Pop Stars for Peace in Sudan

For a capital city, Juba has a surprisingly new and even temporary feel. Having never served as a colonial outpost, there are no remnants of luxurious hotels or crumbling ornate facades lining the town center as seen in many other African capitals. The U.N. is housed in a compound filled with rows of trailers. A former garrison town during Sudan’s two consecutive civil wars, Juba was selected as the new capital of the semi-autonomous region of southern Sudan as recently as 2005 during the signing of the peace deal that brought the war to an end. Its population rapidly multiplied, attracting businessmen, motorbike and taxi drivers, and translators from around the region, as well as aid workers, peacekeepers, and diplomats from around the world.

Juba is now a boomtown, and it seems like many of the people you meet are here because of the peace deal. Promoting peace is a catchphrase that finds its way into even the most unlikely places; consciousness about the South’s monumental decision next year on whether to secede and form its own country permeates daily life. (During my recent trip, my colleague Maggie Fick pointed out her favorite billboard in town, an ad for a Sudanese airline, which reads: “Your flight with us is an investment in your baby nation.”)

Juba presents economic opportunities as the city develops and the chance to get involved in work to help set the country on a more peaceful path following more than two decades of war this region has experienced. According to stories I have heard, people are enticed by the combination. Rarely do you meet someone “from” Juba, but the stories people tell of how they came to live here are remarkable and often tie in to the peace deal that gave Juba its prominence.

Even the pop stars.

In 1992, Sudan was in the midst of a bloody civil war that would leave an estimated two million people dead. Duop was a 10-year-old living with his parents in Akobo, a town in southern Sudan near the border with Ethiopia. The war had come to Jonglei state and the southern rebel movement, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, was recruiting able bodies – even the small ones. Duop became a soldier in SPLA’s “Red Army,” a group made up of boys, and fought for two years before the SPLA delivered many of the young soldiers to Pugnido refugee camp over the border in Ethiopia. “They let the young ones be taken to the refugee camp because we were not able to survive,” Duop explained. During many years living at Pugnido, Duop made two trips back to over the border into Sudan to visit his parents in Akobo, but the trip was “so risky,” and Pugnido provided the opportunity to go to school.

In the refugee camp, Duop met other boys who shared his love of music. A few years later, living in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, Duop and two of the boys from the camp would frequent the Jesuit Refugee Service Refugee Community Center and practice their music using the center’s instruments -– with Duop handling/taking care of vocals and the younger boys on piano and guitar. In 2003, they decided to form a band. Duop composed and wrote lyrics for all of their songs, and in 2006 they released their first album, “Dad and Mom,” from Addis Ababa. The songs were a dedication to their families. “The message was to our parents. Even though we don’t stay together with them, it doesn’t mean we don’t love them. It is just the situation we are in. Someday there will be a time when we can come back together,” Duop explained, describing how he largely drew from his experience living in the refugee camp as he wrote the tracks for the album.

In 2006, Duop and his band members moved back to Sudan after more than a decade away. They settled in Juba, where they could rent instruments from local businessmen, and started recruiting new members. Their band, Nile Stars Entertainment, now has 10 musicians and dancers, but Duop and his original trio still take the lead in promoting their theme of social justice and peace.

“We started out just as musicians, but we were in a difficult situation, and this translated into our music,” he said. “Peace was making an entrance at that time. It was the middle of the signing of the peace [agreement], so we came up with a song that addressed the peace and gave awareness to the people that peace has come.” People listen because the music is entertaining, Duop explained. The band uses its platform to discuss important social issues like education of girls, HIV/AIDS prevention, politics, and the importance of voting.

Nile Stars Entertainment now performs at events across Sudan. Given their very relevant messages as the country moves toward its first election in recent memory and the final year of implementation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement amid rising political and ethnic tensions, expect to see these socially minded pop stars doing their part to get the message out that, as Duop sings in their hit song Ci Mal Ben, “we need to protect this peace.”

Here’s Duop Pur Duop performing Ci Mal Ben (“The Peace Has Come”) for an audience in Khartoum.

Photo credit: UN Photo/Tim McKulka