SUDAN
What does the chaos say?
Listen to the story of mouths turning dry, of chained hopes yet spirits rising high; Life ran through my veins once, birds would sing a lullaby; My love for peace even the Nile would testify; They lacerated my skin and let the oil dry; They cut me into half but I didn't cry
Omar, my master, my people chose you; You had to protect me, what did you do; Masters have promises to keep but why didn’t you; Mubarak accused you and the US plotted against you; You would buckle under pressure, my heart never knew
It wasn’t long, before enemies turned hostile; Khartoum perished, became a dust pile; My soul kept aching but I flashed a plastic smile; The missile landed on me and crippled me for a while
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Economy toppled, foreign policy fell apart; By now my people knew, their master had failed his part; A protest began which wasn’t easy to thwart; Darfur is under siege, people sang with their heart
Bodies lay bare, killed organs apart; Tortured and raped, in a shroud of disaster my flesh draped; Master turned monster, no one could be saved; Throats throttled, voices were taped; From the fabric of free nation, democracy was scraped
Oh! What misery fell upon me, this was something not meant to be; Every soul says, sacrifices aren’t for free; Still I am not proud of my destiny; You say worse things happen at sea, I said worse things have happened to me; South Sudan was born, I was left an amputee
I have lived enough, pain brimming from my eyes; BlueForSudan, the privileged world cries; For all the brutal force that Janjaweed applies, little does it know sane voice never dies; Thriving dreams bleed when humanity dies, demons leap, for the greed that underlies
The coup won’t last long, listen to the wise; I am the bleeding Sudan but I will rise!
Following the June 2019 coup d’etat at the behest of Rapid Support Forces, the government of Omar al-Bashir has toppled. The military forces have turned torturers and there is an absolute country-wide media blackout. Pertinently, the 2011 partition left the country in severe economic lurches after more than 75% of the oil resources geographically went to South Sudan. The current turmoil is a snowballed outcome of economic, humanitarian and democratic crises post-partition. More than 7 million individuals are in need of humanitarian assistance, 5 million vulnerable to starvation and 32% of Sudanese children chronically malnourished. The military after taking over has given a three year transition period before a democratically elected government could be established. However, people feel that these are shoddy lies. Most of them are too helpless to act or else too hurt to back Omar to power. Omar himself has lost his legitimacy as a leader, not merely because of the coup but for reasons that run deeper. After all he isn't that benevolent a leader as he sported to be. He has trials pending with the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur circa 2004. Peace will return soon, it has to, but for now the angle of a civil war or worse a proxy war can’t be ruled out.
