It was a grand, two-day coming-out party for the world’s newest nation, with a speech by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and meetings with a lineup of elites from Washington’s international, political, diplomatic and aid-and-trade communities.
Kiir’s location wasn’t announced until the very last minute, a reminder that not everyone was eager to welcome the new country, whose July 9, 2011, independence redrew the map of the world.
“Sisters, brothers — hurry! Our president has arrived! We have to go
!” Chan called out.
Tonight, Chan commands attention. That’s partly because she’s the daughter of Sudan People’s Liberation Army commander Chan Dak, who was killed while fighting in the region’s long struggle for independence.
Newly emerged from a brutal 25-year conflict that killed an estimated 2 million people, South Sudan is still building its foreign diplomatic service. While some of the Washington mission’s top envoys are trained in diplomacy, others, like Chan, are homespun talent.
What they lack in polish, they make up for in pathos.
“My feet are burning, but I have to keep running,” says Chan, who now lives in Alexandria. The curly-haired 24-year-old was dressed in her “most Washington outfit” — gray pants and a matching vest. “You know, we are all a little new at this. But we are so happy. If my father could see me now, he would know he didn’t die in vain.”
In a luxurious Dupont Circle hotel ballroom, Kiir is wearing his trademark cowboy hat, a sign that he’s a man of the people — a resonant gesture in a nation that is still largely made up of cattle herders and farmers who live in mud hut villages with few paved roads and sporadic electricity.
He welcomes the audience, a mix of Sudanese diasporans, U.N. officials and American business leaders interested in investing in the oil-rich nation.
Kiir, a former rebel commander, tells the crowd that South Sudan is now safe. He pauses. “Except for the places I listed earlier.” Some in the crowd laugh — they find his lack of calculated public relations skills endearing, they say.
Then a delegation of Sudanese villagers who were flown in to attend this International Engagement Conference spontaneously interrupt the speech with liberation songs once sung by child fighters. Even here in Washington, the Sudanese tradition of clapping and singing in the middle of a leader’s speech is difficult to tamp down. It’s in such stark contrast to the buttoned-up culture of Washington that, once again, there’s a smattering of laughter.
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