Victor Lugalla: In an Interview, Joseph Lagu told me how he helped shape John Garang’s path

A few days before the official declaration of our independence in July 2011, I interviewed General Joseph Lagu Yanga, the veteran Anyanya freedom fighter who was fondly known as Mukungu by his friends.

He was staying in a government house around the Juba Commercial neighbourhood. He looked strong and alert, with a sharp memory, although his hearing was slowly being impaired. I asked him how he maintained his physical fitness. He said he watched his diet and exercised in his room.

He was excited that freedom had finally come to South Sudan while he was still alive.

Then I asked him about Dr John Garang, who had died six years earlier, in 2005.

General Lagu said Dr John Garang was one of the few university-educated officers in the Anyanya movement. He said Garang was a brilliant officer but opposed the signing of the Addis Ababa Peace Agreement, which ended the first civil war in 1972.

He told Garang to be patient because, from his observation, Garang looked like somebody who wanted to plunge the country into another civil war prematurely. As his superior in the army, Gen Lagu said he decided to send Garang to America for further academic studies to prepare him ideologically while delaying another civil war.

John Garang obtained his master’s degree and, by the time he later completed his PhD in agricultural economics, it was already 1981, and General Lagu had immersed himself in politics. Indeed, as Gen Lagu had wished, Dr Garang was intellectually and ideologically equipped and militarily prepared. He was a colonel in the Sudanese Army.

Then, in May 1983, an army mutiny at the Bor garrison provided the opportunity for Garang to pursue his dream with the formation of the second liberation movement, a continuation of the ill-equipped but determined Anyanya movement.

The 15-year-old country we now proudly call South Sudan came into existence because of the countless sacrifices of freedom fighters such as Dr John Garang and Gen Joseph Lagu, who died on October 27 at the age of 94.

As citizens of South Sudan, we will forever remain grateful to Mukungu Lagu and other freedom fighters, dead or alive, for their love of the motherland.

On this rainy day in Juba, we extend our condolences to the family of Gen Lagu. May God console them and grant them comfort.

May God rest his soul in eternal peace.