody’s – it’s terrible, it’s almost to died;

and likewise to other people it seemed the same. And Ethiopian Government,

because it was very critical, they couldn’t report us to the UN4 until when they did is

when the rescue of ration, the United Nations, and other organisations came in and

visited us in the camp and they brought food, and from there we start to live a life.

But before that there was no plate, there’s no anything at all. If you see a piece of

corn down on the floor you might pick up that piece of corn and go around on the

street and try and find those corns, and if they’re about half a cup then you are lucky,

that is going to be your meal for maybe four days, five days before you get another

one. So it was a very critical time and the only way we could eat is just go and fish,

go fishing was the only way to survive, and that is when the rescue came. After the

rescue came there was only food but there’s no plate, cups and other things so we

boiled this corn, we don’t have grinding mills, we boil the corn and the beans

together and that’s how we stayed for three months, living on that – just boiled them,

and that’s the food. Because we didn’t have that thing before and we have to put

down the carton or anything and then we will put the food on that carton and eat it.

4 UN – United Nations.

25

Did you have any shelter?

No shelter, no shelter. People sleep under trees. We sleep under the trees and that’s

the shelter until when the United Nations start to bring in the tents, and those tents

were not enough for these – there were about fourteen thousand children. Fourteen

thousand of them, the United Nations was not able to provide each child or maybe

two or three with one tent, so in a very small tent they try to put five, six people.

Despite all those, you know, we have to decide and after we get our strength back we

have to go in the bush and cut the trees and try to make a house which is more bigger

and we build it with grass and the mud under, so that is how we try to establish

ourselves to replace those tents, because they were too hot. And that’s how we start

to live.

Was it cold at night?

It is very cold at night. When people go ‘It’s freezing’, really Ethiopia is very cold

and that is totally different to Southern Sudan. It was a little bit colder than the

South.

And you would have had nothing for protection at night.

Nothing for protection at night, there’s nothing at all. Even – we’ve got a lot of

problems – we have to make a big security at night. People would be selected in

different places to guard the whole ..... thousand children. People were around this

camp so that the animals or anything cannot get in the camp, because if it does it

mean that is a disaster because these children, they were all frightened and if they

hear that there’s a lion in here everybody will be running and then it will be a

disaster. So we have this system that we have to get these people to guard the

children and they have got no gun, just only they have got these sort of sticks and

that’s it, because they shout, when they see something they shout, and the lion will go

back or the lioness. That’s how we did it.

And were you ever on patrol?

No, I was not on patrol because I was made the head of one group, which consists of

one thousand people, I’m the responsible person for that group.

You were ten years old at the time.

26

Yes, I was ten and I have to really make sure that each and every person get

something to eat and make sure that each and every person has got a blanket after the

United Nations has brought those things, so I have to be involved with distribution of

those things and I have to have a list in my hand to know each and every person.

How did you organise it, then?

When they brought these items – non-food items, for example cooking materials and

blankets – we sit down with the logistics from Ethiopian guy who is working with the

United Nations and we give them the list. And we would be given the number that is

supposed to be given to one group and I have to take that and I have to call these

young people to carry those things, tear the bale of blankets, and then we carry pieces

to the group and then we will put them together and then I will start to tell my

logistics – I have my logistics, too – to tell him to call the names and then they will

be distributed according to sub-section within that group and then from that sub-

section they will distribute them also to the row, and that row might consist of fifty

people. So it goes like that, that’s the responsibility I was having and I had to make

sure everything was done appropriately.

Why do you think you were chosen to be in charge?

One reason is that they believe that I can deliver a good leadership style and also I

could write a little bit of Arabic and a little bit of English, I could call names of the

people – so many people didn’t have that sort of ability, so I think that was mainly

the reason they have chosen me. And my social background also, I eagerly embrace

everybody to have a list of boys, and so I think that’s why they have chosen me to be

one of the leaders.

Was it known that you were the son of a chief?

People know, yes, people know that, and I didn’t want to use that as a way to get the

responsibility because in the first place I was not preferred to be responsible for

children without their mothers and their fathers and they’re all my age ....., and to be

responsible you have to govern them in an army way, not by civilian way. Every

evening they have to attend a parade and they have to sing a song and if somebody

refuse not to do duty and you have to at least make a judgment in the army ways, to

tell them to do it; if they refuse they will be beaten for disciplinary so that they can

27

do, because no-one will do to one another unless they co-operate, to help each other.

It’s a duty that one person can do a duty for fifty people today or two of those people

will be cooking for fifty people and tomorrow is some other people’s turn, and if it’s

your turn and you don’t cook it means that you will be really given punishment to

obey your duty and do your duty. It was really very tough situation, is quite different

to my father’s role, and yes, it was very challenging.

Who would do the punishment?

Well, there is the sergeants, because somebody who is the head of those fifty people

they call it sergeant. Sergeant will take on the responsibility to choose people willing

as the police – maybe three or four as the policemen – and he will deliver his

judgment and say, ‘Give him five lashes, six lashes, for disciplinary’ and that’s how it

is. And then, if it is a difficult task which had come to my table, I will decide what to

do on that: if it is a simple problem I wouldn’t put somebody in prison, because there

is a prison that somebody can stay there in a week or two weeks, but if it is simple

reason I can just advise them and tell them to respect their leaders and it goes back to

their section, and that is how best I could do because I don’t encourage these young

people to stay in prison that they cannot move for two weeks or one week, that’s very

hard for me imagining that to happen. So I usually delivered my judgment based on

humanity basis because I didn’t want to see – I know how hard it was walking that

distance and come here and then again you will be mistreated by one person which is

among you, so it was those things that I was really thinking of they were not worth

doing. But there is no way out: we have to talk, try to counsel them.

Some people were really thinking, ‘I choose wrong to come here, I decide wrong,

so I have to go back.’ So I was involved with counselling of people, really, telling

them, ‘All the past year we left our mothers and our fathers. You should be strong

and keep on. Maybe later on you will be the person that people will depend on.

Maybe you are the only person that survive. You never know. Since we left home,

we don’t know how many people are killed now, so you have to bear with it. Maybe

next year it will be another thing altogether: you will be somewhere, you will be

going to school.’ I was really trying to get them to understand and face the reality,

was telling them some sort of promises, that tomorrow it wouldn’t be like this:

‘Maybe in five years’ time you will be speaking English, you will be doing this and

28

you will be doing that’, and sometimes it worked out well. Sometimes they believed

me. Sometimes they think, ‘Why is he telling us this? If it’s going to happen like

this, it doesn’t mean it will be good but if it is the other way round we don’t know.

But this? Where does he get his information and he’s here with us? It’s maybe talk

on the radio, maybe he got this information from the top person, maybe.’ And I give

them this hope because it’s the only way to encourage them, to deal with the situation

at the time. So I have to be a counsellor, I lead them and that’s how I do best in those

days.

So the training that you had with your father from such a young age –

Yes, yes.

– really came into its own.

Yes, yes. It has delivered the leadership that was unexpected. I didn’t expect that I

would be a leader of young people without advisers that are older than I too, and I

really tried to calm down because I resume myself as a leader, as brothers to them, as

everything to them so if I do a thing wrong everything will go wrong, so I have to.

And also I eagerly met with other leaders when they have difficult times and we sit

together and I tell them, ‘Look this is how it’s done and you guys will have to be like

this’, so that when they go to their posts they would really deliver the kind of

leadership that people would deserve.

Were the sergeants children?

Yes. Some of them, they might be older than me but they are still the same age as

thirteen, fourteen.

So you were not big enough to carry a rifle when you were ten.

Yes.

So what role did you take on?

Yes, after we stayed there and everything was okay we were taken to the training

camp – they called it a disciplinary training camp – and that involved guns and you

have to be trained for three months and then later on four months you go for exercise

of shooting in the bush and then you would be released to go to frontline or you’d be

given some other task to do. That is when I couldn’t really manage to carry AK-47 –

29

not only me; likewise two of my colleagues, they were too young to wield these

heavy AK-47 guns – so some of my colleagues were returned to the camp and some

of them who were about fifteen and sixteen they were taken to frontline.

Where was the frontline?

The frontline was you go back to Southern Sudan. People were fighting in the areas

of Nuba Mountain[?], people were fighting in the area of Kapoeta, people were

fighting in Juba, people were fighting in the areas of Bor and Wau, Aweil, and it

depend where you are sent to because they were all frontline, those areas in Southern

Sudan. So some of my friends were scattered all over to different battalions, they

were distributed to different battalions because they have to be integrated to the older

army so that they can fight within those experienced army, and that’s when I was

given role to be trainer and also I was in charge of wounded people and I was in the

process of training to be a radio operator so that I can operate within the headquarters.

And suddenly we were really in trouble with the Ethiopian Government, that was

overthrown, and I have to take all of the wounded people so I have to get a truck and

take the wounded to ..... and that role include the civilians, it not only include the

refugees; women and children, those whose husbands were in the frontline, they were

left alone, and that role I really think I made a difference because I have to go back in

the frontline where there is battle between Ethiopian ..... armed forces that were really

capturing Ethiopia, they were shooting at us while we are running back to Southern

Sudan, and I have to go back there and get wounded people and get women who

cannot make it to run very fast because they’ve got children in their hands, they can’t

do anything, they just cry. I have to get them in the trucks and then I take them to

distance of maybe one hour and then put them down there and come back again and

get another lot. And a lot of other trucks were there because we got as many trucks

as we could from the United Nations, because United Nations they left and they left

these trucks and we have to use them. We got drivers and we have to use them to

shift these people out of here, out of the camp.

So the government in Ethiopia changed –

Yes.

– and they were no longer sympathetic to Sudanese refugees.

30

It was the coming army which was the ….. ….. group which were not allies to

Sudanese refugees or to Sudanese army who were based in Ethiopia, because there

was a relationship between Southern Sudan and Ethiopian Government which was

had by ….. ….. and these people who were rebels, they were based in Sudan in

Northern Khartoum, so when they were fighting Ethiopia we, the Southern Sudan, we

didn’t support them, so when they captured Ethiopia we were enemies to them so it’s

the other way round, so they have to fight us. And after all they were saying – they

usually bring the letter and say, ‘You have to leave Ethiopian borders’, and people

were packing to go and then they just came suddenly and they were told that there

were a lot of guns in the store and this Sudanese army of rebels, SPLM, will take

those guns so you go and take those guns from them. And that’s why they attack us

and we were surprised. We received a letter to leave and just in a few days later it

was just attack, you know? (laughs) That’s how it happened.

So where were you based then when you were doing your retrieval work? We’re

looking at a map at the moment.

Yes, we were still based inside Ethiopia. Yes, we were based here. (indicates)

That’s where we were based.

That’s close to – – –.

Close to Sudan, that’s where we were based.

So then you would have to go in the truck, out into Sudan.

Yes, we have to go in the trucks and we were not really trying to go to Sudan here,

we were trying to come between the borders, trying to find a way to take these

refugees to safe place because Southern Sudan there is war and because it was just –

that war, that people are really fighting in these areas, so we have to go through the

borders here, between Ethiopia and Sudan, to get to Kenya, to take these refugees to

Kenya, so it was a big task. So we have to flee everybody to Fashalla here in

Southern Sudan, then from this place some of the refugees were taken by plane to

Lokichokio here, some walk from Fashalla to Kapoeta.

In Kenya.

No, in Sudan.

Again, that’s a long distance, isn’t it?

31

Yes. (inaudible)

So that was going down inside Sudan following the Ethiopian border but heading

down towards Kenya.

Yes. And then from there, that is now the Kenyan border was near, so people were to

travel from here to there, that’s where there was Lokichokio.

And that was another refugee camp there?

That was another refugee camp, that became Kakuma Refugee Camp.

So how many years were you doing this rescue work?

It has been one year and eight months, because I have to come to Fashalla, from

Fashalla to Kapoeta and then from Kapoeta I have to transport people to Lokochokio,

which is Kenya, and then from Lokichokio the United Nations took the responsibility

and brought their trucks and took them to Kakuma, where the camp was based.

Did you ever have to use your rifle?

Yes, I used my rifle several times and my pistol, but I didn’t use it to fight the enemy

because I was responsible for things but I was ready to, if I am attacked I will fight,

but I didn’t. I wasn’t attacked. So I usually go in the frontline, get the wounded

people, get out and send people in when I’m near to the place and get people out, and

I have to use my pistol for several things. Some of my younger soldiers, they were

refusing not to go back to frontline so I have to – you know, I have to punish them for

not going back and by doing that some of them were trying to scare me, you know,

pulling their gun out and tried to say, ‘We don’t want to obey you’, and I have to deal

with that. And I have my gun, so – they know that I have my gun; but I prefer good

relations or them to obey the rules and I will use some other people to catch them and

[they will] be brought to the table and discuss it. If they say no I will punish them,

and then later on there will be a consensus, because we were agree in writing, I

believe I was agree in writings, to get people out and that’s my responsibility, and I

was in the command of that. But I know how risky it was for them to say no, I know,

but there’s no way out, I have to force them to go.

Were they threatening to shoot you?

Yes. That’s likely in the army, is something by words. But they usually think twice:

‘When I shoot him, what will happen to me, because he’s the one in charge so I will

32

be killed too’, so they have to think twice before they just pull the bullet and let it go.

But they just threaten me to be scared, that’s what they are trying to scare me.

And you were able to negotiate your way – – –.

Yes, I’m able to negotiate. I don’t even try to remove my gun, I don’t remove my

gun because I have to negotiate with them and tell them, ‘Look, it is our cause, it is

not a one-person problem. Maybe your auntie or uncle, they are there. Who knows

who has been wounded, maybe your mum’ or something. So negotiate with them

and later on we come to understanding and we go on to the work.

And how old were you at that point?

That point I was around fourteen years of age. Yes, fourteen.

Were you ever severely ill or wounded during this time?

Well, one time I was really very sick with diarrhoea and that was treated because it

was the result of dirty water because I had been naughty. We usually have tap water

but I went to the river with a group of people, we play there all day, we drink the

river water and that’s when it happened. And that kind of water we had been using

before, but because of the change that United Nations put in some ….. water that are

very clean so we get used to the clean water, and then later on I used the different

water and it caused me a lot of problems. But that was the main thing until when I

was really sick with the yellow fever and that was very serious and I couldn’t have

any medicine until I get local-made wine that is called ‘white wine’, it is locally made

of sorghum and it was very good to get rid of yellow fever, and I drank maybe two

bottles (laughs) like these bottles here and that got rid of the sickness and it was very

serious. Many people died of that.

So you were strong enough to survive that.

Yes, I was strong enough to survive.

Did you see yourself as a child, still?

Given this responsibility myself really, despite having been responsible, I really did

ask myself ‘Who am I?’ in the middle of this. ‘Am I the kid? Am I the older person?

What am I, really?’ I don’t know myself. It’s because that responsibility that I was

taking was not meant for me, and that made it very hard sometimes. When I think a

33

lot I have to go to play soccer. One way to get rid of that thinking is to go and play

soccer, and I introduced the soccer to all groups of the children. In the evening if you

come out to see them you will see them, all of them are playing until they get tired

and they go and sleep, so that we get rid of this, and I was one of those people who

was very instrumental in playing soccer. I used to play soccer and I just make it a

tool of healing my thought and those of the war and those of the responsibility that

I’m facing at the time.

When a kid died in this group of mine I’m responsible to organise people to bury

that kid and it become something that I cannot really describe. Involvement in burial

of someone and those children who are doing that, you can’t imagine this. And I

have to be there for burials, I have to be there, it is my responsibility to make sure it

is burial properly and we have to honour that kid and we have to keep the name of

that kid in the records for the future. If it happened that we go back to Sudan we

might tell their family how it happened and where. These were things that I was

sometimes thinking I’ve done as a big burden on me and these were not meant for me

of course. In the village back then, children don’t even know when somebody die.

They are not near that. They were kept uninformed. But it happened that in the area

that we were in Ethiopia it is we who knows who died and it is we who will bury that

person. It was big responsibility.

You had to grow up very quickly.

And I did. And I did. Now you can see me here I really grown up and thank God

that I have that experience to deal with a lot of things that I have faced, and maybe

that’s what has changed my life to be the man I am today.

Again we’re at a finishing point on the card so we will just pause there now.

Thank you.

END OF DISK 2: DISK 3

This is sound card three of an interview between Angelo Diing Dhel with Alison

McDougall at the State Library of South Australia on 12th

December 2007.

We’ve been spending some time talking about the years you’ve spent with the

resistance army. You ended up being a refugee yourself in Kenya –

Yes.

34

– after helping people to escape to Kenya from the frontline.

Yes.

Can you tell me how that came about?

Yes. That came about after I transferred all these refugees to a safe place in Kenya,

Lokichokio. I asked permission that I should go but I was just trying to say that

while somebody from Australia advised me of being a child that I would make

different in my life if I get education rather than staying in the army. So I asked one

of the commander in charge to give me permission and he said, ‘Well, if that is what

you decide, so you can go and learn in a school in Kenya.’ That’s what he think it

was, but an Australian man advised me of Australia, of war resettlement, and I didn’t

know anything about Australia at the time and I thought about it and I joined Kakuma

Refugee Camp. I stayed there for couple of years, two.

How old were you when you went to the camp?

I was fifteen at the time, one year after I escort people to the refugee camp where they

were taken to the border and then they were taken to the refugee camp. Then I stay

one year in the army and then I rejoined them later on to be refugees myself, in that

camp.

Where did you meet the Australian UN official?

I met them in a place called Nairus, a town border, and that’s because they were

working for World Food Program, the relief service. He was going with UN officials

and himself and he found me there in the area as we are those who give them pass

permit to enter into the Southern Sudan areas and in the border. So that’s where I

met him.

Did you have any papers or any ID at all?

At the time when I went to Kenya I didn’t have any ID that I could show the United

Nations or the Kenyan Government. I just came in illegally and then we wait in the

centre in Lokichokio for about a week and then later on we were carried by United

Nations vehicles to Kakuma Refugee Camp.

Tell me about the conditions at that camp.

35

The conditions in that camp were very ….. because the camp was just a new camp

and everything was not in place. Even getting water was not easy, you have to line

up for the whole day in order to obtain your can of water or one package of water, so

it was very hard for me to cope with the situation there. But I did because some of

the people who settled there first were able to help me out until I get settled, and I

stayed there ’92–93 and ’94 I left to follow up the Australian man’s advice. So I did

ask where the embassy of Australia was and it was in Nairobi and I’d have to go to

Nairobi, so I went to the embassy and I asked them if I could get resettlement to

Australia and they told me, ‘We can’t do it the way you ask because one is that

United Nations has to give you a recommendation; two, you have to get someone

from Australia to propose you as a sponsor’, and I didn’t know anybody at the time.

Therefore I decided to look for a scholarship and from there I found a scholarship just

with refugee service, that’s where I start my school. I went back to school.

Whereabouts?

Well, I started school in ….. because at the time when I was in the refugee camp I

joined school but that was not that good a school. It was a refugee school and I went

on up to year six level and I was sponsored by diocese, I call them ‘Big Diocese’. I

study years seven and eight and then I have to get another scholarship, which I did,

just with refugee service, and they just said – refugee service told me that they will

take me to trade school whereby I can do either electrical engineering certificates one

and two or I can do mechanical engineering, which I did. For three years I did

mechanical engineering in a college.

Then at the time the person who was with me at the time left in 1998 to come to

Australia, to Melbourne, and he’s Sudanese but a different tribe altogether, but

because that I stayed with several tribes at the time of my leadership that person came

from Egypt. He was not with me during my journey in Sudan to Ethiopia; he was a

refugee in Egypt and then he flee to Kenya and he was accepted to come to Australia.

So during that time I was responsible for distribution of ration food for missionaries,

so I eagerly helped them out and when he came here his cousin was staying with me

so his cousin said, ‘We will try, my cousin, because he’s now in Australia’ – that was

1998 – ‘to send you a form to go to Australia’, because the embassies demand

someone to be recommended by United Nations or by a family member in Australia.

36

So we tried the family member process, that is the sponsorship form. And we rang

him and he said, ‘Yes, I will do it.’ And he sent us some forms and we were three

and his cousin was rejected and because my story was good and I wrote a lot of my

experience and I was accepted to come to Australia. But before that it was difficult.

What did the scholarship provide you with?

The scholarship of ..... or Big Diocese, they were responsible for school fees, they

were responsible for my living expenses, they were responsible for the house that I

stayed in, they rent the house for me. They gave me total of about one hundred and

twenty US dollars a month to pay for food and rent and other expenses, but they paid

my school fees direct to the school. That was from Big Diocese and Jesuit Refugee

Service sponsor was also the same but different amounts because they were giving

me a hundred US dollars. They were giving me a hundred US dollars and I have to

pay the rent and food but they were not enough, the money were not enough, because

the exchange rate for Kenyan shilling is about five thousand, and five thousand you

have to rent a house of two thousand five hundred and then you buy food and

transport, it was a difficult sort of life but that was better than somebody who was

living in the camp at the time. So that is how I lived until ’98 when I put in my

application for Australian High Commission in Nairobi.

Up until that time had you had any news of your family back at home?

Yes. That time somebody told me that he heard from – I heard about my family, that

they are alive, but from somebody so I couldn’t believe, I didn’t know that they were

alive at the time, and I didn’t believe him either so I couldn’t trust him because all the

time people lie, they tell you one thing and that is not correct because he’s not

coming from there, he say that he hear it from someone, and there is no concrete

evidence saying that they were alive. So it was hard to believe.

Did you ever consider going back to find them?

Well, at the time when I was still in the army I was really trying to tell my

commander in charge that I would be relocated to my area, to go and serve there. But

he couldn’t accept that because you have to obey whatever direction you are given

the responsibility to bear. And I was waiting for them to give me a permission one

day to travel there and see if they’re alive or not but that didn’t happen, so I was

37

taken away by the advice of an Australian guy to look for a better life and get

education.

How did you cope with not knowing about your family?

It was very hard and likewise to others because I considered to be among other

people who have the same circumstances and the same history. When I see them

around me and I don’t put myself as the first priority, I also considered their own

family as well as mine. So I thought that if that is the way it’s meant to be let it be.

But we were trying very hard to find ways, as young boys and we are growing up,

and our teenage life has been in a miserable way and we were trying to fight it to

make it be a better way or better future plan, and we usually talk about it as a group

of people and we usually come to a consensus that we are the only family members

who are alive or either we might be alive and they might be dead or they might be

alive and we don’t know them. But what can we give them when we are alive and we

are four different countries now, we been refugee in Ethiopia and we have been

refugee in Kenya now, what can we tell our parents if we got no education? Even

though if I go back now I might be helpless, if I found them, they are there and they

have got no means of life or living, it will be the same as we left them before so it’s

better to pursue our educations and be a better person in the future. That is how we

discuss as young people.

Did you develop close friendships?

In the camp, with other young boys? Yes, I had very close relationship but only that

we didn’t have girls, we didn’t have girls to engage with or to talk to, it was very

hard, there were no – hardly see any girls among people, and we were trying to

engage with the Kenyan girls, that were the only options we have, and being growing

up in a life like that it wasn’t easy even for a Kenyan girl to accept people of

Sudanese kind, but because we were really engaged in school we become more or

less integrated into the community of Kenya and we speak of our relationship there

with a variety of girls and boys within Kenya. So that was a little bit better after

1997–98.

Did you have to learn another language then?

38

Yes, I did. And in the school I did learn Kiswahili, how to write it and how to speak

it, Kiswahili become the normal language of communications, where you go: in the

market, in the schools (laughs) and wherever you go to you have to speak Kiswahili.

And Kiswahili was very easy to learn because it is some sort of Kiswahili, there are

Arabic words in it and that make it easy for people from Southern Sudan. Now many

Southerners speak Kiswahili and they write Kiswahili.

And how throughout all of this did you sustain your Christian faith?

Well, it was lucky that we were in Kenya and Kenya mostly is Christian country, as I

believe. They’ve got different denominations and we fit in the system and despite all

those we have got our own refugees’ churches: we’ve got Anglican, we’ve got

Presbyterian Church, we’ve got the Church of Christ, we’ve got Baptist Church,

we’ve got Lutheran, we’ve got Anglican Church and Catholic. So we usually go to

Sunday, Sunday become a meeting point with many other people that you don’t see

them during the week so if you go to church you meet them and it was really good

things. It’s a good meeting point to go and pray and interact with other people that

are living far away in the same camp that you don’t meet every day. And when we

were in the school we usually use Kenyan churches, they preach in Kiswahili, and

that’s when we pick up a lot of Kiswahili because we have to listen to word of God in

a different language and we did, and that was very good. We integrate in and it was

nice to live in a country and then know the culture and the language.

Was your faith ever really tested during your time, say, in the army as well as in

the refugee camp?

Well, I think my faith was tested because of the circumstances that do happen in the

middles[?]. I wondered sometimes going back to Ten Commandments of the Bible,

Church Ten Commandments, I see myself as making a mistake and I’m determined

to deliver the leadership style that was in the place and I think of the rules of the

Church and I have to come with the consensus that maybe I would deliver the

judgment in (laughs) the Church base or else because, you know, I have got no choice

so I thought, ‘Maybe it’s getting out of hand here and I will be violating my

allegiance, rules and so.’ But that’s the only one. But it is tempted, when there is a

lot of issues with the war going on, you wonder, asking yourself; for myself, usually,

I usually ask, ‘Is there any God?’ And if it is, why it let these things happen. Why,

39

why it hard? Why God let these things happen, and it hard, why? And sometimes I

say, ‘Where is God?’ Because the way I breathe, the air that I breathe in, the day and

the night and the trees around me, and everything that is around me is a creature of

God. So it might be that I’m in the wrong place. But I believe with the protection of

God that’s why I’m still alive. I would be one of those people who were burned alive

if there wasn’t any God. But I also think those people were also created by God and

they were burned alive. Is it because that they didn’t run enough to pass the enemy,

or is it that it’s an accident? I keep asking myself all those questions. And the same

in the army when people are killed, I think that they are fighting for their own

protection, but in God’s – you know, you don’t need to kill; but because they have to

protect themselves and that’s what happened. And because I don’t go to frontline I

usually see the wounded people, I have to counsel them in God’s way, leadership

ways and also God ways, you know. It does not mean that God doesn’t love them. I

usually tell them that way; but despite I eagerly[?] ask myself if there is God, and I

still encourage them, to tell them that, ‘God is there, that’s why you are alive even

though you are wounded, so you are still alive and you can still live.’ So my faith

was really in a dilemma of war discourse.

So you’ve reached the point now, then, in 1998 where the Australian Government

will accept you?

Yes. I put in the form in 1998 and I waited till January 2000 when I received

approval letter, because in between they called me in 1999 to do interview and my

health check-up, medical check-up, and I wait for another year, to January 2000, and

then I was given approval letter saying, ‘You are accepted, this is your visa, you are

going to Australia.’ Once again I was really excited to come to Australia, but there

was another problem, because the person who sent me the form was unable to meet

the air costs, air fees was trouble, and I have to think twice what to do. I have to

make ways to find money to pay for my ticket, and that was about nine hundred and

eighty US dollars to come to Australia one-way. And I sit down, think over it. It

took me six months to find the money. I have to ring to London, I have to ring to

America, I have to consult with the NGOs which were in Kenya and Nairobi to talk

to them. But when you tell them, you know, ‘I need some assistance for my air

fares’, they laugh at you. They can’t understand how desperate you are, they just

laugh at you, said, ‘You need to go to Australia and you don’t have air fares?’ I said,

40

‘Yes, I’m a refugee, I don’t have anything.’ Said, ‘Our assistance here is based on

food and other things to deliver to you here but not to give you air fares, and because

you are proposed by individuals United Nations is not responsible for your costs.’

And therefore I start to consult local NGOs, which were more indigenous NGOs, and

that’s where I – one of the NGOs gave me three hundred US dollars and I was left to

find six hundred and eighty. And my uncle in London, who is married to a British

woman, he’s an Anglican priest, he’s a missionary. I eagerly rang him and I don’t

find him at home and later on he got my message and he rang to Nairobi and said,

‘Find this young man and tell him I will come to Nairobi in June, 15th

’, and he gave

me the hotel that he will stay in, and then that day, on 16th

June, I went to the hotel

where he was staying and he gave me the money to top up my airfare ticket.

So that is how I tried to arrange through IOM, which is International Organisation

for Migration, so I went there and I booked my ticket in Africa, I told my sponsor in

Melbourne that I’m able to pay my own ticket, and he said he was excited; because I

didn’t know any person in Australia, I didn’t know any Australian guy here, and even

the man who gave me the recommendation I lost his contact, couldn’t find him, so I

was in the middle of a really critical time in my life. I had the opportunity but I don’t

have what it take to go there. So finally I was relieved by those two collections of

joint funding, so I make it to come to Melbourne and I start to stay there for about six

months.

What was it like, getting on that plane?

It was very hard to imagine when after I took off and was thinking of friends,

thinking of the whole thing, country and Australia. While it’s a good opportunity, but

I don’t know anybody. That is what is going on in my mind. I say, ‘I have to let it

go, and whatever it takes I would make sure I will come back to Africa one day.’

That’s what I was trying to say, and I would make sure that I would make good

friends here with Australians so that I can live in that community. Got what it takes.

I have the experience in Kenya, but after learning the language of Kiswahili I was

able to live in peace and harmony, so it would be likewise to Australia. I have to

know people, have to make friends, and all thing goes on in my mind like that until I

arrive in ..... Zimbabwe and then I took on again to Perth. And we came in the

41

evening at Perth Airport and I wait there and I arrived in Melbourne, did the

connections, transit, to Melbourne, at around nine-thirty I arrive in Melbourne.

And I was received by Sudanese guy who sponsored me, with other friends of his.

We went to the house for the last – one week later I been staying in the house, and of

course I didn’t know any place and they were working, I was left alone at home. I

have to do the process of getting to Centrelink to register and they gave me money, I

didn’t know what to do with the money, I don’t know the value of the money. But I

can speak to them, I can understand them despite the Australian slang, I really answer

their questions and the paperwork.

How did they treat you?

They were very lovely, friendly people. They treat me very well. Sometimes if I

pronounce things in African language they would tell me, ‘Can you repeat that word,

I didn’t catch that.’ Slowly I explain myself and I answered the questions and they

were happy, and I was happy with them.

Now, I read in the article you provided me that I think there was a fair amount of

culture shock for you –

Yes.

– and that you just could not sleep for the first few weeks.

Yes. It was very hard and the food, going around big city, the streets, the houses,

everything was totally new and strange to me. And when I see people I was

expecting Australians, white Australians, but I see Chinese, I see Indian, I was just

saying, ‘What’s going on here?’ (laughs) I don’t understand. And I really, really

was having a hard time to bear all those at once. When I go to the restaurant or place

near because people, they are at work, I remain alone, the menu for food I can’t get

anything. Only [thing] that I know was bread and the other things I couldn’t get my

..... and later on somebody sitting near my table called and I was brave enough to ask

him what I saw on the menu, ‘What does this mean?’ He has to explain to me, ‘This

is that and this is that and this is that’, and he told me, ‘Where are you from?’ I said,

‘I’m from Africa.’ ‘Where?’ ‘Sudan.’ ‘Oh, thank you.’ He said, ‘You don’t know

this, our Australian food, but you have to get used to it.’ I said, ‘Thank you. I just

need you to explain to me this sort of menus because next time when I come alone I

might be able to call myself up something good.’ Because always the time I call

42

maybe tea and bread and, you know, things that I know were not of any good to be a

meal, lunch for the day. And he told me the list and I went through with him and

later on I was fine, but that was one of the shocking things that when you come to a

new country you have to learn a lot to cope with the situation in the country that you

are in.

And learn it very quickly, too, if you can.

Yes. It’s a part of that I know a little bit of language, that help me. If I was not able

to speak English it would have really been a different angle altogether.

What kind of conditions did the Australian Government impose on your coming

here? Or what kind of visa did you have?

I had a humanitarian visa, which is ‘202’, that is a humanitarian visa when you are

proposed by a family member. That is the contract where you get, and when you

come here you are entitled to Centrelink payment, as any other person who is citizen

or permanent resident or refugee visa, you are entitled to all the services that you can

get when you arrive. So I can say that the government did a lot, anyway. They

welcomed me in a way through service that they provide me. Have to get a

Medicare, Health Care off Centrelink, and I have to go to English classes for five

hundred and ten hours for my English to be improved, so that was good for the

government to do that.

And how did you get to come to Adelaide, then?

Well, I’ve had a friend here in Adelaide called Nick Kerr. Nick Kerr came to Africa,

that was Zimbabwe World Council of Churches Conference, that’s when Nick attend

that conference. He was at the time the editor of the New Times of the Uniting

Church. He went to Kenya and we couldn’t meet and one of my friends met him, and

when we arrive here in Australia he was able to contact us in Melbourne and he spoke

to me and he came to visit me in Melbourne and later on I came to visit him in

Adelaide in that period of six months, and another six months later he told me if I can

move to Adelaide and come and live with him, and I was thinking about it and then

later on I did, I moved to Adelaide and lived with him in his house with his wife,

Evelyn Kerr. And they were very beautiful people, they were very helpful, and that is

when I began to be more sort of integrated into Australian community, and I stayed

with them for one year, 2001.

43

And I met a minister, a retired minister, in Gawler. There was a meeting for

Uniting Church ministers in Gawler where I met Barry Oakley and Margaret Oakley,

and they heard about my life stories because Jan Trengove was the Moderator of

Uniting Church, so Jan invited me to attend the meetings of the ministers of Uniting

Church so I spoke there. I spoke about my life story, and Barry was touched with my

life story, and I was having responsibilities of two widows that their husbands were

killed, and they pledged that I should take care of their wives and their children, and

that was responsibility that I bear, even though I came to Australia, I have to support

them. I have to send money back to them, I have to send them forms so that they

could come to Australia, and I did that and I was looking for the money for the

airfares to raise funds for them to come here, and that is when Barry Oakley said,

‘Could you come to speak to my congregation in Tea Tree Gully?’ And we made a

time to come and visit me in Nick Kerr’s house and from there we went to Tea Tree

Gully Uniting Church and I spoke there, and they raised thirteen thousand Australian

dollars for the two families, a family of three and a family of five. So those widows

were able to be assisted by Tea Tree Gully Uniting Church.

And from there at the meetings, when I spoke to the ministers, all the churches

were interested to invite me and speak in their functions, their gatherings, their

church Sunday service, and I send lot of forms to other refugees that I left in Kenya

and I was able to send to about forty-five families to propose them to come here, that

consists of two hundred and eighty people, and because I have that connection with

the Uniting Church I was able to raise funds in individual churches and those

churches would pay money direct to the IOM and the family would be brought and

that family would be part of that congregation who have raised funds and they will

help them settle in South Australia here and they will take them, show them

everything that they need.

They take them to Cleland Park where there is kangaroos and other things for

introduction and take them to the beach, it was something new for them because they

haven’t seen such a big ocean because Africa, only Kenya has got the ocean at

Mombasa but not every African country has got the ocean so it is a surprise to them

they don’t see the end, and likewise to me. At the time I arrived it was something

new, I can’t see no ends of the ocean, I just raise my eyes until my eyes just [?fall

shut?] in the middle, couldn’t see the end. So it was also (laughs) another experience.

44

You’re very keen to do what you can for education back in your area of Sudan?

Yes.

We’re getting close to the end of our time; can you tell me briefly what you’ve been

doing there?

Actually, back home I’m planning to build a high school in the town that I come

from, district, in Aweil, and by doing that I have to resolve some way of raising

funds, of which I’m still in the process at the moment, and the brochures is done, the

organisation is registered and I hope Australian people would support me in making

my dream come true to raise funds to support the school there and build a school. I

have this cassette that, you know, people are still taught under the trees and they

don’t have schoolbooks, they don’t have pens, they don’t have desks, they don’t have

no clean water, no latrines, so it’s the whole thing is just a start. And I need to at

least do something that is concrete for that people, for that village that I was born in,

and that would be my contribution even though if I am not a part of Sudanese no

more I will be helpful in that term, to give them something at least that they could

support themselves in terms of education.

Because you’ve managed to get a Bachelor of International Relations here at

Flinders University –

Yes,

– and you’ve become an Australian citizen, I believe.

Yes, I became an Australian citizen in 2003 and I managed to obtain a bachelor

degree in April, so in 2007 I was graduated with Bachelor of International Studies,

and I’m now pursuing master’s in Public Policy. I will finish at the end of 2008, and

that is a dream come true, that is what I want to be: I want to help others, I want to

work and contribute to Australian society and appreciate their support in education

because they have been very supportive in I study school, especially the family of

Oakley, Barry Oakley and Margaret, they have worked hard to make sure that my

school was going well, they support me financially. And friends like Nick Kerr they

support me in words[?] and friends like – I was lucky to have a friend like Bob Day

who have been very instrumental in terms of supporting me, and that’s good to know

people in Australian community that I could integrate in this society to know such

people.

45

I feel lucky and I feel blessed to have people around me that support my dreams

and my thought and my visions that make me to forget – not least to forget this

horrible life that I have been through – and because of their support that’s how I make

it to be the way I am today. And my uncle’s wife and my cousins, my uncle’s wife,

Achol Agnek, she’s been very supportive in my school and she’s the one who cook

for me if I go to school, come back, and she’s taking care of me and that is a blessing

to have. And I hope God is there to sustain me to do a lot of things for Australia and

Southern Sudan if I live

Now, you were able to go back and be reunited with your family in January this

year.

Yes.

Can you tell me just a little bit about that experience?

Yes, it was really very sort of emotional surprise for them because I went there and I

didn’t tell them that I was coming and my younger brother, John Chieny, I spoke to

him while I was in Africa telling him that I will come and he didn’t tell my mum or

dad because if he tell them they will be very shocked and it will be good to surprise

them. So I came to the town at night and I didn’t know the place, I was escorted by

one of the army personnel that I was with him at the time, so he escorted me to my

village and he even didn’t know the place well so he got lost until I recognised the

place while we were about one hour away, we passed the place so we have to come

back, until when we come back it was about one p.m. at night. And he knocked the

door and my mum wake up and came out and was talking to him, telling him, ‘Why

are you working at night? Is there anything wrong?’ (laughs) The young man told

her, ‘No, there’s nothing wrong, but I got something, some surprise for you. I got

this special person here.’ And she was saying, ‘What do you mean, “this special

person”?’ He said, ‘Maybe you can recognise him.’ And my mum didn’t recognise

me because I’d grown up a lot, tall, I’m not the tiny child that she saw once, twenty

years ago. So I told her, ‘Mum.’ And she was, ‘Wow. Is it you, Diing?’ I said,

‘Yes.’ And then she want to grab me and she collapsed and I have to make sure that

she was getting her breath back, and she was okay after that.

And then she start to pray; instead of hugging me she said she wouldn’t hug me no

more, she will just start praying, and she pray with other women around when they

46

came and that is how she welcomed me. She prayed for me and later on she’s still

not believing: she was asking me about my brothers, my youngest brothers and my

younger sisters, and I have to tell her their names. So she began to believe, and in the

morning that is when she realised I was the one because she saw my face and so – but

at the night-time it was hard for her to see me really clearly: now, who am I really?

And that was a really emotional reunion for the last twenty years, I couldn’t bear it

myself, there were tears in my eyes and the whole village, the whole town came and

they were able to slaughter some bulls as a sign of happiness for people in the town to

eat those meats. And that is how I really came to reunite with them.

It was hard when I left to see them remaining, but it was different altogether

because my life is totally different. I realised that I cannot bear with the life they are

in at the moment and the way I am and the life that I have here in Australia, so it’s

totally different. I assume, yes, I’m born there, but it’s quite different now, that I

cannot live in that area. Things change and there are a lot of requirements that I can

need but I can’t find them there.

So what do you see as the future now?

Yes, the future for them now is for somebody like me to work hard and make sure

that the school is in place. I believe only education can bring civilisation and

modernisation. Without education there is no change in human life, unless education

take place so that they know what’s good and how they can move from one level to

another, and with education it’s going to be possible but without education it

wouldn’t be possible. So that is what I believe and I will work hard to do the little

that I could do and from there maybe some other people will pick it up and do.

We thank you very much for your generosity today, Angelo, very much appreciate

your time.

Thank you very much, Alison.

END OF INTERVIEW.