William Deng Nhial

William Deng Nhial (died 5 May 1968) was an early political leader in the struggle for the independence of South Sudan who was assassinated in 1968.

William Deng was of Dinka origin, and was born in Tonj, then in Bahr al-Ghazal state. He joined the government as an administrator. William Deng believed in Democratic Socialism, and in solidarity of African Sudanese in resisting Arab colonialism. He aimed for political partnership with indigenous African Sudanese people of Nuba, Fur, Beja, Nubia, Ingesenia and other parts of northern Sudan.

Some time after the army took power in 1958, William Deng fled into exile, as did other southern politicians including Fr. Saturnino Ohure, Joseph Oduho and Alexis Bakumba. Saturnino Ohure and Joseph Oduho moved from Uganda to Kinshasa, Zaire, where they were joined by William Deng and founded the Sudan African Closed Districts National Union (SACDNU). William Deng was appointed Secretary-General of SACNDU in 1962. William Deng and Joseph Oduho published the first formal declaration of Southern Sudan objectives in The Problem of the Southern Sudan (1962). In this paper they argued for independence of the non-Muslim south from the Muslim north of Sudan.

The exiles moved back to Kampala in Uganda in 1963, with the movement renamed the Sudan African National Union (SANU). The new name was designed to show solidarity with other African nationalist movements of the period. In Kampala SANU became the voice of the 60,000 refugees who had fled to camps in Zaire and Uganda, but was unable to establish a political presence in Sudan. The SANU leaders did manage to organize a loose guerrilla movement, the Anyanya, which began operating in Equatoria in 1963, conducting isolated raids and largely remaining independent of the politicians in Kampala.

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