First Week of What is the What

For the first third of the book, I read up to page 186. What is the What begins with the main character Valentino or Achak getting robbed at his apartment in Atlanta, Georgia which he shares with his friend Achor Achor. After he tries to stand up to the robbers a couple of times, they knock him unconscious. He wakes up to the sound of his T.V. playing, which has been plugged into the living room/kitchen area. The robbers have left a young boy, Michael, to guard it while they bring the other stuff they stole from Valentino's apartment to their home. Valentino feels a strong connection to the boy because at a similar age, Valentino's life was turned upside down and remembers life at that age very clearly. A war broke out between the government and the rebel army and with more than a hundred other boys, Valentino walked through Sudan to find camps in Bilpam, Ethiopia. He tries to speak to Michael but ends up getting a telephone book dropped on his head. He decides to relate his life story to Michael in his mind. He begins with his early life in the town Marial Bai with his many brothers and sisters (the result of the five wives his father had). One day his father, the successful owner of a general store, is talking with traders about the slowly rising rebel force (the Sudan People's Liberation Army) whose tensions with the government seem to be hinting at war. His father, who was involved on the rebels side in the last rebellion, shows little worry of war. Yet one day, soldiers attack the town. Valentino and his mother make an escape. His mother realizes he would have a greater chance of survival without her and encourages him to go on by himself. Soon, he meets Dut, a school teacher in his town, and the two walk to a nearby viewpoint to see the state of Marial Bai. It is burned to the ground. Later, as Valentino is trekking to Ethiopia with Dut, Deng (who he befriends) and a few hundred other boys, they run into a  village that hasn't been affected by the war at all. Valentino discovers that his village, Marial Bai was burned to the ground because it was associated with the rebel forces. He later asks Dut to explain the situation to him. Dut tells them about the Anyanya rebels before the SPLA, the reason for all the Dinka cattle thievery done by Baggara government soilders  and the reason behind attacking Marial Bali in greater detail. This made me wonder, where did the conflict between the north and south of Sudan that caused the civil war come from? How were the Anyanya and the SPLA created and where are they today? 

 According to the Federation of American Scientists, that the hatred between the north and the south of Sudan says to come from clashes in religious beliefs and culture. The north is more of a traditional islamic belief, and the south has a wide variety of culture and religion, including Christianity. In 1955, the Equatoria Corps began uprising against the government in Torit. This led to anger amongst the corps and violence broke out, more than 500,000 people dead by the end of the 1960s. The Anyanya was formed as a rebel organization against the government. Countries such as Israel aided the Anyanya in 1969 by sending weapons.  Their disputes ended in 1972 with the Addis Ababa negotiations. The SPLA formed around 1983, with the end of the Addis Ababa agreements (according to the New Sudan Division news). John Garang (as mentioned in the book) began the SPLA after he encouraged a series of uprisings against the Khartoum government. In 1996, the United States gave $20 million in military equipment to soilders in Uganda, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. The SPLM (Sundanese People's Liberation Movement) and the SPLA ended with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the north and south of Sudan in 2005 (Federation of American Scientists).